PRIVACY POLICY

a. Information You Provide To Us

Personal Information and Demographic Information. On the Sites/Apps, we may ask you to provide us with certain categories of information such as: (1) personally identifiable information, which is information that identifies you personally, such as your first and last name and e-mail address (“Personal Information”); and (2) demographic information, such as information about your area of scientific interest, education level, and occupation (“Demographic Information”). We may collect this information through various forms and in various places on the Sites/Apps, including account registration forms, contact us forms, or when you otherwise interact with the Sites/Apps. If we combine Demographic Information with the Personal Information we collect directly from you on the Sites/Apps, we will treat the combined data as Personal Information under this Privacy Policy.

b. Information We Collect or Store As You Access And Use The Sites/Apps

In addition to any Personal Information or other information that you choose to submit to us via our Sites/Apps, we and our third-party service providers may use a variety of technologies that automatically (or passively) store or collect certain information whenever you visit or interact with the Sites/Apps (“Usage Information”). This Usage Information may be stored or accessed using a variety of technologies that may be downloaded to your personal computer, laptop, tablet or mobile phone (a “Device”) whenever you visit or interact with our Sites/Apps. Usage Information may be non identifying or may be associated with you. Whenever we associate Usage Information with your Personal Information, we will treat it as Personal Information.

This Usage Information may include:

• our IP address or other unique identifier (“Device Identifier”). A Device Identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your Device used to access the Sites/Apps, and our computers identify your Device by its Device Identifier;
• your Device functionality (including browser, operating system, hardware, mobile network information);
• the URL that referred you to our Sites/Apps;
• the areas within our Sites/Apps that you visit and your activities there, including remembering you and your preferences;
• your Device location;
• your Device characteristics; and
• certain other Device data, including the time of day, among other information.

We may use various developed methods and technologies to store or collect Usage Information (“Tracking Technologies”). Tracking Technologies may set, change, alter or modify settings or configurations on your Device. A few of the Tracking Technologies include, without limitation, the following (and subsequent technology and methods later developed):

Cookies. A cookie is a data file placed on a Device when it is used to visit the Sites/Apps. A Flash cookie (or locally shared object) is a data file placed on a Device via the Adobe Flash plug-in that may be built-in to or downloaded by you to your Device. HTML5 cookies can be programmed through HTML5 local storage. Unlike Flash cookies, HTML5 cookies do not require a plug-in. Regular cookies may generally be disabled or removed by tools that are available as part of most commercial browsers, and in some but not all instances can be blocked in the future by selecting certain settings. Each browser you use will need to be set separately and different browsers offer different functionality and options in this regard. Also, these tools may not be effective with regard to Flash cookies or HTML5 cookies. For information on disabling Flash cookies go to Adobe’s website www.adobe.com. Please be aware that if you disable or remove cookies, Flash cookies, or HTML5 cookies on your Device, some parts of our Sites/Apps may not function properly, and that when you revisit our Sites/Apps your ability to limit cookies is subject to your browser settings and limitations.

Web Beacons. Small graphic images or other web programming code called web beacons (also known as “1x1 GIFs” or “clear GIFs”) may be included in our Sites/Apps’ pages and messages. Web beacons may be invisible to you, but any electronic image or other web programming code inserted into a page or e-mail can act as a web beacon. Web beacons or similar technologies may be used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation, to count visitors to the Sites/Apps, to monitor how users navigate the Sites/Apps, to count how many e-mails that were sent were actually opened or to count how many particular articles or links were actually viewed.

Embedded Scripts. An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Sites/Apps, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your Device from our web server or a third party service provider, is active only while you are connected to the Sites/Apps, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.

ETag, or entity tag. A feature of the cache in browsers. It is an opaque identifier assigned by a web server to a specific version of a resource found at a URL. If the resource content at that URL ever changes, a new and different ETag is assigned. Used in this manner ETags are a form of Device Identifier. ETag tracking may generate unique tracking values even where the consumer blocks HTTP, Flash, and HTML5 cookies.

We may use Tracking Technologies for a variety of purposes, including:

Strictly Necessary. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that we consider are strictly necessary to allow you to use and access our Sites/Apps, including cookies required to prevent fraudulent activity, improve security or allow you to make use of shopping cart functionality.

Performance Related. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that are useful in order to assess the performance of the Sites/Apps, including as part of our analytic practices or otherwise to improve the content, products or services offered through the Sites/Apps.

Functionality Related. We may use cookies or other Tracking Technologies that are required to offer you enhanced functionality when accessing the Sites/Apps, including identifying you when you sign in to our Sites/Apps or keeping track of our specified preferences, including in terms of the presentation of content on our Sites/Apps.

Advertising Related. We may use Tracking Technologies to deliver content, including ads, relevant to your interests on our Sites/Apps and third party sites based on how you interact with our advertisements or content. This includes using Tracking Technologies to understand the usefulness to you of the advertisements that have been delivered to you. Further information on this is found in Section 5 below.

There may be other Tracking Technologies now and later devised and used by us in connection with the Sites/Apps. Further, third parties may use Tracking Technologies with our Sites/Apps. We may not control those Tracking Technologies and in such event, we are not responsible for them. However, you consent to potentially encountering third party Tracking Technologies in connection with use of our Sites/Apps and accept that our statements under this Privacy Policy do not apply to the Tracking Technologies or practices of such third parties. For more information on advertising and advertisers, and related Tracking Technologies, click here.

c. Information Third Parties Provide About You

We may, from time to time, supplement the information we collect directly from you on our Sites/Apps with outside records from third parties for various purposes, including to enhance our ability to serve you, to tailor our content to you and to offer you opportunities that may be of interest to you. To the extent we combine information we receive from those sources with Personal Information we collect on the Sites/Apps, it will be treated as Personal Information and we will apply this Privacy Policy to such combined information, unless we have disclosed otherwise. In no other circumstances do our promises under this Privacy Policy apply to information we receive about you from third parties.

d. Information You Provide About a Third Party

You may send someone else a communication from the Sites/Apps, such as sending an invitation to a friend. If so, the information you provide (names, e-mail addresses, mobile number, etc.) is used to facilitate the communication and is not used by us for any other marketing purpose unless we obtain consent from that person or we explicitly say otherwise. Please be aware that when you use any send-to-a-friend functionality on our Sites/Apps, your e-mail address, mobile number, name or user name and message may be included in the communication sent to your addressee(s). Some of these tools may be third party tools subject to 3rd party privacy policies.

a. When You Agree To Receive Information From Third Parties

You may be presented with an option on our Sites/Apps to receive certain information and/or marketing offers directly from third parties. If you choose to do so, your Personal Information will be disclosed to such third parties and all information you disclose will be subject to the third party privacy policies and practices of such third parties. We are not responsible for such third party privacy policies and practices of such third parties and, therefore, you should review such third party privacy policies and practices of such third parties prior to agreeing to receive such information from them. If you later decide that you no longer want to receive communications from one of these third parties, you will need to contact that third party directly.

b. Third Parties Providing Services on Our Behalf

We may use third party vendors to perform certain services on behalf of us or the Sites/Apps, such as hosting the Sites/Apps, designing and/or operating the Sites/Apps’ features, tracking the Sites/Apps’ activities and analytics, and enabling us to send you special offers or perform other administrative services. We may provide these vendors with access to user information, including Device Identifiers and Personal Information, to carry out the services they are performing for you or for us. Third party analytics service providers may set and access their own Tracking Technologies on your Device and they may otherwise collect or have access to information about you, potentially including Personal Information, about you. We are not responsible for those third party technologies or activities arising out of them.

c. Administrative and Legal Reasons

We may access, use, preserve, transfer and disclose your information (including Device Identifiers and Personal Information), including disclosure to third parties: (i) to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, subpoenas, governmental requests or legal process if in our good faith opinion such is required or permitted by law; (ii) to protect and/or defend the Sites/Apps’ Terms of Service or other policies applicable to the Sites/Apps, including investigation of potential violations thereof; (iii) to protect the safety, rights, property or security of the Sites/Apps or any third party; and/or (iv) to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues. Further, we may use IP address or other Device Identifiers, to identify users, and may do so in cooperation with third parties such as copyright owners, internet service providers, wireless service providers and/or law enforcement agencies, including disclosing such information to third parties, all in our discretion, subject to applicable law. Such disclosures may be carried out without notice to you.

d. Business Transfer

We may share your information, including your Device Identifiers and Personal Information, Demographic Information and Usage Information with our parent, subsidiaries and affiliates. We also reserve the right to disclose and transfer all such information: (i) to a subsequent owner, co-owner or operator of the Sites/Apps or applicable database; or (ii) in connection with a merger, consolidation, restructuring, the sale of substantially all of our interests and/or assets or other corporate change, including, during the course of any due diligence process.