Beyond The Dow Privacy Statement

Your privacy is important to us, and we are committed to respecting the privacy rights of our members and other users of the Beyond The Dow services.  We have designed this policy to help you understand how we collect and use the information you decide to share, so that you make informed decisions when using the Beyond The Dow services.

If you have any questions concerning this privacy policy, please contact us by clicking here .

Information We Collect

Registration

In order to become a Beyond The Dow member, you must first register and create an account on Beyond The Dow's website.  In creating an account, you are required to create a user name and password, and provide contact information (such as name, email address, city, country, ZIP/postal code, and a brief profile summary).  You have the option to provide additional personal or preference information to us.  We encourage you to submit this information so we can provide you a more personalized experience on Beyond The Dow.

Profile Information

Once a registered member of Beyond The Dow, you can create a profile that includes personal information, such as your gender, age, occupation, hobbies, and interests, plus other content including photos and videos.  This information may be accessed and viewed by other Beyond The Dow members.  Providing additional information beyond what is required at registration is entirely optional, but enables you to better identify yourself and facilitates member interaction in the Beyond The Dow online community.

You also provide certain personally identifiable information (such as your user name and email address) to Beyond The Dow when choosing to participate in various activities on Beyond The Dow, such as uploading videos or photographs, posting messages or comments, entering contests or sweepstakes, taking advantage of promotions, responding to surveys, or subscribing to newsletters or other mailing lists.

Information about your Contacts

In order to invite others to connect with you directly in Beyond The Dow, you will enter their names and email addresses.  This information will be used by Beyond The Dow to send your invitation including a message that you write.  Beyond The Dow stores this information to send this one-time email, to register a contact if your invitation is accepted, and to track the success of our referral program.  Your contact may notify us, by clicking here, to request that we remove this information from our database.

You may also choose to manually enter or upload data about your contacts into the private "My Contacts" section of the Beyond The Dow website.  All information entered there will only be viewable by you and will not be searchable by others in the Beyond The Dow network without your permission.

All information that you enter or upload about your contacts will be covered by the same terms of this privacy policy as cover your own personally identifiable information.

You may prevent Beyond The Dow email invitations and other messages from being sent to any email address you control by sending a single email with the subject "BLOCK" to unsubscribe@beyondthedow.com.  Please note that the email must come from the account you wish to block.

Bulletin Boards/Chat Rooms

If you use a bulletin board, forum or chat room on Beyond The Dow, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages.  Beyond The Dow is not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.

Member Submissions

When you use Beyond The Dow, you may form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form groups, set up events, and transmit information through various channels.  We collect this information so that we can provide you the service and offer personalized features.  In most cases, we retain it so that, for instance, you can return to view prior messages you have sent or easily see your contacts list.  When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.

If you post personally identifiable information in areas of the site accessible to other users, you should be aware that such information can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used improperly to send you unsolicited messages.  You post Member Submissions (as defined in the Beyond The Dow Terms of Use located here) on Beyond The Dow at your own risk.  Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your pages, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable.  We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you may choose to share your pages and information.  Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that Member Submissions you post on Beyond The Dow will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.  We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Beyond The Dow website.  You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of Member Submissions may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied or stored your Member Submissions.

Any improper collection or misuse of information provided on Beyond The Dow is a violation of the Beyond The Dow Terms of Use and should be reported through the Report Abuse page.

Cookies & Log Files

Like most websites, Beyond The Dow uses cookies and web log files to track site usage.  A cookie is a tiny data file which resides on your computer which allows Beyond The Dow to recognize you as a user when you return to our site using the same computer and web browser.  Unfortunately, if your browser settings do not allow cookies, you will not be able to use our website.  Like the information you enter at registration or in your profile, cookie and log file data is used to customize your experience on the website.

One type of cookie, known as a "persistent" cookie, is set once you've logged in to your Beyond The Dow account.  The next time you visit the Beyond The Dow website, the persistent cookie will allow us to recognize you as an existing member so that you will not need to log in before using the service.  In order to access or change any of your private information (like a credit card number), however, you must log in securely again with your password even if your computer contains your persistent cookie. Additionally, if you log out of the Beyond The Dow website you will need to re-enter your password the next time you visit in order to log in to your account.  Another type of cookie, called a "session" cookie, is used to identify a particular visit to the Beyond The Dow website.  Session cookies expire after a short time or when you close your web browser.

Due to the communications standards on the Internet, when you visit the Beyond The Dow website we automatically receive the URL of the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave Beyond The Dow.  We also receive 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.  This information is used to analyze overall trends to help us improve the Beyond The Dow services.  Additionally, this information may also be used to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Beyond The Dow services, or to display the content according to your preferences.  This and other anonymous information collected may also be shared with business partners and advertisers on an aggregate and anonymous basis.  The linkage between your IP address and your personally identifiable information is never shared with third-parties without your permission or except when required by law.  User IP addresses are also recorded for security and monitoring purposes.

Web Beacons

We allow other companies, called ad networks, to serve advertisements to Beyond The Dow members.  Ad networks include third-party ad servers, ad agencies, ad technology vendors and research firms.  Beyond The Dow may "target" some ads to members that fit a certain general profile - for example, "residents of Texas." Beyond The Dow does NOT use personally identifiable information to target ads.

To deliver these ads properly, Beyond The Dow may include a file, called a web beacon, from these ad networks within pages served by Beyond The Dow so the networks may provide anonymized, aggregated auditing, research and reporting for advertisers as well as to target ads to you while you visit other websites.

Because your web browser must request these advertisements and web beacons from the ad network's servers, these companies can view, edit or set their own cookies, just as if you had requested a web page from their site.

These general targets may also be used by ad networks to display targeted ads on other websites as a substitute for random, irrelevant ads.  You will never see additional ads as a result of being a Beyond The Dow member and Beyond The Dow NEVER provides personally identifiable information to any advertiser nor any third-party without your express permission.

Contests and Survey

From time to time, we may offer our members and other visitors the option to participate in contests or surveys.  If you would like to participate, we may ask you for contact information, preferences, or other information.  Such information is used for purposes such as to conduct research, improve our offerings, or award prizes. Our contests may have separate contest rules and we identify how the information that you may supply will be used in each case.

Children

No one under age 13 is eligible to use our services, and we do not direct any of our content specifically at children who are under 13 years of age.  Beyond The Dow does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register.  If you are under 13, please do not send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address.  No one under age 13 is allowed to provide any personal information to or on Beyond The Dow.  In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible.  If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us through our Report Abuse page.

Information Use

Beyond The Dow uses information obtained from its members and other visitors as stated in this Policy and to enhance members' and other visitor's experiences on the Beyond The Dow website.

When you register with Beyond The Dow, you create your own profile and privacy settings.  Your profile information, as well as your name, email and photo, are displayed to people in the Beyond The Dow network as you specified in your privacy settings to enable you to connect with people on Beyond The Dow.  We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by Beyond The Dow that we think you may find valuable.

Profile information is used by Beyond The Dow primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others permitted to view that information by your privacy settings.  In some cases where your privacy settings permit it, other Beyond The Dow members may be able to supplement your profile, but you can delete these comments at any time.

Profile information you submit to Beyond The Dow will be available to members of Beyond The Dow who you allow to access the information through your privacy settings.  Your name, network names, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Beyond The Dow network and those limited pieces of information may be made available to third-party search engines.  This is primarily so your contacts can find you and send a contact request.  People who see your name in searches, however, will not be able to access your profile information unless they have a relationship to you that allows such access based on your privacy settings.

Beyond The Dow may use information in your profile without identifying you as an individual to third-parties for purposes of aggregating data.  We do not link aggregate user data with personally identifiable information.

We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services and other members of Beyond The Dow, to supplement your profile.  Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your profile (e.g., removing photo tag links).

The personally identifiable information you choose to provide on this site is used to help you describe yourself to other users.  Other information, that does not personally identify you as an individual, is collected by Beyond The Dow from the site (such as, by way of example, patterns of utilization) and is exclusively owned by Beyond The Dow. This information can be utilized by Beyond The Dow in such manner as Beyond The Dow, in its sole discretion, deems appropriate.

Communications with Beyond The Dow

Beyond The Dow will communicate with you through email and notices posted on the Beyond The Dow website.  These include a series of up to two welcome emails that help inform new members about various features of the service.  Please be aware that you will always receive certain emails from Beyond The Dow related to the proper functioning of your account, such as email notices alerting you when a contact sends you a new message.  Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature.  If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account.  We will also communicate with you in response to your inquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account.  We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes.

Beyond The Dow may also send you promotional information unless you have opted out of receiving such information.  Out of respect for your privacy, we present the option not to receive these types of communications.  If you wish to opt-out of receiving promotional emails, please send a request by sending an e-mail to unsubscribe@beyondthedow.com.

Information Sharing

Beyond The Dow is about sharing information with others - friends and people in your network - while providing you controls that restrict others from accessing your information.  We allow you to choose the information you provide to friends and networks through Beyond The Dow.  Our network architecture and your privacy settings allow you to make informed choices about who has access to your information.  We do not provide contact information to third-party marketers without your permission. We share your information with third-parties only in limited circumstances where we believe such sharing is (1) reasonably necessary to offer the service, (2) legally required or, (3) permitted by you.

Beyond The Dow is not responsible for any information you choose to share with others.  While we take care not to share your personal information with third-parties, you must take responsibility for the content of material you make available to others in your network.

Sharing Information With Third-Parties

Beyond The Dow takes the privacy of our members very seriously.  We will never sell, rent, or otherwise provide your personally identifiable information to any third-parties for marketing purposes without your express permission.  We will share your personally identifiable information with third-parties to carry out your instructions and to provide specific services.  For instance, we use a credit card processing company to bill users for subscription fees.  These third-parties do not retain, share, or store any personally identifiable information except to provide these services and are bound by strict confidentiality agreements which limit their use of such information.

Beyond The Dow offers a "public profile" feature which allows users to publish portions of their Beyond The Dow profile, including your "name", but not your "email address" to the public Internet.  Users may opt-out of this feature, however Beyond The Dow does not warrant how third-party search engines will update their cache.

We may provide aggregated data about the usage of our services to third-parties for such purposes as we deem, in our sole discretion, to be appropriate.  We may segment our users by attributes such as geographic location, industry or trade, etc.  If you would like to be excluded from the aggregated research or products based upon aggregated data about our users' activities on the site, please contact customer service by clicking here.

Partnering with Other Organizations to Offer Combined Services

Beyond The Dow partners with other online services to give you the combined results of both services. Whenever we offer such combined services it will be your choice to make use of the combined services or not.  In these cases, your personally identifiable information will only be passed from Beyond The Dow to the partner if you choose to use the combined service.

Communications Between Members

Many emails you initiate through Beyond The Dow, such as for example an invitation sent to a non-user, will list your email address and name in the header of the message.  Emails you initiate may also provide aggregate information about your network (for instance how many people are in your network), but will never list the people to whom you're directly connected.  Other communications that you initiate through the Beyond The Dow website, like a request for contact, will list your name as the initiator but will not include your personal contact information.  Your contact information will only be shared with another user if both of you have indicated that you would like to establish contact with each other.

Legal Disclaimer

It is possible that we may need to disclose personally identifiable information and/or non-personally-identifiable information if required to do so by law, or in the good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with state and federal laws (such as U.S. Copyright Law) or respond to a court order, subpoena, search warrant or other legal process served on Beyond The Dow, its parent company, subsidiaries or affiliates.

Beyond The Dow also reserves the right to disclose personally identifiable information and/or non-personally-identifiable information that Beyond The Dow believes, in good faith, is appropriate or necessary to enforce our Terms of Use, take precautions against liability, to investigate and defend itself against any third-party claims or allegations, to assist government enforcement agencies, to protect the security or integrity of our website, and to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Beyond The Dow, our members or others.

Links

Beyond The Dow may contain links to other websites.  We are of course not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites.  We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information.  This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Beyond The Dow.

Accessing and Changing Your Account Information

You can review the personal information you provided us and make any desired changes to the information, or to the settings for your Beyond The Dow account, at any time by logging in to your account on the Beyond The Dow website and editing the information on your profile page.  You can also close your account through the Beyond The Dow website.  If you close your Beyond The Dow account, we will remove your name and other personally identifiable information from our publicly viewable data.  We may retain certain data contributed by you if it may be necessary to prevent fraud or future abuse, or for legitimate business purposes, such as analysis of aggregated, non-personally-identifiable data, account recovery, or if required by law.  All retained data will continue to be subject to the terms of the Beyond The Dow Privacy Policy that you have previously agreed to.  To request that we close your account and remove your information from the Beyond The Dow service, please send your request through our Contact page.  Please send your request using an email account that you have registered with Beyond The Dow under your name.  You will receive a response to requests sent through our Contact page within three (3) business days of our receiving it.

Where you make use of the communication features of the Beyond The Dow service to share information with other individuals on Beyond The Dow, however, (e.g., posting on bulletin boards, chat rooms, etc.) you generally cannot remove such communications.  In addition, media files uploaded by members to the Beyond The Dow services cannot be removed and remain subject to our Terms of Use.

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us.  Beyond The Dow takes appropriate precautions to protect our members' information.  Your account information is located on a secured server behind a firewall.  However, NO method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure.  Accordingly, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to Beyond The Dow and you do so at your own risk.  Once we receive your transmission of information, Beyond The Dow makes commercially reasonable efforts to ensure the security of our systems.  However, please note that this is not a guarantee that such information may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.

It is your responsibility to keep your password confidential.  Do not share this information with anyone.  If you are sharing a computer with anyone you should always choose to log out before leaving a website or service to protect access to your information from subsequent users.

If Beyond The Dow learns of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps.  Beyond The Dow may post a notice on the Beyond The Dow website if a security breach occurs.  Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.  To receive a free written notice of a security breach (or to withdraw your consent from receiving electronic notice) you should notify us using the contact form at our Report Abuse page .

If you have any questions about the security of the Beyond The Dow website, please contact us by clicking here.

Special Note to International Users

The Beyond The Dow website and services are hosted in the United States and are intended for and directed to members in the United States.  If you are a member accessing the Beyond The Dow website and services from the European Union, Asia, or any other region with laws or regulations governing personal data collection, use, and disclosure, that differ from United States laws, please be advised that through your continued use of the Beyond The Dow website and services, which are governed by U.S.  law, this Privacy Policy, and our Terms of Use, you are transferring your personal information to the United States and you are expressly consenting to that transfer, and our collection and use of your personal information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Merger, Sale, or Bankruptcy

In the event that Beyond The Dow is acquired by or merged with a third-party entity, we reserve the right, in any of these circumstances, to transfer or assign the information we have collected from our users and members as part of such merger, acquisition, sale, or other change of control.  In the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors' rights generally, we may not be able to control how your personal information is treated, transferred, or used.

Terms of Use, Notices and Revisions

If you choose to visit Beyond The Dow, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy (located here ) and our Terms of Use (located here ), including limitations on damages, arbitration of, and application of law of the state of Texas.  We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time.  Non-material changes and clarifications to our Privacy Policy will take effect immediately, and material changes to our Privacy Policy will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site.  If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's effective date.  We therefore encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy.  Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.

Questions or Comments

If you have questions or comments about this privacy policy, please contact us through our Contact page by clicking here .