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Information Policies

We place a high value upon the trust that you place in us when applying for a loan. We promise not to abuse that trust by inappropriately using the information you provide to us. We request this information in order to provide you with the most comprehensive and accurate data possible. We will not sell or give away your private information to any third party.

The information you provide will be used in the following ways.

Loan Application Information

Unless you are a government agent who must go through security clearance and background checks, a loan application is probably the most detailed information-gathering process that you will encounter as an ordinary citizen. As a mortgage company that has been in business for over thirty years, we are aware of the concerns you may have during this process. We will protect the sanctity of your trust by using your loan application information only and exclusively for the purpose of obtaining a mortgage.

Contact Information and Personal Details

In addition to information used exclusively to submit your loan application, we ask for certain details, such as email addresses and personal details including whether you are a first-time mortgage buyer and whether you rent or own. We use this information to customize and personalize our site to meet your needs. None of this information is ever disclosed to third parties. Instead, we use this information to present information specific to your situation to better educate you about the opportunities that exist specifically for you.

Service Profiles

At the same time, there are many commonalities among our customers. We will occasionally compile statistics and other metrics across our customer base, but none of this information will contain personally sensitive information. For example, we may decide to build a new section on our Web site exclusively for current renters if our customer profile shows that 75% of our typical users are currently renting. In any case, none of your personal information is associated with these metrics.

We may share this generic service profile information with our partners, affiliates, and potential investors in order to describe our client base to better serve you. Having access to this data means that we can make better decisions about how we run our business, and will help us determine what will best serve you, our valued customers.

Security

Our privacy policies are unimportant if we cannot maintain the security of our systems. All of our sensitive information forms are submitted and stored securely using tried and proven industry standard protocols.

While no security system is 100% airtight (you should be wary of anyone making that claim) we have taken every reasonable, prudent, and effective step to maintain the security of our systems.

Data Communications Security

Information you send us must pass through your own computer, your own Internet Service Provider, our Internet Provider, and eventually to us. As soon as the personal information that you have put into your browser leaves your computer, it is encrypted using "SSL" (Secure Sockets Layer) technology. Any network between you and us, including your ISP and our ISP, will only see garbled encrypted data if they were to "eavesdrop" on our connection. Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer indicate that the transfer is secure via two mechanisms. First, the URL on any secured page will begin with https:// rather than http://. Secondly, the browser may display a lock, a blue bar, or other indicator showing that your data will be encrypted prior to transmission.

Once we receive your encrypted information, our system decrypts your data, and places it into a password-protected database on a secured network that is again accessed through another password-protected system, located behind a firewall. This triple protection is the digital equivalent of our "Fort Knox" that protects your sensitive data. The only other way to get at this information is to use our Web site and the administration password that you supply during the account creation process. This is why you should keep this password in a safe place, and why we only send your password to your e-mail address. However, as soon as we send your password in e-mail, you should immediately log in and change your password to prevent someone on the Internet from obtaining your password, and hence, access to your private information.

How we use Cookies

It is our goal to provide the most intuitive and hassle-free experience at our Web site. As a result, we use a technology called a "cookie." The way a cookie functions is that our Web site, after authenticating who you are by having you verify your e-mail address and password, passes a unique cookie to your computer. Once your computer obtains this cookie, it will present this cookie back to us. Our site checks to see if the cookie that you are presenting to us matches what we initially gave you. If it does, then we allow you access to our site without having to re-enter your username. This cookie only exists while the browser is running. It is always a good idea to quit the browser (or restart the computer) if you share your computer with others.

We also use cookies to help keep track of the Edmonds Community Home Loans representative you are working with (if any). This cookie contains no private information, and will remain on your computer even if you quit the browser.

The Good Cookie.

Like any technology, the use of it determines its value. Cookies are a convenient way to avoid having to type in your login every time you visit the site. What the above scenario allows is the ability of our Web site's "cyber bouncer" to be able to say, "I've seen you before, you can come in." This is a convenience that many of our clients use and appreciate.

The Bad Cookie.

However, there are cases when you may not want to use a cookie. For example, if multiple people use your computer, it is possible for someone to sit down after you have gotten up, visit your history or bookmarks, visit our site, and have access to your sensitive data on our Web site. This is because our "cyber bouncer" is only sophisticated enough to know that your computer has been trusted. There is no way for us to determine that you are still at your computer. The best thing you can do is quit the browser when you are finished; the cookie will be removed.

P3P Compliance

This website is complies with the Platform for Privacy Preferences Specification (P3P 1.0). Click here to view our P3P Privacy Policy