Throughout this policy, we refer to information that personally identifies you as “Personal Information” or “Sensitive Personal Information.” If you give us Personal Information about somebody else, such as a spouse or work colleague, you must have that person’s permission to do so.

In addition, Linksys may collect “Non-Personal Information” about your Linksys product and network.

Personal Information is any information that can identify you as an individual, such as your name, postal or email address, phone number, occupation, or personal interests. Sensitive Personal Information is any information that would permit access to your financial account, including account number, credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code or password. For purposes of this privacy statement, Sensitive Personal Information is included in the references to Personal Information.

Non-Personal Information is any information that is not personally identifiable, such as information about network devices, web page requests and browser type.

We collect information, including Personal Information, about you in a variety of situations, including when you:

• register with Linksys for an account
• use certain features of Linksys products or services, including those set forth in the Supplement
• request service and support for Linksys products or services
• submit a transaction or order
• register to attend a seminar
• participate in an online survey
• ask to be included in an email or other mailing list
• submit an entry for a sweepstakes or other promotion
• provide your Personal Information to Linksys for any other reason

In many instances, you may browse the Linksys website anonymously. When you arrive at the Linksys website, we record your IP address (the Internet address of your computer) to give us an idea of which parts of the website you visit and how long you spend there. We do not link your IP address to any Personal Information unless you have registered with us and logged in using your profile.

Access to certain Linksys web pages, services, products and activities requires a login and a password. It is your responsibility to maintain the confidentiality of your login and password information.

From time to time, Linksys receives personal information from our business partners and vendors. Linksys only uses this information if it has been collected in accordance with privacy practices consistent with this Privacy Statement.

Linksys uses your Personal Information in connection with products and services, to respond to requests, to provide specific marketing materials you have requested, and when we have your permission. For example, Linksys may use your Personal Information to:

• keep you up to date on the latest product announcements, software updates, software upgrades, system enhancements, special offers, and other information. This may occasionally include information from other technology companies about products and services that can add value to your Linksys products.
• provide support and assistance with products and services, including the provision of security patches and as described in the Supplement.
• contact you as part of our customer satisfaction surveys or for market research purposes.
• process your orders.
• create anonymous data records or aggregations of data, to perform statistical analyses and for other purposes, by omitting or removing information (such as your name) that makes the data personally identifiable to you.

In addition, as set forth in the Supplement, we may collect Non-Personal Information in connection with certain products. You may opt-out of the collection of this Non-Personal Information by uninstalling Linksys software from your computer.

Any Sensitive Personal Information that you provide will only be used to implement the specific activity or event it was submitted for and will then be destroyed in accordance with company policies.

Linksys may share your information with Linksys-owned and Cisco-owned business entities around the world. We occasionally hire other companies, agents or contractors to perform services on our behalf, such as processing credit card transactions, hosting websites and providing customer support. These companies are not permitted to use your Personal Information except for the purpose of providing the services we request of them. The third parties we may need to share your information with include our business partners (for instance, as part of a joint sales promotion or to pass sales leads to one of our distribution partners); service vendors; shipping companies; and postal and government authorities (such as Customs authorities).

We will also disclose your Personal Information if required to do so by law, to enforce our Terms of Use, or in urgent circumstances, to protect personal safety, the public or our websites.

Linksys may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy. You will have the opportunity to opt out of any such transfer if the new entity’s planned processing of your information differs materially from that set forth in this Privacy Statement.

We will always tell you before we collect any Personal Information and inform you of the purpose of the collection. We will ask for your consent before we use or share your information for any purpose other than the reason you provided it or as otherwise provided by this policy. In order to let us know your preferences, we will require an action on your part, such as checking the appropriate option, to indicate your consent.

Like many websites, Linksys uses technologies, such as cookies and web beacons, which allow us to make your visit to our website easier, more efficient and more valuable by providing you with a customized experience and recognizing you when you return.

A cookie is a small data file transferred by a website to your computer’s hard drive. Linksys’s website sends cookies when you visit it, make purchases, request or personalize information, or register yourself for certain services. A cookie cannot read personal data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites; indeed, the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. Accepting the cookies used on our website may give us access to information about your browsing behavior, which we may use to personalize your experience and track user traffic patterns. We do this in order to determine the usefulness of our website information to our users and to see how effective our navigational structure is in helping users reach that information.

Cookies are typically classified as either “session” cookies or “persistent” cookies.

• Session cookies do not stay on your computer after you close your browser.
• Persistent cookies remain on your computer until you delete them or they expire.

You may browse most of Linksys’s website without accepting cookies from Linksys, however, some website functionality may be lost by disabling cookies on your computer. Other Linksys web pages, particularly those which require a login and password, require cookies and cannot be used when you have disabled cookies in your browser.

In addition, Linksys uses web beacons in conjunction with cookies to understand user behavior. A web beacon is an electronic image, found on a website or HTML-formatted email and is called a single-pixel (1x1) or clear GIF. The web beacon is one of the ingredients of the page, just like other images and text except it is so small and clear that it is effectively invisible. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on a user’s computer, such as cookies, time and date of a page view and a description of the page where the web beacon is placed. They are simply a convenient way of gathering basic statistics and managing cookies, and do not give away any extra information from your computer. Turning off your browser's cookies will prevent web beacons from tracking your specific activity. The web beacon may still record an anonymous visit from your IP address, but unique information will not be recorded.

Linksys may also use customized links or other similar technologies to track email links that you click. We may associate that information with your Personal Information in order to provide you more focused e-mail communications or purchase information. Each e-mail communication includes an unsubscribe link allowing you to stop delivery of that type of communication.

If you prefer not to receive cookies while browsing our website or via HTML-formatted emails, you can set your browser to warn you before it accepts cookies or refuse the cookie when your browser alerts you to its presence. You can also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser.

For additional information about cookies and other tracking technologies, including instructions for blocking their use, see http://privacy.getnetwise.org/browsing/tools.

If you are a registered user, you may change your Personal Information at any time by visiting www.Linksys.com/Register You may request deactivation of your Linksys account or any of your Personal Information held by us by sending an email to privacy@Linksys.com.

If you choose to deactivate your account, where permitted by law we will retain in our files some of your Personal Information to prevent fraud, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, enforce our Terms of Use, respect your opt-out preferences, and comply with legal requirements.

Linksys safeguards the security of the data you send us with industry-standard physical, electronic, and managerial procedures. When appropriate, Linksys websites use SSL-encryption to enhance the security of sensitive data transmissions. Inside Linksys, data is stored in controlled servers with limited access. Your information may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country where Linksys, its subsidiaries, affiliates or agents are located.

While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure the security of the information you transmit to us over an unsecured Internet connection. We therefore urge you to take every precaution to protect your personal data when you are on the Internet.

Some ways to protect your personal data include changing your passwords often, using a combination of letters and numbers in passwords, and making sure you use a secure browser. In addition, be aware of phishing attacks, which attempt to steal consumers' personal identity data and financial account credentials. “Phishers ” use 'spoofed' e-mails to lead consumers to counterfeit websites designed to trick recipients into divulging sensitive personal information such as credit card numbers, account usernames, passwords and social security numbers. Linksys will never send an email asking you to provide or confirm Sensitive Personal Information. If you receive a communication such as this, please immediately forward it to privacy@Linksys.com and immediately delete it from your computer.

Beginning on January 1, 2005, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits customers of the Linksys who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to
privacy-cal@linksys.com.

Our websites do not target and are not intended to attract children under the age of 13. Linksys does not knowingly solicit personal information from children under the age of 13 or send them requests for Personal Information.

Linksys' website contains links to third party websites, some of which may be co-branded with the Linksys logo. However, these websites are not operated or maintained by Linksys, and Linksys does not share your Personal Information with these websites and is not responsible for their privacy practices. Your use of any third party website is at your own risk.

Although we choose our business partners carefully, Linksys cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of websites operated by third parties that are linked to from our site. Once you have left our website, you should make a practice of checking the applicable privacy statement of the third party website to determine how they will use any information they collect from you.

Residents of the State of California, under a new provision of the California Civil Code, have the right to request from companies conducting business in California a list of all third parties to which the company has disclosed Personal Information during the preceding year for direct marketing purposes. Alternatively, the law provides that if the company has a privacy policy that gives either an Opt-out or Opt-in choice for use of your Personal Information by third parties (such as advertisers) for marketing purposes, the company may instead provide you with information on how to exercise your disclosure choice options.

Linksys qualifies for the alternative option; it has a comprehensive privacy policy and provides you with details on how you may either Opt-out or Opt-in to the use of your Personal Information by third parties for direct marketing purposes. Therefore, we are not required to maintain or disclose a list of the third parties that received your Personal Information for marketing purposes during the preceding year.

If you are a California resident and request information about how to exercise your third party disclosure choices you must send a request to the following email address privacy-cal@linksys.com.

This document was last updated on December 8, 2008. Linksys may amend this privacy statement from time to time, and at any time. We will post a notice on our website home page for 30 days whenever this Privacy Statement is materially changed. Your continued use of the Linksys website after any change will signify and confirm your assent to those changes.

We do not guarantee error-free performance under this Privacy Statement. We may not always catch an unintended privacy issue, despite our efforts to do so. Accordingly, we welcome your feedback regarding any privacy concerns that you may have, including how we can improve our products and services. We will use reasonable efforts to comply with this Privacy Statement and will take prompt corrective action when we learn of any failure to comply with it. We will not be liable for any incidental, consequential, or punitive damages relating to this Privacy Statement.

If you have questions or concerns about our collection, use, or disclosure of your Personal Information, please email us at privacy@Linksys.com.

Certain products collect Non-Personal Information about Linksys products and network devices. This information about the status and health of products and the network is transmitted back to us so we can determine how users are interacting with our products, to assist us in improving our products, and to alert you to available upgrades. We may share this information with select third parties in an anonymous aggregated form. In addition, products may regularly check for updates to help keep your network running at a peak performance and provide alerts as to the latest firmware. The information is associated with you only when you opt-in to receive communications from Linksys for the identified purpose. You may opt-out of the collection of this information at any time by changing the settings or uninstalling software from your computer.

Personal Information is collected when a "store account" is created. To save you time and make our Web services easier to use, the store allows you to create an account using your Personal Information. This information includes your name, address, and email address and helps streamline future purchases.

By setting up the reports feature of certain products, you give Linksys permission to collect network information (including network traffic, application usage and internet history) that is linked to your email address, and therefore is Personal Information. The network information is summarized into a report and e-mailed to the identified e-mail address. This feature is available on an opt-in basis, and you must proactively enable the feature for it to collect data.

The support services feature of certain Cisco/Linksys products collects and stores information about your network configuration and usage. As a result, Linksys may collect and store detailed information regarding your network for the purpose of providing you technical networking support. The information is associated with you only when you provide a unique ID number to the support representative while you are receiving help.