Portland General Electric Co. believes the confidentiality of customer information is extremely important.
We value our customer relationships and recognize that when you provide personal information, you trust us to protect your privacy. For that reason, we have adopted this policy governing the use of information gathered on our Web site.
PGE is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to enable individuals and organizations to establish trusting relationships based on respect for personal identity and information by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the site www.portlandgeneral.com. Because we want to demonstrate our commitment to our users’ privacy, we have agreed to disclose our privacy practices and have them reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact PGE by e-mail at customer.service@pgn.com. If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or it is not satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Watchdog Dispute Resolution Process. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve users’ concerns.
What personal information do we collect?
As a visitor to this Web site, your identity will remain anonymous unless you register to access certain products or services, such as the online account services. In such cases, you will be notified that personal information, such as your name, address, phone number and e-mail address, is required. If you are starting a new electric service account, we will ask for additional personal information for credit verification and security purposes only. This information will be used to provide a requested service, to facilitate purchases or to provide you with an online newsletter.
PGE will not sell or rent the information collected at this site to any party or share it in ways different from those disclosed in this statement.
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Communications from the site
Online services: We send service-related communications when you transact business on our site, such as paying your electricity bill or ordering a product or service. Users cannot “opt out” of these communications, although you may cancel your online services at any time by following the instructions located under Cancel Your Online Services.
Newsletter: Visitors to PortlandGeneral.com can subscribe to our residential e-mail newsletter, Home Connection, and our business e-mail newsletter, Energize. You can unsubscribe from these newsletters at any time by following the link in each edition to “remove your e-mail address” from Portland General Electric’s e-mail list.
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How can you update the online services information you have provided?
You can make changes to your online account information by visiting the Update Your Information section of the site.
If you no longer wish to access your account online, you can cancel your online membership by following the instructions located under Cancel Your Online Services.
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How do we use cookies?
A cookie is a small text file stored on the visitor’s hard drive. We use cookies for the following reasons:
- To indicate whether you are signed in as a registered user of the Web site.
- To enhance your privacy and security while doing business with PGE. If you step away from your computer or don’t sign out, you will be signed out automatically after 10 idle minutes.
- To ensure your Web experience will not be disrupted if a load-balancing server is down or busy.
Our cookies will expire 10 to 20 minutes after the visitor leaves the PGE Web site. The cookie file remains on the hard drive and will be renewed upon subsequent visits, but no information in the file will be reused, matched or associated with any other information.
In addition, ForeSee Results, Inc., a firm hired to survey visitors on the PGE Web site, places a session-level cookie on survey respondents’ browsers to track how many pages a particular visitor has passed over. Session-level cookies are automatically deleted at the end of a session. This technique ensures that a visitor has sufficiently browsed the site in order to adequately answer the survey and prevents anyone from getting a survey more than once in a single session.
The Web survey also adds a persistent cookie to track that a particular respondent has seen the PGE Web site survey, so that person won't be bothered with it again. No personal information is tracked with this persistent cookie, nor are visitors tracked once they have left the PGE Web site.
PGE also uses pixels, or transparent GIF files, on selected pages on our Web site. The GIF files allow us, through a third-party service, to recognize a unique cookie on your hard drive that tracks traffic patterns and enrollment success rates. No personally identifiable information, such as your name, address, telephone number or e-mail address, is gathered or shared through this process. We do not share the anonymous information gathered through this technology with third parties other than companies assisting us in improving our Web site or programs. If you use Internet Explorer version 6.0, you may be notified that this technology is in use on our site.
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Release of information
PGE has agreements with other local utility companies to share customer information for credit purposes only. We have established security procedures to ensure that information is being shared only with authorized utility representatives.
Occasionally, we may hire third parties to act on our behalf for activities such as market research surveys, billing, technical support or contest entry processing. These parties will not be permitted to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing their specific services, and they are not permitted to disclose, transfer or sell personally identifiable information.
Online Home Energy Analysis
PGE has contracted with Nexus Energy to provide our customers with online energy analysis. Nexus Energy has agreed that they will not sell your online home energy analysis data to any third party. Your energy usage data, provided by PGE to Nexus Energy to complete your online energy analysis, will be transmitted via an encrypted Security Socket Layer (SSL).
Other than the ways mentioned above, we will not release personally identifiable information to third parties without permission from the customer, unless we are required to do so by law or we in good faith believe such action is necessary to (1) comply with the law or legal process, (2) protect and defend our rights or property, (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Web site or (4) protect the personal safety or property of our customers or the public.
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Links
PGE provides links to other Web sites as a convenience. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other Web sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of Web sites that collect personal information. This policy applies solely to information collected on the PGE Web site.
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Security
We understand that online security is very important to our customers. Our Web site uses a variety of Web protection products including, but not limited to firewalls, digital certificates, authentication procedures, intrusion detection and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology.
For information regarding online home energy analysis, please refer to the Release of Information section above.
As an added security measure, we encourage you to sign out of the interactive portion of our Web site when you have finished your session. You will automatically be logged off an interactive session after 10 minutes of inactivity.
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Notification of changes
The privacy policy was effective as of Jan. 10, 2003. Due to the rapidly evolving technologies on the Internet, this policy may be updated. All revisions will be posted to this site. If, in the unlikely event we are going to use users’ personally identifiable information in a manner substantially different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify users by posting a notice on our Web site for 30 days before the new use takes effect.
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Contact information?
We welcome your questions and comments regarding this policy. E-mail Customer Service or call 800-542-8818. The address for PGE headquarters is 121 SW Salmon St., Portland, OR 97204.
