Privacy Policy

Last Updated (Thursday, 12 August 2010 22:51) Written by attn82 Monday, 11 August 2008 22:13

Transition in Perspective Central understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our users. This Privacy Policy will tell you what information we collect about you and about your use of Transition in Perspective Central and its services. It will explain the choices you have about how your personal information is used and how we protect that information. We urge you to read this Privacy Policy carefully.
We have organized this Privacy Policy under the following topics:
Part 1: About This Privacy Policy and Using Our Site and Tools
This Privacy Policy applies to the Transition in Perspective Central Web sites owned and operated by Transition in Perspective Central, including TIPcentral.org site. Reference to "Transition in Perspective Central" means TIPcentral.org. Transition in Perspective Central may share information among its subsidiaries or sites that it owns or controls, but it is always protected under the terms of this Privacy Policy.
The Transition in Perspective Central Web site contains links to other sites. Once you enter another Web site (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that Transition in Perspective Central is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy statements of each and every Web site that you visit through a link or advertisement on Transition in Perspective Central.
We hope that reading our Privacy Policy helps you understand how we manage information about you. Throughout our Privacy Policy, we have underlined various terms and hot-linked them to our Glossary or to the corresponding Section within the Privacy Policy to help you better understand their meaning.
While you may use some of the functionality of Transition in Perspective Central without registration, many of the specific tools and services on our website require registration. If you use our Web site without registering, the only information we collect will be Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies or Web Beacons. If you choose to register with our Web site for certain Interactive Tools or other services, we require you to submit Personally Identifiable Information. Depending on the tool or service you have selected, we may also collect Personal Health Information. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information you submit to Transition in Perspective Central. Inaccurate information will affect the information you receive when using our site and tools and our ability to contact you as described in this Privacy Policy. For example, your email address should be kept current because that it is how we communicate with you.
Part 2: Non-Personal Information We Collect About You
Even if you do not register with Transition in Perspective Central, we collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site, special promotions and newsletters.
A. Cookies
We collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site and your use of the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers through the use of Cookies. Every computer that accesses a Transition in Perspective Central Web site is assigned a different Cookie by Transition in Perspective Central. The information collected by Cookies (i) helps us dynamically generate advertising and content on Web pages or in newsletters, (ii) allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our Web site and selected sponsors' and advertisers' sites, (iii) how many people open our emails, and (iv) for what purposes these actions are being taken. We may use Cookie information to target certain advertisements to your browser or to determine the popularity of certain content or advertisements. Cookies are also used to facilitate a user's log-in, as navigation aids and as session timers. Cookies used by Transition in Perspective Central and are also used to restrict underage use of the tools.
Most browser software can be set to reject all Cookies. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject Cookies in the "Help" section of the toolbar. If you reject our Cookies, certain of the functions and conveniences of our Web site may not work properly but you do not have to accept our Cookies in order to productively use our site. We do not link Non-Personal Information from Cookies to Personally Identifiable Information without your permission and do not use Cookies to collect or store Personal Health Information about you.
B. Web Beacons
We also may use Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site and the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers, and your use of special promotions or newsletters. The information collected by Web Beacons (i) allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our website and selected sponsors' and advertisers' sites, (ii) how many people open our emails, and (iii) for what purposes these actions are being taken. Our Web Beacons are not used to track your activity outside of our Web sites or those of our sponsors'. We do not link Non-Personal Information from Web Beacons to Personally Identifiable Information without your permission and do not use Web Beacons to collect or store Personal Health Information about you.
C. Third Parties Collecting Non-Personal Information on Transition in Perspective Central's Behalf
Third parties under contract with Transition in Perspective Central may use Cookies or Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your usage of Transition in Perspective Central's sites. These third parties may use this information, on our behalf, to help Transition in Perspective Central target our advertising on their sites within their network, and Transition in Perspective Central may further tailor the advertising on these third party sites based on your geographic location (zip code), gender and/or age range to the extent known by these third parties. These third parties have agreed not to use Non-Personal Information they collect from our sites except to deliver advertisements on our behalf. If your browser is set to reject cookies, the Non-Personal Information will not be sent to these third parties. Please read Part 3.A for more information on rejecting cookies.
Part 3: Personally Identifiable Information We Collect About You
We collect Personally Identifiable Information, like your name, email address, date of birth, and zip code, you provide to us when you register as a member of Transition in Perspective Central and/or when you update your member profile. We use the Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select, send you emails about Web site maintenance and updates, and inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy.
A. Newsletters & Emails to You
At registration and at various times as you use Transition in Perspective Central, you will be given the option of receiving recurring informational/promotional newsletters via email from Transition in Perspective Central and/or directly from third parties. These emails will not contain Personal Health Information. When you sign up for our email newsletters or at any time, you can choose to Opt-In to receiving additional promotional emails from Transition in Perspective Central or our Sponsors. In order to subscribe to Transition in Perspective Central newsletters via email, we need your contact information, like name and email address. You can unsubscribe from the newsletters by simply clicking on the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of any email newsletter. An email to our automated unsubscribe service will be created on your computer. Click the "send" button. You will then be unsubscribed from that newsletter within two to three business days. You may also unsubscribe or change any of your email preferences by clicking on the applicable links in your email newsletter or by changing your profile settings by clicking on any of the view/manage links at the bottom of your Transition in Perspective Central Newsletter. Transition in Perspective Central Customer Service will manually unsubscribe you from that newsletter in two to three business days. In some cases, when you click on a link or an advertisement on our site, in an e-mail or newsletter, your browser may be momentarily directed to the website of a third party which, acting on behalf of Transition in Perspective Central (see Disclosure to Third Party Contractor Web sites, below), notes or "counts" your response to the e-mail or newsletter before re-directing your browser to your selected destination; this re-direction process may not be apparent to you.
B. Emails You Send to Transition in Perspective Central
This Privacy Policy does not apply to content, business information, ideas, concepts or inventions that you send to Transition in Perspective Central by email. If you want to keep content or business information, ideas, concepts or inventions private or proprietary, do not send them in an email to Transition in Perspective Central. We try to answer every email within 48 business hours, but are not always able to do so.
C. Email a Friend
If you choose to use our Email a Friend service to tell a friend about our site or newsletter, we will ask you for your name, your email address and your friend's email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site using your name and email address as the from email address. Transition in Perspective Central does not use your name, your email address or your friend's email information and the information you provide using this service for any other purpose. We will only use the information you provide to send the email you request.
D. Message Boards and other Public Forums
As a service to our users, Transition in Perspective Central features message boards, chat rooms and other public forums where users with similar interests or medical conditions can share information and support one another or where users can post questions for experts to answer. We also offer online discussions moderated by medical or healthcare experts. Any information shared (including Personally Identifiable and Personal Health Information) that you reveal in a chat room, message board, Ask Our Expert posting or online discussion is by design open to the public and is not a private, secure service. You should think carefully before disclosing any Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information in any public forum. What you have written may be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties and may be used by others in ways we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. As with any public forum on any site, this information may also appear in third-party search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.
We use other third parties [like Blogger from Google] to manage the Transition in Perspective Central blog(s) on our site. When you create a Google Account for Blogger, Google will share the information you have posted as necessary for us and the third party to provide continued service and to allow you to post your blogs on both the Google blog site and the Transition in Perspective Central site. Google will share ownership of your information as necessary to continue to implement the blogs on our site and as described in their privacy policy. Transition in Perspective Central will use your information as described in this privacy policy.
E. Website Registration and Interactive Tools on Transition in Perspective Central
After you have registered as a member of Transition in Perspective Central, you may choose to use certain Transition in Perspective Central interactive content, tools and services that may ask you to voluntarily provide other types of information about yourself including Personal Health Information. Some of the tools do not retain your Personal Health Information, while others store your Personal Health Information in accordance with the authorization you provide at the time you use the tool.
F. Children
Transition in Perspective Central requires users to the website to be 14 years or older unless they are accompanied by a parent or guardian who is directly supervising them.
By using the website, you confirm that you are 14 years of age or older or that if you are under 14 years of age you confirm that you are accompanied and directly supervised by a parent or guardian. If you are under 14 years of age, please do not access the website without your parent or guardian directly supervising you. You agree that if your computer, Internet-enabled device, Internet connection and/or facilities (whether owned, leased or borrowed) access or assist users in accessing the website or services that you will not allow or assist, knowingly or unknowingly, children under 14 years old to access the website or services except while directly supervised by a parent or guardian. You agree that if you do allow or assist children under 14 years old to access the website without a parent or guardian directly supervising them, with your computer, Internet-enabled device, Internet connection and/or facilities (whether owned, leased or borrowed) that you will assume full liability for any consequences and that under no circumstances including, but not limited to, negligence neither Transition in Perspective Central, any third party content provider nor their respective agents shall be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising out of the use of or inability to use the site by users under 14 years of age, even if such party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.


G. Market Research
From time to time the Transition in Perspective Central market research department, or its operations contractors acting on its behalf, conducts online research surveys through email invitations, pop-up surveys and online focus groups. When participating in a survey, we may ask you to submit Personally Identifiable Information. Transition in Perspective Central may combine your Personally Identifiable Information you submit in a survey to information about you from other sources. The information from other sources may include financial, health or other identifiable information. This Personally Identifiable Information is used for research purposes, and is not used for sales solicitations. When a survey is sponsored by a third party, Aggregate Information of the survey results is reported to the sponsor. Personally Identifiable Information collected through market research will be used only by Transition in Perspective Central and its service providers and contractors and will not be given or sold to any other third party without your consent or as otherwise permitted by this Privacy Policy. For market research surveys we will not knowingly accept survey responses from or conduct interviews with any person under the age of 18. Some surveys may provide remuneration to participants such as a small cash fee for your time or an entry into a sweepstakes for a larger prize. Each survey will disclose whether or not it is a paid survey. In addition to collecting survey responses from our members, Cookies may be used to authenticate respondents or to help you pick up where you left off in a survey. If you have Cookies disabled you may not be able to participate in some studies. Cookies may be used to connect survey data with Transition in Perspective Central site usage characteristics. You will be notified when we would like to use Cookies in this way and your consent will be requested for these Cookies.
Part 4: Information Collected by Third Parties Not Acting on Transition in Perspective Central's Behalf
Sponsors or advertisers on Transition in Perspective Central may use their own Cookies, Web Beacons or other online tracking technologies in the banner advertisements served on Transition in Perspective Central and in emails, special promotions or newsletters we send you. Some advertisers use companies other than Transition in Perspective Central to serve their ads and to monitor users' responses to ads, and these companies ("Ad Servers") may also collect Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies or Web Beacons on our Web site. In certain situations, information collection may be facilitated by momentarily directing your browser to the Web site of an Ad Server or other third party acting on behalf of the sponsor, partner, or advertiser before re-directing your browser to its selected destination (e.g., back to Transition in Perspective Central to show the ad, or to the advertiser's website); this re-direction process will not be apparent to you.
We do not control these third parties' use of cookies or Web Beacons, or how they manage the non-personal information they gather through them. However, we do require sponsors, advertisers and Ad Servers who collect cookie or web beacon information through our Web site to agree that they will not collect any Personally Identifiable Information from our site without your consent. They have promised us they will not link any non-personal cookie or web beacon information collected by them on our site to Personally Identifiable Information they or others collect in other ways or from other sites except as may be described in connection with a particular program. For example, in connection with "Ad links" furnished by Yahoo, non-personal information sent by your browser to Yahoo when you click on a sponsored link or submit a query may be used by Yahoo as described in its privacy policy. In addition, Transition in Perspective Central's Advertising Policy is posted on our Web site and will provide additional detail about our relationship with advertisers and the companies that serve ads. You should review the privacy policy of other sites you visit or link to from our site to understand how these other sites use cookies and how they use the information they collect through the use of cookies or web beacons on their own sites. Certain Ad Servers allow you to prevent them from collecting data through the use of cookies. In order to do so, you must Opt-out of such data collection with each individual site. Currently, you can Opt-out of Cookies for several Ad Servers by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative gateway Opt-out site. This website will also allow you to review the Ad Server's privacy policies.
You can also find additional information and resources about how to opt out of advertising and related cookies by visiting the World Privacy Forum's Site.
Part 5: Disclosure of Your Information
Except as described in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, Transition in Perspective Central will not disclose any Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information it gathers from you on our website. We may only release Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as in response to a physical threat to you or others, to protect property or defend or assert legal rights. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information to a third party, we will attempt to notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order. In addition, we may disclose Personal Information as described below.
A. Disclosure to Transition in Perspective Central Operations and Maintenance Contractors
Transition in Perspective Central operations and maintenance contractors sometimes have limited access to your Personally Identifiable Information in the course of providing products or services to Transition in Perspective Central. These contractors include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services, and/or content for the operation and maintenance of our Web site. Unless you have Opted-out of receiving emails and newsletters from Transition in Perspective Central, these contractors also may have access to your email address to send newsletters or special promotions to you on our behalf or to send emails to you for purposes such as conducting market research on our behalf. Access to your Personally Identifiable Information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary for the contractor to perform its limited function for Transition in Perspective Central. We also contractually require that our operations and maintenance contractors 1) protect the privacy of your Personally Identifiable Information consistent with this Privacy Policy, and 2) not use or disclose your Personally Identifiable Information for any purpose other than providing us with products and services as required by law.
B. Disclosure to Third Party Contractor Websites
Certain content and services offered to you through our website are served on Web sites hosted and operated by a company other than Transition in Perspective Central ("Third Party Contractor Web sites"). Transition in Perspective Central does not disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to these Third Party Contractor Web sites without your consent, but you should be aware that any information you disclose once you access these other Web sites is not subject to this Privacy Policy. Transition in Perspective Central does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Contractor Web sites. You should review the privacy policy posted on the other Web site to understand how that Third Party Contractor Website collects and uses your Personally Identifiable Information. Transition in Perspective Central makes an effort to make it obvious to you when you leave our website and enter a Third Party Contractor Web site, either by requiring you to click on a link or by notifying you on the site before you visit the third party site. In addition, if you see a phrase such as "Powered by" or "in association with" followed by the name of a company other than Transition in Perspective Central, then you are on a Web site hosted by a company other than Transition in Perspective Central.
Transition in Perspective Central also provides links to sites provided by Third Party Contractor Websites that have business arrangements with Transition in Perspective Central to pay commissions based on sales of products or services generated through Transition in Perspective Central. An example of this would be "Ad links" from Yahoo on our Search pages.
C. Disclosure to Linked Sites
In addition to the Third Party Contractor Web sites that you may access as described above, for your convenience there are links to Third Party Web sites operated by companies that are not affiliated with the Transition in Perspective Central Web site and that do not have contracts to provide content or services through the Transition in Perspective Central Web site. These links may be found in advertisements, referenced within content, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. Transition in Perspective Central does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Websites without obtaining your consent. Transition in Perspective Central does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you choose to link to one of these Third Party Web sites, you should review the privacy policy posted on this other website to understand how that Third Party Web site collects and uses your Personally Identifiable Information.
D. Disclosure of Aggregate Information
Transition in Perspective Central may provide Aggregate Information to third parties. For example, we might inform third parties regarding the number of users of our website and the activities they conduct while on our site. We might also inform a pharmaceutical company (that may or may not be an advertiser on our site) that "30% of our users live east of the Mississippi" or that "25% of our users have tried alternative medicine." Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this Aggregate Information. We require parties with whom we share Aggregate Information to agree that they will not attempt to make this information personally identifiable, such as by combining it with other databases.


Effective: December 20, 2009

©2009 Transition in Perspective Central. All rights reserved.