We understand the issues you discuss on SmartNow can be very personal and therefore need to be kept private. We do ask that you use discretion when you post information about yourself or others. The following describes how we use the information you give us.

We want to give you a personalized experience when you visit our site. In order to do so, like many other sites, we collect personal and non-personal information to customize the content and advertising you see and fulfill your requests for products or services.

Registration: Most areas of our site can be viewed by all visitors and you do not need to register to view information. We do hope you will register with our site though. Once you register, you can take advantage of other sections of the site including actively participating in the community. When you register, we collect personal information such as your email address and password.

Referrals: We collect personal information when you voluntarily provide it to us or authorize us to collect it on your behalf. For example, if you would like us to refer you to a local expert, we will request that you fill out a form. In doing so, the information you have provided with us will be shared with a local expert. We may contact you if the information is incomplete or inaccurate to update our records.

Once you request a referral we will send you a survey via email to understand the quality of experience you had with the local expert. We will not share your individual feedback with the expert. However, we may share aggregate information with that expert in order to ensure that only the best service providers are part of our network. We will not link that information to any identifying information about you specifically.

Tools, Diet Buddies etc: Throughout our site, there are health tools, questionnaires and community features that may ask for additional information, including your contact information, demographic information and goals.

Specifically, when you sign up as a diet buddy, we will ask your weight now and your goal weight. Rest assured, you are the only one that will see that information. Our site automatically calculates the amount of weight you would like to lose and matches you with others with similar goals. Your actual weight is kept private.

Opinion Polls and Surveys: We want to know what you think. Therefore, you will be asked from time to time to give your opinion. Questions and answers are stored but they are not linked to identifying information about you. We may share this information with third parties occasionally. If we do so, the poll will be labeled as such.

Contests and Sweepstakes: When you enter a contest or sweepstakes sponsored by SmartNow and/or one of our partners, we may ask you to provide additional information or answer certain questions in order to participate in a promotion. We may contact you in connection with a particular contest or sweepstakes in order to update you regarding your status, administer the promotion, let you know that a promotion has ended or for other prize-fulfillment needs or contest- and sweepstakes-related messages.

Search: When you search on our site, we store the search terms and the site(s) visited so that we can continuously improve the quality of our search results.

Special Note for Women Under 35 and All Men: We believe you will find many interesting blogs, videos and referrals on SmartNow. However, we did not design the site for you, we designed it for women 35 and over. Consequently, you may be disappointed with the content. Sorry. There are lots of other sites for you and we hope you enjoy those.

Log information: When you visit our site, our servers will automatically collect log information. This information may include your Web page request, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request, and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We collect log information so that we can properly administer our system and gather aggregate information about how our site is being used, including the pages visitors are viewing.

Cookies: We do not use cookies as a way to ease our emotional issues nor do we adhere to the Cookie

Diet. Well, ok, we do sometimes eat cookies, but that is not the type referred to in this Policy. We are talking about the Internet tracking cookies here. We and our advertisers do collect anonymous information about your use of our site through cookies. The cookie does not tell us who you are. Only you can tell us that. We do not store any identifying information in any cookies on your computer. Cookies are used to tailor advertising specifically to you and to make sure that you do not see the same advertisement repeatedly. Our Web advertising partners will employ their technology to do this. These ads will be targeted only on the basis of the non-personal information that is automatically transmitted on the Internet, such as information collected in our Web logs and the approximate geographic location of your computer.

We also have agreements with companies, sometimes called Ad Networks, that serve advertising on behalf of third parties. These Ad Networks may place or recognize a unique cookie, sometimes called a third party cookie, on your browser. We do not control Ad Networks or what they do with the information they collect, we have relationships only with organizations that have agreed to participate in the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and abide by NAI principles, which prohibit members from connecting personally identifiable information to information they collect through cookies without your explicit consent.

Please see our Advertising Policy for more information about our relationship with advertisers.

Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies or to accept cookies only from our site. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the Help section of the toolbar. If you reject our cookies, we won't take it personally, but you may not be able to log in or use certain functions and conveniences of our site.

We may obtain third party information and correlate that information with information we have collected under this policy with the intent of being smarter at providing you with the information you find most helpful. If we do this, we will treat the acquired information like the information that we collected ourselves. We will not share information we obtain from third parties in personally identifiable form. However, we may share aggregated, non-personal information, as described in this policy - that may include information we obtained from third parties in a form that does not permit you to be identified.

We will not rent, sell or share personal information about you with third parties except to provide you with a product or service you request or under certain circumstances as described below. In all other cases, we will ask for your permission before we disclose your personal information.

Disclosure for Legal Reasons: There will be occasions when it is imperative that we do release personal information to third parties. Here are the circumstances that will dictate such an action from us: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others, a threat to homeland security, a threat to our system or network, or cases in which we believe it is reasonably necessary to investigate or prevent harm, fraud, abuse or illegal conduct. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your personal information to a third party, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order.

Agents and Contractors: Contractors sometimes have access to your personal information in the course of assisting in operating our business and providing products or services to you. These contractors include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services and/or content for the operation and maintenance of our site. Access to your personal information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary for the contractor to perform its limited function. Contractors have an obligation under their contracts with us to keep your information confidential and to comply with our privacy and security policies.

Aggregated, Non-Personal Information: We may share aggregated information about you with third parties. This is information that is combined with the non-personal information of other users and does not allow you to be identified or contacted. Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this aggregated information. We also may not limit the third parties' use of the aggregated information.

Our Pledge to You: If we need to collect personal information from you that is not provided through registration, we will be very clear on why we need this information, how it will be used and who it will be shared with. You can always decline to provide us with this information. We appreciate that saying “No” can be very empowering and that it is your right to do so. However, if you chose to do this, it might limit the opportunities that you would love to say “Yes” to in the future.

Submitted Materials: Please recognize that if you submit a video or blog in any format for publication on the site, we will assume that you have secured the permission of those mentioned or shown in the submitted materials. We will not and cannot assume any liability for materials submitted. If materials are submitted that breach our privacy policy and terms of use and those materials are displayed on the site, the Disclosure for Legal Reasons clause will apply. See Terms of Use for further clarification.

Email Communications: Email communication that you send to us via the email links on our site may be shared with a Customer Care representative, employee or the expert that is most likely to be able to address your inquiry. If you provide personal information in your email, it will be used only for the purposes of answering your email. From time to time we may send you service-related emails, such as a welcome email when you register with our site.

Group Communications: When you join a group, group owners can email group announcements to all group members. These group announcements will not reveal your email address. If you don't want to receive group announcements, you may decide to leave the group. As a group member, you can elect to receive alerts for new topics or replies to particular topics you select.

Invitations: When you invite a friend to join our site, your circle (network of friends) or your group, we will automatically send your friend an email invitation on your behalf. We will not use your friend's email address for any other purpose. Similarly, when you email a message using the Send to a Friend function, the email addresses are used to facilitate the email communication and are not retained by us.

Newsletters and Alerts: At various places on the site you will be given the option to receive recurring informational newsletters and to set alerts and reminders. You can unsubscribe from newsletters by clicking on the Unsubscribe link . You can manage your alerts in the Your Account area.

Community: Our site features community areas where people with similar interests can share information and support one another. Please remember that any information that you post in public may appear in search engine results.

Other Important Information: Employees who misuse information are subject to disciplinary action, including termination.

• We have physical, technical and procedural safeguards to help protect your personal information.
• In areas that contain your personal information, we use secure socket layer (SSL) encryption to help protect this information while it is in transit between our servers and your computer.

Keeping Your Information Secure: Choose your passwords carefully. Always create a password that's easy for you to remember but difficult for someone else to figure out. Don't use your name, address, phone number, initials, Social Security number, license plate or birthday. Don't use names of your friends, family or pets, company names, common numerical sequences or the word “password.”

Log Out and Close Your Browser: Open browsers invite snoops. When you finish your online session, close your browser to erase any information it may have temporarily stored on your computer.

Install Antivirus Software and Spyware Protection: Viruses are dangerous. Many viruses are sent as email attachments. They can slip into your system without your knowledge the moment you open the email. Some viruses such as Trojan Horses can capture the contents of your system, including your passwords. Installing up-to-date antivirus software and running it will help thwart these and other unwanted programs.

Spyware is a program or technology that aids in gathering information about a person or organization often without their knowledge and includes programs like hijackers and keyloggers. The best way to identify whether or not spyware is installed on your computer is to run and regularly update antispyware programs. Similar to antivirus software, antispyware software identifies and helps you remove spyware.

Changes to this Policy: We may update this Policy. We will notify you about material changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the email address specified in your account. We may also make nonmaterial changes to our Policy that generally will not affect our use of your personal information. If you don't agree with the new Policy, you always have the option of closing your account. Please see instructions for closing your account above. Our current Policy, identified by its effective date, will be posted on the site and you should check it frequently.