Peoples' Privacy Policy

If you register to access various services related to our Company or your natural gas account on the website, you may be asked to submit Personal Information such as your Peoples account number, name, address, complete or partial Social Security Number, phone number(s), and e-mail address. Certain other information, such as demographic information and responses to market surveys may be collected by us during registrations processes. You may also be asked to submit additional Personal Information or financial information, such as credit card information, in order to use certain specific services offered in the customer account transaction areas. Not all information is required to be provided (required items will be clearly noted), but if you should choose to withhold any requested information, you may not be eligible to participate in or receive full benefit from all services and programs available on the website. We will protect all information you provide us on the website.

We ask you to provide Personal Information when you access various customer services offered on the website, and that information enables us to provide you with better service. We may use this information to contact you to respond to an inquiry that you send to the Company and to keep you informed about the services, products, and programs offered by the Company, and its affiliates and partners. We also may run contests on our site in which we ask visitors for contact information (like their email address), financial information (like their account or credit card numbers), and demographic information (like their zip code, age, or income level). We use contact data from our contests to send users information about our company and promotional material from some of our partners.

If you send us an e-mail, then we consider e-mail communication to be at your consent, and we will e-mail you.

If you provide us a with a cell phone number, you expressly agree that we may contact you at this number to discuss your natural gas account. You also agree to receive, from us and our service providers, calls and messages, including prerecorded messages, calls from automated dialing systems, and text messages. Normal cell phone charges may apply. Please consult with your cell phone provider if you have questions about those charges.

In order to provide you with services offered on our website, or to complete transactions or requests initiated by you on the website, we may transfer you to outside services provided by third-party operators. In certain instances, the third-party content may be "framed" in such a way it appears that you are still on Peoples' website. In such cases, we will have agreements with those third parties whose websites you may be transferred to, under which the third parties agree to maintain the confidentiality of Personal Information about you and to use it only to help us serve you.

Other than described here, Peoples does not release Personal Information about you to any other person or business entity without your prior consent. Consent may be obtained electronically, orally, or in written format.

Peoples may release Personal Information about you without your prior consent as follows:

• To law enforcement officers, as part of a legal process (such as in response to a warrant, subpoena, or grand jury investigation issued by a court or governmental agency);
• To contractors providing utility-related services on behalf of Peoples - but only to the extent necessary to render the service and subject to confidentiality and security obligations;
• To governmental agencies with jurisdiction over Peoples, when they require such information;
• To a third-party bill payment company, for the sole purpose of facilitating electronic payments to your natural gas account as requested by you;
• To others as required by court order or by applicable laws, rules, or regulations governing Peoples; and
• To credit reporting agencies, and to collection agencies (if your account is assigned for collection).

Peoples will retain Personal Information for as long as is reasonably necessary to meet its business needs and regulatory and compliance obligations.

We share our customers' concern that children's privacy is important. We may have areas of the site intended for the use of children containing information about energy and safety. We do not monitor the age of users of the website. However, if you are under the age of 18, you should not submit Personal Information on the website or any websites without the consent of your parent or guardian. Peoples may collect and maintain Personal Information pertaining to children when required for customer assistance programs, however, we will not intentionally use Personal Information from or send marketing communications to children under age 18 without prior parental consent.

• Your visits to the website. We collect information about usage of the website, such as the number of visitors to the website and the number of users that click on certain links or utilize certain services. For some applications, such as Rate Analysis, we link usage information with the particular customer visiting the website. We use industry standard software to create summary statistics of the usage data we collect, which may then be used to highlight what our visitors find interesting, to improve the website design specifications, to identify system performance issues, and for other internal purposes.
• Our use of your IP address. An Internet Protocol ("IP") address is a number automatically assigned to your computer every time you browse the Internet. When you visit the website, our servers log your current IP address. We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers and to administer the website. Your IP address is also used to help identify you and to gather broad demographic information. Your IP address is not tied to your Personal Information and we do not use it to identify you when logging IP address data.
• Our use of cookies. "Cookies" are an industry standard practice of placing a file or identifying "marker" on a user's computer for identification and personalization purposes. When you visit the website, our server may create cookies, making it more convenient for you to use the website by verifying when you travel from page to page. The data we collect on website usage from cookies is not tied to your Personal Information and we only use it in aggregate form. You are not required to accept cookies. However, certain functionality of this web site may not work properly (if at all) if you reject cookies.
• Links. While browsing the website, you may encounter hypertext links to other third-party operated websites. These third-party websites may send their own cookies to you, log your IP address, and otherwise collect data or solicit Personal Information. PEOPLES DOES NOT CONTROL AND IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT THIRD PARTIES DO IN CONNECTION WITH THEIR WEBSITES, OR HOW THEY HANDLE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. PLEASE EXERCISE CAUTION AND CONSULT THE PRIVACY POLICIES POSTED ON EACH THIRD-PARTY WEBSITE FOR FURTHER INFORMATION.

Once you login to Peoples' online services, any account information you enter or that is displayed in your browser window is secured using an industry standard security technology known as Secure Sockets Layer ("SSL"). By using SSL, we attempt to safeguard the confidentiality of your Personal and Financial Information. Your browser must be capable of supporting SSL. Please check with your browser manufacturer for details.