Like you, we at Qwest are concerned about customer privacy. We have a long history of
maintaining the privacy of information we obtain in the normal course of providing our
services. We work hard to serve you through new and exciting products and services. In
the process, we remain sensitive to privacy issues.
The Information We Obtain and How We Use It
The information we obtain from you is generally necessary for us to provide your services
and design new services for your future use. For example, we need to know your name,
address and the services you buy from us to properly provide and bill for those services.
When you call us, our representatives pull up account records and may refer to your bill,
your calling patterns, and other information we have to answer questions you may have or
recommend how we can best serve you.
We may also use information in our records to protect our customers, employees or
property — for instance, to investigate fraud, harassment or other types of unlawful
service activities involving Qwest or other carriers that we do business with. In some
cases, it may be necessary to provide this information to the government or third parties
who make a lawful demand for it.
We share information within our Qwest companies to enable us to better understand our
customers' product and service needs, and to learn how to best design, develop, and
package products and services to meet those needs. Like any large business, we may
structure our company to include a number of smaller companies. Currently, our primary
lines of business include local and long distance services, wireless services, cable
services, dedicated web hosting, Internet access for businesses and consumers, on-line
services, and directory publishing. We also offer other products and services, for
example, Frame Relay, Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), telephone equipment, voice mail
services, and directory advertising.
Accuracy of the Information We Hold
We want the information we obtain and use about customers to be accurate. If your service
information or your personal contact information changes or you see an inaccuracy on
your Qwest bill, let us know so we can correct it.
Security and Accountability
We have information systems that collect and store customer information in addition to
systems that store our own business records. These systems have different types of
security as appropriate for the information stored. Qwest requires employees to keep
customer information confidential and we hold them accountable for their actions.
Providing Services to Enhance Your Privacy
Non-published numbers, Caller ID and Caller ID blocking services, Anonymous Call R
ejection, and No Solicitation are among the privacy services Qwest offers to enhance your
privacy.
Disclosure of Information Outside Qwest
As a general rule, Qwest does not release customer account information to unaffiliated
third parties without your permission unless we have a business relationship with those
companies where the disclosure is appropriate. For example, we may hire outside companies
as contractors or agents; or we might be engaged in a joint venture or partnership with a
company. Upon occasion, Qwest may decide to stop providing a service or may decide to
sell or transfer parts of our business to unaffiliated companies. When this happens, we
may provide confidential customer information to these companies so that they can offer
you the same or similar services. In all of these situations, we provide information to
these other companies only as needed to accomplish our business objectives and the
companies are bound by requirements to keep Qwest customers' information confidential.
There are exceptions to the general rule. For example, we might provide information to
regulatory or administrative agencies so that they can accomplish their regulatory tasks
(for example, responding to a customer complaint) or to maximize the efficiencies of our
own processes (such as getting mailing addresses correct, for example). Other disclosures
will be driven by legal requirements imposed on Qwest. Qwest complies with "legal process," such
as a subpoena or court order or other similar demand, associated with either criminal or
civil proceedings.
Disclosure of Account Information
If you tell us in writing to release your account information to someone, we will honor
your request and provide that information.
Your account information is released to other carriers when you give us your permission or
when they advise us they have your approval to access the information. This most often occurs
with respect to a sale of service they want to make or have made to you. Unless we are
advised that permission from you has been granted, we do not release the information.
We may provide account information to collection agencies when customers do not pay their
bills. We restrict the use that can be made of this information to collection activities
only for our charges and for the charges we bill for others.
Other carriers use Qwest to bill for their charges. In this case, they provide us with
information about you, including your calling patterns, and we bill you on their behalf.
In turn, we provide them with non-sensitive information about your service, such as the
date your service was established or disconnected; whether you have toll or 900 blocking
services, whether you have a calling card or not and when it was issued, how you pay
your bills and if they are paid on time.
Disclosure of Customer Telephone Numbers, Names and Addresses
Telephone number, name and sometimes address information is "released" by Qwest in
different ways. It is sometimes released as "lists" to entities that are entitled by law
to receive the information or which have entered into contracts with Qwest to receive it.
The information is sometimes released through the network "transactionally," such as when
your phone number and name are released through a Caller ID mechanism. Sometimes the
information is provided in reports to those persons who are being called by you and want
to know more about who is calling them and when. Whether a number is recognized
as "published" or not will generally depend on the medium by which the number is
captured and released.
For example, a person can ask Qwest to include them in directories (that is "publish"
their number) or not. Persons can ask to not be published in directories but included
in Directory Assistance (non-listed numbers). Or persons can ask not to be either in
directories or Directory Assistance (non-published). All of these terms refer to a
"listing" status.
However, the telephone network does not recognize a number as published/listed or
non-listed or non-published. Thus, the network will "pass" that number to interconnecting
carriers (local, long distance, wireless) and to called parties. Only if the network (a)
has the capability to block the number; and (b) you have invoked a blocking mechanism will
the called party (but not the carriers in between) be unable to see the calling number.
And, where both the calling number and name are "carried" as part of the network call,
generally both will be displayed or both will be blocked.
In some cases, such as on some party- or coin-operated lines, as well as calls to pay-per-
call (900) or toll-free numbers (such as 800/888/877 numbers), the network does not have
the capability to block your underlying phone number even if you invoke Caller ID blocking.
And there may be other services that rely on this type of automatic number identification
(ANI) technology, such as cable companies that offer movies keyed to the automatic delivery
of your phone number or pizza companies that route your calls to the closest stores based
on your number. There are a variety of businesses that subscribe to these types of services.
By federal regulation, however, businesses that utilize this technology can only use it
to provide you the service in question or one directly related to it. And, because federal
law requires phone numbers associated with facsimile transmissions to be released as part
of the facsimile, these phone numbers are not blocked either.
When you order services from us to connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) or choose
a carrier, we may need to advise them of your telephone number in order that they may
provide your requested service. This includes non-listed and non-published telephone numbers.
In addition to the above types of disclosures, Qwest is required, by law, to make disclosures
of customer telephone number, name and address information in certain circumstances,
including those described below.
- We are required to provide listed customer names, addresses and telephone numbers to
directory publishers - our own and others. Qwest and other directory publishers may
publish this information in alphabetical or reverse directories that take the form of
paper directories, electronic directories over the Internet, or on CDs. We also provide
customer name and addresses for all customers (including non-listed and non-published
customers) to directory publishers to allow for directory deliveries, but only for that
purpose.
- We are required to provide customer names, addresses and telephone numbers to
directory assistance and operator services providers. This information includes
non-listed information, as well as the name and address of non-published customers. By
contract, Qwest requests these companies to honor the privacy indicators that may be
included in their purchased lists and such indicators are included for nonlisted and
nonpublished numbers. Some of these providers offer Internet or online directory
assistance services.
- In some cases, when you dial 911, your name, address and telephone number information
is provided to the emergency service provider. And, by law, we are required to provide
this information, including non-listed and non-published information, to emergency service
providers and emergency support services providers upon request in a more
comprehensive format.
- If you place a long distance call using a provider other than the one you use on your
home phone -- for example, if you place a calling card or third number billed call from
a pay phone - Qwest is required by law to provide billing name and address information
to the service provider. This includes names and addresses associated with non-published
and non-listed information where the individual has not objected. This information cannot
be used for marketing purposes. Similar information is provided with respect to the
provision of services by non-Qwest carriers.
We might provide your name and address to administrative agencies where we are working
with them to minimize costs and maximize accuracy. For example, we might share this
information with the Post Office so that we continue to get reduced postage rates and you
your bills and other information from us in a cost-efficient, reliable and timely fashion.
We also compile lists of customer names, addresses and telephone numbers of the type
printed in the White Pages directories and provide these lists to qualified companies
that are conducting product promotions. Non-published and non-listed numbers are not
included in these lists and we remove other customers from these lists by request.
Your Control Over the Disclosure of Information
You tell us the telephone listings you want to include in our directories and in
directory assistance. You also may choose to have a non-published or non-listed
number, or to exclude your address from your listing.
As we addressed above, in certain cases you can block the transmission of your telephone
number (and name) to those persons you call.
Our Qwest divisions may provide you with information about new products and services or
special promotions. However, Qwest does maintain an internal "Do Not Call" list in line
with federal law. If you ask not to be contacted, the business or division that is
calling you will put your telephone number on a list. Other Qwest business divisions
will still be able to call you unless you make it clear that you do not want to be
contacted by any Qwest business unit. Some states have adopted their own "Do Not Call"
laws, which are usually managed by a third party database administer. Often those laws
permit continued contact with persons whose numbers are on the list when there is an
existing business relationship, so you might get a call from us even if you are on
these kinds of lists.
It is Qwest's practice to stop sending direct mail materials to individuals that request
it not be sent. There are no laws that control this accommodation but we respect the
desire of individuals to be free of such communications if they wish.
Qwest or its business partners may use e-mail to communicate with customers about events
or new products and services or to respond to visitor's e-mails. Our residential local
telephone service customers may visit our qwest.com web
site, E-mail Contact Preferences
page to add or remove themselves from our email list. If you receive unwanted email from
us you may also remove yourself from our email list by simply following the "unsubscribe"
instructions in the email. We will not send commercial solicitations to customers who
request it not be sent. Please note that if you do go through this process, some e-mail
messages may still come to you, although not those dealing with commercial solicitations.
For example, we may e-mail you about viruses, or changes to your service, or other types
of product advisories.
We honor customer requests to have their names removed from lists that Qwest might
provide to firms desiring to do product promotions. Customers with non-listed and
non-published numbers are not included on the lists. For individuals with listed
information, if you do not wish to have your name included on such lists, just tell us
and we will remove your name at no charge.
Privacy Over the Internet
Qwest appreciates that some individuals believe that special privacy concerns arise
around information transmitted or collected over the Internet or through web sites. Below
we describe our practices to address those concerns.
Cookies: Some of Qwest's Web sites may use "cookies" to improve our level of
service and speed up the delivery of information to our visitors. Cookies are lines
of text that are transmitted to your Web browser when you click on a site. They
provide a way for a server to recall a previous request or previous registration, or
to keep track of a transaction as it progresses, so that information does not have to
be repeated. Your browser stores the information on your hard drive and when you
return to that site later, the cookie is transmitted back only to the servers that
originally sent it to you. To be notified when you are about to receive a cookie
you can configure your browser to alert you when a site is attempting to send you a
cookie and at that time you will have the option of refusing the cookie. You can
check your hard drive for cookie files in a "cookies" folder for Internet Explorer,
a "cookies.txt" file for Netscape, and under "magic cookies" on a Macintosh.
Advertisers that serve ads on our Web sites may also use their own cookies. These
cookies collect their own information independent of Qwest. You can disable this
cookie capability as described above.
How online information Qwest collects is used: Generic Information -- To gauge the
effectiveness of our Web sites, we do collect some non-individually-identifiable generic
information about our visitors. Our Web servers automatically recognize a visitor's
Internet service provider, the IP address, the domain name, the type of browser, and
the operating system. And, also which pages are viewed on our sites, the Web page you
were on when you link to our sites, how much time a visitor spends on each page and other
information related to the operation and interaction of Qwest Web sites. This information
does not reveal a visitor's identity. We aggregate this information and use it to
evaluate and improve our Web sites.
Identifiable Information -- You can choose to provide individually-identifiable
information to Qwest in a number of ways through our Web sites - by ordering a service
from us, sending us email, registering to receive news or information, applying for a
job, or entering a contest. When visitors supply information about themselves for a
specific purpose, Qwest uses the information for that purpose (such as to provide the
information the visitor has requested or to consider a visitor for a particular job).
In addition, when visitors use our Web sites to order services, or to request information
about our services, we may use the individually-identifiable information as we would use
the same information obtained off-line - for example, to evaluate your service needs and
contact you regarding additional services you may find useful.
Sometimes Qwest co-sponsors events with another company, such as contests or features. In
that case, if you provide individually-identifiable information it most likely will be
used by both Qwest and the co-sponsor.
A user may choose to provide us individually-identifiable information to customize a
personal home page. We use this information to better understand and serve our customers,
but we do not share that information outside of Qwest. This information may be compiled
on an aggregated basis and shared with our advertisers or business partners but the user
will be anonymous.
For our Qwest.net and Choice Online customers - as part of our ongoing efforts to
improve our service, we or someone acting on our behalf may monitor Internet activity.
This means that a user's session may be tracked, but the user will be anonymous. This
process does not capture or transmit any personally identifiable information and the
anonymous or aggregated information may be provided to third parties for other purposes.
When you order services from us to connect to an Internet Service Provider (ISP) we
generally make information available to the ISP necessary to establish the connection.
We treat information we collect on line similarly to that we collect off-line. We do not
sell or disclose individually-identifiable information obtained on-line to non-Qwest
entities except as described above (when Qwest is in a business relationship with an
unaffiliated party and then under confidentiality restrictions) unless you specifically
authorize it, it is required by law (including the service of subpoenas or court orders
in either civil or criminal lawsuits), or disclosure is necessary to protect the safety
of customers, employees or property.
The Qwest Web sites may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the
content or privacy practices employed by other sites. Other Web sites may have different
privacy policies or no policy. Users should review the privacy policies of any Web site
before providing personal information.
Qwest places banner ads on others' web sites. When we do this, we collect non-personally
identifiable information through the aid of third parties with whom we contract, using
the most current browsing technology. This activity allows us to recognize a browser's
cookie when a browser visits the site and helps us target our Internet advertisements.
The information collected is anonymous and does not contain any information that would
personally identify you. The information is shared among our contracting agents and our
business operations in order to assess the results of a promotion or event.
Security of Your Information: Qwest has databases and systems that are maintained
to reasonably secure all of Qwest's commercial information, including information about
customers. All credit card and bank account information you submit is encrypted through
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software. We transmit the entire credit card number or bank
information to the appropriate financial institution during processing.
E-Mail Communications: Qwest or its business partners may use email to communicate
with customers about events or new products and services or to respond to visitors'
emails. Qwest will not send commercial solicitations via email to customers who request
it not be sent through the process outlined earlier.
Children: Qwest does not currently target its online services to children under
13 years of age; and Qwest has no intention of collecting any information from children
under 13 years old. However, some of our sites do contain links to content providers
that collect such information. These companies are expected to comply with all laws
pertaining to the collection of information from children.
