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Privacy Policy

Updated: 22 Dec 2018

We’ve updated our privacy policy to provide clear and direct language surrounding the information we collect, what we use it for, and the few situations in which we share it with others.  

We want you to use the Socially Connected products and/or services secure in the knowledge that we take your privacy seriously and that we’ve implemented fair and ethical information practices.  

By using our products and/or services, you are accepting the practices described in the below privacy policy, including our use of cookies and similar online tools.  If you do not agree to the terms of this privacy policy, please do not use our products and/or services.

THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Personal Information

When you sign-up for our newsletters, register for webinars, download whitepapers, or similar products and/or services on the Socially Connected property, you voluntarily supply personally identifiable information about yourself.

The personal information that we collect and store may include but is not limited to the following types of information about you:

  1. Contact information, including your first and last name, email address, and phone number.  
  2. Occupation information, including your company name, company type, your title, and any other information you directly provide to us via registration.

Unless explicitly stated at the time of collection, personal information is not shared directly with the Socially Connected advertisers.  

You can unsubscribe from our newsletters at any point via the link provided in each message we send.  

Non-Personal Information

When you use the Socially Connected websites, mobile apps, newsletters, or other digital products and/or services, we collect additional non-personally identifiable information.  

This includes, but is not limited to, data about your device, browser, operating system, your IP address, general location information, page information, and the date and time of each request you make to the Socially Connected.

This non-personal information may be collected through various technologies, including but not limited to server logs, cookies, and web beacons.

We may use information gathered across our network of websites, mobile apps, newsletters, and other products to create a single user record.  Additionally, we may use or combine information that we collect or receive from outside third-party sources to enhance, expand, and check the accuracy of our records.

HOW WE USE INFORMATION

We use your data for the following purposes:

  1. Provide you with access to the content and services we produce
  2. Analyze demographic or behavioral data to improve or personalize the products and services we offer to you
  3. Provide you with more relevant advertising content
  4. Post your user generated content and comments to the sites as you request
  5. To respond to any emails or requests you directly make to us
  6. For our own marketing and retargeting purposes
  7. For our statistical, research, recordkeeping, and reporting purposes
  8. To monitor our products and services for compliance with our Terms of Service and to protect the security of our network
  9. To comply with the law
  10. For any other purpose identified at the time of collection

We will not use the information provided to us in ways unrelated to the ones described above.

WHEN WE SHARE INFORMATION

We may share information collected about you under the following conditions:

  1. With your consent, after letting you know what information will be shared, and with whom.  
    1. This includes cases where we share your personal data with one of our advertisers or partners.  For example, when you register for a webinar or download a whitepaper provided by a partner. In these instances, we will make it clear that the data you are sharing will be transferred to the third party. You will always have the option to not have your data shared by not registering for that specific product and/or service.
  2. To third party service providers helping us provide, improve, and market the Socially Connected’s products and services.  Examples include but are not limited to:
    1. Our email service provider which we use sends our newsletter
    2. Our webinar provider which collects registration information and hosts online presentations
    3. Online analytic tools such as Google Analytics which provides analytics about website usage
    4. Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook
  3. With government entities as needed to provide our services and where required by law
  4. As part of an acquisition or merger with another company, a partial or total sale of assets, or another corporate change, including at bankruptcy
  5. To investigate, respond to or resolve problems or inquiries (including law enforcement or legal requests) or protect, enforce, or defend our rights, assets and/or interests
  6. To prevent or respond to a violation of any law, regulation, or our Terms of Service, or as necessary to protect and defend our network security

USE OF COOKIES

Like many websites, we use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to record your preferences, track the use of our products and services and your exposure to our online advertisements. We may also use these technologies to monitor traffic, improve the products and services and make it easier and/or relevant for your use. For example, we may recommend articles similar to the ones you’re reading or display advertisements that you haven’t already seen.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you prefer, you can usually modify your browser setting to disable or reject cookies. If you delete your cookies or if you set your web browser to decline cookies, some features may not work or may not work as designed.

Some browsers make it possible for you to signal that you don’t want your Internet browsing activity to be tracked. Since the Internet community hasn’t reached a consensus on how to honor these signals, we don’t take action to Do-Not-Track requests at this time.

ONLINE ADVERTISING PARTNERS

We allow third-party advertisers to display advertisements on our sites and in our products and services.  These third-party advertisers and related ad-serving companies may use cookies alone or in conjunction with tracking technologies such as web beacons to collect information about you when you use the Socially Connected products and/or services.

We will not provide these online advertisers with access to any personally identifiable information you may have provided to us without your consent.  Advertisers may, however, use persistent identifiers to track your internet usage across other websites in their networks beyond our websites. While we will not provide these advertisers with personally identifiable information, they may already possess personally identifiable information about you, obtained from other sources, and may be able to combine that information with information behavioral data collected when you use the Socially Connected products and/or services. For example, whether you engaged with their advertisement when it was displayed.

We do not control these third parties’ tracking technologies, how they may be used, or the information they may collect and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of those third parties.  

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, you may so by visiting www.aboutads.info/ or networkadvertising.org/choices/ or www.youronlinechoices.eu/.

DATA RETENTION

We will retain your Personal Data for as long as you maintain an account or as otherwise necessary to provide you the Services. We will also retain your Personal Data in a secure backup system for a reasonable period of time in order to assure reliable service and as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, protect our network security, and enforce our agreements.

Where we no longer need to process your Personal Data for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy, we will delete your Personal Data from our systems.

Where permissible, we will also delete your Personal Data upon your request.

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

Our Properties may contain links to third-party websites or mobile applications. Please be aware that we do not control these linked websites and that this Privacy Policy does not apply to those websites.

CHILDREN

Our Properties are not intended for children under the age of 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. We will post changes in this policy, and suggest that you periodically revisit this policy to stay informed of any changes.

SECURITY

We take reasonable measures to help protect data we collect from unauthorized access and use.  We cannot, however, fully eliminate security risks associated with the storage and transmission of Personal Data.

CONTACT US

If you have questions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at: privacy@thesociallyconnected.com or write to us at:

The Socially Connected
634 W. Cavalcade St. P.O. Box 8944 Houston, TX 77009

GDPR COMMITMENT

The Socially Connected

Version: December 2018

Commitment statement

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a comprehensive European Union data privacy law designed to strengthen and unify data protection laws for all residents of the EU. It will go into effect on May 25, 2018.

The Socially Connected is fully committed to being compliant with GDPR by the regulations effective date.

What we are doing

While the vast majority of the Socially Connected’s users do not reside in the European Union, the Socially Connected is fully committed to protecting our readers and clients privacy. To insure compliance with GDPR prior to the effective day, we have taken the following steps.

  1. Researched the regulations comprehensively and audited the various areas of our product and service to understand GDPR’s impact – Done
  2. Appointed a Data Privacy Officer – Done
  3. Designed a plan to reduce the data being collected as well as limit the retention of the data – Done
  4. Implemented changes and improvements to ensure compliance; in particular limiting or suspending the collection of data for specific users including Mixpanel, Google Analytics, server logs, and cookies – Done
  5. Improved our internal processes and procedures to handle users request to access and delete / erase their data – Done
  6. Updated our privacy policy and language included on our sign up pages for subscribing to our newsletters and downloading content – Done

EU users of the Socially Connected products can request a copy of the information we collect on them or asked to be deleted from our systems by contacting us via privacy@thesociallyconnected.com.

Resources:

Data Protection Officer:

Jennifer Perez Medina, CEO
privacy@thesociallyconnected.com
The Socially Connected
634 W. Cavalcade St. P.O. Box 8944 Houston, TX 77009