Privacy Policy

The following statement discloses privacy practices for Messaging News (including messagingnews.com). Our privacy statement is effective as of April 2006 and updated Jauary 2013. We may update our policy from time to time without notice, so please check back periodically. All updates will be published at this page.

Personal Information

Messaging News collects information from our website users, subscribers and other customers. Messaging News understands your desire to protect personal information. We intend to inform you of how your personal information will be gathered, tracked or used, and to give you choices. If choices are not offered on one of our Websites where your personal information is obtained, please select one of the communication channels at the bottom of this statement to indicate your communication preferences. Below we describe the type of information we collect and how we use it to provide services to our customers.

What Information We Gather

When attending our in-person events, participating in our customer-sponsored webcasts, using some of our websites and signing up for certain selected services (such as email newsletters or magazine subscriptions), users must first register. During registration, users are required to give their contact information (such as name, e-mail address, mailing address and phone number). We also may collect demographic information (such as job title and purchasing responsibilities, company information and professional certification).

Providing such information is completely voluntary, and you are under no obligation to provide such information to Messaging News, but you may not get the full benefit of our products and services without providing such information.

Many of our products and services are free to subscribers who meet certain demographic criteria. Independent auditors may need to certify the eligibility of these subscribers. For these auditors, we may collect unique identifiers (such as the high school you graduated from) that we disclose to the auditors strictly for industry reporting and audit verification purposes.

For some services that require payment (such as certain events, products and subscriptions), we also collect credit card information (such as account name, number and expiration date).

From time to time we invite web site users and other customers to provide information via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the website user or other customer therefore has a choice whether to disclose requested contact information (such as name and mailing address) and demographic information (such as zip code or job title).

If customers elect to use our referral service for informing a friend (called Send to a Friend) about our sites and services, we may ask them for the friend’s name, job title and e-mail address.

Our web sites, newsletters and, from time to time, certain other products and services have features that automatically collect information from customers, to deliver content specific to customers’ interests and to honor their preferences. This information assists us in creating products and services that will serve the needs of our customers.

For example, Messaging News may use cookies from time to time. A cookie is a small amount of data stored on the hard drive of the individual’s computer that allows us to identify the individual with his or her corresponding data that resides in our databases. You may read more about cookies at http://cookiecentral.com. Messaging News may use cookies to remember you when you register for products or services. If you do not want Messaging News to deploy cookies in your browser, you can set your browser to remove or block cookies or to notify you when a Website tries to put a cookie in your browser software. Rejecting cookies may affect your ability to use of some of the products and/or services at our Websites.

Messaging News may also use cookies to track your visit to our Websites. While our Web servers may automatically log your IP address, your Internet traffic statistics will not be tied back to other personal information. In addition, Messaging News may collect information from your access device (such as computer, mobile phone, etc) about your browser type, location, and IP address, and pages visited.

Additionally, we may note some of the pages the user visits on our web sites and via our e-mail newsletters through the use of pixel tags (also called clear gifs) and web beacons. The use of cookies, pixels and web beacons enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our sites and via our e-mail newsletters.

We use third-party advertising technology to serve ads for Messaging News products and services when you visit certain Messaging News Web sites. This technology uses information about your visits to these Messaging News Web sites (not including your name, address, or other personal information), to serve our ads to you. In the course of serving our advertisements to you, a unique third-party cookie may be placed or recognized on your browser. In addition, we use web beacons, provided by our ad-serving partner, to help manage our online advertising for Messaging News products and services. These web beacons enable our ad server to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits these sites and to learn which banner ads bring users to our Web sites. The information used in this process is not personally identifiable.

We also use an e-mail delivery and marketing company to send e-mails (including newsletters) for which you have registered (or otherwise agreed to receive). Web beacons and cookies may be used in such e-mail messages to help us measure the effectiveness of our advertising and how customers use our web sites and other products and services.

How We Use the Information We Gather and Track

You decide whether to continue with any activity that requires that you provide personal information. If you do not wish to provide the requested information, however, you may not be able to complete the activity or obtain our products or services.

If you agree to provide personal information, we will use it in the following ways:

1. To provide you with information about product upgrades, new products, services, newsletters, informative e-mails, and research on future product ideas or improvements;
2. To provide you with special offers and service updates that may be of interest to you;
3. To assist us in creating better products and services to meet your needs;
4. To allow you to purchase and download related products;
5. To register for products/services and to obtain access to these products/services, including email newsletters or magazine subscriptions or otherwise engage in activities you select;
6. To help you quickly find software, services or product information important to you;
7. To provide a more personalized experience on our sites;
8. To improve our service, for marketing purposes and/or industry reporting purposes;
9. For our services that require payment, we use collect credit card information for our or our agent’s billing purposes only; credit card information is not otherwise shared.
10. To notify survey and contest winners of award prizes and to monitor or improve the use of, and satisfaction with the website or other Messaging News products or services. Messaging News may identify prize recipients in a general way—e.g., by first name and last initial, industry and/or state—in promoting future contests or webinars.
11. To communicate with a customer for account-related issues via e-mail, phone or regular mail.
12. For customers utilizing our referral service (Send to a Friend), Messaging News will store and use this information to send the friend an invitation. This information may also be used to provide information about our company and related products and services. The friend may contact us to request that no further communications be sent.

With Whom We May Share Your Information

When we have co-branded, customized, private label, or sponsored products and services, or otherwise partner with other parties to provide specific services, we may (provide and receive) contact and other user information with such third parties (we do not share credit card information with such third parties).

From time to time, however, unless we have stated otherwise, we may provide certain information to selected business partners in order to effectively provide the product or service requested. For example, registering for a webcast/seminar irrevocably gives us permission to share user information with our webcast/seminar partners, and users who do not wish to have their identifying information shared with our webcast/seminar partners should refrain from registering from these events. These sponsors will use the information according to their own privacy policies, and we urge participants to read those policies and be aware of their privacy practices before registering.

Messaging News cannot control what happens to any personally identifying information contained in a complaint once the complaint is sent, but Messaging News will not send complaints without your consent.

In addition, Messaging News may retain the services of outside contractors to provide services for us. They may be used to ship products, provide technical support, handle order processing or perform other services for us. We require that these contractors keep the personal information of customers secure and confidential. We also require that these contractors use personal information only on behalf of Messaging News.

If you prefer that we not provide your information to our business partners, you may let us know by using one of the methods described in this policy.

Other than as set forth above, we do not share personally identifiable information with other companies; apart from those acting as our agents in providing our product(s)/service(s), and our agents agree to use it only for that purpose and to keep the information secure and confidential. Also, our subsidiary and affiliate companies, entities into which our company may be merged, or entities to which any of our assets, products, sites or operations may be transferred, will be able to use personal information.

We will also disclose information we maintain when required to do so by law, for example, in response to a court order or a subpoena or other legal obligation, in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property. Users should also be aware that courts of equity, such as U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, might have the authority under certain circumstances to permit personal information to be shared or transferred to third parties without permission.

We may share aggregate information, which is not personally identifiable, with others. This information may include usage and demographic data, but it will not include personal information.

Choice/Opt-Out

Messaging News provides a number of ways for you to ‘opt-out’ of receiving additional information from us, participating in the programs that you register for, or having us provide your personal information to our business partners.

If you are on an Messaging News Website that requires personal information but does not offer communication choices, or would like to change your preferences for information that you have previously provided, please use one of the communication channels at the bottom of this statement.

Our customers are given the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from our affiliates and us, including any e-mail newsletters or bulletins we may send to you, by replying to the unsubscribe link using the instructions listed at the end of the e-mail newsletter.

Other than the sharing of user information with certain sponsors, as set forth in the “With Whom Your Information Is Shared” section above, customers also can contact us at support [at] messagingnews [dot] com to change their preferences.

In addition, for those customers who are California residents, you may have additional rights, as described in the “Your California Privacy Rights” section below.

Please note that we will endeavor to implement your permission requests within a reasonable time, although for a time you may continue to receive mailings, etc., transmitted based on information released prior to the implementation of your request.

Security

We have taken reasonable security measures to protect our customers’ personal information, including technical and procedural steps to store it securely and to protect your data from misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, loss, alteration or destruction. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, a billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Of course, there is no such thing as “perfect security” on the Internet.

Correcting Your Personal Information

If you provide to us your personal information and at any time you believe that your information is not current or if you no longer desire our product(s)/service(s), please update it by using one of the communication channels at the bottom of this statement. We will make a sincere effort to respond to your requests to update or correct your personal information in our databases, though to the extent that the information is also stored in other databases, we cannot always ensure that corrections and/or changes will reach the other databases. We will also try to provide you with a way to review the personal information that you provide to us and if you wish to have it removed, we will take reasonable steps to remove it from our records, though once again, to the extent that the information is also stored in other records, we cannot always ensure that the changes will reach those other records.

Web Site Traffic

We may track domain names, IP addresses, e-mail addresses and browser types from people who visit our Websites. Such information is not correlated with any personal information.

For our internal purposes, we gather date, time, browser type, navigation history and IP address of all visitors to our web sites. This information does not contain anything that can identify users personally. We 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 combine demographic information supplied by a customer at registration with web site usage data to provide general profiles, in aggregate non-personally identifiable form, about our customers and their preferences in the content of the site and advertising. We may share this composite information with our advertisers and business affiliates to help them better understand our services.

Business Partner Websites

At the Messaging News Websites, we list a number of business partners with whom we have a relationship. Personal information provided to Messaging News will be protected by requirements at least as strict as Messaging News’s internal policies. However, Messaging News is not responsible for the privacy practices of our business partners. If you visit their Websites, we encourage you to read their privacy statements, as they may differ from ours.

In addition, some of our business affiliates use cookies on our web sites in ads or promotions. We have no access to or control over these business affiliates’ cookies; we urge users to read their privacy policies for information.

Links

Messaging News Websites also contain links to other sites. Please be aware that Messaging News is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our visitors to, when they leave our Websites, to read the privacy statements of each and every site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by Messaging News Websites.

Other Privacy Considerations

Please remember that all personal information you submit in a discussion group, forum, webcast, user profile or other interactive/community feature affiliated with our products, will be deemed public information and is not confidential. Note that all personal information sent or posted via such features becomes public information for which we are not responsible. There is a risk in such communication venues that information can be collected and used by others. Please be careful and responsible when you are online.

Also, children are not eligible to use our services and we ask that minors do not submit any personal information to us. If you are a minor, you can use this service only in conjunction with your parents or guardians.

Policy Changes

In the event there is a major change to Messaging News’s privacy practices, a notice will be posted on this page so our users are aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under which circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If the change involves the use of your personally identifiable information, the notice will contain instructions on how you can opt-out of such use. Users should check this policy frequently to keep abreast of any changes.

For questions about this Privacy Statement, contact:

Email: support [at] messagingnews [dot] com
Messaging News / TechPoint Media, LLC
555 Moffett Rd
Lake Bluff IL 60061
Phone: 224-436-8044
Fax: 509-472-1888

Communications with Messaging News

We have features where our customers can submit information to us (such as our feedback forms). Where such submissions include requests for service, support or information, we may forward them to our agents, as needed, to best respond to the specific request. In addition, we may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our internal administrative purposes, and to help us to serve customers better. Please note that letters to the editor and similar submissions may be made public.

If you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to change your communication preferences, please contact us using one of the options below:

Email: support [at] messagingnews [dot] com
Messaging News / TechPoint Media, LLC
555 Moffett Rd
Lake Bluff IL 60061
Phone: 224-436-8044
Fax: 509-472-1888

Similarly, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits customers who are California residents to request that Messaging News not share your personal information with third parties for their direct marketing use. To make such a request, please e-mail us or write us at the above contact information.