Applied Knowledge, Products, and Services (AKPS), a Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) company, is an IT products and services company. AKPS helps companies and business professionals save time and money by addressing real-world business questions and presenting practical solutions. Our website offers resources such as company overviews, "how-to" articles, business forms, contract and agreement forms, expert advice, blogs, business news, business directory listings, product comparisons, business guides, business associations and more. Business professionals can access AKPS’ content and services through a number of channels and media, including the AKPS website, RSS feeds, e-mail newsletters, and our alliances with like-minded partners and leading Web content providers.
AKPS provides products and services that are tailored for small- and medium-sized businesses and business professionals. AKPS considers itself to be a steward of the information that we collect, manage and provide. It is our responsibility to safeguard the information within our care and we are committed to managing our data in a secure and responsible manner. Our information management practices are guided by our Global Privacy Principles, which serve as the foundation of our data management policies and practices. These Principles commit AKPS to the following tenets:
Notice: AKPS informs users and customers how we collect, use, manage and share information.
Data Quality: AKPS employs substantive measures to produce high-quality, timely and reliable data, including direct contact with businesses and quality assurance procedures during data collection and processing.
Use & Disclosure: AKPS uses and discloses data in accordance with defined policies that respect a business's and business professional's choice to restrict the marketing use of their contact information.
Access & Correction: AKPS provides businesses and business professionals with access to their business information within the AKPS database and with an opportunity to correct verified inaccuracies.
Data Security: AKPS applies appropriate technical, physical and administrative data security measures to protect data against unauthorized access and disclosure.
Accountability: AKPS seeks to adhere to its Global Privacy Principles through ongoing compliance, training, documentation, assessment and dispute resolution initiatives.
AKPS delivers products and services through the Internet more effectively and efficiently than ever before. As a leading provider of business information, our products and services serve to enable and enhance commerce. Our business customer needs continue to evolve, as do public expectations about Data Privacy and the technology that we employ to provide our products and services. Our approach to information management and Data Privacy enables us to adapt and respond to these changes while remaining committed to our Principles. The free flow of information must be fairly balanced against privacy and data protection interests, and AKPS is committed to employing such a balance.
This online privacy notice describes the Data Privacy practices that are applicable to Applied Knowledge, Products, and Services, Inc. This site may provide links to other U.S. D&B websites, non-U.S. D&B websites and non-D&B websites that may employ different information management practices. We encourage you to carefully read the online privacy notices of these other websites to ensure that you understand their practices and the relevant distinctions.
What Information Do We Collect?
AKPS collects information on businesses and business professionals. We collect individual and business identifiable information from website visitors when you register to be a member of AKPS, purchase products and services through our website, subscribe for e-mail newsletters and alerts. The business information that we collect may include the following:
- Company and business professional contact information, including name, title, address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address
How Do We Use and Share Information?
AKPS will not sell, license or disclose registered user business contact information to unaffiliated third parties for marketing purposes without the registered user's consent. AKPS may send third party promotional e-mail messages to registered users on behalf of third party businesses without disclosing registered user information to the third party businesses on whose behalf the commercial e-mails are sent. Registered users may opt out of receiving such third party commercial e-mail communications at any time.
AKPS shares information with third party service providers, such as credit card processors, auditors, attorneys, consultants and contractors, in order to support AKPS Internet websites and business operations. AKPS contractually requires that these recipients only use the information for the intended purpose of the disclosure and that they destroy or return the information when it is no longer needed. When necessary or appropriate, we may disclose information in response to a court order, subpoena, law enforcement proceeding, regulatory inquiry or when otherwise legally required. We may also disclose information as required or appropriate in order to protect our website, business operations or legal rights, or in connection with a sale or merger involving AllBusiness's assets or business.
From time to time, AKPS compiles online and offline transaction and registration information for internal analyses, such as market research, quality assurance, customer experience and operational benchmarking initiatives.
You Have Choices
AKPS respects your privacy preferences and offers the following ways through which you may control how we contact you and disclose your information. We will honor your requests accordingly.
AKPS E-mail Marketing: We provide individuals with the opportunity to opt out of receiving AKPS' promotional e-mails, newsletters and updates about new AKPS features, products and services. You may opt out of receiving such promotional communications at registration.
Third Party Marketing: AKPS will not sell, license or disclose registered user business contact information to unaffiliated third parties for marketing purposes without the registered user's consent. AKPS may send third party promotional e-mail messages to registered users on behalf of third party businesses without disclosing registered user information to the third party businesses on whose behalf the commercial e-mails are sent. Registered users may opt out of receiving such third party commercial e-mail communications at any time.
Website Use Information: You have additional choices regarding website use information that our third party advertisers and partners may collect or receive through the employment of cookies, Web beacons, pixel tags, clear GIF's and other similar media. Please see the "Third Party Advertisers" section below for more information.
AKPS Blogs
When you sign up to participate in AKPS’ blogs, we will collect personally identifiable information in order to establish your profile. Any information that you submit and post via the blogs will be available to AKPS website visitors and viewable to anyone online. Your blog postings will be associated with your username and your voluntarily created public profile. Violation of our Terms of Use agreement may result in the removal of your post(s) and/or the termination of your membership.
Access and Correction
To help ensure data quality and accuracy, AKPS provides businesses and business professionals with access to their business information within the AKPS databases and with an opportunity to correct verified inaccuracies. Registered users may view and update their registration and contact information, as well as correct inaccuracies, by accessing AKPS’ Support Center. Registered users may also request access to all of their personally identifiable information that we collect and maintain in our database by contacting Support Center. When a business owner, principal or registered user contacts AKPS about a potential data error, we will promptly investigate the issue, confirm the information in question, correct verified inaccuracies and respond to the original inquiry.
If you have a question regarding AKPS products, services or information management practices, if you would like to contact us or if you would like to provide us with your valued feedback, please visit the AKPS Support Center center for additional information.
Cookies, Web Beacons, Pixel Tags and GIF's
We design the layout and features of our website so that new visitors may anonymously learn about our products and services without revealing their identities. For new visitors, we use cookies or Web beacons to collect limited data, such as the date, time and areas of our website that are visited, as well as the website from which the new visitor came. When you select one of our products or services, register for a newsletter or e-mail alert, or complete a survey, we may try to identify your browser and we may combine information from cookies, Web beacons and other information collected online with other data that we maintain about you. By improving the features, marketing and content of our website and by making your online experience more convenient and meaningful, we are able to better serve our customers' needs.
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer's hard drive and that often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that website's computer asks your computer for permission to store this text file in a section of your hard drive that is specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it. Your browser will only permit a website to access the cookies that it has previously sent to you and not the cookies sent to you by other websites. Some of our business partners, such as third party advertisers, use cookies that originate from their websites. We have no access to, or control over, these cookies. For more information, please see the "Third Party Advertisers" section below. We use cookies to store login or other information on your computer, which serves to improve our website functionality and tailor our services to your preferences and interests. For certain services, we offer users the ability to store a user ID or password within a cookie so that they do not need to re-enter it when they subsequently return to our website. Cookies, in conjunction with our Web server's log files, allow us to calculate the aggregate number of people visiting our website and to assess which parts of the site are most popular. This information helps us to constantly improve our website and better serve our customers. We do not store credit/debit card numbers in cookies. Most Internet browsers allow users to decide whether to accept cookies and how long to keep them on their hard drive. You may reset your browser to refuse cookies and still use our website, although website access and functionality may be slower and less convenient.
A Web beacon is a graphic image, such as a pixel tag or clear GIF, which is placed on a Web page or in an e-mail message to monitor user activity, such as whether the Web page or e-mail message is accessed or clicked. They are often invisible because they are very small in size. They are also used on many Web pages for alignment purposes. We sometimes use Web beacons to provide an independent accounting of how many people visit our website or to gather statistics about browser usage on our website. Some of our Web pages and HTML-formatted e-mail newsletters use Web beacons in conjunction with cookies. It is difficult for you to limit the use of Web beacons because there is no easy way to distinguish their use from alignment and other purposes. Web beacons may also be loaded from a different Web server than the rest of the page.
We use third party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. In the course of serving advertisements, our third party advertisers and partners may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. These companies may use information about your visits to AKPS and other websites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you. These third party partners monitor how guests use our website and determine which of our online features they prefer. We may report information to our partners about our customers and the products and services they order, as well as aggregated, non-identifiable information about our guests' use of our website. For more information, please see the "Third Party Advertisers" section below.
Third Party Advertisers
We use third party advertising companies to serve our Internet ad banners on our website and other websites on which we advertise. If you view a Web page where our ads appear, the advertising company may place a cookie on your computer or use a Web beacon to access a cookie that they previously placed on your computer. These companies do not collect information that can personally identify you, but they may use information about your visits to our website and other websites to measure the effectiveness of ads. We do not disclose any personally identifiable information to these companies. We share aggregate website usage information with third party advertisers and partners for the purpose of effectively targeting our online advertisements. Unless you are previously notified, these advertising companies do not link any online behavior or cookies with other information that can be used to personally identify you, such as your name, address, telephone number or e-mail address, when working with AKPS.
These third party advertising networks also track visitors' online usage and behavior patterns. These companies may use information about your visits to AKPS and other websites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you. The result of these efforts is the creation of an online profile that attempts to predict individual user interests, preferences and purchasing habits. The third party advertising networks then accordingly customize the advertising content served to users when visiting other websites.
Data Security
AKPS maintains adequate data security measures to protect information against unauthorized access and disclosure. These measures include the implementation of commercially reasonable technical, physical and administrative data security safeguards. AKPS requires employees to complete appropriate training on data management and security practices. AKPS also manages a service provider due diligence and oversight program to ensure that our vendors likewise employ adequate data collection, processing, transfer, management and security measures in carrying out their services on our behalf.
There is no such thing as "guaranteed security," whether conducting business online or offline. Having established this fact, AKPS employs commercially reasonable and appropriate data security safeguards that are consistent with our business operations and generally accepted industry standards.
Data security is our priority and we commit ourselves to safeguarding our customers' data. We do this by:
- Establishing policies and procedures for securely managing information;
- Limiting employee access to sensitive information;
- Protecting against unauthorized access to customer data by using data encryption, authentication and virus detection technology, as required;
- Requiring service providers with whom we do business to comply with relevant Data Privacy legal and regulatory requirements;
- Monitoring our websites through recognized online privacy and security organizations;
- Conducting background checks on employees and providing Data Privacy training to our team members; and
E-mail-A-Friend
If you choose to use our "Email-A-Friend" referral service to forward an article that is posted on our website to an associate, we will ask you for your colleague's name, e-mail address and any comments that you wish to send to your associate. We will subsequently send your associate a one-time e-mail by forwarding the article to the designated recipient(s) that you have chosen. This information is used for the sole purpose of sending this one-time e-mail message and we will not store the data in our systems. We will not use, sell, license, rent or share your associate's e-mail address for marketing purposes.
Changes to AKPS’ Data Privacy Practices
If we make material changes to our information management and Data Privacy practices, we will post these changes on our website in order to keep you informed of how we collect, use, manage, disclose and protect our information assets. Such changes will be posted in this section of our online privacy notice and the policy effective date will be updated accordingly.
Your Use of Our Website Is Consent
By using our website, you hereby consent to our collection, use, management, retention and disclosure of your information as described in this notice.
Contact AKPS
For questions or complaints regarding AKPS' Data Privacy practices, please visit the Support Center center. We will do our best to resolve any complaints or issues as quickly as possible.
Last Updated on Thursday, 20 January 2011 21:02