Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

(Last updated: September 18, 2020)

We Value Security & Privacy

CEC respects the privacy of our users and has developed this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our commitment to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy is intended to describe for you, as an individual who is a user of CEC (and all websites and URLs controlled or operated by CEC that link to this policy, unless otherwise specified) or our services, or otherwise provide us with information through various means the information we collect, how that information may be used, with whom it may be shared, and your choices about such uses and disclosures.

We encourage you to read this Privacy Policy carefully when using our website service. By using our website, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

If you have questions about our privacy practices, please refer to the end of this Privacy Policy for information on how to contact us.

  1. Information We Collect About You

    In General. We may collect personal information that can identify you such as your name, email address, telephone number, city of residence, zip code, services requested (check boxes), and other information that does not identify you. When you provide personal information through our website, the information the information may be sent to servers located in the United States and other countries around the world.

    Information you provide. We may collect and store any personal information you enter on our website or provide to us in some other manner. This includes identifying information, such as your name, email address, telephone number, city of residence, zip code, and services requested (check boxes).

    Information from other sources. We may also periodically obtain both personal and non-personal information about you from other nonprofit organizations, contractors and other third parties. Examples of information that we may receive include (but are not limited to): dates of communications with contractors, services performed, and other demographic information.
     
  2. Use of Cookies and Other Technologies to Collect Information

    We use various technologies to collect information from your computer and about your activities on our website.

    Information collected automatically. We automatically collect information from your browser when you visit our website. This information includes your IP address, your browser type and language, access times, the content of any undeleted cookies that your browser previously accepted from us (see “Cookies” below), and the referring website address.

    Cookies. When you visit our website, we may assign your computer one or more cookies to facilitate access to our website and to personalize your online experience. Through the use of a cookie, we also may automatically collect information about your online activity on our website, such as the web pages you visit, the links you click, and the searches you conduct on our site. Most browsers automatically collect cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to use some of the interactive features offered on our website.

    Other technologies. We may use standard internet technology, such as web beacons and other similar technologies, to track your use of our website. We may also include web beacons in promotional (or other) e-mail messages or newsletters to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon. The information we obtain in this manner enables us to customize the services we offer our website visitors and to measure the overall effectiveness of our online advertising, content, programming, or other activities.

    We treat information collected by cookies and other technologies as non-personal information. However, when Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered personal information by local law, we protect these identifiers as private and personal. As is true of most sites, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes IP addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and "clickstream" statistics. We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about customer behavior on our Site, and to gather aggregate demographic information about those who use our Site. We may use this information in our marketing and advertising services.

    In some of our email messages, we use a "click-through URL" linked to content on our Site. When customers click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our Site. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, just don't click text or graphic links in the email messages.

    Pixel tags enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they tell us whether mail has been opened. We may use this information to reduce or eliminate messages sent to customers.

    Do not track signals. California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser Do Not Track (DNT) signals. Due to a lack of industry or legal standards regarding how to recognize or honor DNT signals, CEC does not currently respond to them. When the privacy community is able to standardize how and when service providers should respond to such signals, CEC will appropriately respond to browser DNT signals.

    Google analytics. Google cookies may be used to collect information about the use of our Site and services and to provide that information to Google Analytics. This cookie tracks site usage information such as how often users visit our Site, what pages they visit, and what other sites they visited prior to coming to our Site (similar to the cookies described above). CEC uses the information we get from Google Analytics only to improve CEC's web-based service offerings. Google Analytics collects your device's IP address, rather than your name or other identifying information, and CEC does not combine the information collected through the use of Google Analytics with any other information you may have provided to us. Although it may result in a less desirable experience, you can prevent Google Analytics from recognizing you on subsequent visits to our Site by disabling cookies in your browser.
     
  3. How We Use the Information We Collect

    In general. We may use the information we collect about you to:

    a. provide you with the contractor information you requested;
    b. provide you with customer support;
    c. perform research and analysis about your use of, or interest in, our services or content, or products, services or content that offered by others;
    d. communicate with you by e-mail, postal mail, telephone and/or mobile devices or send newsletters about products or services that may be of interest to you;
    e. communicate with you with regard to partially completed services requests;
    f. develop and display content and advertising tailored to your interests on our site and other sites;
    g. enforce our terms and conditions;
    h. inform you about specific programs or opportunities we offer that may help you to lower your overall energy use or gain other benefits;
    i. manage our program; and
    j. perform functions as otherwise described to you at the time of collection.
     
  4. With Whom We Share Your Information

    We want you to understand when and with whom we may share personal or other information we have collected about you or your activities on our website or while using our services.

    a. Authorized Service Providers. We may share your personal information with our authorized service providers that perform certain services on our behalf. These services may include providing customer service and marketing assistance, performing business sales analysis, supporting our website functionality, and supporting surveys and other features offered through our website. These service providers may have access to personal information needed to perform their functions but are not permitted to share or use such information for any other purposes.

    b. Contractors. When you request services offered through our website or our services, we may share personal information with the contractors with which we work to offer you the contractor services. When you elect to communicate with a particular contractor or contractors, you authorize us to provide your email information and other information to that contractor or contractors.

    c. Other Situations. We may also disclose your information in response to a subpoena or similar investigative demand, a court order, or a request for cooperation from a law enforcement or government agency; to establish or exercise our legal rights; to defend against legal claims; or as otherwise required by law. In such cases, we may raise or waive any legal objection or right available to us. When we believe disclosure is appropriate in connection with efforts to investigate, prevent, or take other action regarding illegal activity, suspected fraud or other wrongdoing; to enforce our website terms and conditions or agreements or policies. In connection with a substantial corporate transaction, such as the sale of CEC, a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale, or in the unlikely event of a bankruptcy.

    Any third parties to whom we may disclose personal information may have their own privacy policies that describe how they use and disclose personal information. Those policies will govern use, handling and disclosure of your personal information once we have shared it with those third parties as described in this Privacy Policy. If you want to learn more about their privacy practices, we encourage you to visit the websites of those third parties. These entities or their servers may be located either inside or outside the United States.
     
  5. Third-Party Websites

    There may be places on our website where you may click on a link to access other websites that do not operate under this Privacy Policy. For example, if you click on a link to a contractor’s website, you may be taken to a website that we do not control. These third-party websites may independently solicit and collect information, including personal information, from you and, in some instances, provide us with information about your activities on those websites. We recommend that you consult the privacy statements of all third-party websites you visit by clicking on the “privacy” link typically located at the bottom of the webpage you are visiting.
     
  6. How You Can Access Your Information

    You can receive the information you have shared with us by contacting support@cleanenergyconnection.org. If certain information has already been provided to third parties as described in this Privacy Policy, retention of that information will be subject to those third parties’ policies.
     
  7. Your Choices About Collection and Use of Your Information

    You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but that may result in you being unable to use certain features of our service because such information may be required in order for you to use our services, ask a question, or learn about contractors that can provide you with your requested services.

    At any time a consumer user can choose to no longer receive commercial or promotional e-mails or newsletters from us by sending an email to support@cleanenergyconnection.org. You will also be given the opportunity, in any commercial e-mail that we send to you, to opt out of receiving such messages in the future. It may take up to 10 days for us to process an opt-out request. We may send you other types of relationship e-mail communications, such as service announcements, administrative notices, and surveys, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.

    If you prefer not to have us share any of your postal mailing address with contractors, you can email us at any time at support@cleanenergyconnection.org.
     
  8. How We Protect Your Personal Information

    We take appropriate security measures (including physical, electronic and procedural measures) to help safeguard your personal information from unauthorized access and disclosure. For example, only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information, and they may do so only for permitted business functions. We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on all web pages where personal information is collected. Doing so protects the confidentiality of your personal information while it is transferred to CEC. We also use firewalls to help prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your personal information.

    We want you to feel confident when you use our website to find qualified contractors. However, no system can be completely secure. Therefore, although we take steps to secure your information, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information, searches, or other communications will always remain secure. Please refer to the Federal Trade Commission’s website at https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/ for information about how to protect yourself against identity theft.
     
  9. Children’s Privacy

    Our website is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.
     
  10. Visiting Our Website from Outside the United States

    This Privacy Policy is intended to cover collection of information on our website from residents of the United States. If you are visiting our website from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.
     
  11. No Rights of Third Parties

    This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties or require disclosure of any personal information relating to users of the website.
     
  12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

    We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices and services. We recommend that you check our website from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy or any of our other policies.
     
  13. How to Contact Us

    If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our information-handling practices, please e-mail us at support@cleanenergyconnection.org.

    Cookies: A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record keeping purposes. Cookies can be either session cookies or persistent cookies. A session cookie expires when you close your browser and is intended to make it easier for you to navigate our website. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time.

    For example, when you enter your personal information on our website, we will record your personal information in the cookie file on your computer. For security purposes, we will encrypt any personal information you enter on our website that we store in such cookies. Although our website and services do not use a user or member ID, the cookie will contain a unique identifier. We may allow our service providers to serve cookies from our website to allow them to assist us in various activities, such as doing analysis and research on the effectiveness of our site, and content.

    You may delete or decline cookies by changing your browser settings. (Click “Help” in the toolbar of most browsers for instructions.) If you do so, some of the features and services of our website may not function properly.

    We do not allow third parties, including advertising companies and ad networks, to display advertisements on our website.

    Web Beacons: Web beacons (also known as clear gifs, pixel tags or web bugs) are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users or to access cookies. Unlike cookies which are stored on the user’s computer’s hard drive, web beacons are embedded invisibly on the web pages (or in e-mail) and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

    Web beacons may be used to deliver or communicate with cookies, to count users who have visited certain pages and to understand usage patterns. We also may receive an anonymous identification number if you come to our website from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website.