Overview
When visiting or using the features and services offered at www.columbus.org (the “Website”) provided by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce (“we,” “us,” or “our”), we may request and/or otherwise collect certain information from you. This Privacy Policy describes what information about your business and other information that may be collected by us and how we use and disclose such information. This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected on-line through this Website.
Information We Collect
1. Navigational Information
We may gather navigational information during each user’s visit to the Website. In the process of gathering navigational information, non-personally identifiable information (e.g., domain type, browser version, service provider and IP address) may be collected. Such information may be gathered by us to learn more about the technical efficiencies of the Website (such as the time it takes a visitor to connect to the Website or download pages) and the use of the Website by visitors, including the areas of the Website that are most visited or the time of a last visit to a page on the Website. We use this information to better understand and improve a visitor’s experience at the Website.
2. Business Information and Personal Information
We may collect the following categories about you and/or your business when you join our membership, register for events, sign up for our email list, or contact us via email or chat: your name, organization name, title, address, email address, telephone number, credit card information, and other general information about your business (such as business category, number of full time employees, number of part time employees, etc.). We may also collect any personal information that you include when you contact us.
How We Use and Disclose Your Information
The information collected on our Website will not be sold or rented to third parties. Any information you provide on this Website may be used for the following purposes: to enable us to provide services and features offered on the Website; to process event registration; to respond to your inquiries or requests; to analyze your activity with us, including interaction with our Website and communications, and the effectiveness of our advertising; to promote this Website and/or the services and features provided by the Website; and to support the mission of the Columbus Chamber of Commerce (including, without limitation, providing aggregate information about the membership directory and other listings).
Information made available on the membership directory (including any personal and/or other contact information) may be accessed, viewed and downloaded by the public.
We may also make certain information (such as name, title, and address) available to our Premier, Growth Connect, and Elite Connect members.
The Columbus Chamber of Commerce shares member information with our select partners. If you would prefer that we not share your member information with our partners, please contact us at: 614.221.1321.
In addition, we may use third parties to provide specific services and to assist us with this Website. Some examples of the services and assistance that may be provided by third party service providers are: maintaining and hosting the Website; monitoring and analyzing site activity, your actions in response to our emails and the effectiveness of our advertising; and administering emails and chat. These third parties may have access to and use of the information collected from you in order to perform services for us.
If we were ever merged with or acquired by another business entity, or if we acquire another business entity or are involved in a corporate reorganization or other change of control, some or all of the personal information collected about you would be shared with this entity, and may also be retained by us. You should also be aware that we may disclose specific information about you if necessary to do so by law or based on our good faith belief that it is necessary to conform or comply with the law, protect the users of our Website or the public, or resolve any type of dispute.
Cookies & Pixel Tags
On our Website, we use, and our third party service provides may use, a browser feature known as a cookie. A cookie is a small data file that is stored by your web browser on your computer and typically assigns a unique identification code to your computer. Cookies are used to collect and pass information as you go through the pages within our Website. The information collected through use of cookies may include an IP address, the URL of the page from which you arrived, your browser type, other technical information about your device used to visit our Website, the pages you view, the features you use, and the time of your visit. This information allows us to determine such things as which parts of our Website are most visited or used, the effectiveness of the Website and difficulties our visitors may experience in accessing our Website. With this knowledge, we can deliver a better experience on our Website and remember you when you return to our Website. In addition, the information collected by us or our service provider(s) may be linked to and combined with information that we collect about you from your visits to our Website.
We use, and our third party service providers may also use, Pixel Tags (also known as Web beacons, Web bugs, and Clear GIFs) on the Website and in emails. A Pixel Tag is a nearly invisible pixel-sized graphic image on a Webpage or email message. Pixel Tags may be used to collect the same information about your visit that is collected through cookies, as noted above. Pixel Tags in emails help us confirm the receipt of, and response to, our emails and the time our email is viewed. This information helps us to make similar evaluations about our Website and emails as with cookies and to determine the most desired features and information so that we can provide those features and information to you and personalize our interactions with you. This information may also be linked to and combined with information that we collect about you from your visits to our Website.
Public Forums
The Columbus Chamber of Commerce may make forums available to its users at various times or the ability for users of the Website to upload videos. Please remember that, unless otherwise stated, any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information in these areas (including uploading videos into these areas that contain your image).
Links
For your convenience, our Website may contain links to other sites or other advertising of third party sites, products or services. We are not responsible for and do not endorse the privacy practices or the content of any such sites, products or services.
Privacy of Children
The Columbus Chamber of Commerce does not knowingly collect or maintain information provided by children under the age of 13.
Security
You will have the ability to select and use a password to help prevent the unauthorized access your member account information by others. The security of your personal information depends on your protection of your member account password. Please do not disclose your member account password to unauthorized people. Additionally, we use SSL encryption technology to provide security while information is being transmitted over the Internet. While we implement the above security measures on this Website, you should be aware that 100% security is not always possible.
Changes to this Policy
We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time by posting revisions on our Website. Should there be a material change to our information collection and use practices, it will be applied only to information collected on a going-forward basis.
Questions
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, or the practices of this Website please contact us at:
Columbus Chamber150 S. Front St.
Suite 220
Columbus, OH 43215
614.221.1321
1/08/2012 13010055