"On the internet, no one knows you're a dog." - one canine to another in a famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon
To use MakeLifeEasy, you provide a username, email address, and zip code. No one - including us - knows who you are. Note that it is usually difficult to identify you with this information, and we make no attempt to identify you or sell your information to third parties who would attempt to identify you.
Organizations affiliated with MakeLifeEasy, notably iBill (our billing agent) and merchants, will ask you for more personal information in order to complete financial transacations with you. MakeLifeEasy does not accept, receive, store, etc. any personal information from any of these parties.
We ask you for very little personal information, but this information must be correct. Your account is subject to suspension or termination if you do not keep this data valid and current. In particular, you must provide a valid email address.
Your username is a friendly identifier. We strongly recommend that you make up a username. Although you could use your email address as your username, we don't recommend this for two reasons: (1) Your email address may change, but once assigned your username cannot be changed without intervention by MakeLifeEasy Customer Service. (2) Your username may be used to identify you for certain forms of data sharing (notably Member Data Sharing, see below). If you have chosen a username and you would like to change it, please contact support and we will attempt to coordinate the change.
Your email address is used only to send notices to you about MakeLifeEasy, including news, your smart shopping lists, correspondence about your account, answers to your inquiries, and other important notices. We don't use your email for anything else and we don't provide your email address to third parties without your prior approval. We may in the future allow you to "opt-in" to receive mail from third parties, at your discretion. You may also decide to share your email address with merchants or other third parties, at your discretion.
Your zipcode is used mainly to assure that you are only linked with merchants
who serve your geographical location. It may also be used to support
MakeLifeEasy's marketing efforts and it may be used when sharing data (see below).
Of course, it is not possible to identify you with your zipcode.
We Don't Use Cookies to Gather Information
We don't use any cookies to gather information about you. We are currently reviewing privacy standards including the Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P), eTrust, and others, and we may implement one of these in the near future.
We may in the future request demographic data from selected members. This will be used to improve MakeLifeEasy's ability to serve you by keeping costs down and providing you with information that's more appropriate to your specific needs. Demographic information will be voluntary. If you don't want to provide correct demographic information, please don't provide it at all. You may simply decline the request.
There are three types of data sharing. Note that none of these is currently implemented in MakeLifeEasy, but MakeLifeEasy explicitly plans to support types (1) and (2) in the future, and may support type (3). In most cases you will be able to restrict data sharing at two levels: (a) restrict all data sharing, and (b) restrict data sharing of individual needs and/or assets. Note also that in most cases (1) and (3) data sharing is completely anonymous, and you are not even identified to those you share with by your username, but instead by your MakeLifeEasy customer ID number, a meaningless number which serves only to distinguish one member from another in the database. In case (2) your made-up username will be used as a friendly way of identifying you to other members.
To purchase your MakeLifeEasy subscription, you provide personal information to iBill, our billing agent. This includes your name, address, and credit card number or checking account number. This information is used solely by iBill and is not transmitted to MakeLifeEasy, stored, nor used by MakeLifeEasy; it is completely unknown to MakeLifeEasy to explicitly guarantee that there is no possibility of use for any purpose other than accepting payment. Refer to iBill for their privacy policy.
To purchase products from merchants in the MakeLifeEasy alliance, you provide personal information. This includes your name, address, and credit card number or checking account number. This information is used solely by the merchant in question and is not transmitted to MakeLifeEasy, stored, nor used by MakeLifeEasy; it is completely unknown to MakeLifeEasy to explicitly guarantee that there is no possibility of use for any purpose other than transacting with that merchant. Refer to the privacy policy of the merchant(s) you are dealing with.