SFS Privacy Policy
What This Privacy Policy Covers
This privacy policy covers the use of the web site located at http://sciencesounds.org and the services provided by Sounds for Science, Inc. ("SFS"), including how SFS treats personal information that SFS collects and receives. Pursuant to SFS's Terms of Use, you must be 18 years and older to use this site or have permission from a legal guardian. Therefore, this policy makes no provision for individuals under 18 years old. This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that SFS does not own or control, or individuals that SFS does not employ or manage.
Effective Date: 03/15/09
Information Collection and How it is Used
General Information:
• SFS will not sell or disclose your name or email address to third parties without your explicit consent, except as specified in this privacy policy.
• SFS collects personal information when you register to use SFS services or to post content on SFS. At registration you are asked for your email address and certain other optional information.
• SFS automatically receives and records information on our server logs from your browser, including your IP address, cookies, and the pages you request. This data is only used in the aggregate.
• SFS uses information for the following general purposes: products and services provisioning, identification and authentication, services improvement, contact, research, and anonymous reporting. IP addresses are automatically reported by your browser each time you view a web page. Your IP address is stored in SFS's user registration databases when you register with SFS. IP addresses may be used for various research purposes.
Service-related Announcements
SFS will send you a welcome/confirmation email when you sign up for SFS's services. Receipt of this email is required for using SFS's services.
SFS will send you service-related announcements on rare occasions when it is necessary to do so.
You may not opt-out of service-related communications. If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account by emailing support@sciencesounds.org from the email address you signed up with.
Administrative Messages
SFS may periodically email you with administrative messages. SFS will not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. Your information may be combined with information SFS collects from other parties and used to improve and personalize services, content and advertising. If you don't wish to receive administrative messages or participate in these programs, simply opt-out by emailing support@sciencesounds.org.
Friend Features
"Invite Friends" is a feature in which members can send a one-time email message to invite someone to join SFS. "Invite Friends" allows members to share information about SFS by sending a personalized email message.
If you choose to use SFS's "Invite Friends" feature, SFS will ask for the information needed to send the message, such as your friend's email address. SFS will then automatically send your friend an email, inviting your friend to visit the site. For the "Invite Friends" feature, SFS stores the information for the purpose of sending this message, limiting the ability to send invitations to one per recipient-sender combination and tracking the success of this feature (registration referrals).
Choice/Opt-out
If you no longer wish to receive administrative messages, you may opt-out by emailing support@sciencesounds.org. Please note that if you do not wish to receive administrative messages from us, those notices will still govern your use of the SFS website and service, and you are responsible for reviewing such notices for changes.
Cookies
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a web site's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is set. If you reject all cookies, you will not be able to use SFS products or services that require you to "sign in," and you may not be able to take full advantage of the SFS service. SFS uses its own cookies for a number of purposes, including to: Access your information when you "sign in"; keep track of preferences you specify while you are using SFS's services; display the most appropriate advertising banners, based on your interests and activity on SFS; estimate and report SFS's total audience size and traffic; conduct research to improve SFS's content and services. SFS cookies do not collect personal information, and SFS does not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to tell us who you are or what your username or email address is.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
When you post a message, your SFS ID or alias is visible to other users. If you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return. SFS may be required to disclose personally identifiable information under special circumstances, such as to comply with subpoenas or when your actions violate the SFS Terms of Use. SFS may disclose personally identifiable information to parties in compliance with SFS's Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy, as SFS in SFS's sole discretion believes necessary or appropriate in connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, SFS may disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name. SFS may share aggregated demographic information with business partners.
SFS is affiliated with a variety of businesses and works closely with them. These businesses may operate stores on the SFS website or sell items to you from the SFS website. SFS may also provide services or sell products jointly with affiliated businesses. Due to the nature of SFS's business model, when an affiliated business is associated with your transaction, you will share customer information that is related to such transaction with that affiliated business.
SFS employs other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and needs to share your information with them to provide products and services to you. Examples include but are not limited to fulfilling orders, handling billing disputes, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance and providing customer service.
SFS will not rent, sell, or share personal information about you with nonaffiliated parties except as specified in this Privacy Policy to provide products or services you have requested or when SFS has your permission. It may be necessary to share information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of SFS's Terms of Use, as specified in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise required by law. In some cases, SFS may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, customer information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. SFS will transfer information about you if SFS is acquired by or merged with another company. In this event, SFS will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the SFS web site before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
As part of the networking process, you may obtain another SFS user's email address, shipping address and/or other information. Pursuant to SFS's Terms of Use, you have a limited license to use this information. This information should only be used for SFS-related communications or for SFS-facilitated transactions. SFS has not granted you a license to use the information for unsolicited commercial messages. Without limiting the foregoing, without express consent from the user, you are not licensed to add any SFS user to your email or physical mail list.
Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and SFS's ability to keep the community free from bad actors, SFS will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a subpoena, court order, legal process, or substantially similar legal procedure, except when SFS believes in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to protect SFS's rights, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or to report suspected illegal activity.
Forums / Chat Rooms
If you use a forum or chat room on this site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by others or could be used to send you unsolicited messages. SFS is not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.
Third Parties
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information SFS collects from you. If you disclose your information to others, on SFS or throughout the internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them. SFS does not control the privacy policies of third parties, and you are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties where applicable. SFS is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of other websites on the Internet, even those linked to or from the SFS site. SFS encourages you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.
Editing and Deleting Account Information
You can change your SFS Account Information (except your username), at any time. SFS may send you certain communications relating to the SFS service, such as service-related announcements and administrative messages that are considered part of your SFS account. You can delete your SFS account by emailing support@sciencesounds.org. Please note that your identification and contact information may remain in SFS's records for some period.
SFS limits access to personal information about you to employees who SFS believes reasonably need to come into contact with that information to provide products or services to you or in order to do their jobs. Your SFS Account Information is password-protected.
If your personally identifiable information changes you may correct or update it by making the change on Your SFS Page. You may delete or deactivate your account by emailing Customer Support at support@sciencesounds.org. SFS will respond to your request within 10-20 business days.
Security
The security of your personal information is important to us. Your SFS account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You need to work to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by signing off once you have finished using a shared computer. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) SFS encrypts that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). SFS follows generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once SFS receives it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while SFS strives to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, SFS cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on SFS's Web site, you can email SFS at support@sciencesounds.org.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
If the privacy policy is changed, SFS will post changes so that you are aware of those changes. SFS reserves the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If SFS makes material changes to this policy you will be notified here, by email, or other places SFS deems appropriate.
Questions
If you have questions or suggestions you can contact support@sciencesounds.org