Privacy Policy Page LostPetAlert.Com   

              This represents our views on Privacy and use of our site. Some of this is repeated elsewhere on the site near spots where you have to make data entry choices.

           Lost Pet Alert is a FREE Community Service Effort of Tactical,Marketing,Unlimited a local Hudson Valley For Profit Business. We believe that a sense of community is important and we think this and other related sister sites like HudsonValleyNeighbors.Com are important to maintaining and/or restoring that sense of community. Still everyone within that community should be able to retain some degree of privacy as our society and government becomes ever more intrusive.

          We ask for certain personal information at various points in this website most notably at the lost pet reporting form, the found pet reporting form, the shelter listing form and perhaps other forms yet to come.

          We ask  for what we believe to be the minimal amount of personal identifying information that we can to accomplish our mission. That is why we choose your phone numbers and e-mail address over your personal name and address. We don't really NEED to know who you are so much as we need to know HOW to contact you.

          We are well aware of security aspects about using the internet and have considerable expertise in that area. See our page on security tips at http://www.lostpetalert.com/securitytips.html

          We generally ask for identifying information about your pet to aid in the chances of their recovery. That is the same reason that we ask for certain information about you For example:

                 1) Your neighborhood versus your home address

                 2) Your Phone & E-Mail For our INTERNAL records use.

                 3) Your First name and first initial versus your full name.

                4) We seek your permission to release your phone number & e-mail address to potential spotters instead of just publishing it.

                5) We regularly use OUR Toll Free # & our E-Mail Address as the contact point to protect your privacy. It does slow up and diminish chances of recovery slightly BUT we feel that your privacy should be protected and respected.

                6) Since we don't have your name we can't sell your name in a mailing list.

                7) WE do have your E-mail address but we do not sell that information to anyone. It may be used for updates, or inquiries or future feedback requests as we seek the advice of those we have tried to help. If we have information that we think might be helpful we will share it. If you don't want to be bothered with it..just say so.

               8) It is important that we talk about THIRD PARTIES.

               8A) First, our site is hosted by a third party ISP hosting company known as Hypermart. We have no control over them or their security and privacy policies that they themselves have in place. We suggest that you review them on their site. If you have any concerns or note any problems we would ask that you notify them with an info copy to us.  Please weigh their policies in deciding whether to accept ours. To see them as well as get full service hosting information for your site click here:

               8B) We also have third party advertisers who are allowed to place links on our site. We try to use considerable discretion and judgment in allowing only what we believe to be reputable companies to advertise in what we believe to be a reasonable manner.  If you find yourself facing repeated popups, or blind links that you can't come back from please let us know and they will be reviewed and most likely removed. We hate them when we encounter them ..so why should you have to deal with them. We also have no control over the privacy and security policies of these third party advertisers. We do know that in order for us to extend the special offers that we do they would ask that you accept the advertisers cookies in transitioning from our site to theirs so they know where you came from and we can get some credits. We do not as a general rule use cookies ourselves although we have come to find out that our hosting company uses them with our domain name on them as part of counting visitors.

               8C) What information do we get about you as a visitor to our web site ? There are certain things and pieces of information that are inherent in using the internet just as there are when you make a phone call.  We get your IP address which is the internet equivalent of your internet server's phone number. We know what IP address requested what web pages and files. We know what date and time a particular IP address accessed our server and accessed our files. If you are not a casual site visitor but a spammer, a sender of opt-in e-mails or a sender of UCE's (Unsolicited Commercial E-Mails) we have the tools to track you down and hunt you and or the will to contract with those that can physically find and locate you.

               8C) Other Third Parties, Here is one of those facts of life talks. The world is full of all kinds of people. Most are nice and some are not so nice. Once your personal information appears on a web site it is searchable and discoverable by persons worldwide without regard to the good or bad nature of their character.  Other third parties also refers to the E-Mail spammers and scavengers who look through web sites just trying to find valid e-mails addresses that they can bombard with spam e-mails. For them we have a spammers service contract in place and no information that they provide is to be viewed as private or not subject to redisclosure. To meet this test you must e-mail more then two related unsolicited commercial (spam messages or opt-in) e-mails to us or to our related web sites.

              9) If you wish we can suggest Private E-mail accounts that you can use to protect your privacy. We also can allow you the use of one of our toll free lines as an additional filter on your personal privacy and security.

            10) If there are any additional concerns or topics that we have not covered or you would like us to cover in a little more detail contact us at Privacy@LostPetAlert.Com and we will add an FAQ section to this page with your questions and the best answers that we can come up with. Thank you for visiting and be safe out there.

             11) Viruses and Worms and Overall security. It is your responsibility as an internet user to monitor and protect your own system. We can tell you that industry sources are saying that security breaches and viruses are becoming more numerous and more serious.  Get a virus detection program for each of your machines. Keep it current. Get updates for your programs that you use. And Lastly, GET a FIREWALL. This part may look like an ad but it makes a point.... Firewalls are FREE.

If you don't have one go to http://www.zonealarm.com and get one--FOR FREE

But how much did you spend for your Computer ?? How much time have you invested in it ? How much important or critical information is on it ? If the answer to any of these is more then a little don't just get the free firewall go to zonealarm at this link and get the upgraded anti-e-mail detection program, trojan horse protection and upgraded features of ZONE ALARM PRO not free but well worth it ......