Cogster Privacy Agreement

We strongly believe that consumers privacy and sensitive personal information deserves protection. Our privacy policy applies to all current and former Cogster members. The following is a summary of Cogster's privacy practices.

We collect information about you:

  • Directly from you as a community member at the time of registration.
  • Periodically as you update your profile information.
  • From outside sources such as credit bureaus in order to offer you the services you request through this web site.
  • Through feedback from other users of Cogster with whom you may conduct business.

We share your information:

  • With other members of Cogster, but only as much information as you choose to reveal about yourself.
  • With other third parties that are involved in the process of providing the services that you request, such as credit bureaus, customer service providers, and collection agencies, and companies that provide services on our behalf.
  • As permitted or required by law.

We share and display certain information:

  • We display merchant listings publicly on the Cogster web site.
  • Profile information when you make a “post, comment, or blog”

Note Regarding Children Under 18

Members of the Cogster community must be Residents of the United State and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that are 18 years of age or older. Children under the age of 18 are not eligible to participate in the offerings on this web site.

Information We Collect

Cogster collects personal information as part of the registration process for people joining the Cogster community. For businesses wishing to raise funds, we will require both the Employer Identification Number and Taxpayer Identification Number of the business, and the social security number of the authorized party. For Cogster members, we will require the name, address, phone, and email of the registered member. In the course of completing transactions, we may collect bank or credit card information. If you have a question regarding our services prior to registering as a community member, we may collect your name and email address in order to respond to your requests.

If you post a listing as a merchant, the listing may contain basic information regarding your credit history and credit rating, in addition to any other information you make the personal decision to post.

As an individual member, you will be identified only by your screen name, which you choose and which you can use to remain anonymous. If you provide identifying information, either in your choice of screen name or otherwise, it is your choice, and you do so at your own discretion.

We use your information to prepare your customer or merchant profile and to facilitate requested transactions in the Cogster community.

If we have trouble processing a transaction, we may use this information to contact you.

If we have trouble processing a transaction, we may use this information to contact you.

We share your information

Because Cogster is a community-oriented marketplace, it is important that merchants and customers have sufficient information about each other in order to consider transactions. You are welcome to share as much information about yourself as you think is necessary and appropriate. Such sharing of information is entirely your choice, and you share this information at your own discretion.

If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our web site, we will ask you for your friend's email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the web site. We store this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program. Your friend may click on the unsubscribe link at the end of the email to prevent Cogster from sending additional email to his or her email address.

We have relationships with other trusted third parties that perform services on our behalf. This includes credit bureaus, quality assurance agents, and collection agencies, and companies that distribute our emails for us or collect survey information from our customers. We share information with these service providers in order to complete the transactions that you request and to communicate effectively with our customers. All service providers are bound by contract to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information.

We may share your information with law enforcement or other government agencies as required by law.

We may provide information, limited to name, address, phone number and/or e-mail address to our registered merchants for them to send customers promotion offers and materials.

We give you choices regarding your information

You have choices about the personal information you display about yourself. We give you easy access to update your personal profile and view your transaction documents.

Some information is required in order to participate in the Cogster community. For example, we need certain information in order to verify your identity as an individual.

Some information is optional. You can share as much or as little optional information as you like. Customers may request information from you if you post a listing as a merchant.

You can access and review the personal information you submit at any time and update your personal preferences at any time. To update your personal profile information, you can log in to your account using your email address and password specified at the time of registration.

The information we collect from you when you register as a Cogster member is kept securely in our database. We retain this information to satisfy legal requirements such as recordkeeping and tax and credit reporting requirements, as well as for purposes of fraud prevention, auditability and data integrity.

We protect your information

At Cogster, we are committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal and financial information. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards that meet or exceed industry standards for financial institutions by using encryption technology to protect your personal information that you submit to Cogster and limiting employee and third party access to your personal information.

Federal and state regulations may require that we maintain and report aggregate demographic information on members who participate in transactions. We may also maintain information, including personally identifiable information of our members, for a period of seven years or more in accordance with federal and state laws.

Other important information

Marketing preferences

Cogster does not sell or rent your information to marketing firms. We do send communications to you periodically to notify you of status or events related to your participation in our community. Some of these communications are required as part of transactions you are contemplating or have completed through our web site.

Our use of cookies

Cookies are small text files created by a web site that store information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site. Cogster uses cookies when you sign in, to keep track of your personal session, including some account identifiers so that we can ensure that you are the only person making changes to your account. We also use cookies to track your activity on our site as a unique person. All of this information is stored in an encrypted fashion for security reasons, and no personal information about you is stored.

We use session ID cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. Session ID cookies expire when you close you browser. We use a persistent cookie that remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time, so that we can recognize you when you return to our web site. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's "help" file; however, because we use cookies for our sign-in functionality, if you choose to disable cookies you will not be able to log on to the Cogster web site.

Third party links

Cogster may post links to third party web sites that are not subject to this privacy policy. Some member pages may also contain links unrelated to Cogster. If you visit these web sites, we encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing them with any personal information.

Helpful Tips

Screen name selection: Your screen name is what members of Cogster and visitors to our web site use to identify you. In order to protect your privacy, you should choose a screen name that does not closely resemble your real name.

It is a good practice to select a password for your account that is unique, a combination of letters, numbers and symbols, and isn't predictable or easy to guess.

If you use the Discussion Forums on this web site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We do not monitor or mask personally identifiable information that may appear on the forums, so if you choose to put personal information on the forums you do so at your own risk.

If you use a public computer or a computer that is accessible by others, you may wish to take special precautions in protecting your personal information, including logging out completely after accessing our site, closing the browser window, and clearing the cookie and password histories.

State Law

You may have privacy rights under applicable state law in addition to those outlined in this privacy policy. You may wish to contact the state and/or federal agencies responsible for overseeing privacy rights of consumers for additional information.

Legal Disclaimer

We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.

Changes to this policy

To accommodate changes to our web site, changing technology, and possible legal requirements, Cogster may change this privacy policy at any time. We will promptly post any policy changes to this page and notify our members directly with notice of any material changes.

For additional information, or if you have any questions regarding this policy or the privacy practices at Cogster, please submit your questions or comments directly to Cogster via email to Derek@cogster.com. Any personal information you submit will be used solely to respond to your requests.

You can also send questions or comments to:
Local Markets, Inc.
234 E. College Avenue
State College, PA 16801