PLEASE NOTE THAT THE FOLLOWING PRIVACY POLICY IS EFFECTIVE AS OF August 24, 2011.
If you submitted personally identifiable information to us prior to the above effective
date, and desire to opt out of having that previously submitted personally identifiable
information from being treated under the new policy, please contact us at info@socialscience.net.
PRIVACY POLICY
(Effective August 24, 2011)
Please read the following to learn more about the Privacy Policy of Social Science
Automation, Inc, an Ohio corporation.
We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting personally identifiable
information you may provide us through our Website. We have adopted this Privacy
Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to explain what information may be collected on our Website,
how we use this information, and under what circumstances we may disclose the information
to third parties. This Privacy Policy applies only to information we collect through
our Website and does not apply to our collection of information from other sources.
This Privacy Policy, together with the Terms of Use posted on our Website, sets
forth the general rules and policies governing your use of our Website. Depending
on your activities when visiting our Website, you may be required to agree to additional
terms and conditions.
We generally keep this Privacy Policy posted on our Website and you should review
it frequently, as it may change from time to time without notice. Any changes will
be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy. PLEASE
READ THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT CAREFULLY. WHEN YOU ACCESS AND/OR USE OUR WEBSITE (OTHER
THAN TO READ THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME) OR PURCHASE OUR SERVICES,
YOU AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT, WHICH MAY CHANGE FROM TIME TO TIME. IF YOU
DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT, OR TO ANY CHANGES WE MAY SUBSEQUENTLY MAKE,
IMMEDIATELY STOP ACCESSING OUR WEBSITE AND USING OUR SERVICES. If, at any point,
we decide to use your personally identifiable information in a manner materially
different than what was stated at the time it was collected, we will notify you
of this change by e-mail to the last e-mail address provided to us. You will have
a choice (by means of an “opt out” opportunity) as to whether or not we use your
information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with
the Privacy Policy under which your information was collected if you opt out of
the new policy.
A. INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Our Website typically collects two kinds of information about you: (a) information
that you provide that personally identifies you; and (b) information that does not
personally identify you, which we automatically collect when you visit our Website
or that you provide us.
(1) Personally Identifiable Information: Our definition
of personally identifiable information includes any information that may be used
to specifically identify or contact you, such as your name, mail address, email
address, phone number, etc. As a general policy, we do not automatically collect
your personally identifiable information when you visit our Website. In certain
circumstances, we may request, allow or otherwise provide you an opportunity to
submit your personally identifiable information in connection with a feature, service,
program, promotion or some other aspect of our Website. For instance, you may:
(a) provide your name, mail/shipping address, email address, credit card number,
expiration date, and phone number when registering with our Website, using our online
services;
(b) provide certain demographic information about you (e.g., age, gender, purchase
preference, usage frequency, etc.) when participating in a customer review; or
(c) provide your email address for an email newsletter.
Certain information may not be personally identifiable when standing alone (e.g.,
your age), but may become so when combined with other information (e.g., your age
and name). Whether or not you provide this information is your choice; however,
in many instances this type of information is required to participate in the particular
activity, realize a benefit we may offer, or gain access to certain content on our
Website.
(2) Non-Personal Information: Our definition of non-personal
information is any information that does not personally identify you. Non-personal
information can include certain personally identifiable information that has been
de-identified; that is, information that has been rendered anonymous. We obtain
non-personal information about you from information that you provide us, either
separately or together with your personally identifiable information. We also automatically
receive, but do not collect certain non-personal information from you when you access
our Website. This information can include, among other things, IP addresses, the
type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.),
the third party website from which your visit originated, the operating system you
are using (e.g., Vista, Windows XP, Mac OS, etc.), the domain name of your Internet
service provider (e.g., Google, America Online, NetZero, etc.), the search terms
you use on our Website, the specific web pages you visit, and the duration of your
visits. In addition, we may store and use journal entries you submit to us after
any personally identifiable information has been removed from such entry.
B. HOW WE USE & SHARE THE INFORMATION COLLECTED
(1) Personally Identifiable Information: The personally
identifiable information you submit to us is generally used to carry out your requests,
respond to your inquiries, provide the services you requested, or in other ways
naturally associated with the circumstances in which you provided the information.
We may also use this information to later contact you for a variety of reasons,
such as customer service. You may opt-out from receiving future promotional information
or newsletters from us or our affiliated companies, or direct that we not share
your information with any affiliated companies, as set forth below.
In certain instances we may also share your personally identifiable information
with a limited number of third party vendors performing essential functions on our
behalf – e.g., vendors that process credit card orders, provide us marketing or
promotional assistance, analyze our data, assist us with customer service, etc.
Our vendors agree to use this information, and we share information with them, only
to carry out our requests. In addition, we may share your personally identifiable
information with participating sponsors to a program or promotion you enter via
our Website (e.g., a giveaway), and we may publish your name if you are a winner
(first name and last initial only). Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, our
Terms of Use, or as set forth when you submit the information, your personally identifiable
information will not be shared or sold to any third parties without your prior approval.
We DO NOT share, sell, rent, or trade your personally identifiable information with
others.
(2) Non-Personal Information: We use non-personal
information in a variety of ways, including to help analyze site traffic, understand
customer needs and trends, carry out targeted promotional activities, and to improve
our services. We may use your non-personal information by itself or aggregate it
with information we have obtained from others. We may share your non-personal information
with our affiliated companies and third parties to achieve these objectives and
others, but remember that aggregate information is anonymous information that does
not personally identify you.
C. OTHER USES & INFORMATION
(1) IP Addresses: An IP address is a number that is
automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Internet. Web
servers (computers that “serve up” web pages) automatically identify your computer
by its IP address. When visitors request pages from our Website, our servers typically
log their IP addresses. We collect IP addresses for purposes of system administration,
to report non-personal aggregate information to others, and to track the use of
our Website. IP addresses are considered non-personal information and may also be
shared as provided above. It is not our practice to link IP addresses to anything
personally identifiable; that is, the visitor’s session will be logged, but the
visitor remains anonymous to us. However, we reserve the right to use IP addresses
to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our
Website rules or to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements
of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property,
our Website, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety
of our Website’s users or the general public.
(2) Cookies, etc.: “Cookies” are small text files
from a website that are stored on your hard drive. These text files make using our
Website more convenient by, among other things, saving your passwords and preferences
for you. Cookies themselves do not typically contain any personally identifiable
information. We do not utilize cookies.
(3) Email Communications: If you send us an email
with questions or comments, we may use your personally identifiable information
to respond to your questions or comments, and we may save your questions or comments
for future reference. For security reasons, we do not recommend that you send non-public
personal information, such as passwords, social security numbers, or bank account
information, to us by email. However, aside from our reply to such an email, it
is not our standard practice to send you email unless you request a particular service
or sign up for a feature that involves email communications, it relates to purchases
you have made with us (e.g., product updates, customer support, etc.), we are sending
you information about our other products and services, or you consented to being
contacted by email for a particular purpose. In certain instances, we may provide
you with the option to set your preferences for receiving email communications from
us; that is, agree to some communications but not others. You may “opt out” of receiving
future commercial email communications from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link
included at the bottom of most emails we send, or as provided below; provided, however,
we reserve the right to send you transactional emails such as customer service communications.
(4) Transfer of Assets: As we continue to develop
our business, we may sell or purchase assets. If another entity acquires us or all
(or substantially all) of our assets, the personally identifiable information and
non-personal information we have about you will be transferred to and used by this
acquiring entity, though we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your preferences
are followed. Also, if any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding is brought by
or against us, all such information may be considered an asset of ours and as such
may be sold or transferred to third parties.
(5) Other: Notwithstanding anything herein to the
contrary, we reserve the right to disclose any personally identifiable or non-personal
information about you if we are required to do so by law, with respect to copyright
and other intellectual property infringement claims, or if we believe that such
action is necessary to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements
of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property,
our Website, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety
of our Website’s users or the general public.
D. CHILDREN
The features, programs, promotions and other aspects of our Website requiring the
submission of personally identifiable information are not intended for children.
We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under
the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13 and
believe he or she has disclosed personally identifiable information to us please
contact us at info@socialscience.net. A parent or guardian of a child under the
age of 13 may review and request deletion of such child’s personally identifiable
information as well as prohibit the use thereof.
E. KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SECURE
(1) We have implemented security measures that we
consider reasonable and appropriate to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration
of the information under our control. We secure the personally identifiable information
you provide on our dedicated servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected
from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. If your credit card information is
transmitted to an outside vendor for processing, then it is protected through the
use of encryption, such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol.
(2) Notwithstanding the foregoing, there is no such
thing as “perfect security” on the Internet and we cannot guarantee that unauthorized
third-parties will not circumvent the security measures we have in place to protect
our Website. In the unfortunate event that your personally identifiable information
(as the term or similar terms are defined by any applicable law requiring notice
upon a security breach) is compromised, we may notify you by e-mail (at our sole
and absolute discretion) to the last email address you have provided us in the most
expedient time reasonable under the circumstances; provided, however, delays in
notification may occur while we take necessary measures to determine the scope of
the breach and restore reasonable integrity to the system as well as for the legitimate
needs of law enforcement if notification would impede a criminal investigation.
Because no data transmission over the Internet is completely secure, and no system
of physical or electronic security is impenetrable, we cannot guarantee the security
of the information you send to us or the security of our servers or databases, and
by using the Website you agree to assume all risk in connection with the information
sent to us or collected by us when you use the website.
(3) From time to time we evaluate new technology for
protecting information, and when appropriate, we upgrade our information security
systems.
F. RESERVED FOR FUTURE USE
G. OTHER SITES/LINKS
Our Website may link to or contain links to other third party websites that we do
not control or maintain, such as in connection with purchasing products referenced
on our Website and banner advertisements. We are not responsible for the privacy
practices employed by any third party website. We encourage you to note when you
leave our Website and to read the privacy statements of all third party websites
before submitting any personally identifiable information.
H. CONTACT & OPT-OUT INFORMATION
You may contact us for any reason including if: (a) you have questions or comments
about our Privacy Statement; (b) you wish to make corrections to any personally-identifiable
information that you have provided; or (c) you would like to change your privacy
preferences.
There are multiple ways to contact us including via email, telephone, and regular
mail. Instructions on how to contact us are available here: http://socialscience.net/contact.aspx.
We will respond to your request and, if applicable and appropriate, make the requested
change in our active databases as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that
we may not be able to fulfill certain requests while allowing you access to certain
Services or benefits and features of our Website.
I. SOLE STATEMENT
This Privacy Policy as posted on this Website is the sole statement of our privacy
policy with respect to this Website, and no summary, modification, restatement or
other version thereof, or other privacy statement or policy, in any form, is valid
unless we post a new or revised policy to the Website
J. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS
Beginning January 1, 2005, California law permits customers that reside in California
to request certain information regarding the disclosure of personal information
we collect to third parties for marketing purposes. If you are a California resident,
have provided us with personal information within the last year, and would like
to know whom we have shared information with and what information was shared, you
may contact us at the e-mail address provided in the Contact Information section.
K. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to periodically revise this policy. Please check this page
periodically for changes. The document revision date displayed below will indicate
when this policy was last revised.
If we are planning to use your personally identifiable information in a manner different
from that stated at the time of collection, we will notify you via email. You will
have a choice as to whether or not you allow us to continue to use and maintain
your information under our new policy. Of course, if you have opted out of all communication
with us or deleted/deactivated your account, you will not be contacted and your
personal information will not be used or maintained under the new policy. Changes
to our privacy policy that do not affect user information already stored in our
database will be posted prominently on our website.
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