First Research Privacy Policy

About First Research

First Research, a Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) company and a division of Hoover’s, is the leading provider of market analysis tools that help sales and marketing teams perform faster and smarter, open doors and close more deals. First Research performs the “heavy lifting” by synthesizing hundreds of sources into an easy-to-digest format that a salesperson can quickly consume to better understand a prospect’s or client’s business issues. Used by over 60,000 sales professionals, First Research can benefit any organization that has prospects in multiple industries. First Research customers include leading companies in banking, accounting, insurance, technology, telecommunications, business process outsourcing and professional services.

First Research considers itself to be a steward of the information that we collect, manage and provide. It is our responsibility to safeguard the information within our care and we are committed to managing our data in a secure and responsible manner. We provide products and services based on information about businesses and business professionals. Our information management practices are guided by our Global Privacy Principles, which serve as the foundation of our data management policies and practices. These Principles commit First Research to the following tenets:

Notice: First Research informs users and customers how we collect, use, manage and share information.

Data Quality: First Research employs substantive measures to produce high-quality, timely and reliable data, including direct contact with businesses and quality assurance procedures during data collection and processing.

Use & Disclosure: First Research uses and discloses data in accordance with defined policies that respect a business's and business professional’s choice to restrict the marketing use of their contact information.

Access & Correction: First Research provides businesses and business professionals with access to their business information within First Research’s databases and with an opportunity to correct verified inaccuracies.

Data Security: First Research applies appropriate technical, physical and administrative data security measures to protect data against unauthorized access and disclosure.

Accountability: First Research seeks to adhere to its Global Privacy Principles through ongoing compliance, training, documentation, assessment and dispute resolution initiatives.

First Research delivers products and services through the Internet more effectively and efficiently than ever before. As a leading provider of business information, our products and services serve to enable and enhance commerce. Our business customer needs continue to evolve, as do public expectations about Data Privacy and the technology that we employ to provide our products and services. Our approach to information management and Data Privacy enables us to adapt and respond to these changes while remaining committed to our Principles. The free flow of information must be fairly balanced against privacy and data protection interests, and First Research is committed to employing such a balance.

This online privacy notice describes the Data Privacy practices that are applicable to www.firstresearch.com. This site may provide links to other U.S. D&B websites, non-U.S. D&B websites and non-D&B websites that may employ different information management practices. We encourage you to carefully read the online privacy notices of these other websites to ensure that you understand their practices and the relevant distinctions.

What Information Do We Collect?

First Research collects information on businesses and business professionals. We collect individual and business identifiable information from website visitors when you register to be a member of First Research, purchase products and services through our website, subscribe for e-mail newsletters and alerts, enter a contest, fill out a survey, or fill out a form to request and/or register for research materials, programs, events, white papers and other information. We also collect information offline from business partners and vendors. The business information that we collect includes the following:

Company and business professional contact information, including name, title, address, phone number, fax number and e-mail address;
Detailed company profiles and statistics, including industries and number of employees;
Background information regarding company management, such as the educational and career histories of company principals;
Company operational histories, including territories, subsidiaries, affiliates and lines of business;
Summary business information regarding profitability, debts, assets, net worth and business relationships;
Business professional data as it relates to their professional lives, such as name, company, title, job function, business contact information and trade associations; and
Credit/debit card information in order to process certain customer payments.

We also collect information about website visitors indirectly through standard web logs, such as IP addresses, browser types (e.g. Internet Explorer), areas of the website that are visited and the website from which a visitor came. We routinely use this web log information in the aggregate in order to administer and improve our website. While some of this data may be traceable to an individual, we only seek to identify individuals whom we believe are using our website for improper purposes.

How Do We Use and Share Information?

First Research uses the identifiable business and business professional information that we collect to operate our website, to offer a variety of business information products and services for use in making prudent business decisions, and to carry out transactions that you request or authorize. First Research will not sell, share, license, rent or disclose registered user business contact information to unaffiliated third parties for marketing purposes without the registered user’s consent.

First Research shares information with third party service providers, such as credit card processors, auditors, attorneys, consultants and contractors, in order to support First Research Internet websites and business operations. First Research contractually requires that these recipients only use the information for the intended purpose of the disclosure and that they destroy or return the information when it is no longer needed. When necessary or appropriate, we may disclose information in response to a court order, subpoena, law enforcement proceeding, regulatory inquiry or when otherwise legally required. We may also disclose information as required or appropriate in order to protect our website, business operations or legal rights, or in connection with a sale or merger involving First Research assets or businesses.

From time to time, First Research compiles online and offline transaction and registration information for internal analyses, such as market research, quality assurance, customer experience and operational benchmarking initiatives.

You Have Choices

First Research respects your privacy preferences and offers the following ways through which you may control how we contact you and disclose your information. We will honor your requests accordingly.

First Research E-mail Marketing: We provide individuals with the opportunity to opt out of receiving First Research promotional e-mails, newsletters and updates about First Research’s features, products and services. You may opt out of receiving such promotional communications at registration or you may call First Research’s Customer Service at 1-866-788-9389 and likewise opt out of our promotional e-mails. You may change your preferences at any time. We may continue to send you transactional or service-related e-mails, such as communications regarding your account or subscription service, despite your desire to not receive promotional or marketing e-mail messages.

First Research Telemarketing: We provide businesses with the opportunity to place themselves on our company’s internal Do Not Call list should they no longer wish to receive telemarketing calls from us. We may continue to call you for transactional or service-related purposes despite your desire to not receive telemarketing calls.

Website Use Information: You have additional choices regarding website use information that our third party advertisers and partners may collect or receive through the employment of cookies, Web beacons, pixel tags, clear GIF’s and other similar media. Please see the “Third Party Advertisers” section below for more information.

Access and Correction

To help ensure data quality and accuracy, First Research provides businesses and business professionals with access to their business information within First Research’s databases and with an opportunity to correct verified inaccuracies. Registered users may view and update their registration and contact information, as well as correct inaccuracies, by calling First Research Customer Service at 1-866-788-9389 or toll-free International 1-800-486-8666 or by sending an e-mail to frcustomersupport@hoovers.com. Registered users may also request access to all of their personally identifiable information that we collect and maintain in our database by contacting Customer Service. When a business owner, principal or registered user contacts First Research about a potential data error, we will promptly investigate the issue, confirm the information in question, correct verified inaccuracies and respond to the original inquiry.

If you have a question regarding First Research products, services or information management practices, if you would like to contact us or if you would like to provide us with your valued feedback, please visit the First Research Customer Service center for additional information.

Cookies, Web Beacons, Pixel Tags and GIF’s

We design the layout and features of our website so that new visitors may anonymously learn about our products and services without revealing their identities. For new visitors, we use cookies or Web beacons to collect limited data, such as the date, time and areas of our website that are visited, as well as the website from which the new visitor came. When you select one of our products or services, register for a newsletter or e-mail alert, or complete a survey, we may try to identify your browser and we may combine information from cookies, Web beacons and other information collected online with other data that we maintain about you. By improving the features, marketing and content of our website and by making your online experience more convenient and meaningful, we are able to better serve our customers' needs.

A cookie is a small text file that is stored on your computer's hard drive and that often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that website’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this text file in a section of your hard drive that is specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it. Your browser will only permit a website to access the cookies that it has previously sent to you and not the cookies sent to you by other websites. Some of our business partners, such as third party advertisers, use cookies that originate from their websites. We have no access to, or control over, these cookies. For more information, please see the “Third Party Advertisers” section below. We use cookies to store login or other information on your computer, which serves to improve our website functionality and tailor our services to your preferences and interests. For certain services, we offer users the ability to store a user ID or password within a cookie so that they do not need to re-enter it when they subsequently return to our website. Cookies, in conjunction with our Web server’s log files, allow us to calculate the aggregate number of people visiting our website and to assess which parts of the site are most popular. This information helps us to constantly improve our website and better serve our customers. We do not store credit/debit card numbers in cookies. Most Internet browsers allow users to decide whether to accept cookies and how long to keep them on their hard drive. You may reset your browser to refuse cookies and still use our website, although website access and functionality may be slower and less convenient.

A Web beacon is a graphic image, such as a pixel tag or clear GIF, which is placed on a Web page or in an e-mail message to monitor user activity, such as whether the Web page or e-mail message is accessed or clicked. They are often invisible because they are very small in size. They are also used on many Web pages for alignment purposes. We sometimes use Web beacons to provide an independent accounting of how many people visit our website or to gather statistics about browser usage on our website. Some of our Web pages and HTML-formatted e-mail newsletters use Web beacons in conjunction with cookies. It is difficult for you to limit the use of Web beacons because there is no easy way to distinguish their use from alignment and other purposes. Web beacons may also be loaded from a different Web server than the rest of the page.

We use third party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. In the course of serving advertisements, our third party advertisers and partners may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. These companies may use information about your visits to First Research and other websites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you. These third party partners monitor how guests use our website and determine which of our online features they prefer. We may report information to our partners about our customers and the products and services they order, as well as aggregated, non-identifiable information about our guests' use of our website. For more information, please see the “Third Party Advertisers” section below.

Third Party Advertisers

We use third party advertising companies to serve our Internet ad banners on our website and other websites on which we advertise. If you view a Web page where our ads appear, the advertising company may place a cookie on your computer or use a Web beacon to access a cookie that they previously placed on your computer. These companies do not collect information that can personally identify you, but they may use information about your visits to our website and other websites to measure the effectiveness of ads. We do not disclose any personally identifiable information to these companies. We share aggregate website usage information with third party advertisers and partners for the purpose of effectively targeting our online advertisements. Unless you are previously notified, these advertising companies do not link any online behavior or cookies with other information that can be used to personally identify you, such as your name, address, telephone number or e-mail address, when working with First Research.

These third party advertising networks also track visitors’ online usage and behavior patterns. These companies may use information about your visits to First Research and other websites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you. The result of these efforts is the creation of an online profile that attempts to predict individual user interests, preferences and purchasing habits. The third party advertising networks then accordingly customize the advertising content served to users when visiting other websites.

The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) is a self-regulatory cooperative of online marketing and analytics companies. The NAI provides educational content and opt-out tools to help Internet users learn about and address online behavioral marketing practices. Through the NAI’s online options, you may opt out of particular NAI network members’ behavioral advertising programs or you may opt out of all NAI network members’ programs. Opting out will prevent the given network from which you opted out from using your Web preferences and usage patterns to deliver targeted online ads. The NAI opt-out only works with participating third party advertising networks that use cookies and Web beacons to execute their advertising initiatives. If you would like additional information about online behavioral marketing and your options regarding these standard Internet practices, please visit the NAI website. Our third-party advertisers may also use Omniture to place third-party cookies on your browser in order to collect anonymous and aggregated session data, such as the ads that are viewed. You may opt out of Omniture's cookie tracking by visiting the Omniture website.

Data Security

First Research maintains adequate data security measures to protect information against unauthorized access and disclosure. These measures include the implementation of commercially reasonable technical, physical and administrative data security safeguards. First Research requires employees to complete appropriate training on data management and security practices. First Research also manages a service provider due diligence and oversight program to ensure that our vendors likewise employ adequate data collection, processing, transfer, management and security measures in carrying out their services on our behalf.

There is no such thing as “guaranteed security,” whether conducting business online or offline. Having established this fact, First Research employs commercially reasonable and appropriate data security safeguards that are consistent with our business operations and generally accepted industry standards.

Data security is our priority and we commit ourselves to safeguarding our customers’ data. We do this by:

Establishing policies and procedures for securely managing information;
Limiting employee access to sensitive information;
Protecting against unauthorized access to customer data by using data encryption, authentication and virus detection technology, as required;
Requiring service providers with whom we do business to comply with relevant Data Privacy legal and regulatory requirements;
Monitoring our websites through recognized online privacy and security organizations;
Conducting background checks on employees and providing Data Privacy training to our team members; and
Continually assessing our Data Privacy, information management and data security practices.

Changes to First Research's Data Privacy Practices

If we make material changes to our information management and Data Privacy practices, we will post these changes on our website in order to keep you informed of how we collect, use, manage, disclose and protect our information assets. Such changes will be posted in this section of our online privacy notice and the policy effective date will be updated accordingly.

Your Use of Our Website Is Consent

By using our website, you hereby consent to our collection, use, management, retention and disclosure of your information as described in this notice.

Contact First Research

For questions or complaints regarding First Research’s Data Privacy practices, please visit the First Research Customer Service center, e-mail us at privacy@firstresearch.com or call 1-866-788-9389. We will do our best to resolve any complaints or issues as quickly as possible.

For more information regarding this online privacy notice, please contact:

Privacy Officer
D&B
103 JFK Parkway
Short Hills, NJ 07078
privacyofficer@dnb.com