COMPORIUM COMMUNICATIONS PRIVACY POLICY

 

Last Updated: November 2022

Your privacy is very important to us. We have created this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and security, as well as to inform you of the type of information we may gather about you, how we use it, and how you can help us make sure it is correct. In this Privacy Policy, the terms “subscriber” or “you” refer to our customers and anyone who interacts with Comporium or an affiliated company. The terms “Comporium,” “we,” “our,” or “us” refer to:

Company Name	Company Name
Comporium, Inc.	Video Vision, LLC
Lancaster Telephone Company	Palmetto Cable TV, LLC
Fort Mill Telephone Company	Carolina Telecom Services, LLC
Citizens Telephone Company	Sylvan Valley CATV Company
PBT Communications, Inc.	Community Long Distance
PBT Telecom, Inc.	Springboard Telecom, LLC
Community Long Distance	Chesnee Cable, Inc.
Chesnee Telephone Company, Inc.	Any of their affiliated companies which do business under the name “Comporium”

This policy may apply to you either as a visitor to Comporium’s website, as someone who uses Comporium services, or who has ordered a Comporium product, either online or through contact with a Comporium Sales Agent or Customer Service Representative. Since this policy explains how Comporium may use your information, whether we disclose it to anyone, and your ability to control the use of that information, we request that you read this Privacy Policy carefully.

Collection of Personally Identifiable Information

In order to provide you with the best Comporium services, including video, internet, communication, security and media services, we collect and keep on file certain information about you. The types of information that may be considered personally identifiable information include: name; home, alternate billing addresses; telephone, social security or driver’s license numbers; credit or bank account data; services you ask to receive; service connection and device information; service preferences or transactions you initiate through your voluntary interaction with the service; our correspondence with you, accounting, maintenance and repair records; service complaints; home ownership or rental information; and other personally identifiable information that you provide to us or that we may collect to provide our services to you and/or to maintain regular business records.

We may also have a record of the devices that you use to connect to our services in your home, including the location and configuration of these devices and a list of the equipment we installed in your home. We may also collect additional information from you during voluntary interviews or surveys. When Internet subscribers access the Comporium Internet portal page or other Comporium websites, Comporium, its partners and its advertisers may use various software devices to collect information to allow participation in certain online activities or to facilitate online access.

To protect the security of our services, we may also operate network protection features that automatically scan proper subscriber use of the Comporium services and that scan certain electronic addresses, identifiers or communications to protect against spam, viruses, etc. Other than monitoring bandwidth usage, we do not collect additional personally identifiable information, such as browsing history, while utilizing these protection features. While providing you with communication services, Comporium may accumulate information that relates to the number of calls, technical configuration, type, destination, and location of communications services used by you as a Comporium customer.

Use of Personal Information

We use your personal information in connection with legitimate business interests pursued by Comporium, to include without limitation: to make sure you receive the services and products you signed up for; to send your bills to you and credit you for payments; to send you program or service listings, the latest product or service offerings, special announcements, and other information we think you may want; to provide and enhance our services; to help us create, develop, operate, deliver and improve our services, products, content and advertising; to respond promptly to your
questions, complaints, and requests for changes in service; for our own tax and accounting purposes; to help anticipate, identify and resolve any service or maintenance problems; to protect the security of our equipment and services; to ensure compliance with applicable laws and compliance with applicable subscriber agreements, policies and terms of service; and to prevent the unauthorized reception of service.

Under federal law, we may not use our cable system to collect personally identifiable information about you without your consent, except as may be necessary to provide you with cable or other services and/or to help us detect unauthorized reception of communications over the cable system. For example, when you interact with certain Comporium services, the cable system may automatically collect certain information on your use of that service. Most of this information is not personally identifiable, and such information is generally used to carry out your particular request. This may include your choice of a designated channel, menu selections or service offerings, such as Video on Demand or pay per view programming. These selections may be linked to your personally identifiable information already stored on our system so we can confirm your entry or transaction and/or confirm proper billing for the selection.

Disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information

Comporium values your privacy and does not sell or otherwise disclose your personally identifiable information for purposes unrelated to the delivery of our products and services, except as described in this policy. We may share your personally identifiable information (a) with our affiliates, subsidiaries and joint venture partners; (b) with our third-party contractors and vendors that are obligated to safeguard your personal information; (c) in connection with your consent; (d) in order to provide services to you or to carry out our business activities; or (e) in order to comply with laws, regulations,valid legal process, or governmental or regulatory requests. These disclosures generally occur as required in connectionwith the provision of services and products to you, assessing your interest in our services and products, for accountmanagement, billing and collection services, surveys, marketing, administration and customization, service maintenanceand operations, fraud detection and prevention, legal process, etc.

Sometimes federal law requires that we release personally identifiable information to representatives of government or other lawfully authorized persons. This could include law enforcement, lawyers or other parties in connection with litigation. We will share this information when required by a warrant, court order, administrative subpoena, other legal process. We may release your information voluntarily if we reasonably believe that an emergency involving danger of death or serious injury justifies releasing your information to a governmental entity.
In some situations, federal law may allow you the opportunity to challenge a governmental agency’s request for a court order to release your personally identifiable information. Federal law also authorizes us to release subscriber content or other communications to local, state, and federal authorities if we become aware of evidence of child pornography, if we unintentionally obtain content or communications that appears related to criminal activity, or if we believe there is an emergency involving death or serious injury.

We are also allowed to release content and communications, such as email account content, to its intended recipient; when it’s necessary to provide our service or to protect our rights or property; or to others with your permission or the consent of the intended recipient of the communications. We may also use or share personally identifiable information about you to protect our employees, services, property and customers and/or to enforce our rights under our service agreements, terms and policies, in court or elsewhere if necessary.

Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information

We also collect data and information that does not, on its own, permit direct association with any specific individual. Comporium and its third-party contractors may also gather a variety of aggregate customer information. Aggregate information comes from combining information from many customers so that the information can no longer be used to identify individual subscribers. It includes, but is not limited to, the number and frequency of calls into our Customer Service Department, visits to Comporium’s Web site and its different pages, technical service and equipment data, and information about aggregate service and equipment usage for analysis. Comporium and its third-party contractors may collect, use, transfer and disclose non-personal and aggregate information for any purpose.

Comporium’s website, interactive applications, email messages and advertisements may use “cookies” or other similar technologies. A cookie is a small data file that can be placed on your hard drive when you visit certain Websites. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements. Comporium may use cookies to collect, store, and sometimes track information for statistical purposes to improve the products and service we provide and to manage our networks. We treat information collected by cookies and other technologies as non-personal information, provided that the information collected does not contain personally identifiable information.

As explained in more detail below, Comporium may also share with unaffiliated third parties such aggregated statistical information in order to sell advertisements on its services. Comporium does not share your individually identifiable information concerning either our contact with you or any of the services that you purchase from us with unaffiliated third parties.

Length of Information Retention

We will maintain personally identifiable information about you only as long as it is necessary or to comply with laws governing our business. This period of time lasts for as long as you remain a customer and usually continues for up to 10 years thereafter. This allows us to maintain legally required tax and accounting documentation and/or information consistent with our record retention practices. When no longer needed, such information will be destroyed unless there are legitimate pending requests for access to such information.

Voluntary Customer Surveys

We may periodically conduct customer surveys. We encourage our customers to participate in these surveys because they provide us with important information that helps us to improve the types of services we offer and how we provide them to you. Your personal information and responses will remain strictly confidential, even if an unaffiliated third party conducts the survey.

Participation in our customer surveys is voluntary. We take the information we receive from individuals responding to our customer surveys and combine it with the responses of other Comporium customers to create broader, generic responses to the survey questions (such as gender, age, residence, hobbies, education, employment, industry sector, or other demographic information). We then use the aggregated information to improve the quality of our services to you, and to develop new services and products. This aggregated, non-individually identifying information may be shared with unaffiliated third parties.

Online Shopping

At some websites, you can purchase products and services or register to receive materials, such as a catalog or new product and service updates. In many cases, you may be asked to provide contact information, such as your name, address, email address, phone number, and credit/debit card information. If you complete an order for someone else, such as an online gift order sent directly to a recipient, you may be asked to provide information about the recipient, such as the recipient’s name, address, and phone number. Though Comporium may provide Internet services to an unaffiliated third party, Comporium has no control over the unaffiliated third party’s use of any personal information you provide when placing such an order with the unaffiliated third party. Please exercise care when doing so.

Online Advertisements

Comporium displays online advertisements. We only share aggregated, non-individually identifiable information about our visitors and customers. Additionally, in some instances, we use this aggregated, non-individually identifiable information to deliver tailored advertisements. Comporium does not share personal information about its visitors or customers with these advertisers.

Public Forums

Please remember that any information you may disclose in public areas of our websites, on any social media sites, or on the Internet, becomes public information. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information in these public areas.

Comporium’s Commitment to Children’s Privacy

Protecting children’s privacy is especially important to us. It is our policy to fully comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 and all other applicable laws. Websites can be fun for our younger audience; however, we believe that there is no substitute for proper parental supervision. For further information about tips, tools, age-appropriate or kid-friendly websites and how to report online trouble, please visit www.getnetwise.org. Finally, Comporium does not actively collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age without the consent of a parent. We recommend that children ask a parent for permission before sending personal information to anyone online.

Comporium’s Commitment to Data Security

We follow industry-standard practices and have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control, as well as to prevent unauthorized access to your personally identifiable information. However, we cannot guarantee that these practices will prevent every unauthorized attempt to access, use, or disclose personally identifiable information. If we determine that your personally identifiable information has been accessed by an unauthorized third party, we will notify you in accordance with federal and local laws.

Customer Proprietary Network Information

If you are a subscriber to Comporium’s Local Phone, Wireless, or Long Distance services, we have access to data known as customer proprietary network information (“CPNI”) which comes from providing this service to you. CPNI includes information such as the telephone numbers you called; the number of calls made or received, the length of calls, and the timing of such calls; and any services you’ve purchased, such as call waiting. We will not use, share, or permit access to your CPNI, except in connection with providing your phone, wireless, long distance, and related services unless required by law or with your approval. Please note that we are permitted to use your CPNI to initiate, render, bill, and collect for our service; to protect against fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of our service; and to provide inbound telemarketing, referral, or administrative services. Additionally, we are also required to cooperate with law enforcement officials under the terms of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act.

Also, Comporium and its affiliates reserve the right, afforded by law, to use your CPNI to market additional local, long distance and wireless services to you in the future, if we already provide those services to you.

In instances where Comporium and an affiliate jointly promote service, Comporium may provide the affiliate with certain personal information (such as the name, address, and username of persons who subscribed to the service as a result of the joint promotion) for the exclusive purpose of implementing the promotion and allowing Comporium and its affiliate to assess the results of the promotion. In this instance, personal information may not be used by the affiliate for any other purpose.

If you would no longer like us to use your CPNI to tailor our telecommunication service offerings to your needs, you may opt out of the use of your CPNI for these purposes at any time, by calling us at one of the contact numbers listed below, emailing us at [email protected], or visiting your local retail location during normal business hours.

Whatever your decision, we’ll honor it until you inform us otherwise. Your choice won’t affect the quality of service we provide you or impact the products and services to which you currently subscribe. However, restricting your CPNI may prevent us from informing you about new services and future money saving opportunities. Please note that, for business accounts, the authorized account holder is responsible for informing its users about its privacy practices.

Your Rights Under Federal Law

If you believe that we have collected, used, or shared your personally identifiable information in any way that violates these federal limitations on the collection and release of personally identifiable information, you have the right to bring suit in a federal district court.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may modify or update our services from time to time, and if necessary, the provisions of this Privacy Policy. We will maintain an updated version of this policy online at  https://www.comporium.com/privacy-policy/ along with a “Last Updated” date indicating the date of last revisions. You should consult this policy regularly for any changes.

If you do not agree with the changes, you have a right to cancel your services. Please remember that you will still be subject to the terms that of any contract you have with Comporium. If you continue to use our services following notice of privacy changes, such usage will constitute your acceptance of and consent to the changes.

Where to Direct Questions about Comporium’s Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices described herein, or wish to modify the status of your CPNI, you may contact our Customer Service Department or visit your local Comporium office.

Right to Review Personally Identifiable Information

You may inspect your personally identifiable information by sending a written request for specific information to us at the following address:

Comporium

Attn: Regulatory Affairs

PO Box 470, Rock Hill, SC 29731

(please include your name, address and telephone number).

Following your request, we will need a reasonable period of time to arrange, locate and, if necessary, prepare the information for review. In reply, we may arrange an appointment or ask that you to come to our business office during regular business hours to review your personally identifiable information we have on file. When you come, you must bring your driver’s license or some other form of photo ID. Comporium reserves the right to charge you for the cost of retrieving and photocopying any documents that you request.

Be sure to tell us if you think personally identifiable information about you in our file is wrong – we will be glad to make appropriate corrections. Depending on the nature of the information, however, we may ask you for documents or other proof that the personally identifiable information we have on file is incorrect.

Limitation of Liability

Comporium assumes no liability, whether in contract or tort, for any direct, indirect, special, consequential or punitive damages, including (without limitation) damages for loss of anticipated profits or revenue or other economic loss in connection with or arising from any act or omission by Comporium, its agents, affiliates, joint venture partners, vendors, independent contractors, or unaffiliated third parties as a result of any act or omission in fulfillment of or in breach of this Policy or the use or disclosure of personally identifiable information. The foregoing limitation of liability shall apply to the fullest extent permitted by law in the applicable jurisdiction.

 

Last Updated: 11/15/2022