Privacy Policy

Last Revised: September 2009

Hoover's, Inc., is serious about protecting your privacy -- whether you are a subscriber or a visitor. This privacy statement describes the practices is applicable to www.hoovers.com and other sites on the World Wide Web that are maintained and operated by Hoover's, Inc. This statement does not apply to information we collect offline.

The terms outlined in this privacy policy may be updated over time. If we make a material change to the way we handle your personal information, we will notify you of that change via the email address we have on file for you.

Your Information: What, How, and Why?

Subscribers and Visitors

When you sign up to receive information from Hoover's, which means you register to receive a newsletter, have access to content, or request additional information, you are signing up to receive communications from Hoover's and/or its advertisers. Specifically, you agree to:

receive communication by e-mail (on behalf of Hoover's or our advertisers),
receive communication by postal mail (either from Hoover's or our advertisers),
receive communication by telephone (either from Hoover's or our advertisers),
receive communications with special messages, administrative messages, or announcements

Your information is maintained in a secure environment and is not shared with other partners except in those cases that are outlined in this statement. Hoover's employs a professional and secure e-mail hosting service to deliver e-mail newsletters and advertisements. A strict confidentiality agreement exists to protect your privacy.

You may choose to discontinue receiving communications from Hoover's. For specific instructions on how to opt out of future communications, instructions are included in every e-mail, or continue reading below.

Hoover's Community Forums

When you sign up to participate in the Hoover's Community Q&A community forum, we will collect personal information to establish your profile. This profile will be used by Hoover's in accordance with this privacy statement.

You may choose to make certain profile elements public, in which case that information would be available to anyone who visits the Hoover's Community Q&A website and (potentially) to other users of the Internet.

If you post information to Hoover's Community Q&A, it can be viewed by anyone online. Your postings will be linked to your username and to your public profile, if you establish one.

What Information Is Collected?

Any information you provide during registration, including your full name, mailing address, e-mail address, company name, phone number, industry, and job title.
IP Addresses, which are automatically provided by your web browser to our log servers.
Information made available through the use of cookies, Web beacons, pixel tags or clear GIF’s (see below for more information about cookies, Web beacons, pixel tags and GIF’s).
Information you submit via community forums, such as Hoover's Community Q&A.

How May the Information Be Used and/or Shared?

Demographic information is used in aggregate (i.e., non-individual-specific) form to attract more relevant advertisers to improve the customer experience.
Specific data points (e.g., job title, survey results) may be used to enable us to better serve our customers' needs through product enhancements and improved communication.
Information you provide may be shared with vendors specifically to provide a service (e.g. newsletter delivery). The information is shared only to the extent necessary to complete the transaction you requested.
Aggregated anonymous data, such as cookies, Web beacons, pixel tags and clear GIF’s, may be used by us or third party advertisers for advertisement serving and optimization purposes.
Information posted to community forums (along with any personal information that you include in a public profile) will be generally available to anyone on the Internet.

Newsletters

As a subscriber or visitor to a Hoover's site, you may sign up for one of our free newsletters. When you sign up for one of the newsletters, we ask for contact information, such as your name and e-mail address, and job and job title information, which are used to help us understand our audience. This information is for Hoover's use only and is not disclosed to any other party except in aggregate form. Additionally, if you decide that you do not wish to receive a newsletter or update any longer, you may cancel it by opting out via the links at the bottom of e-mails you receive.

Surveys

Surveys are another method by which we gather information about our Hoover's visitors. From time to time, we request subscribers' or newsletter subscribers' input in order to evaluate potential features and services. The decision to answer a survey is completely yours. We use information gathered from surveys to improve our service.

How Do We Protect Subscriber Information Once We Have It?

All information is stored on a secure server. Hoover's uses Netscape's Secure Socket Layer (SSL) server for our Web site. Browsers will encrypt the contents of the subscription form before sending it to our server.

Cookies, Web Beacons, Pixel Tags and GIF’s

What Is a Cookie and Why Do We Use Them?

A "cookie" is a small piece of information sent by a Web server to store in a Web browser so that it can later be read back from that browser. Hoover's uses cookies to store some personal preferences for your future visits. Cookies allow Hoover's to recognize you more quickly. Therefore, your time spent on our site is more personalized and productive. You'll find that cookies are an industry standard and are used at most major Web sites in much the same way we use them here at Hoover's.

A Web beacon is a graphic image, such as a pixel tag or clear GIF, that is placed on a Web page or in an e-mail message to monitor user activity, such as whether the Web page or e-mail message is read or clicked. They are often invisible because they are very small in size. They are also used on many Web pages for alignment purposes. We sometimes use Web beacons to provide an independent accounting of how many people visit our Web sites or to gather statistics about browser usage at our Web sites. Some of our Web pages and HTML-formatted e-mail newsletters use Web beacons in conjunction with cookies. It is difficult for you to limit the use of Web beacons because there is no easy way to distinguish their use from alignment and other purposes. They may be loaded from a different Web server than the rest of the page.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. In the course of serving advertisements, our third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number) about your visits to Hoover's and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that might be of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

In order to make Hoover's a more valuable product for our subscribers and visitors, we also collect and analyze statistical information. From time to time, we share this information in aggregate with third parties. However, this data is reported only in aggregate and reveals no personal details about individual visitors to our site. This information is distributed only to help attract appropriate advertisers for the Hoover's site. We also use third party contractors to monitor how guests use our Web site and determine which of our online features they prefer. We report information to our contractors about our customers and the products and services they order, as well as aggregated, non-identifiable information about our guests' use of our site.

Your Consent

By using our Web site and signing up for Hoover's services, you consent to the collection and use of the previously mentioned information by Hoover's.

Updating Your Information or Opting Out

You can edit or discontinue your newsletter/e-mail status at any time. *

To discontinue receiving all e-mail communications from Hoover's:

Click the link at the bottom of any e-mail that indicates "update your e-mail preferences" and follow the instructions.
Manage your preferences in our e-mail preference center.
Call Hoover's Customer Support team at 800-486-8666, and ask to be removed from our e-mail database.

* Hoover's periodically communicates information about a customer's account and or subscription service -- e-mails containing account set-up instructions, renewal notices, and information about product changes. For these types of communications, we must maintain an open channel to our customers to ensure the integrity of our service, and therefore cannot unsubscribe those individuals.

Links to Other Companies

Our websites contain many links to other company websites and to products and services offered by our business partners. Our privacy and security policies do not apply to these companies, so please check the privacy statements posted before you provide these companies with your personal information.

Contact Information:

Hoover's, Inc.
Attn: Customer Support
5800 Airport Blvd.
Austin, TX 78752
Phone: 800-486-8666
Fax: 512-374-4501
E-mail: customersupport@hoovers.com

Feedback

For more information about Hoover's or our privacy policy, please go to the Customer Service area of our site and see our FAQs, or submit a request using the contact information provided above. For more information about Hoover's, Inc., please read our company profile.