Efficiency Navigator Privacy Policy

(May 4, 2015)

Franklin Energy Services, LLC (“Franklin Energy”)

Franklin Energy (also referred to as "we" or "us") is concerned about preventing unauthorized disclosure of user information. We understand the importance you place on the privacy and security of information that personally identifies you or your account information. We refer to this information as "personal information." We want you to know what personal information we collect through Efficiency Navigator and how we use it. We have therefore adopted the following Privacy Policy to explain our commitment to your privacy. If you have any questions about our policy after reading it, please contact us.

You should exercise discretion in what information you send to us by email. We cannot guarantee that email sent over the Internet is secure and will not be intercepted by others before it reaches us. We are not responsible for the security of information contained in emails sent over the Internet. We do not use technology that automatically collects personally identifiable information from you through this website such as name, address, telephone number, or email address.

By using the web-based Efficiency Navigator portal, you agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services and our policies relating to user information. Amendments will become effective at the time they are posted on our website. We will not provide notice of changes in this Privacy Policy.

Who Should Use This Website

Efficiency Navigator is intended to provide an opportunity for customers and trade partners to browse and apply for energy efficiency rebates through our utility clients. Efficiency Navigator is intended primarily for adults and not children under 18. We will not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13 to use certain features of our website without the consent of a child's parent or guardian. We will not knowingly disclose personal information collected from children.

Creating an Online Profile

If you create an online account to access Efficiency Navigator and utilize the services available therein, you may be asked to submit personal information such as your account number, name, address, phone number, tax identification number, and email address. You may also be asked to submit additional personal information or financial information to use specific services. We will protect all information that you provide us on the website, as set forth below:

  • 1. The personal information you provide us enables you to access self-service options offered within Efficiency Navigator. To better serve you, we may use your email address to contact you in response to inquiries, or provide you with energy-related information. This information will be accessible to anyone who has access to your email. You will have the option to opt out of email marketing messages at any time.

  • 2. Other than as set forth herein, we will not disclose your personal information to third parties without your written consent (which consent may be obtained electronically, such as by email), unless we reasonably believe that the disclosure is essential to the conduct of Franklin Energy's business, including but not limited to where such disclosure is necessary to (a) comply with the law, legal process of our regulators, (b) enable Franklin Energy’s employees or consultants to provide service to you and to otherwise perform their duties, or (c) resolve user disputes or inquiries. We do not provide your personal information to third parties for the purpose of telemarketing, email or direct-mail solicitation.

  • 3. You should protect the confidentiality of your username and password. You are responsible for all activity on the website accessed by your username and password. Access by Franklin Energy employees or consultants to any personal information you provide is limited to only that necessary to provide the business service offered and to otherwise allow such employees or consultants to perform their duties.

We try to ensure that the personal information we maintain about you is accurate, current and complete. If you discover that your personal information is incorrect, not current or incomplete, you should update your account information and profile.

Once you have logged in using your online profile, any account information that you enter or that is displayed in your browser window is secured using an industry standard security technology known as Secure Socket Layer ("SSL"). By using SSL, we attempt to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal and financial information. Your browser must be capable of supporting SSL; please check with your browser manufacturer for details.

Visitor Information

We do collect information about the website use, such as the number of visitors to the website and the number of users that click on certain links or services. For some applications, we link usage information with the particular user visiting the website. We use industry standard software to create summary statistics of the usage data we collect, which may then be used to highlight what our visitors find interesting, to improve our website design specifications, to identify system performance issues, and for other internal purposes.

Our Use of Your IP Address

An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer every time that you browse the Internet. When you visit Efficiency Navigator, our servers log your current IP address. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers and to administer our website. Data gathered from logging your IP address is not tied to your personal information and is not used to identify you.

Our Use of Cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer's hard drive by web page servers. When you visit the website, our server may create "session" cookies, making it more convenient for you to use our site by verifying when you travel from page to page that you have signed up with our online services.

The website may use cookies and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our website people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches.

Franklin Energy and our partners also use cookies and other technologies to remember personal information when you use Efficiency Navigator and applications. Our goal in these cases is to make your experience with Franklin Energy more convenient and personal.

As is true of most websites, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about user behavior on the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.

In some of our email messages, we use a "click-through URL" linked to content on the Efficiency Navigator website. When users click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our user communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages.

Links to Other Sites

While browsing Efficiency Navigator, you may encounter hypertext links to other websites operated by third parties. These other websites may send their own cookies to you, log your IP address, and otherwise collect data or solicit personal information.

We do not control and are not responsible for what third parties do in connection with their websites, or how they handle your personal information. Please exercise caution and consult the privacy policies posted on such websites for further information.

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us.

Disclosure to Government

We reserve the right to monitor and disclose, without your consent, any communications or personal information, whenever requested to do so by courts, government agencies or by law enforcement authorities.

We will use reasonable efforts to address concerns you may have about your personal information. You may contact us here: contact us.