| Privacy |
This site is owned and published by Echo Netco Pty Ltd ('The Echo'). At The Echo we recognise the importance of protecting the privacy of personally identifiable information collected about our customers. We want your on-line experience to be enjoyable and we take care to respect your privacy when you visit our web site.
The Echo is bound by the National Privacy Principles contained in the Commonwealth Privacy Act, except for its activities carried out in the course of journalism. The Echo is exempt from complying with the Privacy Act in relation to journalism activities.
The Echo may, from time to time, review and update this policy to take account of new laws and technology and changes to The Echo's operations. All personal information held by The Echo will be governed by The Echo's most recent policy, posted on this site.
1. What personally identifiable information does The Echo collect?
The Echo's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with the best and most useful content and services. Because The Echo derives its revenue mainly from advertising, collecting information is essential to keeping our services free to users.
Several of these services and features that The Echo offers require you to provide us with information as a condition of usage. Some of them include registration on our sites, subscriptions for an email newsletter, access to certain products or services and participation in auctions and message boards.
The Echo collects personally identifiable information, such as your name, email address, postal address, phone number and credit card information when you provide it to us. From time to time, we may also collect other sensitive information such as your job title, gender, username and password. We may also receive information about you from other sources and add it to the information you provided to us. Once you use this site you are no longer anonymous to us.
2. What anonymous information does The Echo collect?
Cookies
Your internet browser has a feature called 'cookies' which store small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of our sites. However, cookies tell us nothing about who you are unless you specifically give us personally identifiable information. You do not need to have cookies turned on to visit the The Echo site, although active participation in certain areas of our site may require cookies. In addition, you may elect not to allow cookies to be collected by selecting certain options on your browser.
Web Bugs & Servers
We use electronic images known as web bugs – sometimes called single-pixel GIFs, transparent GIFs, or clear gifs – that allow us to track general user traffic patterns. The Echo also automatically receives and records information from our servers and from your browser including your IP address, the time, and information about the page you requested.
We use tracking technologies in a variety of ways, including:
keeping count of return visits to our site or our advertisers' or partners' sites
accumulate and report anonymous, aggregate (data collected in mass) statistical information on web site and advertisement usage determining which features users like best saving your password so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our sites
Third-Party Advertisement Servers
The Echo uses the DoubleClick DART technology for serving advertisements on its web pages.
To view the DoubleClick privacy policy www.doubleclick.com/us/corporate/privacy/privacy/default.asp
Some of our advertisers use third party companies to serve their advertisements on our sites and, in some cases, in our HTML-formatted newsletters. In both cases, these third-party advertising companies employ cookie and web bug technologies to measure advertisement effectiveness. We do not give any personally identifiable information to them as part of this relationship. Use of their tracking technology is subject to their own privacy policies. If you would like more information about the privacy policies of the third-party advertising providers including information on how to opt out of their tracking methods, www.networkadvertising.org/optout_nonppii.asp
The Echo allows a trusted third party to make anonymous and aggregated data collection. Cookies may be used by this third party to gather statistical information that will assist us in understanding what users find interesting and useful on our website. These cookies are known as your 'Unique Visitor Cookie', a small piece of data, identifying you only by a random number (eg. #12489). No personal information can be identified about the users through cookies.
3. How does The Echo use the information?
The Echo uses the information we gather for four general purposes:
to customise the advertising and content you see, which helps keep our services free to users to enhance the user experience on our site. We use tracking information to determine how well each page performs overall based on aggregate user demographics and traffic patterns to those pages. This helps us continue to build a better service for you to fulfil your requests for certain services, such as sending out electronic newsletters and enabling users to participate in polls, contests and message boards
to send you information you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.
4. How does The Echo share the information?
Personally Identifiable Information
The Echo will make your personally identifiable information available to other companies or people when:
we have your consent to share the information
we have engaged companies to work with or on behalf of The Echo to provide a product or service that you have requested, such as opt-in email announcements
we respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal process; or we believe that your actions violate applicable laws, The Echo's Terms of Use or any usage guidelines for specific products or services, or threaten the rights, property or safety of The Echo, our users, or others.
Aggregate Information
The Echo aggregates personally identifiable information and discloses such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for marketing, promotional and other purposes. We do not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to identify you personally.
5. What are my options?
Users who would rather not provide any of the user data requested by our registration process do not need to register with us. You can still view much of the content and use many of the services offered by our sites without registering.
We provide users with the following options:
Opting not to receive our electronic newsletters or those of third parties when registering. Users who opt-in may remove themselves from mailing lists at any time through the subscription management pages or by following the instructions at the end of the email they received from us;
Opting not to provide certain personal information when using the site.
6. How can I update my personally identifiable information?
You can correct or change the information collected during registration for the site. Users may change this information at any time and as often as necessary. Users who are experiencing problems or who have questions about how our services work can contact us using the email addresses at the bottom of this page.
7. How will I know if the privacy policy is changed?
By accessing and using this Site you accept this Privacy Policy. We may, at our sole discretion, modify or revise this Policy at any time by updating this posting. You should therefore visit this page periodically. By using the Site after we have made any such changes, you agree to accept the revised terms and conditions..
8. How does The Echo manage and ensure security of personal information?
The Echo strives to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personally identifiable information of our customers. We have take steps to ensure your credit card details and other personal information are safe by using a variety of physical and electronic security measures including restricting physical access to our offices and firewalls and secure databases to keep personal information secure from misuse, loss or unauthorised loss or disclosure.
9. How can you find out what personal information The Echo holds about you?
You have the right to seek access to the personal information held about you and to advise The Echo of any inaccuracy. There are some exceptions to this right set out in the Privacy Act. If you make an access request, The Echo will ask you to verify your identity and specify what information you require.
10. Any questions or comments?
Questions regarding this privacy policy should be sent via email to
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
or to our office at Village Way, Mullumbimby, NSW 2482 Australia. We read every message submitted and try to reply promptly to every one. We may also file your comments to improve the site, or review and discard the information.