Site Cookie "Recipes" for eFile

What are cookies? Well, there are cookies, as shown in the image here, and there is the term "cookie," as it was coined by web browser programmer Lou Montulli. It was derived from the term "magic cookie, " a packet of data a program receives and sends back unchanged, used by Unix programmers.

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The purpose of the cookie is to help the eFile.com website keep track of your visits and activity. Many people find this useful so that they can store passwords on commonly used sites or so they know what sites they have visited or downloaded in the past. Session cookies are used only when a person is actively navigating a website; once you leave the site, the session cookie disappears. Tracking cookies may be used to create long-term records of multiple visits to the same site. Authentication cookies track whether a user is logged in and under what name.

There are a few main types of cookies:

• Permanent cookies: these may also be referred to as persistent cookies, which remain after you close the browser. These are log in details, website preferences, etc. Permanent cookies generally should expire after a year if unused.
• First-party cookies: these are implemented by the website domain, which performs the basic functions of cookies.
• Third-party cookies: when installed, these allow a third party, like an advisor, to collect the same data as a first-party cookie, like analytics and user settings.

Read below on what cookies are used on eFile.com.

Cookie Collection

Required Cookies
These cookies are required to enable core site functionality and are automatically enabled when you use this site.

• Remember log-in details, session state, and error messages, and provide secure log-in.
• Maintain site security: IP address, location, country, date/time, and interaction with our app.
• Keep a record of your most recent visit or to record your login information.
• Save the user's session and carry out other activities that are strictly necessary for the app's operation in relation to the distribution of traffic.
• Remember your task or transaction progress.

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable additional functionality like saving preferences, allowing social interactions, and analyzing usage for site optimization.

Required cookies plus:

• Analyze site usage to provide custom content
• Conduct analytics to optimize site functionality
• Remember the subscription plan you selected
• Device/browser type, settings, and operating system to make sure the website looks consistent.

Advertising Cookies

These cookies are used by us and third parties to serve ads that are relevant to your interests. The following companies require you to directly select your interest-based advertising preferences on their sites: Google, Facebook, and Twitter.

Required and Functional cookies plus:

• Provide you with interest-based offers or ads
• Allows Google and its partners to provide you with interest-based ads
• Allow you to share pages with social networks
• Allow you to post comments.

What do we do with this information:

• Customize our services for you.
• Speed up and secure sign-up and sign-in processes and account information.
• Analyze User behavior so we can improve existing services and build new services.

We don’t share information that personally identifies you (e.g., your name, email, etc.) with third parties (e.g., advertisers).

Additional types of cookies or third parties that install cookies: Some of the services listed below collect statistics in an anonymous and aggregated form and may not require the consent of the user or may be managed directly by the owner - depending on how they are described - without the help of third parties.

Third parties we use: The eFile app monitors and analyzes web traffic internally via the third-party service Google Analytics to keep track of website behavior.

If any third-party operated services are listed among the tools below, these may be used to track the browsing habits of various users – in addition to the information specified herein and without the owner’s knowledge. Please refer to the privacy policy of the listed services for detailed information.

How to delete Cookies

Banning all cookies makes some websites difficult or impossible to navigate. However, a setting that controls or limits third-party and tracking cookies can help protect your privacy while still making it possible to shop online and carry out similar activities. Where cookies are installed based on consent, such consent can be freely withdrawn at any time following the instructions provided in this document.

Here’s how to manage your cookies in order to protect your online activity from prying eyes: Open your browser. Because cookies are stored in your web browser, the first step is to open your browser. Popular browsers include Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

Find the cookie storage. Each browser stores cookies in a slightly different location. For example, you can find them in Internet Explorer 9 by clicking “Tools,” then “Internet Options,” then “Privacy.” In Google's Chrome browser, you have to choose the Chrome menu on the toolbar, then click “Privacy.” Most browsers store cookie settings under the privacy options. Choose your setting. Every browser gives you a range of options for handling cookies. Internet Explorer, for instance, has a slider that you can adjust for greater or lesser amounts of protection. Chrome both lets you delete existing cookies in a single click and choose how future cookies are collected or stored.

Exporting and Deleting Your Data

You can download your current or past tax return file(s) from inside your account. We do retain records of completed tax returns for legal purposes. Please contact support to have your account disabled. You can remove all your tax information entered manually, with the exception of some necessary fields we maintain to identify your account. 

Sometimes, we retain data logs and account deletion information for a limited period for legitimate business or legal purposes. Furthermore, we want to ensure that our services protect information from accidental or malicious deletion. Because of this, there may be delays between when you delete something and when copies are deleted from our active and backup services.

eFile is respectful of data privacy and adopts best practices in compliance with applicable privacy laws and regulations, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). If you are a European Union (EU) resident, please note that there are a number of provisions in this privacy policy that apply uniquely to you. eFile does not have an EU representative, as Article 27 of the GDPR requires. eFile is dedicated to privacy protection and staying GDPR compliant. Currently, eFile does not intend to sell its tax services to persons inside the EEA. These include limiting access to certain web-based services when attempting access from within EU borders.

Spam Policy

eFile.com is committed to permission-based email marketing practice and, as a result, has established this no-tolerance Anti-Spam Policy. eFile.com will occasionally update this Anti-Spam Policy. When it does, eFile.com will also revise the “last update” date at the top of this Anti-Spam Policy. For changes to this policy, eFile.com will notify you (the customer) by placing a notice on its website home page.

What is Spam?
Spam is commercial or unsolicited bulk email, including “junk mail,” which the recipient has not requested. It is intrusive, often irrelevant or offensive, and wastes valuable resources. Spam messages are the opposite of permission-based emails, which are normally anticipated, personal, relevant, and/or associated with a pre-existing business or personal relationship. Inappropriate newsgroup activities, consisting of excessive posting of the same materials to several newsgroups, are also deemed to be spam.

Preventing Spam
Customers of eFile.com products and services have agreed during their registration process, upon accepting the Terms of Use, to comply with this Anti-Spam Policy. Specifically, each customer agrees not to use the eFile.com products or services to send unsolicited emails or bulk emails, whether or not for commercial purposes. eFile.com reserves the right to determine in its sole discretion what constitutes actionable spam and what measures are necessary in response to such spam activities.

How eFile.com Helps You to Avoid Spamming
eFile.com has developed its Internet marketing tools to incorporate a strict permission-based philosophy. This anti-spam philosophy is implemented through the following:

• Communication and Agreement – The Terms of Use that you have agreed to as part of registering for the eFile.com products and services state how and for what purposes you can collect your site visitor addresses and that you will follow the eFile.com Privacy Policy and Anti-Spam Policy.
• Unsubscription – Each email created using eFile.com products contains an “unsubscribe link." If your website visitors use the link to request that they be unsubscribed, your subscriber lists will automatically be adjusted to eliminate the prospect of sending unwanted emails to such persons. Additionally, each person on your subscriber list can unsubscribe through a web-based method provided on the eFile.com website. Customers of eFile.com who try to remove the unsubscribe link will be warned that they are doing so, and if they persist in having the link removed or deactivated in any way, then eFile.com will have the right to terminate their account.
• Purchased Mailing Lists - Mass mailings to purchased email lists are not allowed. eFile.com only allows opt-in mailing lists. Purchased or inherited lists are, by definition, not opt-in. Similarly, you cannot use an email list relating to a particular subject matter and then use it for an unrelated topic.

Laws Restricting Spam

Spam laws vary from state to state and from country to country. This eFile.com Anti-Spam Policy has been developed to conform to the highest commercially reasonable standards. As a result, and without limiting the general prohibitions against all spam activities, the following are expressly prohibited:

• Use of false headers or other false information to identify the point of origin or the transmission path of the email or to hide the true origin of the email sender,
• Unauthorized use of a third party’s Internet domain name without the permission of such third party to make it appear that the third party was the point of origin of the email,
• Use of any false or misleading information in the subject line of the email, and
• Assisting any person in using the products or services of eFile.com for any of these previously mentioned activities.

Questions to Ask Yourself

To help establish whether you are participating in activities constituting spam, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are you sending email to non-specific addresses, such as info@smith.com or sales@smith.com?
• Have you deliberately falsified your transmission path information or originating address?
• Are you sending emails to mailing lists or distribution lists, which then send indirectly to various other email addresses?
• Have you imported for use a purchased list of any type?
• Are you continuing to mail to anyone who has asked to be deleted from your mailing list?
• Does your email not provide a fully functioning link to unsubscribe?
• Does your email subject line contain false or misleading information?
• Have you used a third party’s email address or domain name without the party’s consent?

If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, you are likely involved in spam activities and should contact eFile.com customer support service at our helpdesk.

Measures to Enforce the Anti-Spam Policy
Any eFile.com customer found to be using eFile.com products or services for spamming purposes may, at eFile.com’s discretion, be immediately cut off from use of all eFile.com products and services and/or fined US$1,000 per occurrence, with no refund of fees that have been paid.

When signing up, eFile.com warns all of its customers that if they participate in spamming activities, they will be subject to the loss of eFile.com services, fines, and possible legal action.

eFile.com has the right to actively review its customers’ subscriber lists and emails for suspiciously large broadcasts. If eFile.com finds any customers to be spamming, it will issue a warning, and if the activities are serious enough, eFile.com will take action immediately. If eFile.com has any reason to believe that the customer, despite a warning being given, threatens to or is continuing to send spam, then eFile.com may take action immediately, including disabling the customer’s account and/or reporting the customer and the incident to the proper authorities.

eFile.com does not attempt to censor any content nor curtail its customers' business. However, spam activities do not fall within the uses authorized by eFile.com and will not be tolerated.

Reporting Spam
If you believe that you have received spam from or through eFile.com’s facilities, please send a complaint from your email account along with the unsolicited email, with a completed header, to our helpdesk. Please provide any other information you believe may help our investigation. eFile.com does not investigate or take any action based on “anonymous” spam complaints.

False Spam Complaints
eFile.com supports the efforts of various organizations working to eliminate spam activities responsibly. However, if an individual has opted-in to receive email from a customer of eFile.com and then falsely or maliciously files a spam complaint against eFile.com or its customers, eFile.com will cooperate fully with the appropriate agencies to ban the complainant from use of anti-spam software and the Internet community.

Review the eFile.com Privacy Policy.

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