Privacy Policy

By visiting, using and/or submitting information to www.gobankingrates.com (the “Site”), you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

GOBankingRates takes your privacy seriously, and has published this Privacy Policy to explain how GOBankingRates treats all information you may submit to www.gobankingrates.com.

Information Collection and Use

We will collect and use personal information about you to respond to your request for products and services offered through this website. We will also collect information in order to notify you about products, services, and other opportunities we think will be of interest to you.

How We Collect Information

Information provided by you: GOBankingRates collects personal information from you in the following instances:

• Registration for Newsletters. GOBankingRates collects personal information from you if you register online for one of GOBankingRates newsletters. If you subscribe to GOBankingRates’ newsletter, your email address is collected. In connection with your subscription to GOBankringRates newsletter, we also collect information on whether you viewed the newsletters and clicked on any links within such newsletters. If you request to unsubscribe from receiving newsletters from us, we add your email address to our suppression file, to comply with CAN-SPAM. When you register online with GOBankingRates, GOBankingRates may ask for personal information like your first name, last name, and e-mail address.
• Forms. GOBankingRates may collect personal information from you if you choose to fill out any forms, profiles, or surveys on www.gobankingrates.com.
• Correspondence. If you contact GOBankingRates through the Site, or send GOBankingRates personal correspondence, such as emails or letters, or if other users or third parties send GOBankingRates correspondence about your activities or postings on www.gobankingrates.com or its social media accounts, GOBankingRates collects such information submitted into a file specific to you.
• Social Media. To the extent that you like or follow one of our social media profiles by clicking on any of the buttons featured on the Site, we may link such activities and any personal information with the personal information we have collected.

Information from cookies and other tracking technologies: Like many websites, we use standard HTTP protocols/communications, cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to record your preferences, track the use of our Site and collect Information. This information may include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. You may choose to set your web browser to refuse cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you do so, please note that some parts of our Site may not function properly.

Information from service providers: Information is collected from third party service providers about geographical demographics, such as median household income or age. We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. We may also acquire information on whether or not you purchased a product or service of a GOBankingRates.com advertising partner, advertising networks; as well as additional information through data analytics providers and operating systems and platforms.

How We Use Information

We use the information we collect from you and third parties to operate our services made available through the Site, communicate with you, conduct research and development to improve or enhance our services and customer experience. These are a few examples:

• To improve our recommendations and insights. The information we collect also helps us tailor our content and improve the way we provide insights. We’re constantly working on ways to better identify and present the information that’s most relevant to you.
• To communicate with you. We use the information we collect to provide you with our newsletter, requested support, or to send you personalized offer recommendations. You have the option to decline such offers and be removed from e-mail promotion lists at any time. To make this request, please email info@gobankingrates.com or unsubscribe here.
• To conduct research and to improve and promote our services. We use the information we collect to conduct research and to improve or enhance and promote our Services.
• For legal reasons. To the extent permitted by law, we may also share your personal information if we believe it is necessary to comply with the law, to enforce or apply our Terms of Use, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of GOBankingrates.com, our employees, partners, and users. We reserve the right to share information with anyone outside of our network if we are mandated to do so by law or court order.

Who Has Access to Information

GOBankingRates does not sell your personal information. The following describes some of the ways that your personal information may be disclosed in the normal scope of business:

• Advertisers. GOBankingRates may aggregate personal information and disclose such information to advertisers and other third parties for their marketing and promotional purposes. For example, GOBankingRates may aggregate location information and disclose it to advertisers to inform them of where their ads are performing.
• External Service Providers. There are a number of separate services offered by third parties, including, without limitation, GOBankingRates’s affiliates, that GOBankingRates refers to as external service providers that may be complementary to your use of www.gobankingrates.com (e.g. realtors, mortgage brokers, lenders, financial institutions, credit card issuers, information aggregators). If you choose to use these separate services, disclose information to the external service providers, and/or grant them permission to collect information about you, then their use of your information is governed by their privacy policy. With your consent, GOBankingRates may provide some of your personal information to the external service provider offering such services, for your convenience. To prevent GOBankingRates’s disclosure of your personal information to an external service provider, you can decline such consent or simply not use their services. You should evaluate the practices of external services providers before deciding to use their services.
• Internal Service Providers. GOBankingRates may use third parties that GOBankingRates refers to as internal service providers to facilitate or outsource one or more aspects of GOBankingRates’ business, product and service operations that GOBankingRates provides to you (e.g., technology, newsletters/alerts, analytical tools, advertising campaign management) and therefore GOBankingRates may provide some of your personal information directly to these internal service providers. These internal service providers are subject to confidentiality agreements with GOBankingRates or other legal restrictions that prohibit their use of the information GOBankingRates provides them for any other purpose except to facilitate the specific outsourced GOBankingRates related operation, unless you have explicitly agreed or given your prior permission to them for additional uses. In some instances, the internal service provider may collect information directly from you. In these cases, you will be notified of the involvement of the internal service provider, and all additional information you provide them and their additional uses will be strictly up to you. If you provide additional information to an internal service provider directly, then their use of your personal information is governed by their applicable privacy policy.
• In the Event of a Sale. Personal information collected from you may also be transferred to a third party as a result of a sale, acquisition, merger, reorganization, other transfer or bankruptcy (a “Transfer”) involving GOBankingRates and/or its affiliates. GOBankingRates specifically reserves the right to transfer personal collected from www.gobankingrates.com, and any of its databases, together with any personal information contained therein, to a third party in connection with a Transfer, and nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to interfere with the ability of GOBankingRates to transfer all or part of its business and/or assets (including www.gobankingrates.com) to an affiliate or independent third party at any time, for any purpose, without any limitation whatsoever.
• Network Advertising. GOBankingRates may use third-party advertising companies for marketing, advertising and promotional purposes, as well as to serve advertisements to you. Using third-party advertising companies helps us and third-party advertisers better determine which advertisements or content to serve to you. For example, the third-party advertisers may use information regarding your visits to www.gobankingrates.com and other web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services, that third party advertisers believe will be of interest to you.

The types of information that may be collected by third-party advertising companies include the following:

• the type of Internet browser you use;
• the type of computer operating system you use;
• the domain name of a website you visit, as well as information related to websites and webpages you are viewing when an advertisement is requested;
• whether or not you visit specific pages of www.gobankingrates.com or other websites;
• your IP address;
• the location of your Internet service provider’s point of presence;
• the date and time of a visit to a website;
• search keywords passed from another server;
• the number of times you have clicked on an advertisement; and
• other interactions between you and a website.

Controlling Your Personal Information

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

• Do not fill out forms: Filling out all forms is entirely optional and only required in order to sign you up for offers or additional info such as newsletters.
• If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes or newsletters, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us at info@gobankingrates.com or unsubscribe here.
• Turn off cookies. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the Site.

Except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.

Newsletters and CAN-SPAM Compliance

GOBankingRates.com sends newsletters to GOBankingRates subscribers. Subscriptions to GOBankingRates.com newsletters are verified by sending an e-mail. GOBankingRates.com is fully compliant with the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003. You may unsubscribe by clicking on the unsubscribe link within the newsletter, or by completing the webform at the “Email Opt Out” link on our Site.

Cookie Technology

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyze web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. Cookies may collect information that includes your internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. GOBankingRates, its external service providers, internal service providers, and third-party advertising companies, may set and access cookies on your computer to track and store preferential information about you. For example, a third-party advertising company may assign a cookie to you, to limit the amount of times you see a particular advertisement or to help better determine which advertisements to serve to you. Please note that most Internet browsers will allow you to stop cookies from being stored on your computer and to delete cookies stored on your computer.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Security

Personal information you submit to GOBankingRates is password-protected for your privacy and security. GOBankingRates uses industry-standard SSL-encryption to protect data transmissions. In the unlikely event that an unauthorized third party compromises GOBankingRates security measures, GOBankingRates will not be responsible for any damages directly or indirectly caused by an unauthorized third party’s ability to view, use or disseminate such information.

Links to Other Web sites

www.gobankingrates.com may include links to other third party websites. Such links are not an endorsement by GOBankingRates of those websites and/or the products or services offered there. Third party websites may have different privacy policies and GOBankingRates is not responsible for the privacy practices of those third party websites. If you click on a link to a third party website, GOBankingRates encourages you to check the privacy policy of that website, as it may differ substantially from that of this Privacy Policy.

California Consumers’ Privacy Rights

This section of the Privacy Policy supplements the information contained elsewhere in our Privacy Policy and applies solely to visitors, users, and others who reside in the state of California, under the meaning of Section 17014 of Title 18 of the Cal. Code of Regulations (“Consumers”). The provisions contained within this section are intended to provide notices in compliance with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”). Any terms defined by the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this section.

Personal Information Collected

GOBankingRates collects Personal Information provided by Consumers through the Site. In the past 12 months, GoBankingRates has collected the following information from Consumers:

The categories of Personal Information described above are collected from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from Consumers or their agents, such as through Consumers’ responses to forms on this Site.
• Directly and indirectly from activity on the Site, such as through Consumers’ interaction with this Site.
• In addition to collecting personal information through the Site, we may also collect personal information through advertising networks; advertising partners; data analytics providers; and operating systems and platforms. Additional categories of Personal Information will not be collected or used for materially different purposes without first providing the Consumer with notice.

Uses of Personal Information

The information we collect is used as indicated above and to:

• Fulfill the purpose for which the information was provided by the Consumer.
• Perform the activities described to you when collecting your Personal Information or as set forth in the CCPA.
• Provide the Consumer with information, products, or services that have been requested.
• Perform internal and external marketing.
• Carry out obligations and enforce contractual rights.
• Improve the services provided through the Site, such as through testing, research, analysis, and development.
• Respond to requests from law enforcement and government organizations as required by law, court order, or government regulation.
• Evaluate or conduct a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, sale, or other transfer of some or all of our assets whether on an ongoing basis or as part of a discrete transaction in which collected personal information is among the assets transferred.

Sharing and Sale of Personal Information

In the preceding 12 months, GOBankingRates has disclosed personal information in the “identifiers” category to its email service providers for a business purpose. For instance, if you request to unsubscribe from receiving email newsletters from us, we may share your email address with our marketing partners, such as third party advertising networks and email publishers, to effectuate your request to unsubscribe and to comply with CAN-SPAM.

In addition, we may disclose your personal information in any of the above categories if legally required to do so, in our sole discretion, pursuant to a request from a governmental entity, or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to (a) conform to legal requirements or comply with legal process; (b) protect our rights or property, or our affiliated companies; (c) prevent a crime or protect national security; or (d) protect the personal safety of users or the public. Also, in the event that we, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired, personal information in all of the above categories may be included within the transferred assets. In the event we become the subject of an insolvency proceeding, whether voluntary or involuntary, we or our liquidator, administrator, receiver or administrative receiver may sell, license or otherwise dispose of, such personal information in all of the above categories in a transaction approved by the court.

Under the definitions of “Sell” and “Sale” in the CCPA, we do not sell your personal information. However, in the event that we, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired, such personal information may be included within the transferred assets. Further, in the event we become the subject of an insolvency proceeding, whether voluntary or involuntary, we or our liquidator, administrator, receiver or administrative receiver may sell, license or otherwise dispose of, such information in a transaction approved by the court.

We do not have any actual knowledge of the sale of personal information of minors under 16 years of age. Personal Information for minors under 16 years of age is neither collected, disclosed, nor sold. There are no financial incentives to disclose.

Consumer’s Rights

Consumers have several rights under the CCPA regarding their personal information. These include:

• The right to know what categories and specific pieces of personal information are collected, disclosed for a business purpose, or sold by requesting this information from GOBankingRates.
• The right to request deletion of personal information collected or maintained by GOBankingRates.
• The right to opt-out of the sale of personal information.
• The right not to receive discriminatory treatment for choosing to exercise privacy rights under the CCPA.

Your Right to Request to Know and How to Submit a Verified Request to Know

A “request to know” is a request related to the personal information that a business has about such consumer. It may include a request for any or all of the following from us:

1. specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you;
2. categories of personal information that we have collected about you;
3. categories of sources from which the personal information was collected;
4. categories of personal information that we have sold or disclosed for a business purpose about you;
5. categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or disclosed for a business purpose; and
6. the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information.

The CCPA permits requests to know from the same consumer up to twice in a twelve (12) month period.

To submit a request to know, you may email us at privacy@gobankingrates.com. To process your request, we may require that you submit the following information in conjunction with your request: your first name, last name, California address, phone number, and email address. The information which you provide will be used to verify your request and to attempt to identify you within our data records. If you elect to use an authorized agent to exercise your right to submit a request for information, we may require the following before processing the request: 1) provide proof of your written and signed permission with the authorized agent to act on your behalf; 2) directly verify your own identity with us; and 3) directly confirm with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request on your behalf. The information which you submit in conjunction with your request will be used for the express purposes of verification and providing you with responsive information to your request, if required.

GOBankingRates only stores email addresses for subscribers who have signed up to receive the GOBankingRates newsletter. For the remaining non-email subscriber traffic, the only Personal Information collected are IP addresses. In many instances, due to the nature of the Personal Information collected, for non-email subscribers, GOBankingRates cannot verify consumers’ identities to the degree of certainty required to fulfill requests to know or delete your collected Personal Information. GOBankingRates cannot fulfill these requests because email addresses and IP addresses are generally publicly available across various publicly accessibly websites and would not permit GOBankingRates to verify Consumers’ identities to a reasonable degree of certainty.

Your Right to Request Deletion and How to Submit a Verified Request to Delete

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. To submit a request to delete, you may email us at privacy@gobankingrates.com, or send your request to: ConsumerTrack, Inc., 407 Uluniu St #412, Kailua, HI 96734. To process your request, we may require that you submit the following information in conjunction with your request: your first name, last name, California address, phone number and email address. The information which you provide will be used to verify your request and to attempt to identify you within our data records. If you elect to use an authorized agent to exercise your right to submit a request for deletion, we may require the following before processing the request: 1) provide proof of your written and signed permission with the authorized agent to act on your behalf; 2) directly verify your own identity with us; and 3) directly confirm with us that you provided the authorized agent permission to submit the request on your behalf. The information which you submit in conjunction with your request to delete will be used for the express purposes of verification and fulfilling your request, if required. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, and Deletion Rights), we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

As noted above, GOBankingRates only stores email addresses for subscribers who have signed up to receive the GOBankingRates newsletter. For the remaining non-email subscriber traffic, the only Personal Information collected are IP addresses. In many instances, due to the nature of the Personal Information collected, for non-email subscribers, GOBankingRates cannot verify consumers’ identities to the degree of certainty required to fulfill requests to know or delete your collected Personal Information. GOBankingRates cannot fulfill these requests because email addresses and IP addresses are generally publicly available across various publicly accessibly websites and would not permit GOBankingRates to verify Consumers’ identities to a reasonable degree of certainty.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

1. Complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
2. Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
3. Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
4. Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
5. Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
6. Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
7. Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
8. Comply with a legal obligation.
9. Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Your Right to Non-Discrimination for the Exercise of Your Privacy Rights

California affords consumers with the right not to receive discriminatory treatment by a business for the exercise of their privacy rights conferred by the CCPA. This means that you cannot be denied goods or services; be charged different prices or rates; be provided with a different level or quality of goods or services; or have it suggested that you will receive a different price or rate or different level or quality of goods or services. However, a business may offer a financial incentive or price or service difference if it is reasonably related to the value of the consumer’s data. A business shall notify consumers of any financial incentive or price or service difference.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

GOBankingRates reserves the right to update, amend and/or change this Privacy Policy at any time in its sole discretion and without notice. Updates to this Privacy Policy will be posted here. Any information GOBankingRates collects from you online is subject only to GOBankingRates’ most current Privacy Policy. You are encouraged to revisit this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to review any changes that have been made. GOBankingRates’ last update was August 14, 2020. Your continued access and use of www.gobankingrates.com following the posting of any such changes shall automatically be deemed your acceptance of the same.

Advertisers

Many of the offers appearing on this Site are from advertisers from which this Site receives compensation for being listed here. This compensation may impact how and where products or services appear on this Site (including, for example, the order in which they appear).

All financial products, shopping products and services are presented without warranty. Additionally, this Site may be compensated through third party advertisers, and feature sponsored content and links.

Questions or Concerns

If you have questions, comments, concerns or feedback regarding this Privacy Policy, send an e-mail to info@gobankingrates.com

Governing Law; Arbitration

You agree that: (i) www.gobankingrates.com shall be deemed solely based in the State of California; and (ii) www.gobankingrates.com shall be deemed a passive web site that does not give rise to personal jurisdiction over GOBankingRates, either specific or general, in jurisdictions other than the State of California. This Privacy Policy is to be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of California, without regard for principles of conflicts of laws. Any civil action, claim, dispute or proceeding arising out of or relating to this Privacy Policy shall be referred to final and binding arbitration, before a single arbitrator, under the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association in Los Angeles County, California.

THE PARTIES AGREE TO WAIVE THE RIGHT TO BRING OR PARTICIPATE IN ANY CONSOLIDATED OR CLASS ACTION AND AGREE THAT ALL FORMS OF CLASS ACTION OR CLASS ARBITRATION ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED. THE PARTIES UNDERSTAND THEY WILL NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY A COURT OR A JURY AND THAT THE INFORMATION THAT CAN BE OBTAINED IN DISCOVERY FROM EACH OTHER OR FROM THIRD PERSONS IN ARBITRATION IS GENERALLY MORE LIMITED THAN IN A LAWSUIT. IN ADDITION, OTHER RIGHTS THAT THE PARTIES WOULD HAVE IN COURT MAY NOT BE AVAILABLE IN ARBITRATION. THEREFORE, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO GO TO COURT TO ASSERT OR DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS AND YOU GIVE UP YOUR RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN OR BRING CLASS ACTIONS. BY USING WWW.GOBANKINGRATES.COM YOU CONSENT TO THESE RESTRICTIONS.

You and GOBankingRates shall select the arbitrator, and if you and GOBankingRates are unable to reach agreement on selection of the arbitrator within thirty (30) days after the notice of arbitration is served, then the American Arbitration Association shall select the arbitrator. Arbitration shall not commence until the party requesting it has deposited One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) with the arbitrator for the arbitrator’s fees and costs. The party requesting arbitration shall advance such sums as are required from time to time by the arbitrator to pay the arbitrator’s fees and costs until the prevailing party is determined or the parties have agreed in writing to an alternate allocation of fees and costs.

Judgment upon any award rendered by the arbitrator shall be final, binding and conclusive upon you and GOBankingRates and your and GOBankingRates respective administrators, executors, legal representatives, successors and assigns, and may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction. Notwithstanding the previous sentence, in no event shall either you or GOBankingRates be entitled to punitive, special, indirect or consequential damages and both you and GOBankingRates hereby waive your and GOBankingRates respective rights to any punitive, special, indirect or consequential damages, including, but not limited to, damages for any loss of profit, revenue or business.

Should a dispute arise and should the arbitration provisions herein become inapplicable or unenforceable, or in any instance of any lawsuit between you and GOFreeCredit.com, jurisdiction over and venue of any suit shall be exclusively in the state and federal courts sitting in Los Angeles County, California.

Miscellaneous

If any portion of this Privacy Policy is deemed unlawful, void or unenforceable by any arbitrator, this Privacy Policy as a whole shall not be deemed unlawful, void or unenforceable, but only that portion of this Privacy Policy that is unlawful, void or unenforceable shall be stricken from this Privacy Policy.

The headings contained in this Privacy Policy are for convenience of reference only, are not to be considered a part of this Privacy Policy, and shall not limit or otherwise affect in any way the meaning or interpretation of this Privacy Policy.

All covenants, agreements, representations and warranties made in this Privacy Policy, as may be amended by GOBankingRates from time to time, shall survive your acceptance of this Privacy Policy.

Last Updated: August 14, 2020