Privacy Policy

  • This web site will respect the confidentiality of the information that is transmitted on it in accordance with the provisions of this Agreement. The Web Site uses a random identifier, which is a session number attributed to the Registered User as he enters the site. This session number is expunged of the Web Site system as Registered User leaves. Please be advised that the Registered User's visit to the Web Site leaves a retrievable trace that allows the Web Site to gather raw data on the Registered User. Such technical retrieving system is necessary in order to secure the Web Site system.

    This web site uses statistic and measurement systems which compile and process information such as IP numbers and number of visited pages. This information is processed in order to establish members' profiles and trends that may lead to, for example, market studies.

    By registering to Web Site services, the Registered User agrees that his/her personal information may be archived in the members database of the Web Site and be used to transmit newsletters published by the Web Site and communications such as press releases or commercial information by the Host.

    Information We Collect
    In this section of our Privacy Policy, we discuss the different types of information we may collect about you, and the ways in which we collect them.

    Information We Collect from Unregistered Visitors
    Visitors to each of our Web sites can access the Web site's home page and browse some areas of the site without disclosing any personally identifiable information. We do track information provided to us by your browser, including the Web site you came from (known as the "referring URL"), the type of browser you use, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. On most of our Web sites, you must register with us to use the entire site.

    Information We Collect When You Register
    Customers registering for services on our Web sites are asked to provide us with identifying information, such as name, gender, contact information, and other personal information. On our registration screens, we clearly label which information is required for registration, and which information is optional and may be given at your discretion. You will also be given a choice about whether or not you want to receive newsletters and other information that we distribute from time to time. This Web site will explain how personally identifiable information will be used and ask for your consent before collecting it.

    Email You Will receive
    In registering as a member of a Website, members are agreeing to receive eZines containing original writing, news and other information that believes will enhance members ability to care for their patients and run their practices better. Our eZines contain academic scholarly content in these 3 forms reserves the right to send addition eZines, company news, site updates and additional offers targeted to members special interests, at our discretion. We include an opt-out LINK in every single eZines we send to our members, and honor their requests to unsubscribe.

    Who You Will Receive Email From
    Your email address will never be sold to third parties and in registering on the sites, members are only agreeing to receive email directly from . However, reserves the right to send members targeted email on behalf of carefully chosen sponsors.

  • Other Information

    eTalk Discussion Boards
    When you use a discussion board on one of our Web sites, you may post a message and your user name, which is available for all registered users to see. When you are posting publicly, any user of our Web site can see your message. You should not post any information you want or are required by law to keep private to a discussion board or other public forum on our Web sites.

    Profile
    On our web site, we offer an online data based profiling tool in which you supply information that is part of your curriculum vitae or professional resume. This tool stores the information that you provide on our servers. The information is accessible by other members and the public, and is designed to advertise you to the online community and allow other's to find you based on the information that you provide. We will always make it clear to you when information you provide to us through a tool will be saved.

    Member Lookup
    On our website, other members will be able to look you up and send you messages. If you opt not to be listed (blocked), no other members will be able to look you up.

    In addition, we gather information about you that is automatically collected by our Web server, such as your IP address and domain name. We will use this information to personalize its offerings and presentations to you, facilitate your movements throughout our Web sites, provide personalized services, and to communicate with you individually.

    Continuing Medical Education
    When you register for a Continuing Medical Education ("CME") or a Continuing Education ("CE") activity through our web site, we collect certain personally identifiable information from you such as your name, email address and mailing address. We require that you provide the state in which you are licensed and your license number. In addition to personally identifiable information, we collect aggregated non-personally identifiable information about the activities undertaken by our users. We use the information that we collect through CME/CE activities in several ways:

    1. We are accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education ("ACCME") to provide continuing medical education for physicians, through a sponsorship agreement with the Mount Sinai School of Medicine. As an ACCME accredited entity, we are required periodically to submit aggregated data about CME participants and the CME activities we certify. We also provide personally identifiable information to other accredited CME/CE providers who certify CME/CE activities posted on our Web sites, as required by the ACCME and other accrediting bodies. These reports may include personally identifiable information about you and credits issued to you, for the purpose of maintaining records that you can request from the accredited provider for up to six (6) years;

    2. Commercial supporters of CME/CE activities on our Web site will receive only data about CME/CE activities that are relevant to their interests and/or the courses they support. No information about individual CME/CE users will be provided, no individual names or contact information will be provided;

    3. Our Editorial and Customer Support Staff will have internal access to files containing personally identifiable information, including evaluation forms and aggregated CME /CE participant information. These files can be accessed in order to respond to your questions or comments. Our staff may also use personally identifiable information, including registration information and evaluation data, in assessing educational needs and planning marketing activities; and we may use the information we collect as otherwise permitted in this Privacy Policy.

    Use of Cookies
    Cookies are a technology we use to keep track of users as they move through our Web sites. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer's hard drive that is associated with the computer you are using. We use cookies to personalize our Web sites and to track your usage across all of our Web sites. Your Web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, Web sites that are cookie-enabled will not recognize you when you return to the Web site, and some Web site functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies.

    Although cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information, if you are a registered user, we may elect to associate your registration information with cookies our Web site places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. For example, you can elect to have our Web sites "remember" your user name and password and bypass the sign-in process on each visit to the site. Without cookies, this functionality would not be possible. Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers.) We have told them that we do not want them to use cookie information to track our users' activities once they leave our Web sites. However, because of the way advertisements are served on our Web sites, we do not have total control over how advertisers use cookies on our Web site. If you believe that one of our advertisers is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact privacy officer ( ) to assist us in resolving the problem.

    Uses We Make of Information
    In this section of our Privacy Policy, we identify the ways we may use information about you that we have collected.

    Aggregate Data
    We collect data about visitors to our Web sites for product development and improvement activities. We also use it for market analysis. We may provide information from our Web sites in aggregate form, with identifying information removed, to third parties. For example, we may tell a health care partner what percentage of our registered users are of a particular medical specialty or have certain credentials. Any third party that receives our data must agree not to attempt to re-identify the people it belongs to. For example, we may provide information to a potential advertiser of a product that would appeal to a podiatry patient about what percentage of our users have a particular foot health problem. Depending on our agreement with the third parties, we may or may not charge for this information.

    Marketing and Advertising
    We may target our advertising or marketing depending on information we have about you. For example, a user that is a healthcare professional who treats foot conditions may receive advertising for new podiatry therapies (although in neither case will the advertiser have access to any individually identifiable information about you). We may also personalize our Web site based on your interests. For example, you may see different articles in different places on our Web site based on information you have shared with us, or information we have gained by observing your previous behavior, or information we may have gained from your interactions with a third party that shares information with us. We use information for our own internal marketing, research, and related purposes. Third Parties In addition to aggregate information (discussed previously), we may share some kinds of personally identifiable information with third parties as described below.

    Other Companies
    We have strategic relationships with other companies who offer products and services on our Web sites. When you are interacting with those companies, different rules and privacy policies may apply. We do not control the collection or use of information you provide to these companies, but we do require that those companies clearly state their policies so you can decide whether to give them any information.

    Our Employees and Consultants
    We contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services. For example, we may host some of our Web sites on another company's computers, hire technical consultants to maintain our Web-based tools, or work with companies to remove repetitive information from customer lists, analyze data, provide marketing assistance, and provide customer service. In addition, if you are a healthcare professional, we may validate your licensure status and other information against available databases that list licensed health care professionals. In order to perform their jobs, these other companies may have limited access to some of the personal information we maintain about our users. We require all such companies to comply with the terms of our Privacy Policy, to limit their access to any personal information to the minimum necessary to perform their obligations, and not to use the information they may access for purposes other than fulfilling their responsibilities to us. We use our best efforts to limit the use of other companies in areas where personally identifiable information may be involved.

    Promotional Offers
    Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. We provide a variety of mechanisms for you to tell us you do not want to receive such promotional offers. For example, we may provide an opt-in box for consumers to receive an email from another business, and we make clear that by opting in you are submitting your data to a third party.

    Protection of Information
    In this section of our Privacy Policy, we discuss the security measures we take to protect information that we have collected about you.

    We have implemented technology and security policies, rules and other measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from unauthorized access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction, and accidental loss. We also protect your information by requiring that all our employees and others who have access to or are associated with the processing of your data respect your confidentiality. We use security methods to determine the identity of its registered users, so that appropriate rights and restrictions can be enforced for that user. Reliable verification of user identity is called authentication. We use both passwords and usernames, as well as double opt-n verification, to authenticate users. Users are responsible for maintaining their own passwords.

    Access to Information and Choices
    In this section of our Privacy Policy, we tell you how to obtain and correct information we have about you, and how to choose what types of information you may share with us.

    Correction of Information We Have About You
    If you believe that registration information collected by our Web site(s) is in error, you may edit your personal profile any time that you like. You can directly edit most of your user profile on the Web site on which you initially registered. Information that you can not edit may only be changed by contacting Web Customer Support (see CONTACTS). Requests for deletion of your record may result in your removal from the registry, but we may keep certain demographic information about you for product improvement purposes. You may contact Web Customer Support and ask for the changes that you would like to make.

    Our Employees
    Our employees are required to keep customer information private, as a condition of their employment with the company. Only selected, authorized employees are permitted to access personal information. Our employees with access to personally identifiable information are required to attend a confidentiality/privacy training class, and to sign a confidentiality agreement. All employees and contractors must abide by our Privacy Policy, and those who violate that policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of their employment and legal


    Content dated 04/13/06, document revised on 02/14/17