Collection of your Personal Information
We will ask you when we need information that personally identifies you (personal information) or allows us to contact you to provide a service or carry out a transaction that you have requested such as receiving information about Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products and services, entering a contest, ordering e-mail newsletters, joining a limited-access premium site or service, signing up for an event or training, or when purchasing, downloading and/or registering Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products. The personal information we collect may include your name, title, company or organization name, work e-mail, work phone, work or home address, information about your job function, information about your company, and credit card information.

The Site may collect certain information about your visit, such as the name of the Internet service provider and the Internet Protocol (IP) address through which you access the Internet; the date and time you access the Site; the pages that you access while at the Site and the Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our site. This information is used to help improve the site, analyze trends and administer the site. Some of our sites collect information about your hardware and software in order to provide a requested service. Windows Update, for example, needs to know information about your computer in order to recommend needed operating system updates.

Use of your Personal Information
The personal information collected on this Site will be used to operate the Site and to provide the service(s) or carry out the transaction(s) you have requested or authorized.

In support of these uses, Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. may use personal information to provide you with more effective customer service, to improve the Site and any related Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products or services, and to make the Site easier to use by eliminating the need for you to repeatedly enter the same information or by customizing the Site to your particular preference or interests. In order to offer you a more consistent experience in your interactions with Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction., information collected by Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. may be combined with information collected by other Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. services.

We may use your personal information to provide you with important information about the product or service that you are using, including critical updates and notifications. Additionally, with your permission, we may send you information about other Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products and services, and/or share information with Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. partners so they may send you information about their products and services.

We merge site-visitation data with anonymous demographic information for research purposes, and we may use this information in aggregate to provide more relevant content. In some limited-entry sections of Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction., with your approval, we will combine site-visitation data with your personal information in order to provide you with personalized content. If you decline permission, we will not provide you the personalized service and won't merge your personal information with site-visitation data.

When you sign up for a newsletter or agree to receive promotional e-mail, Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. may use customized links or similar technologies to track e-mail 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.

Some services on Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. offer individuals the ability to publicly display certain personal information, such as for a Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. partner who wishes to publish contact information as part of offering a business service. Participation in such services is always optional.

Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. occasionally hires other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as Web site hosting, packaging, mailing and delivering prizes, answering customer questions about products and services, and sending information about our products, special offers, and other services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of the information and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.

Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. may disclose personal information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. or the Site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. and our family of Web sites; or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. employees or agents, users of Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products or services, or members of the public.

Personal information collected on the Site may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. or its affiliates, subsidiaries or agents maintain facilities, and by using the Site, you consent to any such transfer of information outside of your country. Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. abides by the safe harbor framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of data from the European Union.

Control of your Personal Information
Except as otherwise described in this statement, personal information you provide on the Site will not be shared outside of Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates without your permission. As described below in the next section, you can access your personal information and make choices about how you wish to be contacted.

Please be aware that this privacy statement and any choices you make on the Site will not necessarily apply to personal information you may have provided to Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. in the context of other, separately operated, Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. products or services.

Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. may send out periodic e-mails informing you of technical service or security issues related to a product or service you requested, or confirming you requested a product or service. In some services offered by Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction., contact with the customer is an intrinsic part of the service. You will not be able to choose to unsubscribe to these mailings, as they are considered an essential part of the service(s) you have chosen.

Security of your Personal Information
Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. is committed to protecting the security of your personal information. We use a variety of security technologies and procedures to help protect your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. For example, we store the personal information you provide on computer servers with limited access that are located in controlled facilities. Additionally, when we transmit sensitive personal information (such as a credit card number) over the Internet, we protect it through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.

Protection of Children's Personal Information
Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. is a general audience site and does not knowingly collect any personal information from children.

Use of Cookies
We use cookies on this Site to ensure the integrity of the registration process and to personalize the Site. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of delivering relevant content, eases site navigation, and so on. When you return to the Web site, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the site's features that you customized.

Web beacons, also known as clear gif technology, or action tags, may be used to assist in delivering the cookie on our site. This technology is a tool we use to compile aggregated statistics about Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. Web site usage, such as how many visitors clicked on key elements (such as links or graphics) on a Smokies Investors Real Estate & Auction. Web page, blog or a newsletter. We may share aggregated site statistics with partner companies.

You have the ability 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. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of this or other Web sites you visit.

Changes to this Statement
We may occasionally update this privacy statement. When we do, we will also revise the "last updated" date at the top of the privacy statement. For material changes to this privacy statement, we will notify you either by placing a prominent notice on the home page of our Web site or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to periodically review this privacy statement to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. Your continued use of the service constitutes your agreement to this privacy statement and any updates.