Overview

OCTANe, is committed to respecting the privacy of our users. We strive to provide a safe, secure user experience. This Privacy Statement sets forth the online data collection and usage policies and practices that apply to the OCTANe Web Sites (sometimes referred to herein as the "OCTANe Sites") and does not apply to information we collect in any other fashion.

Your data will be stored and processed in whole or in part in the United States. The information we gather on the OCTANe Sites may be shared within the OCTANe-affiliated companies on a worldwide basis in order to deliver the products and services we offer to employers and candidates such as searches for candidates or in order to undertake analysis of our database such as aggregate profiling of our registered users. "Affiliated companies" means entities that control, are controlled by or are under common control with OCTANe

The OCTANe Sites contain links to other Web sites over which we have no control. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of other Web sites to which you choose to link from our Sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of those other Web sites so you can understand how they collect, use and share your information.

Collection and Use of Information by OCTANe

In some areas of OCTANe, we request or may request that you provide personal information, including your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, credit card number, contact information, billing information and any other information from which your identity is discernible. In other areas, we collect or may collect demographic information that is not unique to you such as your ZIP code, age, preferences, gender, interests and favorites. Sometimes we collect or may collect a combination of the two types of information. Examples of areas on the OCTANe Sites where we collect personal or combined personal and demographic data are pages where you can open a MyOCTANe account, create a OCTANe Enterprise account, sign up to use a service, post a resume or profile, enter a contest or purchase a product. In addition, we may indirectly collect information about you when you use certain third party services available on OCTANe.

We also gather or may gather certain information about your use of OCTANe, such as what areas you visit and what services you access. Moreover, there is information about your computer hardware and software that is or may be collected by us. This information can include without limitation your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring Web site addresses, but is not linked to your personal information.

We may sometimes afford you the opportunity to provide descriptive, cultural, behavioral, preferential and/or life style information about yourself, but it is solely up to you whether you furnish such information. If you do provide such information, you are thereby consenting to the use of that information in accordance with the policies and practices described in this Privacy Statement. For example, such information may be used for the purpose of determining your potential interest in receiving e-mail or other communications about particular products or services.

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about the OCTANe Sites or refer a job posting to a friend, we will ask you for your friend's name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the OCTANe Sites or view the job posting. We do not store this information.

Our Use of Your Information

We use the information we gather on OCTANe, whether personal, demographic, collective or technical, for the purpose of operating and improving the OCTANe Sites, fostering a positive user experience, and delivering the products and services that we offer.

If you have provided consent for us to do so, we may also use the information we gather to inform you of other products or services available from us or our affiliated companies or to contact you about your opinion of current products and services or potential new products and services that may be offered.

We may use your contact information in order to send you e-mail or other communications regarding updates at the OCTANe Sites, and if you have requested, information on new OCTANe opportunities and additional job postings which may be of interest to you. The nature and frequency of these messages will vary depending upon the information we have about you.

In addition, at the time of registration for a MyOCTANe account, you have the option to elect to receive additional communications, information and promotions, including without limitation, free informational newsletters from us relating to topics that may be of special interest to you, such as career management advice.

We have areas on the OCTANe Sites where you can submit feedback. Any feedback you submit in these areas becomes our property, and we can use such feedback (such as success stories) for marketing purposes or to contact you for further information.

Choices Regarding the Disclosure of Personal Information to Others

We do not disclose your personal information to third parties, or your combined personal and demographic information or information about your use of OCTANe (such as the areas you visit or the services you access), except as set forth below.

We disclose information to third parties if you consent to such disclosure. For example, if you indicate that you would like to receive information about the opportunities, products or services of third parties at the time you register for a MyOCTANe account, we supply your contact information to third parties such as employers, recruiters, data aggregators, marketers or others for the purpose of sending you e-mail or otherwise communicating with you. We use data we have about you (such as the interests and preferences you have expressed) to determine whether you might be interested in the opportunities, products or services of a particular third-party.
We disclose information to companies and individuals we employ to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include hosting our Web servers, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments, and providing customer service. These companies and individuals will have access to your personal information as necessary to perform their functions, but they may not share that information with any other third party.

We disclose information if legally required to do so, if requested to do so by a governmental entity or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process; (b) protect our rights or property or our affiliated companies; (c) prevent a crime or protect national security; or (d) protect the personal safety of users or the public.

We disclose and transfer information to a third party who acquires all or a substantial portion of our business, whether such acquisition is by way of merger, consolidation or purchase of all or a substantial portion of our assets. In addition, in the event we become the subject of a bankruptcy proceeding, whether voluntary or involuntary, we or our trustee in bankruptcy may sell, license or otherwise dispose of such information in a transaction approved by the bankruptcy court. You will be notified of sale of all or a substantial portion of our business to a third party via email or through a prominent notice posted on the OCTANe Sites.

Other Uses of Information

We also share aggregated anonymous information about visitors to OCTANe (for example, the number of visitors to OCTANe's home page) with its clients, partners and other third parties so that they can understand the kinds of visitors to the OCTANe Sites and how those visitors use the OCTANe Sites.

We supply technology, hosting and related services to other leading companies to power recruitment areas on their Web sites (sometimes referred to as "Hosted Career Sites"). Personal and/or demographic information supplied by you in Hosted Career Sites becomes part of the OCTANe database, but it is not accessible by anyone other than you, OCTANe and the company concerned without your consent. If you attempt to register with OCTANe after registering with a Hosted Career Site, OCTANe will recognize your information and you will be able to use the information you provided to the Hosted Career Site in your MyOCTANe account registration.

Information gathered on a page in a Hosted Career Site or on a co-branded page (such as that of a contest co-sponsored by OCTANe and another company), may become the property of the other company or of both us and the other company. In that instance, the use of such information by the other company will be subject to the privacy policy of that company. We are not responsible for that company's use of your personal or demographic information.

If you apply for a position on OCTANe or through a Hosted Career Site, you may be asked to provide information on your gender, race or other protected status where permitted by applicable law. Some employers are required by law to gather this information from job applicants for reporting and record-keeping requirements. You should understand that if provided, this information will be used by employers only in accordance with applicable law and will not be used in making any negative employment decisions. All information provided will be kept separate from your expression of interest in any job opportunity. Providing this information is strictly voluntary and you will not be subject to any adverse action or treatment if you choose not to provide this information.

Personal Information on Resumes and Profiles

Since OCTANe is a career site, we give you three options regarding the accessibility of your resume:

1. You can store your resume in our database, but not allow it to be searchable by potential employers. Not allowing your resume to be searchable means that you can use it to apply for a job online, but employers and recruiters will not have access to search it through our resume database product.

2. If you allow your resume to be searchable without making it confidential and hiding your contact information, then all parties with access to our searchable resume database (or copies thereof) will have access to your resume.

3. If you have a confidential resume, but apply to a job posting on OCTANe, the employer to whom you send your resume will be able to view your contact information.

We attempt to limit access to our searchable resume database (or copies thereof) only to paying employers, recruiters, hiring managers, headhunters, and human resource professionals, as well as law enforcement and national security agencies, but cannot guarantee that other parties will not gain access to this database. We are not responsible for the use made of resumes by third parties who access such resumes while they are in our searchable database. You may remove your resume on OCTANe or delete your MyOCTANe account at anytime, but, employers, recruiters and others who have paid for access to the OCTANe resume database or to obtain a copy of that database or have paid for access to the OCTANe Networking services, as well as parties who have otherwise gained access may have retained a copy of your resume or OCTANe Networking profile in their own files or databases. We are not responsible for the retention, use or privacy of resumes or profiles in these instances.

Posting to Public Areas of OCTANe

Please remember that if you post any of your personal information in public areas of OCTANe, such as in online forums or chat rooms, or in the OCTANe searchable resume database, such information may be collected and used by others over whom we have no control. We are not responsible for the use made by third parties of information you post or otherwise make available in public areas of OCTANe or OCTANe Networking.

Use of Cookies

We use "cookies" to help personalize and maximize your online experience and time online. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard drive by a Web page server. Cookies are not used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to your computer, and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize OCTANe pages, or register for services, a cookie helps us to recall your specific information (such as user name, password and preferences). Because of our use of cookies, we can deliver faster and more accurate results and a more personalized site experience. When you return to OCTANe, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the features that you customized. We also use cookies to track click streams and for load balancing.

You may have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline all cookies if you prefer. Alternatively, you may be able to modify your browser setting to notify you each time a cookie is tendered and permit you to accept or decline cookies on an individual basis. If you choose to decline cookies, however, that may hinder performance and negatively impact your experience on OCTANe and OCTANe Networking.

Use of Web Beacons

OCTANe and OCTANe Networking Web pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons (sometimes called single-pixel gifs) that allow us to count users who have visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. Web beacons are not used to access your personally identifiable information; they are a technique we use to compile aggregated statistics about our Web site usage. Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the Web beacon resides.

You may not decline web beacons, however, they can be rendered ineffective by declining all cookies or modifying your browser setting to notify you each time a cookie is tendered and permit you to accept or decline cookies on an individual basis.

Third parties are not permitted to use Web beacons on the OCTANe Sites.

Access to and Modification of Your Information

You may review, correct, update or change your MyOCTANe account at any time.

To change your MyOCTANe Account Profile and billing information, simply log into your MyOCTANe account, go to Manage Account, review your account information and, if you wish, edit it with the options provided.

If you opted to receive newsletters, commercial e-mails or other communications from OCTANe or third parties at the time you created a MyOCTANe account, but subsequently change your mind, you may opt-out by editing your MyOCTANe Account Profile as described above. If you previously opted not to receive such communications, you may later opt-in by editing your MyOCTANe Account Profile as well.

We retain indefinitely all the information we gather about you in an effort to make your repeat use of OCTANe more efficient, practical, and relevant. Of course, you can close your MyOCTANe account at any time, in which event we will remove all your MyOCTANe account information, except for an archival copy which is not accessible on the Internet.

Security of the Personal Information

We have implemented commercially reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to secure your personal information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration or disclosure. However, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized third parties will never be able to defeat those measures or use your personal information for improper purposes.

When you place an order online at OCTANe or OCTANe Networking, your credit card information is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer ("SSL") protocol. SSL makes it difficult for your credit card information to be intercepted or stolen while being transmitted. We use a service company to process its credit card transactions. For further information on this company's privacy and security practices, please click here.

Children

The OCTANe Sites are not intended for children under 13 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

Safe Harbor

We participate in the Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor Framework arising out of the U.S. implementation of the European Union Data Protection Directive. We have certified adherence to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles for each of the OCTANe Sites. For more information about the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles and to view our certification, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor Web site. If you would like to contact us directly about the Safe Harbor program, please send an e-mail to safeharbor@careerinbox.com.

Third Party Seal and Dispute Resolution

OCTANe OCTANe, Inc and OCTANe Technologies, Inc. are members of the TRUSTe privacy seal program, the TRUSTe E.U. Safe harbor seal program and the TRUSTe dispute resolution program. TRUSTe has certified the practices of OCTANe. Please consult the TRUSTe Web site http://www.truste.com for more information concerning TRUSTe's privacy programs and dispute resolution procedures. The TRUSTe programs cover only information collected through OCTANe, and does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded from the OCTANe Sites.

Changes to Privacy Statement

If we decide to materially change our Privacy Statement for OCTANe, we will post those changes through a prominent notice on the web site so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and to whom we will disclose it.

If at any time, you have questions or concerns about this Privacy Statement or believe that we have not adhered to this Privacy Statement, please feel free to email us at jessica.feldman@octaneoc.org or call us at 866.257.8315 and speak to one of our representatives. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to promptly answer your question or resolve your problem. If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry, or if your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Dispute Resolution Process at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTE will serve as a liaison with the OCTANe Sites to resolve your concerns.

Contact Information

OCTANe is the name under which OCTANe, a California corporation with its principal place of business at 10 Monarch Bay Plaza #107, Dana Point, CA 92629, and certain of its affiliated companies worldwide, do business. OCTANe is the legal entity which determines the purposes and means of processing the information gathered at the OCTANe Sites.

Thank you for using OCTANe.

Update effective June 13th, 2005.