CCH Small Firm Services ("CCH SFS") makes it a top priority to protect your privacy
and the confidentiality of the personal information you enter into its web sites
(i.e., taxwise.com, atxinc.com, support.taxwise.com, myatx.com, taxwisetv.com, atxinctv.com
– collectively, our "Web Sites") or provide to us offline via guest registration
cards or otherwise. CCH SFS takes the following position regarding your rights to
privacy and confidentiality. Please read this statement carefully and refer to it
whenever necessary. If you have any questions, please contact our legal department
at: CCH SFS Legal Dept, 6 Mathis Drive, NW, Rome, Georgia, 30165 or by e-mail at
legal@cch-sfs.com or at 706-290-7100.
CCH SFS wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy. This Privacy Statement
discloses the privacy practices for CCH SFS and our Web Sites, including:
What personally identifiable information of yours or third party personal identification
is collected from you through our Web Sites and otherwise;
How the information is used;
With whom the information may be shared;
What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and distribution of
the information;
The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect against the loss, misuse
or alteration of information under CCH SFS’ control; and
How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.
While the nature of our business and our Web Sites is strictly financial and are
not designed to appeal to children under the age of 13, we do believe that protecting
the privacy of the very young is especially important. For that reason, we do not
knowingly attempt to solicit or receive any information from children.
Information Collection and Use
CCH SFS is the sole owner of the information we collect. CCH SFS collects information
from our users at several different points on our Web Sites as well as through guest
registration cards, product ordering, product registration, and various other means.
We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in any way that differs
from what is disclosed in this statement.
By providing CCH SFS with your contact information you expressly consent to CCH
SFS' use of this contact information, including to provide you with information
on products and services offered or to be offered by CCH SFS and its affiliates,
as well as information on products and services of other parties with whom CCH SFS
conducts business ("Third-Party Providers"). In the event you desire to no longer
receive communications from CCH SFS regarding its Third-Party Providers, you may
notify CCH SFS via e-mail (marketing@cch-sfs.com), fax (1-706-290-7218) or by mail
at CCH SFS Marketing Dept, 3550 George Busbee Parkway, Suite 200, Kennesaw, GA 30144
and request removal from mailings by CCH SFS regarding its Third-Party Providers.
Registration
In order to access advanced support options online at our customer support site,
a user must first complete the user login form. During this login process a user
is required to give his/her User Name, Client ID, EFIN and/or registration code.
This information is used to identify the user before he/she accesses the advanced
support options. The user is required to provide this information when accessing
advanced support options so that we can provide a more personalized support experience.
Ordering
Our product order forms require you to disclose personal information. Here a user
must provide contact information (such as name and shipping address) and financial
information (such as credit card number and expiration date). This information is
used for billing purposes and to fulfill the customers’ order(s). If we experience
difficulty while processing an order, the contact information is used to contact
the user. Use of all CCH SFS products is subject to the terms and conditions of
the then current
Software License Agreement.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is placed on a user’s hard drive by a web page
server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs, deliver viruses to your computer,
or extract personal information from your computer. The cookies we assign to you
are unique, and can only be read by our web servers. Cookies can provide our users
with a more personalized and convenient visit to our Web Sites. For instance, by
setting a cookie on our site, the user may not have to reenter their username multiple
times, thereby saving time while on our site. However, a user can still use our
site if they reject the cookie. Cookies may also enable us to track and target the
interests of our users in order to enhance the experience customers have while on
our sites.
Log Files
We use Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses to analyze trends, administer our site,
track users' movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
IP addresses of visitors to our public Web Sites are not linked to personally identifiable
information. CCH SFS may, in its sole discretion, record the IP address of the computer
from which an electronically filed return originated as part of our ongoing effort
to detect fraudulent information being transmitted via the Internet.
Sharing
CCH SFS processes credit card transactions directly with Paymentech Merchant Services,
Inc. for all billed goods and services. Paymentech Merchant Services, Inc. does
not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary
purposes.
We partner with other third party companies that provide specific services such
as bank products. CCH SFS respects your privacy and will not release your e-mail
address or other contact information to Third-Party Providers unless requested to
do so by you. However, when you sign up for services or products of a third party
with whom CCH SFS conducts business, such as tax refund bank products, CCH SFS will
share your name or contact information to the extent necessary for the third party
to provide such products or services. These parties are not granted permission to
use personally identifiable information for any purpose other than providing these
services.
Except as set forth in this Privacy Statement, personally identifiable information
is not otherwise released by CCH SFS to outside parties unless required by law or
legal process (for example, subpoena or court order). CCH SFS reserves the right
to make exceptions to this policy in exceptional circumstances (such as suspected
illegal activity) on a case by case basis and at the sole discretion of CCH SFS.
CCH SFS abides by applicable laws and regulations governing the disclosure of information
to governmental agencies. When responding to legal process served on CCH SFS by
non-government agencies, unless otherwise ordered, the policy of CCH SFS is to make
reasonable efforts to notify the affected customers in advance of releasing requested
information and to provide customers the opportunity to pursue available legal protection.
Links
Our Web Sites may contain links to other web sites. Please be aware that CCH SFS
is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our
users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of
each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This
privacy statement applies solely to information collected by the Web Sites of CCH
SFS and no other sites.
Newsletter
We provide users the opportunity to receive newsletters via e-mail. If a user wishes
to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name and
e-mail address. Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter may opt-out of
receiving these communications by using the unsubscribe option in the newsletter
email or by contacting Marketing at marketing@cch-sfs.com.
Surveys & Contests
From time-to-time we request information from users via surveys or contests. Participation
in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has
a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may
include contact information (such as your name and shipping address), and demographic
information (such as zip code, business size, etc.). Contact information will be
used to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey (demographic) information will
be used for the purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of
our site, products and/or services. Our surveys and contests may have separate rules
other than those listed above. We will identify how the information supplied may
be used in each such individual case.
Security
CCH SFS takes strong precautions to protect our users’ information. When users submit
sensitive information to CCH SFS via the Web Sites or otherwise, their information
is protected both on-line and off-line.
When our return query form asks users to enter sensitive information such as a social
security number, that information is protected with encryption software that sets
the Internet standard for secure transactions – Secure Sockets Layer technology
("SSL"). While on a secure page the lock icon on the bottom of web browsers such
as Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked or open,
when you are just ‘surfing’. To learn more about SSL and CCH SFS' online security
measures, see our
Security Statement.
While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also take
strong precautions to protect our users’ information off-line. All of our users’
information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in
our offices. Only employees who require the information to perform a specific job
(for example, our billing clerk or a customer support representative) are granted
access to personally identifiable information. Our employees must record the instance
in your records each time your information is accessed. Furthermore, ALL employees
are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. On an ongoing basis,
as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded
about the importance we place on privacy and what they can do to ensure our users’
information is protected. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable
information on are kept in a secure environment, in a limited access room inside
a locked case.
Site & Service Updates
From time to time we may send the user announcements regarding site and customer
service updates. Members are not able to unsubscribe from customer service announcements,
which contain important information about the service. We communicate with the user
to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account
via e-mail or phone. It is the user’s responsibility to ensure that his/her contact
information is current and correct for various purposes.
Correction/Updating Personal Information
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as e-mail address),
or if a user no longer wishes to use our services, we will provide a way for the
user to correct, update or remove the personal data they provided to us. Information
regarding how to make such changes is available by contacting Customer Support.
Most changes can be accomplished by submitting the change in writing with the signature
of the account owner. When requesting a change, please provide the current information
as well as the corrected information as it should appear following the change. Your
customer identification number, printed name, title, signature and contact telephone
number must also be included so that we may verify the request. Whenever possible,
supporting documentation should be provided to validate the requested change (e.g.
if you have been issued a new EFIN, please submit a copy of your IRS confirmation
letter showing the new EFIN). Requests should be addressed to "Data Entry" and may
be faxed to 1-800-834-4859.
Change of Control
In the event of a sale, merger, transfer, exchange or other disposition (whether
of assets, stock or otherwise) of all or a portion of CCH SFS and/or its subsidiaries,
users personally identifiable information may be transferred. Users will have the
opportunity to opt-out of further secondary use of information following any change
of control.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to materially change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes
on the page(s) of our Web Sites where the policy is regularly located (and with
an updated revision date) so that our users can always be made 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 it was
collected. CCH SFS encourages you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to
be informed of how we are protecting your information.
Customer Responsibilities
While CCH SFS provides significant security measures to protect the privacy and
confidentiality of the user’s information, the tax preparer customer is responsible
for protecting the confidentiality of the individual EFIN and registration code
assigned to his/her office. The customer is also responsible for protecting the
confidentiality of all tax return information originating from his/her account,
and more particularly such information that is accessed through the use of such
EFIN and registration code.