MDM may use for its own internal business purposes non-public information regarding system use by its subscribers (other than the contents of private electronic mail) and any information regarding the contents of public postings. An example of such use would include, but not be limited to, as necessary to further enhance the provision of the service or for billing purposes. MDM will endeavor not to reveal to any third party, any detailed, non-public information that identifiably discloses any subscriber’s specific use of the Service, unless such disclosure is required to operate the system or by demands of law enforcement authorities or by subpoena or other legal process.

MDM Online Privacy Policy covers only information that is collected through the Service by MDM, and does not cover information that may be collected through software used in connection with the Service or sites accessed by use of the Service. Thus, this Online Privacy Policy does not apply to any accessed Web sites, products, or services, even if accessed through the Service and even if co-branded with the Service. You should read the privacy policies of the Web sites you visit to learn how they treat your personal information.

MDM’s Service collects personally identifiable information about our subscribers as necessary in order to render the Service and Service features, to detect unauthorized reception or use of the Service, and as disclosed in this Policy. Personally identifiable information is information that identifies a particular person. When you establish an account for the Service we collect information such as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, as well as information used for credit checks, billing, and payment, and other information we may need to establish and service an account. During the initial provisioning of the Service, and any subsequent changes or updates to that provisioning, MDM collects technical information about your computer hardware and software, cable modem and/or other cable service-related devices, and possible customization settings and preferences. MDM also collects personally identifiable information about you when you communicate with us for support, maintenance, and billing, send us e-mails, respond to our surveys or e-mails, register for information, or participate in promotions or contests, for example.

MDM uses personally identifiable information collected on the Service as necessary to render the Service and to:

• install, operate, provide, support, and maintain the Service;
• confirm that you are receiving the service requested and are properly billed for it;
• identify you when changes are made to your Service account;
• make you aware of new products or services that may be of interest to you;
• detect unauthorized reception, use, or abuse of the Service;
• determine whether there are violations of any applicable policies and terms of service, including the MDM Acceptable Use Policy;
• manage the Service network;
• configure cable modems and/or other cable service-related devices; and
• comply with law.

MDM also uses and discloses personally identifiable information for other legitimate business activities related to the Service, including, by way of example, and not limitation:

• billing and invoicing;
• administration;
• surveys;
• collection of fees and charges;
• marketing;
• maintenance;
• hardware and software upgrades; and
• fraud prevention.

We sometimes disclose personally identifiable information about you to others with or without your written consent if necessary to render the Service or to conduct a legitimate business activity related to the Service. For example, we may disclose your name, address, and other personally identifiable information to a contractor for technical support. Personally identifiable information may sometimes be disclosed to our employees, contractors, and agents for MDM’s internal business purposes, as well as to outside auditors, professional advisors and service providers, potential business transition partners, regulators, and franchise authorities. In no case, will the disclosure of such personally identifiable information directly reveal the extent of any viewing or other use by you of the Service or the nature of any transaction made by you using the Service unless required by law enforcement or by subpoena or other legal process.

MDM considers subscribers’ personally identifiable information to be confidential. We will only disclose personally identifiable information to third parties under an obligation of confidentiality, unless required by law enforcement or by subpoena or other legal process and for a limited purpose consistent with this Policy. The frequency of any information disclosure varies in accordance with our business activities and needs.

Legal Disclaimer

Although we make every reasonable effort to preserve your privacy as described in this Policy, we will disclose personally identifiable information about you without your consent when required by law in order to comply with a legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search warrant, for example. We may also use or disclose personally identifiable information about you without your consent to protect our customers, employees, or property, in emergency situations, to enforce our rights in court or elsewhere, or directly with you, and for violations of the Service’s terms of service and policies (including our Acceptable Use Policy).

Transmission of Information

Personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information about you is transmitted over the Service when you send and receive e-mail, transfer and share files, make files accessible, visit Web sites, or otherwise use the Service. Transmission of this information is necessary to render the Service. MDM uses third parties to deliver some features and functions of the Service, such as support, e-mail, and web hosting, for example, and those third parties collect or transmit personally identifiable and non-personally identifiable information about you. MDM will not read your outgoing or incoming e-mail, private chat, or instant messages, but we (or third party providers) do store e-mail messages on computer systems for a brief period of time. We could be required to disclose these messages and communications along with other personally identifiable information about you to comply with law or to protect our Service as described in the Legal Disclaimer section of this Policy. MDM also monitors the performance of our Service and your Service connection in order to manage, maintain, and improve the Service and your connection to it. We (or our third party providers) use tools to help prevent and block “spam” e-mails, viruses, and other harmful or unwanted communications and programs on the Service. These tools may automatically scan your e-mails, file attachments, and other files and communications in order to help us protect you and the Service against these harmful or unwanted communications and programs. However, these tools do not collect or disclose personally identifiable information about you.

Service Providers

We contract with third parties to provide specific services and features for the Service. For example, a third party provides our newsgroups. When you use these particular services, generally you provide your name and specific service-related information directly to the third party service provider. If you use such third parties, you will be subject to their terms of service and privacy policies. You should carefully read their terms and policies to understand how they may use personally identifiable information about you.

Aggregate Information

MDM or our contractors may from time to time share aggregate (non-personally identifiable) information such as the number of Service subscribers who match certain statistical criteria (for example, the number of subscribers in various parts of the country) with our advertisers, content providers, or other third parties with whom we have a relationship. We will not provide our advertisers, content providers, or these other third parties with personally identifiable information about you unless we have received your consent first. We also use aggregate information to better understand how the Service is being used, to improve it, and for network management, bandwidth usage, maintenance, performance measurement, and security.

Business Transitions

In the event MDM goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, subscribers’ personally identifiable information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred. If, as a result of the business transition this Policy will be changed, you should refer to the Notification of Changes to this Policy section. Aggregate information may also be transferred in connection with a business transition.

Cookies

Cookies are small files stored on a computer's hard drive to simplify and improve a user’s Web experience. A Web site may store information in a cookie about your computer configuration so that it can more efficiently provide information to you the next time you visit the site. Or, your browser program might save a cookie with your username and password so that a Web site's server will automatically recognize you the next time you access the site.

MDM uses cookies to remember your username and password, if you choose to store them, from the home page of the Service at www.mdm.net. MDM also uses cookies to determine when your current session on the Service's Web site should be logged out after a period of no activity, as well as for efficient management of the servers providing our Web site including when you access the Personal Web Pages and Online Storage services. Aside from this information, MDM does not store your name or other personal information in cookies.

Some of the services accessed through the Service, including co-branded services, use cookies (for example, search engines) or in connection with their own advertisers and other business partners. MDM has no access to or control over these cookies. For more information about how these vendors and their business partners use cookies, and how you may be able to "opt-out" of those cookies, read the privacy policy that applies to each vendor's Web site. This Policy covers the use of cookies by MDM on the www.mdm.net Web site only; it does not cover the use of cookies by any other party or Web site.

Service Announcements

We send subscribers Service-related announcements from time to time. For example, we may send you an e-mail announcement about a pricing change or a change in operating policies. You may not opt-out of these Service-related communications, though you can deactivate your Service account if you wish. If you fail to check your Service account and primary e-mail address for Service-related announcements, you may miss important information about the Service, including legal notices, for example.

Customer Service

We communicate with you to provide requested services and support for questions and issues relating to your Service account. We will reply to your requests for customer service by e-mail, phone, or through any other reasonable means.

Links

The Service’s Web site contains links to other sites. Some of these other sites may be co-branded with MDM and may look like Service features, but MDM is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our Web site and to read the privacy policies of every Web site that collects personally identifiable information about you, whether the site is co-branded with MDM or not.

Security

MDM takes reasonable security precautions to protect our subscribers’ personally identifiable information that we collect on the Service from unauthorized access, use, and disclosure. For example, we store billing records on computers in a controlled and secure environment. However, MDM cannot guarantee that our security precautions will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use, or disclose your personally identifiable information

If your personally identifiable information changes, if you wish to confirm the accuracy of your personally identifiable information, or if you no longer want to subscribe to the Service, we provide a way to correct that information and a way to deactivate a Service account. You may examine and copy (at your cost) any personally identifiable information we collect and maintain relating to you at your local MDM office upon reasonable notice and during regular business hours. If you wish to inspect those records, please contact us by telephone, giving us a reasonable period of time to locate and, if necessary, prepare the information for review, and to arrange an appointment during regular business hours. We will correct our records if you make a reasonable showing that any of the personally identifiable information we have collected about you is inaccurate. You will only be permitted to examine records that contain information about you and no one else.

Federal law provides that any subscriber aggrieved by any act of MDM in violation of the Federal limitations on the collection and disclosure of your personally identifiable information may bring a civil action in Federal court.

We will maintain most, if not all, of the personally identifiable information we have collected during the time you are a subscriber to the Service. We generally will destroy this personally identifiable information after a reasonable period of time has elapsed following the termination of your Service account with us, if the purpose for which the information was collected has been accomplished and we no longer need to retain the information for legitimate business activities or compliance with law.

If we decide to change this Policy, we will post those changes on the homepage of the Service Web site, or in other places we deem appropriate, so our subscribers are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We will use information in accordance with the Privacy Policy under which the information was collected. Your decision to continue receiving the Service after we make any changes to this Policy shall be deemed to be your express consent to the changes in the revised Policy.

Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, MDM will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen without first obtaining parental consent. Children should always get permission from their parents before sending any information about themselves (such as their names, e-mail addresses, and telephone numbers) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else.