Countrywide Insurance Group Privacy Notices
California
New York
Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia,
Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North
Carolina, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia
All other states
About Internet Security
About Our Websites
Our systems automatically switch to "secure" mode when you are asked to enter
personal information on a Countrywide website (such as your account number or
social security number). To keep your data safe we use:
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Encryption and authentication technology
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Website design that blocks or limits online display of customer information
when not necessary to the transaction
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IDs and passwords to protect customer information
How Does Browser Security Work?
Recent versions of most internet browsers support the encrypted transmission of
on-line documents and the data you enter on a web page. This means that instead
of sending readable text, both your browser and the website's secure server
encode all text using a security key. That way, personal data sent to your
browser or data you send back would be extremely difficult to decode in the
unlikely event it was intercepted by an unauthorized party. The key used for
encoding is a random number that is unique to your session at the secure
website.
There are two grades of internet security:
International-grade encryption uses a 40-bit random number negotiated between
your browser and the web-server. This means that only one out of about
1,000,000,000,000 possible decoding keys can be used to decipher your data.
Domestic-grade encryption uses a 128-bit key, so that the number of possible
keys is vastly larger. The Countrywide site uses the highest grade of
encryption supported by your browser and your internet connection.
How Do I Know If Security Is Operating?
Your internet session is encrypted if your security-enabled browser is
connected to a website using the Secure Hypertext Transport Protocol. URL
strings beginning with "HTTPS://" instead of the usual "HTTP://" indicate that
the secure protocol is in effect. Your browser may also tell you if security is
operating. For example, Mozilla's Firefox will display the 
icon in the lower right corner of your screen in secure
mode. Microsoft Internet Explorer shows a icon. Note that security may be operating without any visible
indication if the web page you are viewing employs frames (see below).
If secure transmission is not in effect or only part of a
frame-based page is secure, Firefox shows the "red-slashed lock"
icon, and Explorer does not show the "lock" icon.
Most browsers can be set to give you a pop-up announcement
when you enter or leave a secure web page. In Firefox, these settings are on
the Security section when you select "Options" on the Tools menu. In IE,
the setting is on the "Advanced" tab when you select "Options" on the View
menu.
Secure Mode and Frame-Based Web Pages
Security may be operating without displaying any security icons
(or Firefox may show the "red-slashed lock" icon) if only part of a
frame-based page is employing security. You can verify the security of a page
within a frame by opening it in a new browser window. Both IE and Firefox
allow you to open a link in a new window by right-clicking on the link and
selecting that option from the pop-up context menu. When a secure page is open
in its own window, instead of being viewed within a frame, you can then see the
security icons provided by your browser as well as the "https://" secure
protocol prefix in the URL string.
Cookies, GIFs or Similar Devices
Cookies
When you visit a website, a small file called a "cookie" may be saved to your
computer's hard drive during your visit. When you revisit the site, the
website's server may open the cookie file and access the stored information.
You can usually set your browser to limit or let you know about cookies that a
website places on your computer. You can have your Web browser disable
cookies but if you turn off cookies, it is not possible to access your
online accounts. Cookies are used for security purposes when you log into your
account so that we can recognize your computer. Cookies used to access your
online account are encrypted and used solely to support your online account
activity.
GIFs, Pixel Tags and Third-Party Cookies
GIFs and pixel tags are graphics on a web page or in an email message,
designed to monitor whether the web page or email message is read or clicked.
They are often invisible because they are very small in size. They are also
used on many web pages for alignment purposes. We sometimes use GIFs and pixel
tags to provide an independent accounting of how many people visit our websites
or to gather statistics about browser usage at our websites.
It is difficult for you to limit the use of GIFs and pixel tags because there is
no easy way to distinguish their use from alignment and other purposes. They
may be loaded from a different Web server than the rest of the page.
We sometimes use third party ad serving companies to serve our internet ad
banners on our site and other sites on which we advertise. If you click on one
of those ads, you can go to one of the Countrywide Financial sites offering
that particular product or service. These ads contain small graphics with
"tags" to tell us how many people responded to our ads. They do not identify
you personally. The companies that distribute our ads are prohibited by
contract from using information other than for the agreed upon purpose - to
help us market our products and services and to measure response rates.
Similar Devices and Files
We include URLs in email marketing materials sent directly to you
(such as special offers) so that we can identify that it is you responding to
the campaign and provide details on the offer available to you.
Countrywide sometimes uses technologies similar to cookies to
store information. For example, we also use files called Flash objects to help
assure security as part of the online account log-in process. Flash objects are
also encrypted and used solely to support your online account activity.
Cybertrust is a registered trademark of Cybertrust
Corporation.
