sharewise Privacy Policy

The free-access Web 2.0 Stock Analysis Platform available free of charge at http://www.sharewise.com, as well as any appertaining sub-sites (henceforth, "the sharewise Platform" or "the Website“), is being operated by

sharewise GmbH
Ickstattstrasse 7
80469 München
Telephone: +49-89-9213100-76
Email:

acting as the responsible body in the sense of the applicable data protection laws.

1.    General

sharewise takes data protection very seriously. We recognize how important careful handling of personal data is to our users. We treat all personal data voluntarily disclosed to us during or after the registration process with the strictest confidentiality. Such data is only disclosed to third parties if such a disclosure is sanctioned or mandated by law or if the user gives explicit consent.

2.     Definitions within this Privacy Policy

In this Privacy Policy, sharewise uses various terms which have the following meanings:

• Personal Data: data constitutes 'Personal Data' if it directly pertains to a particular individual or if it can be indirectly associated with one.
• Recommendation : a 'Recommendation' is a user's evaluation of a share's future price trend. Such a Recommendation - typically of the kind to either 'Buy' or 'Sell' a given stock - includes, inter alia, the name of the security in question, its purchase price, the target price expected by the author, the start date of the recommendation, a designation and a short text giving reasons for the user's assumption that the stock's price will rise or fall.
• Member : a 'Member' is a registered user of the sharewise Platform.
• Website Visitor : a 'Website Visitor' is a user of the Website who is not a registered Member.
• Alerts : an 'Alert' is an optional e-mail notification sent out by sharewise to notify Members using the feature of the event that a new Recommendation has been posted by or about a member, analyst or stock item monitored by them.
• Confirmed Contact : a 'Confirmed Contact' is a networking contact between two Members of the sharewise Platform that has been mutually confirmed by them.
  

3.    What data do we collect and save, and why?

We collect, save, process and use personal data voluntarily disclosed to us during a user's registration process or their ongoing usage of the sharewise Platform.
Whenever sharewise collects, saves, processes or uses your personal data, this is only done in order to maintain the operation and administration of the sharewise Platform. Your personal data will never be used for any purposes other than the operation and administration of the sharewise Platform and sharewise will never disclose your personal data to third parties for marketing or advertising purposes without your prior express consent.

3.1    Upon registration, users are required to disclose the following data:

• First Name and Surname
• Email address
• Year of birth, for verification purposes
• Username
• Password

The following details can be viewed by other sharewise Members:

• Username
• Your age (in years only)

3.2

Web communities like sharewise work better if community members are open about themselves. Apart from the mandatory statements in the registration process, users can make further statements which then become accessible to all registered users of the sharewise Platform. These are meant to help users of the sharewise Platform to get to know each other better. They include in particular:

• Investment strategy
• Stock market experience
• About me
• Skype (user's Skype ID)
• Web (user's personal website)
• An uploaded picture of the user

However, it is always up to the individual Member how much of their personal information they want to disclose to other sharewise Members (see Section 6 Privacy for more details“).

3.3

In the spirit of enabling sharewise Members to get to know each other better, Members may fill out "Detailed Profiles" which include the following additional data:

• I live in
• Investment philosophy
• Book tips
• Annual target return
• Trades per month
• My classes of assets
• My most successful deal
• My biggest flop
• Companies which should figure in your portfolio
• Member of
• Favourite websites

The menu point "My sharewise"/"Privacy" allows you to decide whether your Detailed Profile data will be seen by Confirmed Contacts, by all registered sharewise Members or only by yourself. (see Section 6 Privacy for more details). Data disclosed in your Detailed Profile can never be viewed by unregistered Visitors.

4.    Profile

As far as users allow it, the following data can be viewed by all Members under "My sharewise":

• Username
• Given name and surname
• Your picture
• Skype name
• Website
• Success rate
• Return
• Activity index
• Your age (your age in years only)
• Investment strategy
• Stock market experience
• Member since
• Recommendations viewed
• Profiles viewed
• About me
• Detailed Profile
• Recommendations
• Statistics
• History

5.    What do Visitors (unregistered users) of the Website get to see?

Visitors of the Website are unregistered persons who are not registered at sharewise. Everyone can access stock information at sharewise.
The following personal data disclosed by you and the following data and statistics compiled or calculated by sharewise can be viewed by all Visitors of the Website:

• Your username
• Your picture (if any)
• Your ranking ladder position

If you have submitted any Recommendations, the following data will also be shown to Visitors:

• The recommended stock
• The name of the recommendation
• The explanation for your expectation
• The recommendation type (“strong buy” and “buy” are recommendations for buying / “sell” and “strong sell” are recommendations for selling)
• Your personal success rate
• Your personal returns
• Your ladder position
• The starting date of your recommendation
• The purchase price
• The target price, in absolute terms and in relation to the starting price
• The trend forecast as to whether the price of the recommended security will fall or rise

6.     Privacy

It is possible to make certain data available to a limited number of members only. These settings can be changed in the "My sharewise" / "Settings" menu, under "Privacy".
The privacy settings allow all registered sharewise Members to access the Watchlist, contacts, Alerts and Detailed Profiles in addition to what has been set out in Section 4.4 and Section 5. If you do not want your Watchlist, contacts, Alerts and Detailed Profile to be seen by registered sharewise Members, you may change your privacy settings accordingly.
The privacy settings allow you to indicate whether data shall be accessible for all members (default setting), for your direct contacts only, or for yourself only.

Recommendations, statistics and history can be seen by all registered sharewise Members. This is an elementary feature of the Platform and cannot be changed.
The profile contains an activity index which indicates how often you use sharewise. It does not track, however, the last time you have used the site or the time of your last log-in, how often you were logged in or for how long.
Members may add other members as their contacts. When other members send you a contact request, this request will be forwarded to you via email. If you do not wish to receive such emails, you can opt out of receiving such emails under the "Send me an email when someone adds me as a contact"-button. Contact requests are shown under in the "Contacts" menu, under "Unconfirmed Contacts". As soon as you confirm a contact request, the new contact will be shown under "Confirmed Contacts". You can delete contacts at any time. Other registered sharewise members can only see your confirmed contacts. However, you may also opt out of other members seeing your confirmed contacts.

By the default settings, email notifications will be sent to you to cover the following events:

• Notify me when one of my recommendations proves to be accurate
• Notify me when one of my recommendations meets its target price
• Notify me when one of my recommendations expires
• Send me a weekly status update
• Send me an Alert covering the stocks I have added to my Watchlist
• Send me an email when someone adds me as a contact

All registered users can see what other members have viewed their profile. This information is always deleted within two (2) weeks. This means that users can only see who has clicked on their profile within the last two (2) weeks. This is an elementary feature of the sharewise Platform and cannot be opted out of.
All registered users can see what other members are currently following their profile. If you follow a user, you will be notified as soon as the followed user publishes a new recommendation. This is an elementary feature of the sharewise Platform and cannot be opted out of.

7.    Regular Email Alerts

sharewise sends alerts to its members. Members will be notified via email if:

• Their inbox contains a new message
• A recommendation has proven to be accurate
• A recommendation matches the target price
• A recommendation expires (after 6 months)
• An analyst that has been followed or a sharewise member publishes a new recommendation
• A sharewise member wants to add you as a contact

You can unsubscribe from all of these alerts under the menu point "My sharewise" / "Settings". In addition, you will find a link in the footer of all such emails that will let you unsubscribe from the corresponding alert by clicking on it. All of these Alerts are active by default.

8.    Newsletter/Status Reports
8.1

Our regular newsletters and the weekly status update are important parts of the free service offered by sharewise. Part of the newsletter contains a video newsletter with on-screen recording courtesy of Adobe Captivate and spoken commentary. Users may watch this video newsletter on www.sharewise.com or on common film-sharing platforms such as Youtube or myvideo. Among other things, the newsletter may present new members and/or recommendations, summaries of watchlisted stocks, information about new sharewise services and products or changes and extensions to them.

8.2

The weekly status report is also an integral part of the free services offered by sharewise. This report keeps the user abreast of the curret recommendation development, of new sharewise features and of Watchlist updates.

9.    Can I find out what data sharewise has collected about me and can I correct it?

Yes. You can review and update any (personal) data we have collected about you in your capacity as a member as well as check accuracy and timeliness of the data under the menu point "My sharewise".

10.    Is sharewise going to disclose my data to third parties?

We create a profile of every user, using a pseudonym, in order to analyse our website in order to facilitate individual adjustments of the website. The data stored in these pseudonymous profiles does not allow for an identification of the user. These profiles contain a user's particular fields of interest. You have the right to object to this method at any time. Please contact our Data Protection Officer (see Section 17) for this purpose.
We will never disclose any of your personal data without your prior consent. In particular, we will not sell, lease or swap any data with or to third parties.

11.    How long will my personal data be stored?

If you terminate your membership, the personal data collected about you will be deleted within five (5) working days at the latest. Insofar as we are subject to statutory duties to store your personal data, some of this personal data may not be deleted but blocked.

12.    Rights

It is up to you how you want sharewise to process your data. You can revoke your consent to future use of your personal data at any time.
You also have the right to obtain information about the personal data collected about you, its origin and/or recipients or a copy of the entire data carrier set, the right to correct your personal data in whole or in part, and to block or delete the latter at any time.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer, whose contact details can be found at the end of this statement under Section 17 (Contact).

13.    Server Log Files

When an internet user visits a website, the browser discloses certain information which is then stored server log files. The log file so created contains the following information:

Who: Name and IP-address of the computer accessing the site
When: Time stamp (date/time/time lag)
For how long: How long did the internet user stay on the site?
O.K.: Was the request and its transmission successful?
How much: The amount of transmitted data in bytes
From where: From which internet page was sharewise accessed?
Through what: Using what browser/operating system/interface did the user access the website?

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_data_logging

sharewise uses the standardised 'combined' log file format of Apache web server. sharewise uses log data anonymously - that is without any correlating it to personal data - for purposes of statistical analysis. Among other things, the data serves the purpose of finding out when users log into the sharewise Platform, how many, and for how long. With the help of this data, we can determine what parts of the sharewise Website are the most popular. This in turn lets us plan server loads in advance. Log data is never associated with any personal data, so identifying an individual by their log data is impossible, and neither can a standalone IP-address be readily associated with a particular individual.

14.    Cookies

The term “cookie” refers to data sent to a browser by a web server, or data generated on the client side by Java Script. Clients often send data to servers they access repeatedly, using the http header only. Cookies consist of data which persists, or is stored, on the client's side. There is a distinction between cookies which are saved on the hard drive of the user (persistent cookies) and cookies which are deleted after quitting the browser and which are stored in the main memory (session cookies). For example, the optional "automatic login" feature of the sharewise website as well as the automatic population of the appropriate fields with a user's username and password are handled by a persistent cookie, exemplifying how cookies can help to simplify internet sessions. For this purpose, an unequivocally identifiable session ID is stored in a cookie by the server with the purpose of recognizing the user in the event of a further visit. The effect is that users do not to re-enter their password every time they browse to a different subpage of the Platform.
Cookies are managed by the client and the client alone. It is therefore up to the client to decide, for instance, whether a cookie should be saved or whether the cookie lifetime requested by the web server requires that the cookie be deleted.
Commonly used browsers usually allow users to specify cookie settings, like for instance:

• Do not accept cookies
• Only accept cookies from particular websites
• Ask user for consent before accepting a cookie
• Delete all cookies coming from a particular server if there is no session active with it (session cookie)
• Delete all cookies upon quitting the browser or upon shutting the browser window
  

Like many other community platforms, sharewise cannot be accessed if a client outright rejects all cookies since it is not possible to log in without at least allowing session cookies.

15. IVW Online and Web Beacons

sharewise uses the „Scalable Central Measuring System“ (SCM) developed by INFOnline (https://www.infonline.de) in order to determine statistical usage parameters for our services. Anonymous data is being collected to this end. SCM range measurements use either a cookie with the identifier "ivwbox.de" or a signature generated from several automatically transmitted bits of information about the client computer in order to recognise computer systems. IP addresses are not collected or saved during this procedure. All data is processed completely anonymously.

The range measurement system was developed with an eye to the tenets of data protection. The objective of the range measurement is to statistically determine the number of users to a website as well as the intensity of their usage. At no point in the process are individual users identified. Identities are kept secret at all times. You will not receive any advertisements through this system.

Usage statistics for internet services that are part of the Informationsgemeinschaft zur Feststellung der Verbreitung von Werbeträgern e.V. (IVW - German Information Association for the Monitoring of the Distribution of Advertising Media – www.ivw.eu) or participate in the "internet facts" survey carried out by AGOF (AGOF Online Research Association – www.agof.de) are published by AGOF and Arbeitsgemeinschaft Media-Analyse e.V. (ag.ma - Working Group for Media Analysis - www.agma-mmc.de) as well as by the IVW every month. These statistics can be accessed under http://www.agof.de, http://www.agma-mmc.de and http://www.ivw.eu .
Apart from the publication of data thus measured, the IVW is also in charge of monitoring the SCM procedure as regards compliance with applicable regulations and data protection legislation.

Further information about the SCM procedure can be found on the website of INFOnline GmbH (https://www.infonline.de), who are in charge of the SCM procedure; on the data protection page of the AGOF (http://www.agof.de/datenschutz); and on the data protection page of the IVW (http://www.ivw.eu). You can object to data processing for the purposes of SCM by clicking on the following link: http://optout.ivwbox.de'

sharewise employs Web Beacons from Yahoo! in order to analyse the stream of visitors on our Website. Yahoo! may also use this anonymous information about your visits to this and to other websites in order to improve their services and in order to present you with personalized advertisements for products and offers relating to your fields of interest. The collection of relevant data is carried out anonymously. To learn more about this topic or to stop Yahoo! from collecting data, please click the following link. https://ondemand.indextools.com/optout,OptOut.vm

16.    Data Protection

sharewise uses state-of-the-art firewalls that are constantly updated as well as other security systems in order to protect the platform from external attacks. We are committed to implementing all technical and organisational measures that help us to safeguard your personal data from unauthorised access and improper use. Nonetheless, users ought to be aware that due to the ever growing number of technical possibilities for hackers, there can never be any protection against external attacks that is absolutely insurmountible. We will press both civil and criminal charges whenever we become aware of an attack provided that pressing charges is reasonable under the circumstances and further provided that the charges pressed have reasonable prospects of succeeding.

17.    Links 

The sharewise Platform contains links to third party websites whose contents are neither managed nor influenced by sharewise. These merely represent suggestions. sharewise is not liable for the accuracy and the content of such websites, or for any services/products which are being offered via such websites. The websites which are linked to the Website have been checked for possible infringements of third party rights. However, a permanent ongoing review of contents of such linked-up sites is unreasonable if there are no specific indices for such infringements of third party rights.

18.     Contact

sharewise users can, at any time, forward questions regarding the processing of their personal data to our Data Protection Officer. Likewise, if you have got any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact our Data Protection Officer:

sharewise GmbH
Data Protection Officer
Ickstattstrasse 7
80469 München
Email:

19.    &Amendments to the Privacy Policy

The sharewise Platform is constantly evolving and will be expanded with new features from time to time. This may have as a consequence the necessity to expand this Privacy Policy. We are required to expand this Privacy Policy as well as Platform to comply with any new statutes that may be enacted in the form of new legislation and/or as amendments to existing legislation. Therefore we would like to ask you to regularly read the updates to our Privacy Policy which will be announced our website in the event of any changes.

Munich, July 18, 2011