Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last updated on May 22, 2012.

NOTE: Throughout this page, the terms "we," "us," and "our" are meant to include BuildingsByOwner.com staff, franchisees and their team members.

We respect for your privacy. We've prepared this document to make it easy to understand what we do, and do not do, with the information that we collect from you when you visit this site.

Information We Collect About You

Registration

When you register with our site you will be asked to provide an email address, your first and last name. You will also be asked to create a password.

 

This information is used to create a unique profile for you on our site.

Browsing the Site

When you visit our web site, we collect information about your visit (e.g. session length, pages visited, network location) based on the IP address of your computer, or your unique user identifier (if you are a registered user). Our web site uses cookies and access logs to facilitate this tracking.

This information is stored in log files. Log data is used in aggregate to analyze how people use our web site and is not used to identify the behaviour of individual visitors.

Sending a Message or Offer

In order to send a message to a seller, or access a seller’s phone # on this site, we require that a person be registered and logged in to BuildingsByOwner.com. This is to help our sellers identify, and avoid receiving messages from users with bad intentions.

Sharing a News Item, Search Results or a Property Listing

In order to use our share features we collect your email address and the unique IP address of your computer - we also temporarily collect the email address of the people you are sending the information to. All email addresses are erased from the system shortly after we have successfully delivered the email.

We use the information we collect through our share feature exclusively to monitor for abuse of the system.

In the case of third party web sites like Facebook, Twitter and linkedin, we do not collect any information and simply forward you to their web sites. Please review their privacy policies.

Commenting

When you leave a comment on a blog article or Q&A page on our web site we log the unique IP address of your computer. Your comment will be stored in our database.

Using our Online Store

If you make a purchase using our online store we will log the history of the transaction, including authentication, order and transaction numbers and billing and shipping addresses. Our online store does NOT store your credit card number or expiry dates. Our store does not request your 3-digit security or CVV2 code from the back of your card.

Listing a Property

When you list a property on our web site we collect information about its location, condition, features and your asking price. This information is used to help you attract potential buyers to your listing. During the listing process you will also be asked to provide contact information which will be publicly disclosed so that buyers may contact you.

Your property features are also used for compiling aggregate data reports, which can't be used to identify your individual property.

Selling a Property

When you sell a property listed on our web site we request that you provide us with the sale price. This information, by law, is public information and your lawyer will file the price with your provincial government office as part of the registration process. We appreciate you saving us the time of having to send a request to the government for it!

Participating in a Survey, Contest, or Special Offer

Occasionally we may offer a survey, contest or special offer on this site. When this happens we will clearly define what information is collected and who your information will be shared with if it is an exception to any part of this privacy policy.

How We Use Your Information

Aggregate Information

We love aggregate information because it gives us great data on how visitors to our site are using it. Aggregate information cannot be used to identify an individual. We use aggregate information in every way we possibly can, including selling it to other companies or organizations.

Banning

If you violate our Terms of Use we will use your information in order to put in place appropriate measures to limit or disabled your access to our site.

Email Addresses and Phone Numbers

If you are a registered user of our site, your email address is your unique identifier, or user name, for this site. As a registered user you have access to many features on the web site unavailable to those using the site anonymously (eg. saving searches, watching properties, sending messages).

If you have subscribed to a newsletter or for property updates we will use your email address to send you the information you have requested.

Personally Identifiable Information

When you participate in any discussion on BuildingsByOwner.com, information you submit may be made publicly available and attributed to you. For example, when you provide a public comment on an article, both your comment and your username will be shown on the page for other visitors to see. This information may be copied or shared by other people, and unfortunately we have no control over who obtains the information or what they do with it.

If your participation in a contest, survey, or special offer entitles you to a prize or other gift of thanks, we will use information you provided to us to fulfill your prize. Some survey information may be maintained with your profile so we can tailor the presentation of our work to you.

How We Protect Your Information

Financial Information

All financial information is managed by our secure third party transaction processor, Beanstream. Our site does not store credit card numbers or security codes.

Personally Identifiable Information

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online.

Who May Access Your Information

Advertisers

We do not provide personally identifiable information to advertisers and we do not share your contact information with them without your permission. We do share aggregate information and anonymous demographic information and behaviour patterns which illustrate how our visitors use this site.

Third Party Providers

We will not share individual-identifying personal information about you with third parties without your permission, with the exception of service providers or other organizations we contract with to fulfill services on our behalf (e.g. delivering email or mail, executing credit card transactions), or under the circumstances described in Law Enforcement and Legal Compliance below.

Law Enforcement and Legal Compliance

We may disclose personally identifiable information if we are required to by law, or we believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law or with legal process, (b) protect and defend our rights and property, (c) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of the BuildingsByOwner.com web site, or (d) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public.

If you attempt to pose as someone else, we may disclose information about you or your actions as part of an investigation into any harm done by your actions.

Business Transitions

If BuildingsByOwner.com were to merge with or acquire another entity, or sell a portion of its assets, some information regarding registered web site users, and/or web site visitors may be transferred.

Managing Your Information

Editing Your Profile

You may, at anytime, modify the information that we have on file for you by logging into our site and editing your user and/or property profile.

Sending a Letter

If you would prefer you may alternatively send a letter outlining your requested changes to the address below:

BuildingsByOwner.com

103 – 1159 Beach Drive

Victoria, BC

V8S 2N2
Canada

Miscellaneous

BuildingsByOwner.com is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of web sites to which it links.

From time to time, we may use web site visitor information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will post the policy changes to our web site to notify you of these changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check this page periodically.