Our View on Reader Privacy
(Our Official Privacy Statement)
Last Updated on Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Log Files

We use IP addresses to analyze user trends, administer the site, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. We also use IP addresses to track down abusers of the site, i.e. people who post abusive messages in the forums or announcements. In order to prevent habitual abuse, we may forward a complaint to the owner of the network that the abuser is using. At a minimum, the complaint will include the abusive message(s) in question along with the originating IP address and timestamp.

Data Sharing

somd.com does not directly share or sell any collected data with any third party. somd.com does use third-party services on our pages such as PayPal, Google ads, and Google Analytics. These third-party services may collect user data which is controlled via their privacy policy.

Links

This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we [Virtually Everything, Inc.] are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.

Newsletters

If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we may ask for contact information such as name, address and email address. We use a double opt-in confirmation process to ensure that the only people who receive our mailings are ones who specifically requested it. Once you subscribe to a newsletter, our system will send an email to the address you used to register. You must click on the validation link contained in the confirmation email in order to validate your registration.

We do not sell, rent, or share our mailing list with any third party organization. We only send newsletters to people who have requested to be on our mailing list(s). Any reader can add or remove their name from the respective mailing list at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link that will be included in each mailing.

If you have removed your address from the mailing list and still continue to receive E-Mail from us, please bring it to our attention by using our Feedback Form.

Surveys & Contests

From time-to-time our site requests information from users via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as zip code, age level). Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey information will be used for purposes of entertainment, or improving the use and satisfaction of this site.

Security.

We exercise best practices to protect the limited user information that we do collect. All of our public servers are located in a secure data center which is operated and managed by a third party company. Access to data is limited to employees in our company who have a need to know.

How We May Contact You

Automatic Mailings:

Whenever you take certain actions on our system, you may receive an automated email from us. Some examples are:

• Whenever you register for an account for a service such as the forums or classifieds, you will receive automated email to communicate the status of your account request.
• Whenever you request the retrieval of a lost or forgotten username or password, the system will respond with an automated email.
• Whenever you subscribe to one or more of our mailing lists, you will receive automated validation messages.
• Whenever you make on-line posts using services such as the forums or classifieds, you will received automated emails regarding your posts or subsequent responses.

Account Service:

Once you register for any type of account with us -- such as forums, classifieds or calendar -- we may contact you in regards to your account or to provide information about a new system feature or upgrade. We will not contact you for the sole reason of marketing a third-party service or product.

Information Update Request:

If you are the Point of Contact (POC) for an organization that is listed in our database, we may periodically contact you to request that you review or update your information. We will not contact you for the sole reason of marketing a third-party service or product.

SPAM

The definition of SPAM is vague. The zealots consider SPAM to be any unsolicited email. A more reasonable definition of SPAM is an unsolicited mailing that is often sent in a devious manner for the sole purpose of selling you a third party service or product. We do not engage in SPAMMING. Furthermore, we do not sell, rent, or otherwise share any of our mailing lists with any third party.

SPAMMERS are known to routinely scan websites in order to harvest email addresses that will be added to their mailing lists. When you post information on one of our websites, we take measures to protect your address. However, harvesting techniques are forever becoming more and more devious. As such, we can not guarantee that your email address will never be inadvertently harvested.

We can not protect your address if you post it in plain text. If you post your email address on-line via any of our information sharing services such as the community forums, announcements, or classifieds, there is nothing we can do to protect it. It is extremely likely that it will eventually be harvested by SPAMMERS. If you would like your address to be displayed in plain sight, we recommend that you do one or more of the following:

• Disguise the address, i.e. rather than typing bill@domain.com, try bill -AT- domain.com. Most users will know what you mean. Spammers look for anything in the format of name@domain.
• Obtain a disposable email address. Once the level of SPAM becomes unbearable, stop using the address and get another one. You can get a free somd.NET address to do the job.
• Contact your federal legislators. The CAN-SPAM law is a nice start. But, without aggressive enforcement and prosecutions, the law is meaningless.

Monitoring of User Communications

Throughout somd.com we provide users with facilities they can use to contact other users, advertisers, or local organizations, i.e. online contact forms. Our staff randomly monitors these communications in order to prevent spam, scams, and other potential abuse. We will not share the communications with any third party. If you prefer not to have your communications monitored in this manner, please do not use the online contact forms and instead use any other direct means of contact that may be provided, such as a phone number or direct email address.