Privacy Policy

US Dive Mart’s Privacy Policy

Introduction

Your privacy and the security of your personal information is very important to US Dive Mart. This policy statement discloses US Dive Mart's information-related policies and practices, including what kinds of information we collect and how we collect it, how the information is used, who we will and will not share the information with and what you can do to update or remove your information from our systems.

From time to time we may change our privacy policy and related procedures as our business changes and in attempts to provide you with better products and services, or as new technologies arise or legal requirements change. When changes are made, this policy statement will be updated and we will make reasonable efforts to notify you if you have provided us with your personal contact information and have not specified that we may not contact you.

Your use of US Dive Mart web sites, products and/or services indicates your agreement with our privacy policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our web sites, products or services.

Personal and Non-Personal Information We Collect

In general, you can use our web sites without disclosing any personal information. Most pages are public and can be accessed directly without any kind of password, registration or other procedure that requires you to disclose personal information.

We may request personal information in certain circumstances, including:

• when you download files or access certain parts of our web sites
• when you purchase products or services directly from us or from our web store
• when you register one of our products, or when one of our sales agents registers a product on your behalf
• when you sign up for one of our classes, eDemos, webinars or other events or meetings
• when you respond to a survey or sign up for a contest or drawing
• when you request information from us, such as when you call us, contact us by email, fill out a form on one of our web sites or ask to join one of our mailing lists
• when your name, email address and/or other information is given to us voluntarily by a third party, in particular when using the Send-To-A-Friend option present on many of our email communications

The personal information we request includes common items such as your name, company name, address, email address, phone number and what products or services you are interested in. When you purchase products or services, including when you sign up for a class, we may require that you provide us with a credit card number, billing and shipping addresses and other information to complete the transaction.

In addition, even when you do not give us personal information, such as when you visit our web sites anonymously, we do still collect a certain amount of non-personal information which cannot be tied to you directly. This includes items such as the web pages you visit or items you asked us about, the dates and times of your web site visits, the type of web browser that you use and the IP address of your web connection. This information is commonly known as "clickstream data" and is always collected and stored so as to make it anonymous, such as in web server logs.

Special Policy for Children Under 13

In accordance with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we do not knowingly collect or maintain information from persons under age 13 without parental consent. We do not ask for age or birthday information from our customers and visitors, nor do we attempt to acquire this information or maintain it if provided without our asking. None of US Dive Mart's products, services or web site offerings is targeted towards or intended for children. Nevertheless, if you are under age 13, you should not submit personal identifying information to US Dive Mart without the consent of your parent or guardian.

Cookies, Web Beacons and Other Technologies

Some parts of the US Dive Mart web sites may use "cookies" to help enhance your use of our sites and services. Cookies are small text files stored on your computer which contain information about your preferences related to using our sites and services. We use these cookies to help you use our sites and services more easily and efficiently. For example, by storing your name and address in a cookie, we can use that information to log you in to our systems automatically or fill out parts of forms on our site without retyping.

Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us your e-mail address or other personal information unless you choose to provide this information to us by, for example, registering at one of our sites. Cookies can only store information you send us or that we generate for you, such as a login ID or registration code for one of our products. A cookie cannot be used to search your computer's hard drive or otherwise extract personal information from your files.

You always have the option of deleting cookies from our sites or any other sites off your system, using features of your browser. In addition, almost all browsers have the capability to detect when cookies are being used and block them when desired. Please see your browser help files for more information. There are also third-party programs which provide this capability. Please note, however, that if you block the use of cookies from our sites, some parts may be more cumbersome or impossible to access or use. In particular, you may not be able to purchase items from our web store, which uses cookies to help track the items in your shopping basket.

Some parts of the US Dive Mart web sites, emails and other files may use web beacons, also known as clear gif technology or action tags. Web beacons are very small, invisible graphics present on web pages or emails that help us track when the page or email has been accessed. Web beacons themselves cannot be used to collect any personal information from you and also cannot store any information about you.

Use of Information We Collect

Internal use. US Dive Mart uses the personal information we collect from you to provide you with the information, customer service, sales assistance, technical support, training and other services or items you request from us. In addition, we use this personal information to try to make our products and services easier to use, more efficient, more relevant and more useful to you. This includes tailoring our product and service offerings to your preferences, automating the use of our web sites and web store, notifying you of problems and product updates and sending you other information which we think you will find useful.

Additionally, if you purchase a product from us, we may share your contact information with the manufacturer to directly ship, register your licenses, warranty, product(s) and / or maintenance, upgrade or technical support for the products purchased. We do not share any purchasing, pricing or payment information regarding your purchase.

List rental or sharing. US Dive Mart does not sell, rent, share or otherwise provide your personal information to third parties for their use, except if required by law or to conform to a legal process served by or upon us. We do use certain third parties on a limited basis to provide outsourced services for us, such as mass mailings, telemarketing and order fulfillment. In such cases, we strictly limit the information provided to these third parties to the minimum necessary for them to perform the functions for which we have retained them and prohibit them from using the information for any other purpose or retaining it after it is not longer needed.

Public or multiple-sponsor events. US Dive Mart organizes and/or participates in many public events and events with multiple sponsors, such as trade shows and seminars. The events generally collect personal information from all attendees (e.g. for registration) and distribute this data in whole or in part to all the event sponsors including US Dive Mart. Thus, if you attend such an event, your information may be shared with multiple companies. While US Dive Mart will maintain the privacy of its copy of your personal information received in this way, it cannot control and is not responsible for the practices of other sponsors for these events. If you do not want your personal information distributed to event sponsors, you should notify the event organizer in each case.

Statistics. We also use personal and non-personal information in aggregate or statistical form in order to improve our products, services and procedures. This means that the information from many persons and/or web site visits is grouped together in a way that does not disclose the personal information of any particular person. For example, we track how many people have expressed interest in a particular product and what kinds of web browsers are most often used when visiting our web site. Among other things, this information helps us determine which of our products and services are successful and which should be changed or discontinued.

Personal Options, Corrections. Opt-In and Opt-Out

If you need to correct or update the information we have on file for you or wish to be removed from our systems or no longer receive specific communications or call communications from us, you can do so as follows:

• Use the Opt-Out or Unsubscribe option at the bottom of most of our mass email communications

If you opt-out of a specific communication or all communications from us, you may always opt-in at a later date by contacting us directly or by using the appropriate form or signup process on our web sites.

Third Parties

The US Dive Mart web sites, products, promotional materials, documents and other items may contain links to third party sites and services. These may include but are not limited to banner advertisements, hyperlinks, web addresses (URLs) or email addresses in text format.

These third-party sites and services may have their own privacy policies and practices which may differ from ours or may have no stated policy. US Dive Mart is not responsible for the policies, practices and content of these third party sites and services. A link from a US Dive Mart web site, product or other item to a third party does not constitute an endorsement by US Dive Mart of that third party or any warranty by US Dive Mart as to the suitability or safety of your dealing with that third party.

As stated previously (see Use of Information We Collect, above), US Dive Mart does not supply third parties with your personal information for their own use. Consequently, if the use of a third party product or service requires the disclosure of your personal information, you must do so directly to that third party. If you update your personal information held by US Dive Mart, you must also do so separately with each third party that you also disclosed the information to. Opting out of any US Dive Mart communication or removing your personal information from our system will not have any effect on the information held by third parties or their use of it. You will need to follow each such third party's own procedures for opt-out or removal from their system.

Security of Information We Collect

US Dive Mart uses appropriate and reasonable measures to maintain the security of your personal information. This includes procedures followed by our personnel to prevent data loss or theft, physical security of our servers and information stores and electronic security such as firewalls, password-protected databases and secure connections.

As stated previously (see Use of Information We Collect, above), US Dive Mart may use certain third parties for services such as advertising, marketing and order fulfillment. We only work with third parties whose privacy policies and security practices are equal to or more stringent than our own and who agree to strictly limit their use of the information we provide them to fulfill the functions for which they have been retained.

You should be aware, however, that no data transmitted over the Internet, sent through the mail or stored on a computer is 100% secure and that we cannot guarantee the security of your personal data while in transmission to us. Public computers in particular should never be considered secure. You should never give out personal information on message board, in chat rooms and other publicly-viewable locations.

In addition, there exist malicious programs, typically called computer viruses or trojan horses, which can be used to capture information off your computer's hard drive or while you are entering it into a web form or sending it by email. You should always use the appropriate anti-virus and personal security technology to protect yourself. Lastly, if you have been assigned a login ID and/or password for use on a US Dive Mart system (for example, a login for our web store to purchase products), you should never give out that information to others.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this privacy policy or procedures related to information gathering and use, please refer to the Contact Us page on this website.