Real Estate Closing Services Privacy Policy

Updated: January 1, 2020

At Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC we work to earn your trust and we are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information. This Privacy Notice tells you how we collect, use, share, and protect your personal information and what choices you have about how your information is used and shared. Our policy is to treat the personal information you provide us with the utmost respect and in accordance with applicable privacy laws and regulations. We will not collect, use or share your personal information except as described in this Privacy Notice.
This Privacy Notice may be updated from time to time so that we can keep you updated as to our data privacy practices. If we make any material changes to our privacy practices the Privacy Notice will be updated by posting the revised version of this Notice on the Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC website under the Privacy Notice link on the website homepage. The updated Privacy Notice is effective as of the date listed at the top of this document. By accessing any of our products, services, websites or mobile applications after this date you agree to the terms of our Privacy Notice as of the last effective date however, we will honor the terms that were in effect when we first gathered data from you.
Throughout this notice, the terms “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC while the term “you” may refer to prospective insureds, as well as current and former insureds, claimants, and beneficiaries.
If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Notice or practices, please contact us at: frontdesk@blackbeltlawyers.com or send your written request to: Cook and Associates, 4142 Carmichael Road, Montgomery, AL 36106. We will make every effort to comply with your request.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Clients, Buyers, Sellers, Real Estate Professionals, Prospective Insureds and Insureds

We collect information about you so that we can process real estate closings for the purchase and sale of real property, underwrite, create closing and other real estate transfer documents, initiate insurance transactions, and to operate our business. We collect personal information that we receive from you and we receive from others. Our goal is to limit the collection and retention of your personal information to what is necessary to provide you products or services and to operate our business.

Real Estate Professionals

We may use your information to reach out to you about our products and services, to send you referrals for business, to obtain surveys on our performance, and/or to offer you special training and other promotional opportunities.

Prospective Customers and Insured Persons

If you are a prospective real estate closing customer or insured, we may use your personal information for an insurance policy and related services or products or for other business purposes as allowed by law. We may use it to research public records to find any liens, judgments, or other title issues that may affect your real property sale or purchase. We may use it to communicate with you, your representatives, and others to underwrite, assess and evaluate risk. We may further use your personal information to prevent and detect fraud, unauthorized transactions, or other financial crimes and to comply with applicable laws and regulations such as those relating to money laundering, sanctions and anti-terrorism or to satisfy other legal or regulatory requirements. We may also use personal information to collect and process your premium and other payments. If you are an insured, we may use your personal information to communicate with you, verify your identity, respond to your inquires or complaints, and provide you with requested information or services. We may use personal information to send you important information and alerts about changes to our policies or for administrative purposes. We may also use your personal information for internal business operations such as auditing, finance and accounting, billing and collections, data management and security, and records management or other business purposes as allowed by law. Personal information may be used to respond to law enforcement requests, subpoenas and court orders, and to respond to requests from government authorities and regulators and to comply with applicable laws. We may also use personal information if we believe it necessary to establish and protect our legal rights, protect our operations, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliate companies, you or others.

Claimants and Beneficiaries

If you are a claimant or beneficiary, we may use your personal information for the above purposes and to administer, investigate, litigate and/or potentially settle your claim. We may also use your personal information to detect, prevent and report fraud or other illegal activity.

HOW WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We consider your personal information to be confidential and so we limit our sharing outside of our Company and the affiliates necessary to process your real estate transaction. In the course of conducting our business, there are circumstances in which we may disclose your personal information to others in accordance with applicable law. When personal information is shared with another party to perform services on our behalf, we expect them to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information, to use the information only for the limited purpose for which it was shared and to abide by all applicable federal and state privacy laws. Such sharing may include:

Parties to Real Estate Transactions

Cook and Associates affiliates and/or subsidiaries in relation to a requested service or product or for usual business operations.
Insurance agents/brokers, reinsurers/other insurers, third-party administrators to underwrite, assess and evaluate risk and for administrative purposes.
Other business partners or service providers for operational and administrative purposes.
Regulators, government authorities, or law enforcement to comply with applicable law, regulation, inquiry, investigation, subpoena, summons, or legal process.
Consumer reporting agencies, insurance-support organizations, or other organizations to prevent or detect fraud.
Other third parties in any actual or proposed sale, merger, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other transaction related to any part or portion of our business. Claimants and Beneficiaries
Third-party administrators, agents/brokers, and investigators for claims management.
Regulators, government authorities or law enforcement to comply with applicable law, regulation, inquiry, investigation, subpoena, summons, or legal process.
Participants in a legal process including lawyers, witnesses, investigators, and others we believe necessary or appropriate in the administration of a legal matter.
Other third parties in any actual or proposed sale, merger, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other transaction related to any part or portion of our business

VISITORS TO OUR WEBSITE/MOBILE APPLICATIONS

You may also provide information through your use of technology when you access and interact with our website or mobile application(s) (“sites”) through your computer, tablet or mobile device. We may collect information you provide to us through forms on our sites such as applications and log in pages. In addition, we may also collect information about your visits so that you may access certain services and so that we may better understand the interests of those that visit our sites. If applicable, when you use our mobile applications or visit our sites from a mobile device, like a smartphone, we may also collect additional information from your device, including your location, device identifier, and information about your mobile network. We may use a variety of tracking technologies to collect this information, including without limitation the following:

• Browser Log Data

We may use technologies that automatically collect information when you visit our sites, view our advertisements, or use our products or services ("Browser Log Data"). This browser log data may include information such as your IP address (or other unique device identifier, including one that we may assign); certain details about your browser, operating system, and hardware; your location, if available; the URL that referred you to our sites; your activities on our site, including your preferences; and other logging information, such as the date and time of your visit. We also use web server logs to collect and store information about site usage. We may use this information for fraud detection and prevention, security, and to ensure our sites are function properly.

• Web Cookies

When you visit our sites, we may use tracking technology such as cookies to automatically record details about your visit. Cookies are small text files stored by your internet browser on your computer's hard drive that allow sites to remember information about users. A cookie, by itself, does not tell us your email address or who you are. It cannot be used to collect data from your hard drive or personal information about you. We may use cookies and other device identifiers to collect information (such as browser type, time spent on the site and pages visited) and to support certain features of our site. For example, we may use these technologies and information collected for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience with the site. If you do not wish to receive cookies your browser, or other software can be set to reject cookies or to alert you when a cookie is placed on your device. To do this, follow the instructions provided in your browser or other software, usually found within the “help”, “tools” or “edit” settings. Please note that if you disable cookies on your browser, you may not be able to access certain features or content on our sites.

• Embedded Scripts

An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the sites, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your computer, tablet or phone from our web server or a third party service provider, and is active only while you are connected to the sites, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.

• Recognition Technologies

Recognition technologies are technologies, including application of statistical probability to data sets, which attempt to recognize or make assumptions about users and devices (e.g., that a user of multiple devices is the same user).

• Location-identifying Technologies

The sites may use GPS (global positioning systems) software and other location-based technologies so we may verify your location, deliver you relevant content based on your location

VISITORS TO OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES

Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC has official pages on social media websites such as Facebook®, Instagram®, Twitter®, Linkedin®, YouTube, Snapchat, and Google that enable customers to discuss their experiences with Cook and Associates products and services. When you interact with us on social media websites we may collect information such as your feedback, preferences, user ID and/or user name associated with that social media service, and any information or content you have permitted the social media service to share with us, such as your profile picture, email address or friends list, and any information you have made public with that social media service. If you interact with a Cook and Associates representative and take photographs with that representative, you acknowledge that these images may appear on our social media pages. Cook and Associates recommends you never include sensitive personal, financial or other confidential information when posting or commenting online. Any posts you make on our official social media pages (including posts that contain pictures, comments,
suggestions, opinions, complaints or personal information), are available to others who use those pages and are subject to the terms of use and privacy policies of those sites. Please refer to the policies of those companies to understand your rights and obligations regarding your posts.

ANALYTICS SERVICES AND TARGETED ADS

We may use third-party analytics services, like Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, to collect, monitor and analyze visitor data (such as Browser Log Data, cookies and other tracking data), and trends for marketing optimization and to increase the functionality of our website and mobile applications. These services may track details about your online activities over time and across different websites. These services may also allow us and others to provide you with targeted advertisements or other content that you may be interested in based on your online activities.
The Google Analytics service tracks and reports website traffic and provides us insight into behavior information relating to visitor age, gender and interests. Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reporting give us insight into behavior to help us understand browsing behavior and give you a better experience when you visit our website. You can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customize Google Display Network ads using the Ads Settings.

These third-party services have their own privacy policies addressing how they use such information. If you want to prevent your data from being used by Google Analytics, you may wish to take advantage of Google Analytics' currently available opt-outs for the web. We use Google Tag Manager to capture certain non-individually identifiable customer traffic data, including: time spent on page, pdf file downloads, video activity (plays, pauses, percent of video watched, etc.), scroll depth (how far down a webpage a user scrolls), and social actions taken on a website (shares and outbound links to social channels).
If you would like to learn more about targeted ads that may be based on your online activities, and the choices that you may exercise for certain sites and advertisers, you may wish to visit the Network Advertising Initiative at www.networkadvertising.org or the Digital Advertising Alliance at www.digitaladvertisingalliance.org.

DO NOT TRACK DISCLOSURE

“Do not track” is a technology that enables users to opt-out of tracking by websites they do not visit. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own marketing purposes. Additionally, we do not collect personal information from your online activities over
time and across other websites or online services and we do not allow third parties to use these technologies on our sites. Because we do not use these technologies, we currently do not monitor, respond or take any action to web browser “do not track” signals or other similar mechanisms.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

The security of your personal information is important to us, and we strive to implement and maintain reasonable, commercially acceptable, security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the information we store, to protect it from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure. We restrict access to personal information about you to those employees who need to know the information in order to provide products and services to you. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the internet or electronic database can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “contact us” section below.
You are also responsible for taking reasonable steps to protect your personal information against unauthorized disclosure or misuse. We recommend you utilize the latest, updated version of your web browser. It is important that you create a strong password and protect against unauthorized access to your user name, password and your computer. You should not share your user name and password and be sure to log out and close your browser when you have completed your session.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our website or mobile application(s) may contain links to other websites or internet resources that are not operated by us. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party websites or services. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third-party's website. We strongly advise you to review the privacy policy and terms of use of every website you visit.

CHILDREN'S PRIVACY

Only persons that are the age of majority in your jurisdiction or older have permission to access our website or mobile applications. Our website and mobile applications are not designed for, or target to, children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect, use, or disseminate personal information from children. If you are a parent or guardian and you learn that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will promptly delete it. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child without verification of parental consent, we will take steps to remove that information from our servers
as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any personal information from or about a child, contact us at frontdesk@blackbeltlawyers.com.

CROSS-BORDER TRANSFERS OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

In regard to transactional Real Estate Services, our website and mobile applications are directed to residents of the United States. Residents of other countries should not use our websites or mobile applications. If however, you are located outside of the United States and chose to provide personal information to us please note that we transfer the information to the United States and treat the information there in a manner consistent with United States law. The data protection laws in the United States may differ from those of the country in which you are located, and your personal information may be subject to access requests from governments, courts, or law enforcement in the United States.

STATE PRIVACY RIGHTS

You may have other privacy protections under applicable state laws. To the extent these laws apply, we will comply with them when we collect, use and share information about you. Currently, Cook and Associates serves consumers with real property in the State of Alabama. You agree that by contracting the services of Cook and Associates, you agree to be bound by the laws of the State of Alabama.
You have the right to request When you exercise these rights and submit a proper request to us, we will verify your identity by asking you for your email address, telephone number, and/or information about your account with Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC. We also may use a third party verification provider to verify your identity. Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC will endeavor to honor requests unless they are properly directed at one of our title company clients or a lawful exemption under the CCPA applies. Please note that Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC is only required to honor such requests twice in a 12-month period.

Your exercise of these rights will have no adverse effect on the price and quality of our goods or services. For the 12-month period prior to the date of this Privacy Policy, Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC has not sold any Personal Information about its clients; nor does it have any plans to do so in the future.

Reporting Procedure

In performing their job duties, Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC employees should always act lawfully, ethically, and in the best interests of Cook and Associates, Attorneys at Law, LLC in accordance with this Code of Conduct which sets out basic guiding principles for all employees. All employees are expected to review the Code of Conduct and comply with its provisions.
Employees who a) have a question about the application of the Code of Conduct, b) believe that a violation of the Code of Conduct has or is about to occur, or c) are in doubt about how to properly act in a particular situation should promptly discuss the issue with their manager, anyone in their management chain, Human Resources, or the Legal Department.

In situations where you wish to remain anonymous, subject to local laws, you may also report issues directly to frontdesk@blackbeltlawyers.com using an anonymous email address. The information you provide will be sent to us on a confidential and anonymous basis if you should choose. You have our guarantee that your comments will be heard.