This Privacy Statement sets forth the practices of the Expanded Shale, Clay and Slate Institute (ESCSI) regarding the collection and use of information relating to the ESCSI Web site and other activities of ESCSI. ESCSI created its policy with a fundamental respect for the rights to privacy of our members, customers and visitors. Some pages of the Web site may be accessed only by members of ESCSI, ESCSI Committees, or affiliates, although most of the Web site may be accessed by all who visit the Web site.
Information Collection and Use
When registering for our educational events or conferences, using our Web site, ordering products, and signing up for certain selected services, you may be asked for information about yourself, including but not limited to contact information (such as name, e-mail address, mailing address and phone number) or demographic information (such as job title and purchasing responsibilities, company information and professional designation).
If you sign up to become a member of ESCSI, you are asked for personal information such as your education level, interests, and years of experience. This information is used to better understand our membership and is not disclosed to outside organizations.
For our services that require payment (such as certain events, products and subscriptions), we collect credit card information (such as account name, number and expiration date), which is used for billing purposes only, and is not otherwise shared, except with a reputable third party processing vendor. ESCSI uses secure socket layer (SSL) technology when you make purchases or send credit card and login information to ESCSI.
We have features through which you may submit information to us (such as contact forms). Requests for service, support or information may be forwarded as needed to best respond to a specific request. Under some circumstances, we may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our internal administrative purposes, and to help us better serve customers.
From time to time we may invite you to provide information via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and therefore you have a choice whether to disclose requested contact information (such as name and mailing address) and demographic information (such as zip code or job title). In addition to other uses set forth in this policy, contact information collected in connection with surveys and contests is used to notify the winners and award prizes and may be shared with sponsors of such surveys or contests.
Automatically Collected Data
Web servers automatically collect information about visitors, and ours does as well. This information includes the date, time, and navigation history of the session, as well as your browser type, and IP address. This information does not contain anything that can identify you personally. Automatically collected data may be used to deliver content specific to your interests and to honor your preferences.
We use “cookies,” (a “cookie” is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user). Cookies make it possible for us to reduce the number of times you are required to login or to tailor the Web site to fit your interests. Most Internet browsers allow you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to the instructions or help screen of your browser to learn how it handles cookies.
Some of our business affiliates may use cookies on our sites in ads or promotions. We have no access to or control over these business affiliates’ cookies, so we urge you to read their privacy policies for information.
Information About You That May Be Stored In Our Database
We may check the information you have provided against any information we have about you in our membership database. We do this to ensure that we maintain the most current and accurate information about you as a valued member.
Our database may contain your name, title, affiliation, industry classification, address, phone and fax numbers, and e-mail address, if you provide them. We may also collect additional information about you including but not limited to: registration and your participation with ESCSI (offices you hold, committees or boards on which you serve or have served, membership status, meetings attended, products purchased, events attended, etc.).
How We Use Information About You
Automatically collected data such as cookies and log files help us understand the interests of our visitors in order to enhance their experience on our sites. We also use this information for our internal security audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad demographic information about our user base for aggregate use.
We may use information you have provided to process transactions you request. We may also use this information to inform you of new products and upcoming events that may be of interest to you, based on your participation in ESCSI activities, purchases of products, or interests in technologies you have indicated. You may choose not to receive these communications.
We may combine demographic information you have supplied with site usage data to produce general profiles, in aggregate form that cannot identify you personally, about our members, customers and visitors and their preferences in the content of the site and advertising.
We use aggregate demographic information about our members, customers and visitors to improve our service, for marketing purposes and/or industry reporting purposes.
Shared Data
We partner with other third parties to provide specific services. For example, exposition registration services may be provided by a third party. These third parties are not allowed to use information about you except for the purpose of providing these services.
We may share aggregated or composite information that does not identify you personally with our advertisers, exhibitors and business affiliates.
ESCSI may be required to provide information about any of its members or prospective members to law enforcement or government agencies.
Security
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry – SSL.
Links
This Web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that ESCSI cannot be responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. We urge you to read the privacy statements of Web sites that collect personally identifiable information.
Students and Children
ESCSI will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under 13 years of age, unless it is necessary to respond to a one-time request. Once the request has been answered, ESCSI will delete the requesting child’s personally identifiable information.
Preferences, Permission, Opt-out
If you wish to be excluded from marketing by ESCSI via mail and/or e-mail, phone or fax, please contact us at info@escsi.org.
Updates to this Privacy Statement
ESCSI may, in its sole discretion, update this statement at any time by posting the amended statement on the Web site, and it shall be effective upon posting. This statement was last updated on November 17, 2009.
Contact, Questions, Comments, Complaints
If you would like to communicate with ESCSI regarding privacy issues, or have questions, comments, or complaints regarding this Web site or its policy practices, or if you feel that ESCSI is not abiding by our privacy policy statement, please contact us at info@escsi.org.