Privacy Policy – Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center

.
.
.
.
.

1. What this Privacy Policy Covers.

This Privacy Policy is applicable worldwide and covers how SVAMC treats personal information collected by SVAMC through its websites and offline. It does not apply to those sites or programs that do not display or link to this Privacy Policy or that have their own privacy statements.

2. Collection of Your Personal Information.

“Personal Information” is any information that can be used to identify an individual, and may include, but is not limited to, name, email address, postal or other physical address, credit or debit card number, title, occupation, and other information required to provide product or service or carry out some other transaction you have requested. Some of the circumstances where we collect your Personal Information include the following:

• Requesting information about SVAMC, our leadership, membership or services
• Newsletter subscriptions
• Inquiries and applications for membership
• Inquiries regarding a conference, seminar or webinar
• Placement of a transaction or order
• Registration for programming
• Inquiries regarding dispute resolution, ADR providers or neutral credentials
• Information sharing on events, organizations or ADR related activities
• Participation in a survey
• Participation in discussion groups or forums
• Collaboration programs and activities
• Submission of an entry for a sweepstakes or other promotion
• When you offer products or services
• When you offer apply for a position with SVAMC
• Customizing the marketing and content you see
• Provision of anonymous reporting for educational and verification purposes
• During online certification testing or other network and data security purposes

3. Uses of Your Personal Information.

We will use your Personal Information only in the way specified in this Privacy Policy. Some of the ways we may use your Personal Information include the following:

• To keep you up to date on SVAMC activities, ADR developments and related events
• To provide support and assistance with respect to our services and programming
• To process your inquiries and provide services that you have requested
• To engage in transactions with you
• To provide the ability to create personal profile areas and view protected content
• To provide the ability to contact you, and provide you with shipping and billing information
• To provide user feedback and support
• To provide and administer contests, sweepstakes or other marketing or promotional activities on our websites
• To conduct surveys
• To maintain marketing mailing lists and send communications to you.
• To support recruitment inquiries
• To understand more about you, so we can personalize newsletters and websites to your preferences. For example, allow you the opportunity to request specific information on services that may be of interest to you
• To allow you to forward information to another individual, such as a friend or co-worker who you believe is interested in receiving the information
• To administer and process membership inquiries
• To meet legal obligations

4. Access to and Accuracy of Your Personal Information.

We need your help in keeping your Personal Information accurate and up to date. If you provide Personal Information, please notify us of any changes to your Personal Information.

You may have the ability to view or edit your Personal Information online. To help prevent your Personal Information from being viewed by others, you may be required to sign in with your credentials (for example, email address and password). The appropriate method(s) for accessing your Personal Information will depend on the websites or services you have used. You may also email us at the following address to update your Personal Information or for other requests regarding your Personal Information:

Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center
Re: User / Member Information
[email protected]

We encourage you to utilize online updating mechanisms where available. Offline requests, particularly complex requests, may take more research and time. In all cases, we endeavor to respond regarding appropriate steps within thirty days.

5. Unsubscribe Preferences

Each promotional email from us should include instructions on how you can unsubscribe from that particular mailing.
This may not apply to the receipt of communications that are considered part of your subscription, membership or receipt of services; you may receive such service communications periodically unless we are properly notified you are no longer wish to receive such communiciations.

6. Use of Cookies and other Web Technologies

Like many websites, SVAMC’s sites may use automatic data collection tools, such as cookies, web logs, web beacons or embedded technologies. These tools collect certain standard information that your browser sends to the website such as your browser type and the address of the website from which you arrived at our website. They may also collect information about your Internet Protocol (IP) address (a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web, allowing Web servers to locate and identify your computer, which is a unique address assigned to your PC by your Internet Service Provider or Information Systems Department on a TCP/IP network) and click-stream behavior (for example, the pages you view and the links you click). These tools help make your visit to our website easier, more efficient and more valuable by providing you with a customized experience and recognizing you when you return.

A cookie cannot read personal data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. The only Personal Information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. Accepting the cookies used on our website may give us access to information about your browsing behavior, which we may use to personalize your experience and track user traffic patterns, and to merge this information when you register. We may do this to determine the usefulness of our website information to our users and to see how effective our navigational structure is in helping users reach that information. You may browse most of our web pages without accepting cookies; however, some website functionality may be lost by disabling cookies on your computer. Other SVAMC web pages, particularly those which require a login and password, may require cookies and cannot be used when you have disabled cookies in your browser.

If you prefer not to receive cookies while browsing our websites or via HTML-formatted emails, you can set your browser to warn you before it accepts cookies or refuse the cookie when your browser alerts you to its presence. You can also refuse all cookies by turning them off in your browser.

Emails from SVAMC may use links designed to lead you to determine the effectiveness of our marketing initiatives. In emails, these web links may also allow us to determine whether you have clicked a link in an email. If you do not want SVAMC to collect this information, do not click links in an email that SVAMC sends. SVAMC may use web beacons in conjunction with cookies to understand user behavior. Web beacons are simply a convenient way of gathering basic statistics and managing cookies, and do not give away any extra information from your computer. Turning off your browser’s cookies will prevent web beacons from tracking your specific activity.

Our website includes widgets, which are interactive mini-programs that run on our site to provide specific services from another company (e.g. displaying the news, opinions, music, etc). Personal information, such as your email address, may be collected through the widget or contacts may be imported at your request. Cookies may also be set by the widget to enable it to function properly. Information collected by a third party widget is governed by the privacy policy of the company that created the widget.

7. Non-personal/Anonymous Information Collection.

In some instances, we may collect non-personal (aggregate or demographic) data through cookies, web logs, web beacons or embedded technologies. This information is used to better understand and improve the usability, performance, and effectiveness of the website. In addition, by using our sites or services, anonymous network information may be transmitted back to us such as: the health of the equipment and types of devices attached to the network. With this information we can determine how users are interacting with us to assist us with improving services and to provide alerts regarding available software updates/upgrades.

8. Sharing Your Personal Information.

We do not sell, rent, share or trade your Personal Information to third parties for their marketing purposes. Personal Information limited to member name, affiliation, address, email, telephone and website information may be provided to cooperating ADR institutions, law firms, organizations, neutrals and other members for purposes of SVAMC conference planning and activities. We provide Personal Information to our third-party service providers to provide us marketing services and support. We may share Personal Information with service partners, service vendors, authorized third-party agents or contractors to offer or provide you information or services or to support a transaction you have requested, including processing and shipping orders, processing credit card transactions, hosting websites, hosting event and seminar registration and providing customer support. We only provide these third parties with the minimum amount of Personal Information necessary to complete/provide the requested service or transaction and the third parties are not permitted to use your Personal Information except for the limited purpose of completing/providing the requested service or transaction. We may share your Personal Information with affiliated entities for purposes of data processing or storage.

Member name, affiliation, address, email, telephone and website information may be shared with members, posted online or otherwise publicly disseminated.

We may disclose Personal Information where required in responding to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process. We also may choose to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims and use your Personal Information in this regard as appropriate.

We may collect and possibly share Personal Information and any other additional information available to us in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected or potential fraud, brand protection matters, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of our internal or external policies, or as otherwise required by law.

While navigating our websites or using our services you may be directed to content or functionality that is hosted by a third-party supplier. This may be done to host special events, such as contests. When information is collected on behalf of SVAMC exclusively, this SVAMC Privacy Statement will be referenced on the website and will govern how your information is used. For other, non-SVAMC websites, the website owner’s privacy policy and practices will apply.

9. Security of Your Personal Information.

SVAMC is committed to protecting the Personal Information you share with us. Depending on the Information collected, we intend to utilize one or more industry-standard security technologies, procedures, and/or organizational measures to help protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use and disclosure. However, no security method is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its security.

We recommend you take every precaution in protecting your Personal Information when you are on the Internet. For example, change your passwords often, use a combination of letters and numbers when creating passwords, enable multi-factor authentication, make sure you use a secure browser and network, keep your software updated to the latest security release versions and utilize data loss prevention technologies.

10. Supplementing Information.

From time to time we may supplement Personal Information collected on our website with information from other commercially available sources that we deem credible, such as business contact databases. This is to help us maintain the accuracy of the information we collect and help us provide better resources and services.

11. Linked Websites.

Our websites and services may offer links to other third-party websites and services which are outside our control and not covered by this Privacy Statement. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites or providers. We encourage you to review the privacy statements posted on all other sites you visit.

12. Forums/Chat Rooms.

If you participate in a discussion forum or chat room on a SVAMC website, you should be aware that the personal and other information you provide there will be made broadly available potentially inside or outside SVAMC by those who have access to that discussion forum or chat room. This personal information collected could also be used to send you unsolicited messages. Also, please recognize that individual forums and chat rooms may have additional rules and conditions. Each participant’s opinion on a forum or chat room is his or her own and should not be considered as reflecting the opinion of SVAMC. We are not responsible for the Personal Information or any other information you choose to submit in these forums.

13. User Comments.

We may post user testimonials, comments and reviews which may contain personal information including name, title and photograph. We do obtain user consent via email prior to posting the testimonial to post their name along with their testimonial.

14. Children’s Privacy.

SVAMC does not knowingly collect Personal Information from minors. If we learn that we have collected Personal Information on a child under the age of 13, we will delete that data from our systems. SVAMC encourages parents and guardians to go online with their children. Here are a few tips to help make a child’s online experience safer:
• Teach children never to give Personal Information (such as name, address, phone number, school, etc.) unless supervised by a parent or responsible adult.
• Know the sites your children are visiting and which sites are appropriate.
• Look for website privacy policies and know how your child’s information is treated.
Please visit the FTC’s website for more tips on protecting children’s privacy online.

15. Consent to Transfer, Processing and Storage of Personal Information.

We may transfer your Personal Information to SVAMC in the United States of America, to any SVAMC subsidiary or affiliate worldwide, or to third parties acting on our behalf, for the purposes of processing or storage, including for offering or providing SVAMC resources or services to you, and by providing any Personal Information to us you fully understand and unambiguously consent to the transfer, processing and storage of such information.

15. Compliance Issues.

SVAMC’s President serves as its Chief Privacy Officer. If you believe your personal information has been used in a way that is not consistent with this policy or your preferences, please contact the CEO in writing at the following address:

SVAMC
RE: Legal – Privacy
[email protected]

16. Applicable Law.

This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the State of California without reference to its choice of law provisions. Any and all disputes arising out of or relating to this privacy policy or the use of any personal information by SVAMC shall be resolved by binding arbitration in Palo Alto, California, USA under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. You agree that the federal and state courts for Santa Clara County, California, USA have exclusive jurisdiction over all such claims including with respect to enforcement of arbitration provisions.

Provisions of this Privacy Policy do not apply to the extent they are preempted or otherwise prohibited by applicable federal, state or other laws. To the extent provisions herein do not apply, all other terms remain in full force and effect.

Entire Understanding. This Privacy Policy constitutes the entire understanding between SVAMC and you regarding the privacy of Information provided to SVAMC. Except as otherwise provided by law, no additional terms or waiver will be implied or effective as to you except in a writing signed by an authorized officer of SVAMC.

17. Updates to this Privacy Policy.

SVAMC may update this privacy statement at any time. We will post a notice to this policy whenever this privacy statement is materially changed so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. Your continued use of the SVAMC website after any change will signify and confirm your assent to those changes.

18. Questions or comments?

For more information on U.S. consumer privacy, please visit the FTC’s website: www.ftc.gov.

We value your opinions. Should you have any questions or comments related to this Privacy Policy, please contact:

SVAMC
RE: Privacy Policy
[email protected]