Versant Power Privacy Policy
ONLINE SERVICES TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE
(Revised January 1, 2014)
This website is operated by Versant Power. Throughout the site, the terms "we," "us," and "our" refer to Versant Power and its affiliates and subsidiaries. Versant Power offers this website, including, without limitation, all information, tools, and services available from this site, all data, content, software, function, and materials set forth herein and available herein (collectively, the “Website”) to you, the user, conditioned upon your acceptance of all the terms, conditions, policies, notices and disclaimers stated here. Your use of this Website constitutes your agreement to these Terms and Conditions of Use.
PRIVACY POLICY
Our Commitment to Privacy
Versant Power is firmly committed to ensuring online user privacy. We provide this notice to explain our online information-gathering practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. Since your privacy is important to us, Versant Power takes reasonable precautions to prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information. While no security system is absolutely safe, we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online and to protect your personally identifiable information from loss, misuse, alteration and destruction.
Versant Power does, at times, contract with third party service providers to perform certain business functions on our behalf (“Third Party Providers”), including, without limitation, surveying, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links, providing online bill paying services, providing bill printing and mailing services, processing credit card and other bill payments, providing customer service, conducting research, promoting programs, and managing program enrollment. Such Third Party Providers have access to personal information needed to perform their specific business functions, but may not use it for other purposes. Furthermore, such Third Party Providers are either subject to these Terms and Conditions of Use or follow practices at least as protective as those described in these Terms and Conditions of Use.
In some areas of our Website, we require a user ID and password for you to access certain information. Versant Power will not disclose passwords to third parties, other than such Third Party Providers who need passwords to perform their specific business functions. You are responsible for maintaining the privacy and security of your password, user name, email address and related information.
The Information We Collect
This notice applies to all information collected or submitted on this Website by Versant Power and its Third Party Providers. Versant Power does not collect personally identifiable information about you unless you voluntarily provide it. At any time, before you submit, you may opt-out of providing such information by closing this Website.
Examples of personally identifiable information which you may provide to us while using our site include:
Email address
Name
Phone number
Account number (if you are a current customer)
Information about your computer and browser
E-billing and other online services information that is linked to you via your password, if you use those services
Zip code
Our web server automatically collects some non-personally identifiable information about you when you request pages from our server in the process of using this Website or paying your bill with Epay. This non-personally identifiable information, or aggregate information, includes:
The IP address (which is a number that is used by computers on the network to identify your computer so that data, such as the web pages you request, can be sent to you) and/or the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com if you are connecting from an America Online account)
The date and time of access to our Website
The path taken through our Website
The Internet address of the Website that linked directly to our site
The Way We Use Information
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable).
We use the non-identifying and aggregate information about site visitors listed in the previous section to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, to help us make our site more useful to visitors, and to assess login performance of the Website.
Personally Identifiable Information. We use the personally identifiable information you provide us to:
Fulfill your request for various services
Help you quickly find and/or receive information about Versant Power
Alert you to updated information and services
Provide tailored promotions and offers
Provide more complete service
Improve the content and performance of our Website
Answer your questions
Measure the number of unique and repeat visitors to our customer web portals to determine the frequency of use of those portals, to measure the success of the web portals, to help make our web portals more useful to visitors, and to correlate the number of times the web portal was visited with any changes in consumption of electricity
Email Communications
We collect your name and email address when you register for any of our online services, including, without limitation, our Epay and Power Smart Maine Online programs, and when you submit your email on the “Stay Connected” portion of the Versant Power website. In addition to using your email address to provide you with such services or to answer your inquiries, we use the email address you provide us so that we may send you email communications about other matters, such as storm readiness, power outages, information about new products and services, and notifications and updates about existing products and services. By registering for any of our online services or emailing us, you agree that we can send you such additional email communications. You can unsubscribe from our email communications at any time by (i) clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email communication that you receive from us; (ii) changing your email preferences in your Versant Power Online Profile; (iii) by sending our Customer Contact Center a written request to unsubscribe, and including your name, address, and email address, via email (customerservice@versantpower.com) or postal service (21 Telcom Drive, Bangor, ME 04401); or (iv) by calling our Customer Contact Center (855) 363-7211.
The Way We Share and Disclose Information
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable). We share aggregated demographic information about our user base with some Third Party Providers. This information does not identify individual users.
Personally Identifiable Information. We share your personally identifiable information with specific employees of Versant Power who are only permitted to use personally identifiable information within the scope of their employment in connection with the provision of services to you. We do not share your personally identifiable information with third party companies or organizations other than our Third Party Providers who are only permitted to use personally identifiable information for the particular business purposes specified by Versant Power. We never sell your personally identifiable information.
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.
Finally, we never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described above without also providing you with an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.
For more information on the way we share and disclose personally identifiable information about e-billing transactions, please review the Epay User Agreement set forth in the e-billing section of this Website.
The Way We Store Information
A cookie is a piece of data stored on your hard drive or in your computer's memory containing information about your visit. We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site by allowing you to visit pages within our site without having to input personal information every time you click a link within the site. A session cookie expires when you close your browser.
If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site may be limited.
We collect certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to administer the Website, to analyze trends, to track users' movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our entire user base.
For privacy and security reasons, minimal customer-specific information is stored solely for the purpose of user authentication. All information gathered when using our e-payment service called Epay or other online services is stored in a secure database.
When you link to other sites from this Website, our Privacy Policy no longer applies. Since those websites may use cookies, you should review the other sites' privacy policies.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
The effective date of this Privacy Policy is listed in the heading of our Terms and Conditions of Use set forth above. We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time and without notice. Changes to this Privacy Policy will be posted to this site accordingly. You may want to visit this page periodically to review the current policy. This statement, and the policies outlined herein, are not intended to and do not create any contractual or legal rights on behalf of any party. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes here and in other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
Changes to your Personally Identifiable Information
If your personal information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, or deactivate it by making the changes in our web portal system or by contacting our Customer Contact Center by either email at customerservice@versantpower.com or telephone (toll free) at (855) 363-7211.
CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
This Website contains information about electricity and energy and links to games and activities that may be of educational interest to children. We do not intend to gather personal information online from or about children. We encourage all children and young teens to seek consent from their parents before providing any information about themselves, their families, or their homes to anyone on the Internet.
LINKS
This Website contains links to other websites, some of which are operated by Versant Power and others of which are operated by third parties. These links are provided as a convenience to you and as an additional avenue of access to the information contained therein. We have not necessarily reviewed all the information on those other sites and are not responsible for the content of those or any other sites or any products or services that may be offered through those or any other sites. Inclusion of links to other sites should not be viewed as an endorsement of the content of linked sites. Different terms and conditions may apply to your use of any linked sites. Versant Power is not responsible for any losses, damages or other liabilities incurred as a result of your use of any linked sites.
USE OF SECURE PORTIONS OF THIS WEBSITE
Registration
In order to use the secure portion of this Website, where you can view account information and make transactions, you must first complete the registration form and create a user name and password. During registration you must provide contact information (such as name and email address). We use this information to provide you with the services on our Website which you have requested. By registering on our Website, and in consideration of your use of our Website, you agree to provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself.
Password Protection
You are responsible for protecting your password, user name, email address and related information that is required to use some of the features on this Website. You agree that you will be responsible for any and all statements made, and acts or omissions that occur, through the use of your password. If you have any reason to believe or become aware of any loss, theft or unauthorized use of your password, notify Versant Power immediately. Versant Power may assume that any communications Versant Power receives under your password have been made by you unless Versant Power receives notice otherwise.
User Technical Requirements
In order to use certain secure portions of this Website, you must have a computer system having the following characteristics:
Adobe Acrobat 6.0 or higher
Cookies enabled
Java script enabled
Furthermore, the use of certain secure portions of this Website will be enhanced, and this
Website will be best viewed, if you (i) have a resolution of at least 1024x768, and (ii) install Adobe Flash.
ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS AND TIMELINESS OF INFORMATION ON THIS WEBSITE
Versant Power is not responsible if information made available on this Website is not accurate, complete or current. The material on this Website is provided for general information only and should not be relied upon or used as the sole basis for making decisions without consulting primary, more accurate, more complete, or more recent sources of information. Any reliance on the material on this Website is at your own risk.
Portions of this Website may contain certain tools and information designed to assist you in understanding your electricity usage and making energy choices. Without limiting the foregoing disclaimer, Versant Power does not represent or warrant that the tools and information provided will include actual consumption data for all hours of energy usage. Furthermore, the tools and information provided do not contain all charges that will be billed to you, such as taxes. For complete billing information, you must consult your current billing statement.
This Website may contain certain historical information. Historical information necessarily is not current and is provided for your reference only. We reserve the right to modify the content of this Website at any time, but we have no obligation to update any information on the Website. You agree that it is your responsibility to monitor changes to the Website.