Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement

This privacy statement (“Privacy Statement”) applies to the portions of the Public Utility District No. 1 of Pend Oreille County (“PUD,” “we,” or “our”)’s network of websites, including popud.org and cnsfiber.net,  that are publicly available without use of a username or password and their related subsites, respectively (“Websites”).  We have established this Privacy Statement to let you know the kinds of personal information we may collect during your visit to these Websites, why we collect your information, what we use your personal information for, when we might disclose your personal information, and how you can manage your personal information.

Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Statement apply only to information gathered online at our Websites.  It does not apply to information that you may submit to us offline or to websites maintained by other companies or organizations to which we may link or who may link to us.  In addition, it does not apply to any portion of our Websites that requires authentication for access or use.  This Statement also does not apply to the PUD and its employees in relation to their

By visiting our Websites, you are accepting the practices described in our Privacy Statement.  Your use of our Websites is also subject to our Terms of Use for publicly accessible portions of our Website (“Terms of Use”) and subject to our Online Bill Pay Terms of Use for our Online Bill Pay Services ("Online Bill Pay Terms").  Please read our general Terms of Use or Online Bill Pay Terms, if applicable.  If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Statement, please do not use the Website and exit immediately.  We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of our Privacy Statement and Terms of Use from time to time without notice.  Your continued use of the Website following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

Collection of Personal Information.  As a general matter, you can browse the Websites without submitting your Personal Information to us.  “Personal Information” is any information that can individually identify you and includes, among other things, your name, e-mail address, telephone number, postal address, credit card, billing and contact information.  However, there are a number of circumstances in which you may supply us with your Personal information.  For example, we may collect your Personal Information when you:

  • Register for an account on the Websites;
  • Sign up to receive e-mail newsletters, e-mail alerts, or offers from us;
  • Request for customer service or other assistance;
  • Participate in surveys, panels, or market research;
  • Participate in special events and promotions;
  • Post a resume or submit a job application on or through the Websites;
  • Enter in contests or sweepstakes;
  • Participate on social media accounts involving us or our Websites;
  • Participate in communities, chat rooms and comment threads, other fora, and other interactive services;
  • Submit of user-generated content on any part of the Websites that permit it; and
  • Knowingly volunteer personal information at any place on the Websites.

Collection of Personal Information from or through Social Media Sites.  When you interact with any of our pages or accounts on a social media platform, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Tumblr, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, or Pinterest, we may collect the Personal Information that you make available to us on that page or account including your account ID or “handle.”  However, we will comply with the privacy policies of the corresponding social media platform and we will only collect and store such Personal Information that we are permitted to collect by these social media platforms.  If we enable authentication through or with a social networking service and you choose to link or login to your account with or through that service, we and that service may share certain information about you and your activities.  With your consent, we also may share information about your activities, including what you view on the Websites, with that social network’s users.

Collection of Personal Information from Children.  Our Websites are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from children under 13 years of age.  If you are under 13 years of age you should not provide Personal Information to us without providing us with consent from your parents.  If we discover that a child under the age of 13 has provided us with Personal Information and we do not have parental consent, we will immediately delete that child’s information from the Websites.

Collection of Non-Personal Information.  Through your use of the Websites, we may gather and store certain information that does not identify you individually, such as (i) the Internet Protocol address, operating system, and browser through which you access the Internet;(ii) geolocation information; (iii) demographic data such as age, gender, and five digit zip code as part of collecting personal information; (iv) the pages visited, search words used, referred links, file types, and file sizes; (v) “traffic data” such as time of access, date of access, software crash reports, session identification number, access times, and referring website addresses; (vi) device information about the computer, mobile phone, or other device that you use to access the Websites, which may include IP address, geolocation information, unique device identifiers, browser type, browser language, and other transactional information; (vii) your search terms and search results; (viii) aggregate data regarding the use of the Websites or applications; and (ix) other information regarding your use of the Websites (collectively “Non-Personal Information”). This Non-Personal Information may be stored or merged with Personal Information that you have provided to us or we have collected from you.

Collection of Your Source IP Address/Location Information.  We collect and store your device’s source IP address which may disclose the location of your device at the time you access the Websites.  Certain content may be directed to you as a result of this data.  In addition, in some cases the Websites can deliver content based on your current location if you choose to enable that feature.  If you enable that feature, your current location will be stored locally on your device which will be used by the Websites to serve you certain content tied to your location.  If you elect to have your location-based searches saved to your history, we will store such information on our servers.

Use of Cookies, Flash Cookies, and Web Beacons.  Like many websites, we use “cookies,” which are small text files that are stored on your computer or equipment when you visit certain online pages that record your preferences and actions.  We use cookies to track use of our Websites and online services.  We may also use cookies to monitor traffic, improve the Websites, and make it easier and/or relevant for your use.  You may occasionally get cookies from companies advertising on our behalf.  We do not control these cookies, and these cookies are not subject to this cookie statement.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies.  Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies.  If you delete your cookies or if you set your web browser to decline cookies, some features of the Websites may not work or may not work as designed.  For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.

We may also use web beacons or flash cookies.  A web beacon or flash cookie (also known as “action tags,” “tracer tags,” or “single-pixel gifs”) is an invisible graphic on a web page that is programmed to collect non-personal information about your use of a given website.  We do not share or provide Personal Information we may collect through such web beacons, such as names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, without your express permission.

We may also use “Web Storage” to store data about your use of our Websites.  Web Storage is a feature in some browsers that permits websites to store data within your browser rather within a cookie.  This should make this data more secure and make your browser perform better.  We do not share or provide Personal Information we may store in Web Storage, such as names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers, without your express permission.

Collection of Personal Information and Non-Personal Information from Other Sources.  We also may collect and store information about you that we receive from other sources (including by us from our offline interactions with you) to, among other things, enable us to update and correct the information contained in our database and to better customize your experience on the Websites.

General Use of Your Information.  The information we collect is used in reports to help improve and administer the Websites to be more helpful and efficient for our visitors.  We may use your Personal Information and Non-Personal Information in order to personalize content and experiences on our Websites, including providing you recommendations based on your preferences, or communicate with you about your account or your comment submitted through the Website.  More specifically, we may use your Personal Information and Non-Personal Information in the following ways:

  • To upload your content to our Websites as you request;
  • To provide you with content or services as you request;
  • To communicate with you about your account or transactions with us (including service related announcements) and send you information about features and enhancements on our Websites’
  • To communicate with you about changes to our policies;
  • To personalize content and experiences on our Websites, including providing you reports, recommendations and feedback based on your preferences;
  • To optimize or improve our Websites, services and operations;
  • To automatically update our Websites or services on your device;
  • To detect, investigate, and prevent activities that may violate our policies or be illegal; and
  • To perform statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of users of the Websites.

Third Parties with Whom We May Share Personal Information.  We have third-party independent contractors that may provide services to us or perform functions on our behalf, such as hosting, billing, content management tools, social media integration, analytics, customer service, etc.  These entities may have access to Personal Information in order to perform their functions.  We do not authorize these third parties to use Personal Information for any other purposes, however please note that this Privacy Statement does not apply to those third-parties and we are not responsible for how they use, maintain, or disclose your information.  We do not sell, rent, or trade Personal Information to any third parties.  We may disclose Personal Information if permitted or required to do so by law or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to applicable law, comply with legal process served on us or a Website, including a public records request; (b) protect or defend our rights or property, the Website or our users; or (c) act under urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of us, the users of the Website or the public.

Use of Non-Personal Information.  We may use Non-Personal Information (or other information other than Personal Information) in any other manner that we deem appropriate or necessary.  Among other things, we will disclose Non-Personal Information to third parties to help us determine how people use parts of the Websites and who our collective users are, so we can improve our Websites.  We will also disclose Non-Personal Information to third party contractors about how our users collectively use the Websites.

Your Obligations to Keep Your Access Rights Secure.  If you submit registration information to us through the Websites, you promise to: (a) provide true, accurate, current, and complete information about yourself and your business as prompted by a Website's registration form (such information being the "Registration Data") and (b) maintain and promptly update the Registration Data to keep it true, accurate, current, and complete.  If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or we have reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we have the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of the Websites (or any portion thereof).You are entirely responsible for the security and confidentiality of your password and account.  Furthermore, you are entirely responsible for any and all activities that occur under your account.

Linking to or From the Websites.  The Website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties.  Please be advised that the practices described in this Privacy Statement do not apply to information gathered through these other websites.  We are not responsible for the actions and privacy policies of third parties and other websites.

Disclaimer.  Unfortunately, no data protection method can be guaranteed to be 100 percent secure.  We take reasonable steps to protect your information as described in this Statement, but we cannot ensure or warrant our ability to do so.  As a result, you use our Websites, Content, and services at your own risk.  We will not be liable for disclosures of your information due to errors in transmission, unauthorized acts of third parties, or other events outside our reasonable control.

Notice of Applicable Law.  Our network of Websites is located within the United States and targeted to United States citizens, and our policies are directed at compliance with those laws.  If you are uncertain whether this Privacy Statement conflicts with the applicable local privacy laws where you are located, you should not submit your Personal Information to us.

Assignment.  We may change the structure of our organization while providing the Websites and services.  We may also sell or transfer certain assets associated with the Websites.  As a result, please be aware that in such event we may transfer some or all of your information to an entity acquiring all or part of our assets or to another entity with which we have merged.  Under such circumstances we would, to the extent possible, require the acquiring party to follow the practices described in this Privacy Statement, as it may be amended from time to time.  Nevertheless, we cannot promise that an acquiring company or the merged company will have the same privacy practices or treat your information the same as described in this Privacy Statement.

Changes to This Statement.  As our Websites continue to develop, we may add new services and features to our Websites.  In the event that these additions affect our Privacy Statement, this document will be updated appropriately.  We will post those changes so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose it to anyone.  We do, however, recommend that you read this Privacy Statement each time you use our Websites in case you missed our notice of changes to the Privacy Statement.  Your continued use of any of our Websites or services following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of our Privacy Statement, as modified.

How Do I Opt-Out or Correct Information about Me.  You may always opt-out of receiving future e-mail messages and newsletters from us.  We provide you with the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us by going into your profile settings and choosing the appropriate options.  To opt-out, you can also send us a message at information@popud.org.

Contact information.  If you have any questions or concerns regarding our Privacy Statement, please email us at information@popud.org.