ROMANCE LINK PRIVACY STATEMENT

ROMANCE LINK PRIVACY STATEMENT

Romance Link members want to "drift away to romance"^TM and they want to keep privacy intrusions to a minimum while having a pleasant and rewarding experience on our site. That is our goal, too. As a starting point, only your chosen username is accessible to other members along with your profile, allowing your real identity and external e-mail address to remain hidden to those who view your profile unless and until you choose to reveal it to another member.

Your username, once chosen, not your real name, is linked to the Romance Link profile you create, and you can show/hide this anonymized profile at the touch of a button. When hidden no other members can gain access to your profile. When your profile choice is "show," your profile linked only to your anonymizing username is the only information we reveal about you to other members. What else you decide to reveal to others is up to you, subject only any express limitations or terms contained in this Privacy Statement. You also have total access to the information in this profile, allowing you to edit it at any time to correct errors or change personal preferences. Further, you can block message access by any individual to your mailbox in the Romance Link Message Center and Chat Messenger.

Of course, you must create a member profile before the Romance Link matchmaking process can begin. Just as in real life, you will not find romance on this site unless you are willing to tell others something about yourself and your preferences. You also need to tell us of the preferences you would like to find in a potential romantic partner or mate, so that we can crunch the numbers, stir the love potions, chant the incantations, and help you find romance. (Okay, our love potions and incantations are still undergoing further experimental testing in our love laboratory, but in helping you look for love we do crunch the numbers and lots of words and letters, too). Of course, unlike real life, your initial contacts with other members can remain anonymous, allowing you to choose whether to pursue further interactions with any particular person.

When you reveal so much personal information about yourself, we think you have a right to know how that information is used by us and by other members on this site to whom you allow to access that information. That is why we have prepared this Privacy Statement.

Romance Link is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program

TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to enable individuals and organizations to establish trusting relationships based on respect for personal identity and information by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the site [www.Romancelink.com]. Because this Web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to our users' privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.

This Privacy Statement is designed to answer the following questions that you may have:

1. What personally identifiable information Romance Link collects.

2. What personally identifiable information third parties collect through the Web site.

3. What organization collects the information.

4. How Romance Link uses the information.

5. With whom Romance Link may share user information.

6. What choices are available to users regarding collection, use and distribution of the information.

7. What types of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under Romance Link control.

8. How users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, they should first contact Romance Link by: e-mail, phone, or postal mail at the addresses listed at the end of this Privacy Statement. If they do not receive acknowledgment of their inquiry or their inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, they should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Watchdog Dispute Resolution Process (http://truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php?). TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve users concerns.

Information Collection and Use

Information Collection

RL International, LLC, is the sole owner of the information collected on Romance Link. RL International collects information from our users at several different points on our Web site, but we take precautions ? in some cases extraordinary precautions ? to protect your personally identifiable information from other members and from other commercial intrusions as noted below.

Registration

In order to use this Web site, a user must first complete the registration form. During registration a user is required to give contact information, such as a username (not your real name) and the e-mail address you plan to use in conjunction with Romance Link, in addition to the information needed to create your profile and that of your desired romance partner. We use the contact information to contact the potential registrant to verify his or her e-mail address. If the potential registrant does not respond to our e-mail within a specified period of time, the registration information, username, and profile is taken down from the site. This is done in order to minimize spam on our site, and to assure that the registrant is an actual person with a valid e-mail address.

Once you have registered, and have decided to "drift away to romance,"^TM our site is designed to permit carefully controlled decisions about sharing of personal and demographic information (such as personal traits in oneself and a prospective partner, income level and gender) permit a meaningful exchange of socially important information with a potential dating partner or (we hope) soul mate. Initial information afforded to others is anonymous and therefore not individually or personally identifiable. Those with whom you choose to share your Romance Link profile will gain access only to your self-chosen "username," not your real name, address, telephone number, personal e-mail address, or other personally identifying information unless you choose to provide such information directly to them, e.g., in a chat or in internal Romance Link e-mail.

Send-to-a-friend Feature

Names and email addresses of member's friends are used to send email on Romance Link member's behalf in order to allow members to share information. This information will not be used or collected by RomanceLink.com for any marketing purposes. Additionally, Romance Link will not retain member's friend's names and or e-mail in our database to attempt to solicit and/or advertise our on-line business.

Communicating with Other Romance Link Members

The essence of romance is communication. Romance Link allows you to communicate and chat with other Romance Link members without using your real name or your external e-mail. Your external e-mail address is used by this site only for security purposes, spam elimination, and billing and site contact matters, and is not accessible to other Romance Link members. This ensures that you cannot be reached by other members via your external e-mail address unless and until you choose to tell them your external e-mail address. Otherwise, your communications with other Romance Link members will be confined to the Romance Link site and other members will know you only by your anonymizing username. Romance Link provides a complete Message Center and Chat Messenger onsite, and allows you to block internal messages from any other member and to avoid uninvited communications from other members on your external e-mail.

Romance Link protects members from spam by requiring them to key in a live verification code that is visible on the screen at the time of registration and prior to sending any communication to another member via our internal Message Center and Chat Messenger. We believe that spammers will find it terribly inconvenient to send mass communications to our members if they have to key in this verification code for every member to whom they wish to reach. We trust that the small inconvenience to our members will be more than rewarded by a near absence of spam. We urge all members to notify us immediately of any spam or other unwanted commercial messages that do manage to get through our anti-spam system so that we can take steps to try to block the sender.

Information Use

The personally identifiable information you provide to this site is used to maximize the potential that you will find another person with whom you can "drift away to romance."^TM Apart from billing purposes, and government-compelled disclosures (described below in "Sharing " Legal Disclaimer), RL International uses your personally identifying information only in the event of a problem (including, for example, such things as harassment complaints, and only to resolve that problem (e.g., blocking unwanted contact from or with certain other members, etc.). RL International uses only aggregated data (no names or personally identifying information involved) involving numerous (often thousands of) members for its research into enhancing the possibilities for romance and for improving personal chemistry.

Profile

We store information that we collect through non-persisting cookies and log files which expire and are erased from your hard drive either at the end of your session or when you log off. We use no clear gifs or third parties to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual users that details their personal romantic/dating preferences. No marketing promotions or spam are directed at you as a result of your use of Romance Link. You must sign in with your correct username and password in order to use the site for finding possible romance, partners, soul mates, or dates. We do not share your profile or other personally identifiable information with third parties, although you will do so with those you select as potential romantic partners. We share in aggregate form only certain personality and personal preference data with our contracted science advisors for research and site improvement purposes only.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. We use session ID cookies, but not persistent cookies (which remain on a user's hard drive for an extended period of time. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates.

By setting a session cookie on our site, users do not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If users reject the session cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user will be not be permitted to access the members only portions of the site.

We do not carry advertising at present, and therefore there are no advertiser cookies used on our site.

Third Party Advertising

We will carry third party advertising links and banner ads on our site. This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by this site, but does not cover such use by third party advertisers. To review their privacy policies, you should read the privacy statements on each such site.

Log Files

Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)

We do not employ software technologies such as clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs) to track your use of this site or to follow your online movements. If we ever plan to do so, we will let you know in advance.

Communications from the Site

Romance Link Message Notification

Since Romance needs good communication, Romance Link offers you the ability to receive instant notification on your external e-mail of any messages from other members or from our administrative staff directed to your username at the Romance Link site. Thus finding romance does not require you to monitor our site 24/7, and some of our members can keep their jobs while seeking romance by using this notification service. Also, like all good services, you can stop all member message notifications at any time by turning off the Notify option.

Anti-Spam E-mails and Special Offers and Updates

We send all new members a welcoming e-mail to verify password and username, and may send further e-mails so that we might minimize spam and allowing us to verify the source of communications to this site for the safety and security of you and other members. Established members will occasionally receive information on enhanced products, services, and special deals notifying you of online events and other information to "enhance your romance." The purpose of these communications is to enhance your experience on the site, and to alert you to things we hope that you will enjoy or benefit from. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, we present the option to not receive Special Offers and Updates during the registration process and continually in the edit registration section. Please see the Choice and Option sections.

Service Announcements

On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an e-mail. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and with respect to issues relating to their account we reply via e-mail, phone or postal mail, whenever practicable, in accordance with the member's wishes.

Sharing ? Legal Disclaimer

Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site.

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)

We share aggregated demographic information only with our contracted research science team members who, together, comprise our love laboratory. These are experts in their fields (such as licensed psychologists and professional psychometricians) who use their knowledge of the human psyche, social psychology, sociology, statistics, psychometrics, and personality variables taken only from aggregated information in order to make Romance Link the premier site for finding romance on the Internet.

Third Party Advertisers

No personally identifiable information is shared with third party advertisers; all information provided to such entities is in aggregate form, and cannot be linked to a particular individual.

We DO NOT Share Personal Information with Third Parties, except to the very limited extent described below.

Third Party Intermediaries

We use a credit card processing company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

Service Providers

We partner with Nekomedia, Inc., to provide server and information technology services. Although this third party has access to the data on the servers, they are bound by contract, and are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing the services found on this site.

Business Transitions

In the event RL International goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users' personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. Users will be notified via e-mail and through a prominent notice on our Web site for 30 days prior to a change of ownership or control of their personal information. If as a result of the business transition, the users' personally identifiable information will be used in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection they will be given choice consistent with our notification of changes section.

Choice/Opt-out

Romance Link members have powerful tools available at their disposal on this site to control the availability within Romance Link of their profiles containing their anonymizing username and their personal preferences and personal information. For example, assume that a member has found a promising potential romantic partner, and wishes to cease communicating with other members for a time. All he or she has to do is toggle the "show/hide profile" button in the members profile area. When hidden, the profile ceases to be accessible to other members until the "show/hide" preference is toggled back to "show."

Our members also are given the opportunity to "opt-out" of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point where we ask for information. For example, members who contract for a premium service or product from us, but don't want any marketing material, can opt to keep their e-mail address off of our lists for sending similar communications in the future.

Users who no longer wish to receive our promotional communications may opt-out of receiving these communications by replying to unsubscribe in the subject line in the e-mail or e-mail us at Info@romancelink.com.

Personally identifiable member information is not made available to outside parties.

Security For Financial Transactions and Billing

This Web site takes every precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the Web site, their information is protected both online and off-line.

Financial Transactions

When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or other information necessary for a financial transaction), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - 128-bit SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just ?surfing'. Additionally, during payment transactions we use Card Security Code (CVV2/CVC2 Number) to provide transaction security.

While we use 128-bit SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also take reasonable and prudent steps to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only officers and employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerks or a customer service representatives) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices, and are provided a personal copy of the current version of this Privacy Statement. Whenever new policies are added to this Privacy Statement our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our members' information is protected. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure locked facility, and the security logs are monitored.

If users have any questions about the security at our Web site, users can send an e-mail to Info@RomanceLink.com

Billing

We request information from the user on our secure billing form. A user must provide contact information (such as name, e-mail, and billing address) and financial information (such as credit card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes only, and is never shared with others outside RL International, except (as described below in Credit Check) to verify validity of credit cards and sufficient available credit in order to process the transaction. If we have trouble processing a credit card or in billing, the information is used to contact the user.

Credit Check

For example, to determine the validity of a credit card presented to us for payment of Romance Link services, like most merchants we use a credit validation organization to approve the proposed transaction. And for those choosing to pay by check, we will obtain the appropriate bank account information needed to process the check.

Purchasing History

Should you make use of one or more of our enhanced services or other offer, this information will be linked to your profile in order to afford us the opportunity to continue to offer the enhanced service and to avoid bothering you with further inducements to make use of such services.

Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information

Changing your profile and other associated information that you provide on this site is made as easy as possible. In fact, you can do it yourself. Simply click to change any profile information as well as your personal information and that of your desired romantic partner. If you change your e-mail address, we provide a way to enter a new e-mail address, subject to our security effort to ensure that the new address is a valid one from which you can receive e-mails from Romance Link. If you no longer desire to use our service, we have two ways to protect your profile (even though this information is anonymous). You can use the "show/hide profile" feature on your personal member page, or if you no longer desire our service, you can cancel your membership, and we will deactivate the personally identifiable information you have provided to us. Canceling your membership can be done on this site, or by e-mailing our Customer Support at Info@RomanceLink.com. Or, you contact us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below. Membership data will be retained until membership is cancelled, or when a member requests that their data be purged.

Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Statement, provide a link from the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

If, however, we are going to use users' personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify users via prominent announcements on the Romance Link site and, if appropriate, by e-mail. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner by either taking advantage of any opt out choices offered at the time, or by deactivating their accounts. However, if users have opted out of all communication with the site, or deleted/deactivated their account, then they will not be contacted, nor will their personal information be used in this new manner. In addition, if we make any material changes in our privacy practices that will affect user information already stored in our database, we will post a prominent notice on our Web site notifying users of the change. In some cases where we post a notice we will also e-mail users (who have opted to receive communications from us) notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.

Contact Information

If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

Phone: 925-964-1114

Fax: 925-955-7555

E-mail: Info@RomanceLink.com

Postal Address: P.O. Box 2879, Danville, CA 94526

Web site URL: www.romancelink.com Home Page go to "Contact Us".

Last updated: Feb-07-2005