The following statement explains TradeGuider's policy regarding the personal information we collect about you. Please read it carefully. If you do not want us to use your information for the purposes and in the ways set out below, please do not use this website or any of the services available through it.

1. Statement of intent
2. Information on visitors
3. What is a cookie?
4. Use and retention of your personal information
5. Contacting you for promotional purposes
6. Internet based transfers
7. Security of your information
8. Access to your personal information
9. Linked websites
10. Changes to this Privacy Policy

1. Statement of intent

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name, postal and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, competitions, User Forums and other membership services.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable TradeGuider and its agents and suppliers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

2. Information on visitors

During the course of any visit to the Site, the pages you see, along with something called a “cookie”, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website operator to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the Site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking the computer to see whether a cookie was left there on a previous visit.

Information that is stored in cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the FAQ pages, then we might find this out from your cookie, and may decide to highlight new FAQ information on any subsequent visit. Essentially we use cookies to tailor your experience of the Site to your particular preferences and to provide certain services that you have requested.

3. What is a cookie?

When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many websites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. They do not allow us access to the rest of your computer. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or to disable the use of cookies at any time. Please refer to the help function on your web browser to find out more about the use of cookies and how to disable them. If you do decide to disable a cookie, this may mean that certain personalised services on this Site cannot then be provided to that you.

NB: Even if you haven’t set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for any of the Vismail services.

4. Use and retention of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to us we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that information. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. Any information you provide to TradeGuider will only be used within our organisation or by our agents and suppliers. It will never be supplied to anyone else without first obtaining your consent, except to successors in title to our business or unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. In addition, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to the Site or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on the Site, and we consider such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, we will use whatever information that is available to us about you to prevent such future behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, or e-mail provider about your actions.

We will hold your personal information on our systems only for as long as it is necessary to do so to provide you with the services you have requested. For safety reasons, however, we may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of our services (such as the User Forum) for a period of six months.

If you are notified on the Site at any time that your information may be used to allow us to contact you for “service administration purposes”, this means that we may contact you for a number of administrative purposes related to the services that you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance.

5. Contacting you for promotional purposes

On occasion we would like to contact you by email or other written communication in order to provide you with further information about special offers or particular products that we consider may be of interest to you. You will be asked to indicate your consent to this before we use your personal information in this way. If you do consent, you will of course be given the opportunity in each and every subsequent email communication we send to you to withdraw your consent to receiving any further marketing information.

From time to time we may also wish to disclose your personal information to our carefully selected business partners, In order for them to send you information about their products and services that may interest you. You will be asked to indicate your consent to this before we make any such disclosure. If you do consent, you will always be given the opportunity to withdraw your consent at a later stage.

We would also like to contact you by telephone from time to time. If you do not want us to do this, we will again give you the opportunity to inform us that you do not want to be contacted in this way, before we attempt to do so.

6. Internet based transfers

Given that the Internet is a global environment, using the Internet to collect and process personal data necessarily involves the transmission of data on an international basis. Therefore, by browsing this Site and in submitting your personal information to us, you agree to our transferring your personal information on this basis to the extent necessary to provide you with the services you have requested.

7. Security of your information

TradeGuider will take reasonable precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. Employees, agents or suppliers of TradeGuider may be given access to your personal information, but their use of it shall be limited to the performance of their duties in relation to facilitating your use of the Site and any services you request through it. Our employees, agents or suppliers who have access to your personal information are required to keep it confidential and are not permitted to use it for purposes other than to enable you to use the Site or to deal with requests which you submit to us.

8. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information TradeGuider holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. We charge $10.00 for processing such information requests. Please address requests to our Data Protection Officer at richardb@tradeguider.com.

9. Linked websites

This Site may contain links to other websites. TradeGuider is not responsible for the privacy practices of such websites and we suggest you take time to familiarise yourself with any such practices accordingly.

10. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to amend or modify this Privacy Policy at any time in response to changes in applicable data protection and privacy laws or otherwise to reflect changes to this Site or to the services we provide. Please check this policy from time to time accordingly. Any significant amendments to this Privacy Policy will be prominently published on the Site. By continuing to use the Site and any services available through it after any such changes have been made, you will be deemed to have consented to such changes.