Netcipia Privacy Policy

Effective as of August 15, 2006

This Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered on the sites www.netcipia.com and www.netcipia.net ("Site").

This Privacy Policy applies only to services that are owned and operated by Netcipia. We do not exercise control over the third party sites displayed as links from within our various services. These other sites have their own privacy policies, over which we have no control.

If you have any questions or complaints about this Policy, please click here.

What information we collect

Personal information is information that personally identifies you, such as your name, email address or billing information, or other data that can be reasonably linked to such information. Access to most areas of this Site does not require you to register for an account or provide any personal information to us.

Minors - Minors (under the age of 18, or as determined by the laws of their country of residence) are not eligible to use our service, except under limited circumstances. Minors are permitted to use a Netcipia Place only if they have been invited to join in by the Manager of that Netcipia Place. In this case, they will provide contact or other information, and will use the Netcipia Place, under the supervision and control of the Moderator, and within the requirements of the applicable laws. For any other circumstance, we ask that minors do not submit any personal information to us or use the service.

Cookies - When you visit our Site, we send one or more cookies - a small file containing a string of characters - to your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. Cookies may store user preferences and other information. When you visit the Site again, the cookie allows the Site to recognize your browser. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some of the features of our Site may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

Log information - Due to the communications standards on the Internet, Netcipia's servers automatically receive information when you visit our Site, including the URL of the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our Site, the Internet protocol (IP) address of your computer (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web), your computer operating system and type of web browser you are using, as well as the name of your ISP.

Links - Netcipia may present links in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed. We use this information to improve the quality of our customized content and advertising.

Netcipia Places - Access to a Netcipia Place requires registration. When you sign up for a Netcipia account, we ask personal information, such as your name, email address and an account password, which is used to protect your account from unauthorized access. A Netcipia Member ID and password allow you to access many of our services that require registration.

When you use a Netcipia Place, we store, process and maintain your messages, and the content and other data related to your account or your Netcipia Place in order to provide the Netcipia Service to you. Our servers automatically record certain information about your use of the service. We record information such as account activity (including storage usage, number of log-ins); data displayed or clicked on (including UI elements, links); and other log information (including browser type, IP-address, date and time of access, cookie ID, and referrer URL).

How we use your information

We use the information we collect from or about our users to:

• Provide our services to users;
• Audit, research and analyze the uses of our Site, in order to maintain, protect and improve our services;
• Ensure the technical functioning of our network.

Log Information - Log information is used to analyze overall trends to help us improve the Netcipia service. The linkage between your IP address and your personally identifiable information is never shared with third parties without your permission or when required by law.

Session Cookies - Session cookies are used to identify a particular visit to the Netcipia Site. Session cookies expire after a short time or when you close your web browser.

User communications - When you send email or other communication to Netcipia, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve our services.

Netcipia Places - Netcipia stores, processes and maintains the content you store in your Netcipia Place in order to provide the service to you. We may use cookie and tracking technologies to identify the most relevant advertising to display, or customize the content you see, based on IP address, the page being visited, content of materials and other information stored or displayed in your Netcipia Place, or related to your use of your Netcipia Places. In addition, we reserve the right to access any information or content stored on a Netcipia Place or distributed through a Netcipia Place when necessary to comply with an applicable law or regulation, or to respond to a subpoena, search warrant, or enforceable governmental request; to prevent imminent harm to our network and services, our users or the public; to address fraud, security or technical issues; to enforce our Terms of Use, including investigation of potential violations of these terms.

Persistent Cookies - We provide Members with the option to retain their Member ID on their computer, so that they can quickly access their Netcipia Place. If you elect to use this option, we will send a persistent cookie to your computer. The next time you visit our Site, the persistent cookie will allow us to recognize you as an existing registered Member so you will only need to enter your password to log in before using the service. If you delete your cookies, this persistent cookie will be deleted, and you will need to re-enter your Member ID and password next time you wish to use a Netcipia Place.

Your Choices

We offer you choices when we ask for personal information, whenever reasonably possible. You can decline to submit personal information, in which case Netcipia may not be able to provide those services to you. You can also refuse cookies in your browser, although some of our features or services may not function properly as a result.

If we propose to use personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Policy, we will provide you with the ability to opt out of the use of personal information for those other purposes.

Netcipia Places - You may terminate your use of a free Netcipia Place at any time as provide in our FAQs. Please note that terminating your use alone does not delete the content of your Netcipia Place

You may delete content from your Netcipia Place at any time, and the content will be deleted from our servers according to our document retention policies and applicable laws. For more information on how to delete your Netcipia Place, click here.

Disclosure to Third Parties

Netcipia shares personal information with other companies or individuals outside of Netcipia in limited circumstances:

• When we use third parties to assist us in processing your personal information. We require them to comply with our Privacy Policy and other appropriate confidentiality and security measures;
• When necessary to comply with an applicable law or regulation, or to respond to a subpoena, search warrant, or enforceable governmental request;
• To prevent imminent harm to our network and services, our users or the public;
• To address fraud, security or technical issues;
• To enforce our Terms of Use, including investigation of potential violations of these terms;
• When we have your consent.

We do not share your personal information with non-affiliated third parties for marketing purposes. We will provide you with the opportunity to choose (opt-out) whether your information can be disclosed to a third party or used for a purpose incompatible with the purpose for which it was originally collected or subsequently authorized by you.

We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

We may share with third parties certain pieces of aggregated, non-personal information, such as the number of users, or how many users clicked on a particular link with third parties outside of Netcipia.

If Netcipia becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, in which some of our user’s personal information is transferred to a third party, we will provide notice before personal information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Netcipia Places - Content you publish in a public Netcipia Place may be read, copied, used and re-distributed by people you do not know. We have no control over who will access content posted in a public Netcipia Place. Content you publish in a non-public Netcipia Place may be read, copied, used and re-distributed by other Members of that Netcipia Place, whom you do or do not know. In all cases, use care when posting personal information and do not include sensitive information, such as financial information or home addresses or phone numbers.

Advertisement

Netcipia may allow other companies to display advertisements on the Netcipia site. We do not provide any users’ personal information to advertisers, but we may disclose anonymous, aggregated data to our advertisers as part of our reporting on the use of the Site. For example, how many users have clicked on a particular advertisement.

When you click on a link to an advertisement, you are leaving our site, and your use of a third party’s site is subject to that third party’s terms of use and privacy policy, over which we have no control.

Where Personal Information is Processed

Netcipia processes personal information on its servers in the United States of America and in other countries. We may process personal information on a server outside your own country, and transfer it for processing purposes to another country where the privacy or data protection laws are different from those that are in effect in your country, and might offer less protection than in your country.

Access

We make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information upon request and to let you correct or amend such data if it is inaccurate. You also have the right to have inaccurate data deleted. We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed before processing such requests.

We may decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes), or for which access is not required. Access to and correction of information is free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort. While we may block access to inaccurate data, we may be required by law, regulations, court order, or enforceable governmental request to preserve a copy of these records for a certain period of time.

Security

We take reasonable security measures to protect personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data. We restrict access to personal information to Netcipia employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.

Data Integrity

Netcipia processes personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy. We review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services.

We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information whenever necessary.

Enforcement

Netcipia regularly reviews its compliance with this Policy. If you have a complaint or a question about our privacy practices, please click here

When we receive formal written complaints at this address, we contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Netcipia and an individual.

Changes to this policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We expect most such changes will be minor. We will post any Policy changes on this page and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (including, in certain cases, email notification of Policy changes). We will not reduce your rights under this Policy without your explicit consent.