TERMS OF USE AND PRIVACY POLICY
This Website (the “Site” or “consumerlaw.com”) is owned and operated by Consumer Law Group, LLC (“CLG”), 6232 North Pulaski Road, Suite 200, Chicago, IL. 60646. Your use of Consumerlaw.com or its facilities constitutes your agreement to the terms of these Legal Notices, Disclaimers and Terms of Use set forth below. The information on Consumerlaw.com, including the terms of these Legal Notices and Terms of Use, is subject to change at any time and for any reason without notice. Consumer Law Group will make such changes by posting them here. We encourage you to check this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes. As professionals engaged in the provision of legal services to clients, Consumer Law Group, LLC, including its affiliated partnerships, (collectively, the Firm) is committed to protecting the privacy of confidential and personal information, including personal data relating to individuals who may be clients, staff, agents, lawyers, law students, job applicants or others inside or outside the Firm. It has always been and remains the policy of the Firm to comply with the rules of professional conduct which impose a duty to preserve and protect confidential client information upon lawyers and their associated personnel. This Statement is intended to summarize the Firm’s data protection practices generally, and to advise our clients, prospects, and other third parties about the Firm’s privacy policies that may be applicable to them. This Privacy Statement is specifically addressed to parties outside the Firm who provide personal information to the Firm or who visit or use the Firm’s websites or facilities.
NO LEGAL SERVICES OR ATTORNEY-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
Although Consumerlaw.com may provide information concerning potential legal issues, it is not a substitute for legal advice from qualified counsel. You should not and are not authorized to rely on this Web Site as a source of legal advice. Your viewing of, access to or use of this Site does not create any attorney-client relationship between you and Consumer Law Group, LLC. Please be further advised that making an inquiry through this Site, sending email or other correspondence to Consumer Law Group or any of its attorneys, and/or submitting your personal information (name and phone number) requesting a consultation, will not create an attorney-client relationship. If you are not currently a client of Consumer Law Group, your email or other correspondence will not be privileged and may be disclosed to other persons. Unless and until Consumer Law Group has formally established an attorney-client relationship, as evidenced by a signed engagement agreement, please do not send any confidential information or any information that you would expect to be maintained in confidence. If you communicate with us by email in connection with a matter for which we already represent you, you should note that the security of Internet email is uncertain. By sending sensitive or confidential email messages that are not encrypted, you accept the risks of such uncertainty and possible lack of confidentiality.
DISCLAIMER
Materials on this Site have been prepared by Consumer Law Group for informational purposes only and do not constitute advertising, solicitation or legal advice. The information contained in this Site is provided only as general information that may or may not reflect the most current legal developments; accordingly, information on this Site is not promised or guaranteed to be correct or complete. Further, prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Consumer Law Group expressly disclaims all liability in respect to actions taken based on any or all of the content of this Site. Consumer Law Group does not wish to represent anyone desiring representation based upon viewing this Site in a state or other jurisdiction where this Site does not comply with all laws and ethical rules of that state or jurisdiction.
PROPRIETARY RIGHTS
We understand the importance of online privacy to our Site visitors, so we have established this Privacy Policy to let you know what information we may collect from you on the Site and how we may use and share that information. Please take a moment to review the terms of our Privacy Policy. By using the Site, you agree to and accept the terms of our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Site. This Privacy Policy applies only to information that we collect on the Site and does not apply to information which we may collect by other means.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
WE MAY COLLECT
“Personal Information” means any information that may be used to identify an individual, including, but not limited to, a first and last name, a phone number or an email address. In general, you can visit the Site without telling us who you are or revealing any Personal Information about yourself. We may also collect certain limited information about your interests and preferences (“preference or usage information”), such as which areas of the law you are interested in. If we ever use any preferences information together with any Personal Information, then such preferences information will be treated as Personal Information under this Privacy Policy.
HOW WE MAY USE YOUR INFORMATION
If you provide us with Personal Information, we will retain and use that information for certain limited purposes. For example, we will use your Personal Information to fulfill or respond to any services or information that you request, such as contacting you to answer your questions, sending you related materials, sending any postal mail that you may request or sending email and/or text message alerts to you. We may use Personal Information for other purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and to evaluate and improve our Service, products, services, marketing and your experience. We may also use Personal Information to ensure compliance with our policies and applicable law. In addition, we may send you periodic communications by email, telephone or regular mail that we believe may be of interest to you.
WITH WHOM WE MAY SHARE YOUR INFORMATION
We may sometimes use other businesses to perform certain services for us, such as maintaining the Site, sending postal mail (if necessary) and providing marketing assistance and data analysis. We may provide Personal Information to those businesses when that information is necessary for them to complete a requested transaction or otherwise perform their duties. Additionally, we may share Personal information with our business partners, affiliates and third parties that may be located overseas. Consumer Law Group will take reasonable steps to help ensure that these third-party service providers are obligated to protect Personal Information on Consumer Law Group’s behalf. As Consumer Law Group develops, we may acquire other law firms or their assets or be acquired by or merge with another law firm. Customer information is generally one of the business assets involved in such transactions. Thus, in the unlikely event that Consumer Law Group or all of its assets are acquired through such a transaction, customer information would be one of the transferred assets. We reserve the right to disclose visitor information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other visitors, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. We also reserve the right to disclose visitor information when we believe that the law requires it or We have received your implied or express consent.
AGGREGATE INFORMATION
From time to time, we may collect general, non-personal, statistical information about the use of the Site, such as how many visitors visit a specific page on the Site, how long they stay on that page and which hyperlinks, if any, they “click” on. We collect this information through the use of “cookies” and other tracking technologies, which are discussed in greater detail below. We collect this information to determine which areas of the Site are most popular and to enhance the Site for visitors. We may group this information into aggregate visitor data to describe the use of the Site to our existing or potential business partners or other third parties, or in response to a government or legal request. We may also group preferences information that we collect from visitors into aggregate data for the same purposes. However, please be assured that this aggregate data will in no way personally identify you or any other visitors to the Site.
COOKIES AND OTHER TRACKING TECHNOLOGIES
Some of our Web pages utilize “cookies” and other tracking technologies. A cookie is a small text file that a Web site transfers to a hard drive for record-keeping purposes. For example, we may use cookies to collect information about website activity. Most browsers allow you to control cookies, including whether or not to accept them and how to remove them. You may set most browsers to notify you if you receive a cookie, or you may choose to block cookies with your browser. However, please be aware that some features of the Site may not function properly or may be slower if you refuse cookies. Tracking technologies may record information such as Internet domain and host names; Internet protocol (IP) addresses; browser software and operating system types; clickstream patterns; and dates and times that our Site is accessed. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web. Web servers, the big computers that “serve up” Web pages, automatically identify your computer by its IP address. It is not our practice to link the information we record using cookies or other tracking technologies to any Personal Information you submit while on the Site. However, we reserve the right to use cookies, IP addresses and other tracking technologies to identify a visitor when we believe it is necessary to enforce compliance with the Site’s policies, to protect the Site, our visitors, clients or others, or when we believe that the law requires it.
LINKS TO OTHER SITES
Please be aware that when you are on Consumerlaw.com, you could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. These other sites may send their own cookies to visitors, collect data or solicit Personal Information. The privacy policies of these other sites may be significantly different from Consumer Law Group’s Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites and cannot guarantee the security of any of your Personal Information collected there.
TERRITORIALITY/GDPR
Our computer systems are currently based in the United States and/or Mexico and the content of our Website is directed to residents of the United States. Your personal data will be processed by us in the United States and Mexico, where data protection and privacy regulations may or may not be equal to the level of protection as in other parts of the world, such as in Canada and the European Union. BY VISITING THE WEBSITE, YOU UNEQUIVOCALLY AND UNAMBIGUOUSLY CONSENT TO THE COLLECTION AND PROCESSING IN THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICO OF ANY PERSONAL AND NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED OR OBTAINED BY THE FIRM THROUGH VOLUNTARY SUBMISSIONS, AND THAT UNITED STATES LAW GOVERNS ANY SUCH COLLECTION AND PROCESSING. The Firm adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) for its clients and in its practice. The GDPR is not applicable to this informational website targeted to United States clients.
SECURITY
We intend to take reasonable and appropriate steps to protect the Personal Information that you share with us from unauthorized access or disclosure. When you transmit Personal Information from your PC to our servers, your information is protected by a “firewall”. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personal Information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction or inadvertent disclosure of your Personal Information.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
The terms of this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes to this Privacy Policy by changing the “Last Modified” date at the bottom of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to check this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.
GOVERNING LAW
This Privacy Policy and the privacy practices of Consumer Law Group are subject exclusively to the laws or rules of the State of Illinois within the United States of America. Consumer Law Group makes no representation that this Privacy Policy and such practices comply with the laws of any other country. Visitors who use the Site and reside outside the United States do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. If you reside outside of the United States, by using Consumerlaw.com, you consent to the transfer and use of your information outside your country.
TCPA
By submitting your telephone number via our Website’s lead form, you hereby expressly agree and consent for Consumer Law Group, LLC / Los Guardianes Del Pueblo to contact you via telephone, via an auto dialer system (including a power dialer, preview dialer and/or a predictive dialer), text message and/or email with information, offers and/or solicitations (“Opt-In”). This Opt-In applies to those persons on the Do Not Call Registry and your Opt-In supersedes any such registry. Approximately 10 text messages per month. Message and data rates may apply.
UPDATE AND OPT-OUT
If you would like to update any information you have sent to the Firm, or if you do not want to receive information from the Firm, please contact us at 312.766.7777. The Firm will make reasonable efforts to honor any request you make to forgo contact with you in the future or delete your information. Please note that if you make an opt-out request, the Firm will retain your contact information to make efforts to ensure that you are not contacted in the future. To the extent required by the CAN-SPAM Act, or other similar domestic and international regulation, commercial email messages will also provide you with an opportunity to opt-out of receiving this information. Please note that changes to your preferences may not be effective immediately.
TESTIMONIALS
Consumer Law Group is fortunate to have many past clients give us positive feedback about working with our attorneys. Some of our positive reviews appear at consumerlaw.com in the form of testimonials. We encourage you to learn more about what clients have to say about our attorneys or about Consumer Law Group on Avvo and Google. Please keep in mind that the success of any legal matter depends on the unique circumstances of each case: WE DO NOTE guarantee particular results for future clients based on successes we have achieved in past legal matters.
CCPA PRIVACY (CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS)
This privacy notice section for California residents supplements the information contained in Our Privacy Policy above and it applies solely to all visitors, users, and others who reside in the State of California.
Categories of Personal Information Collected
We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular Consumer or Device. The following is a list of categories of personal information which we may collect or may have been collected from California residents within the last twelve (12) months.
Please note that the categories and examples provided in the list below are those defined in the CCPA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal information were in fact collected by Us, but reflects our good faith belief to the best of our knowledge that some of that information from the applicable category may be and may have been collected. For example, certain categories of personal information would only be collected if You provided such personal information directly to Us.
Category A: Identifiers.
Examples: A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.
Collected: Yes.
Category B: Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).
Examples: A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.
Collected: Yes.
Category C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.
Examples: Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).
Collected: Yes.
Category D: Commercial information.
Examples: Records and history of products or services purchased or considered.
Collected: No.
Category E: Biometric information.
Examples: Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.
Collected: No.
Category F: Internet or other similar network activity.
Examples: Interaction with our Service or advertisement.
Collected: Yes.
Category G: Geolocation data.
Examples: Approximate physical location.
Collected: Yes.
Category H: Sensory data.
Examples: Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.
Collected: No.
Category I: Professional or employment-related information.
Examples: Current or past job history or performance evaluations.
Collected: .
Category J: Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).
Examples: Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.
Collected: No.
Category K: Inferences drawn from other personal information.
Examples: Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.
Collected: No.
Under CCPA, personal information does not include: publicly available information from government records; deidentified or aggregated consumer information; information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, such as: Health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data; personal Information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
Sources of Personal Information
We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:
Directly from You. For example, from the forms You complete on our Service, preferences You express or provide through our Service, or from Your purchases on our Service.
Indirectly from You. For example, from observing Your activity on our Service.
Automatically from You. For example, through cookies We or our Service Providers set on Your Device as You navigate through our Service.
From Service Providers. For example, third-party vendors to monitor and analyze the use of our Service, third-party vendors to provide advertising on our Service, third-party vendors to deliver targeted advertising to You, third-party vendors for payment processing, or other third-party vendors that We use to provide the Service to You.
Use of Personal Information for Business Purposes or Commercial Purposes
We may use or disclose personal information We collect for “business purposes” or “commercial purposes” (as defined under the CCPA), which may include the following examples:
To operate our Service and provide You with our Service.
To provide You with support and to respond to Your inquiries, including to investigate and address Your concerns and monitor and improve our Service.
To fulfill or meet the reason You provided the information. For example, if You share Your contact information to ask a question about our Service, We will use that personal information to respond to Your inquiry. If You provide Your personal information to purchase a product or service, We will use that information to process Your payment and facilitate delivery.
To respond to law enforcement requests and as required by applicable law, court order, or governmental regulations.
As described to You when collecting Your personal information or as otherwise set forth in the CCPA.
For internal administrative and auditing purposes.
To detect security incidents and protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activity, including, when necessary, to prosecute those responsible for such activities.
Please note that the examples provided above are illustrative and not intended to be exhaustive. For more details on how we use this information, please refer to the “Use of Your Personal Data” section.
If We decide to collect additional categories of personal information or use the personal information We collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes We will update this Privacy Policy.
Disclosure of Personal Information for Business Purposes or Commercial Purposes
We may use or disclose and may have used or disclosed in the last twelve (12) months the following categories of personal information for business or commercial purposes:
Category A: Identifiers
Category B: Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e))
Category C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law
Category F: Internet or other similar network activity
Category G: Geolocation data.
Please note that the categories listed above are those defined in the CCPA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal information were in fact disclosed, but reflects our good faith belief to the best of our knowledge that some of that information from the applicable category may be and may have been disclosed.
When We disclose personal information for a business purpose or a commercial purpose, We enter a contract that describes the purpose and requires the recipient to both keep that personal information confidential and not use it for any purpose except performing the contract.
Sale of Personal Information
As defined in the CCPA, “sell” and “sale” mean selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by the business to a third party for valuable consideration. This means that We may have received some kind of benefit in return for sharing personal information, but not necessarily a monetary benefit.
Please note that the categories listed below are those defined in the CCPA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal information were in fact sold, but reflects our good faith belief to the best of our knowledge that some of that information from the applicable category may be and may have been shared for value in return.
We may sell and may have sold in the last twelve (12) months the following categories of personal information:
- Category A: Identifiers
- Category B: Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e))
- Category D: Commercial information
- Category F: Internet or other similar network activity
Share of Personal Information
We may share Your personal information identified in the above categories with the following categories of third parties:
- Service Providers
- Payment processors
- Our affiliates
- Our business partners
- Third party vendors to whom You or Your agents authorize Us to disclose Your personal information in connection with products or services We provide to You
Sale of Personal Information of Minors Under 16 Years of Age
We do not knowingly collect personal information from minors under the age of 16 through our Service, although certain third party websites that we link to may do so. These third-party websites have their own terms of use and privacy policies and we encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children’s Internet usage and instruct their children to never provide information on other websites without their permission.
We do not sell the personal information of Consumers We actually know are less than 16 years of age, unless We receive affirmative authorization (the “right to opt-in”) from either the Consumer who is between 13 and 16 years of age, or the parent or guardian of a Consumer less than 13 years of age. Consumers who opt-in to the sale of personal information may opt-out of future sales at any time. To exercise the right to opt-out, You (or Your authorized representative) may submit a request to Us by contacting Us.
If You have reason to believe that a child under the age of 13 (or 16) has provided Us with personal information, please contact Us with sufficient detail to enable Us to delete that information.
Your Rights under the CCPA
The CCPA provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. If You are a resident of California, You have the following rights:
The right to notice. You have the right to be notified which categories of Personal Data are being collected and the purposes for which the Personal Data is being used.
The right to request. Under CCPA, You have the right to request that We disclose information to You about Our collection, use, sale, disclosure for business purposes and share of personal information.
Once We receive and confirm Your request, We will disclose to You:
The categories of personal information We collected about You;
The categories of sources for the personal information We collected about You;
Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information;
The categories of third parties with whom We share that personal information;
The specific pieces of personal information We collected about You;
If we sold Your personal information or disclosed Your personal information for a business purpose;
The categories of personal information categories sold; and
The categories of personal information categories disclosed
The right to say no to the sale of Personal Data (opt-out). You have the right to direct Us to not sell Your personal information. To submit an opt-out request please contact Us.
The right to delete Personal Data. You have the right to request the deletion of Your Personal Data, subject to certain exceptions. Once We receive and confirm Your request, We will delete (and direct Our Service Providers to delete) Your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.
We may deny Your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for Us or Our Service Providers to: Complete the transaction for which We collected the personal information, provide a good or service that You requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with You, or otherwise perform our contract with You.
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 et. seq.).
Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if You previously provided informed consent.
Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on Your relationship with Us.
Comply with a legal obligation.
Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which You provided it.
The right not to be discriminated against. You have the right not to be discriminated against for exercising any of Your consumer’s rights, including by:
Denying goods or services to You;
Charging different prices or rates for goods or services, including the use of discounts or other benefits or imposing penalties;
Providing a different level or quality of goods or services to You; and
Suggesting that You will receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
Exercising Your CCPA Data Protection Rights
In order to exercise any of Your rights under the CCPA, and if You are a California resident, You can contact Us:
By email: [email protected]
By visiting this page on our website: www.consumerlaw.com
By phone number: 312-766-7777
By mail: 6232 N. Pulaski, Ste 300, Chicago, IL 60646
Only You, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that You authorize to act on Your behalf, may make a verifiable request related to Your personal information.
Your request to Us must:
Provide sufficient information that allows Us to reasonably verify You are the person about whom We collected personal information or an authorized representative;
Describe Your request with sufficient detail that allows Us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it; and
We cannot respond to Your request or provide You with the required information if We cannot:
Verify Your identity or authority to make the request; and
Confirm that the personal information relates to You.
We will disclose and deliver the required information free of charge within 45 days of receiving Your verifiable request. The time period to provide the required information may be extended once by an additional 45 days when reasonably necessary and with prior notice.
Any disclosures We provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable request’s receipt.
For data portability requests, We will select a format to provide Your personal information that is readily usable and should allow You to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
You have the right to opt-out of the sale of Your personal information. Once We receive and confirm a verifiable request from You, we will stop selling Your personal information. To exercise Your right to opt-out, please contact Us.
Please note that any opt out is specific to the browser You use. You may need to opt out on every browser that You use.
“Do Not Track” Policy as Required by California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA)
Our Website does not respond to Do Not Track signals.
However, some third party websites do keep track of Your browsing activities. If You are visiting such websites, You can set Your preferences in Your web browser to inform websites that You do not want to be tracked. You can enable or disable DNT by visiting the preferences or settings page of Your web browser.
We partner with Thomson Reuters, who might also collect data as part of our marketing efforts. To learn more about the Thomson Reuters privacy policy and the data that might be collected, please visit: Thomson Reuters Privacy Statement.