Privacy Policy

(As of May 1, 2005) As the leading provider of solutions for university women online, we want you to feel comfortable searching and exchanging information on our site. We realize the importance of feeling safe online and are fully committed to ensuring that your privacy is respected and protected. Our Privacy Policy below outlines the type of information we typically request of you while you are within the UChic network, as well as ways in which we process and, sometimes, disseminate information collected from you. You are, of course, free to use the majority of our site without providing any personal information. The UChic Network is defined as all English-language, United States based web sites, web pages and channels owned, controlled and/or operated by UChic Inc. We frequently provide information and links to third party advertisers or partners. Information on how to access the privacy practices of these third parties is included below as well. If you have any questions or concerns that we do not answer in this Policy, please send us an email at "feedback@universitychic.com":feedback@universitychic.com. We will notify our members when we make any significant changes to our Privacy Policy that affect the use of any personally identifiable information we collect. We will not make new use of any personally identifiable information which UChic gathered from individual members or visitors prior to any such significant change in our Privacy Policy without first obtaining the member's or visitor's consent for any new uses. In instances where we ask for your personally identifiable information and we tell you the data we are collecting on that page will be shared with unaffiliated third parties, and in cases where a member, visitor or subscriber to the UChic Network opts-in to share his/her information with third parties, those disclosures and opt-ins will override anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy. In addition, UChic reserves the right to make non-significant changes to our Privacy Policy that will not affect UChic's use of a user's personally identifiable information at any time without any notice to you other than posting any such changes in a revised Privacy Policy on the UChic Network. We encourage you to periodically review our Privacy Policy to be sure you are familiar with the most current version. The Policy will include the most recent date in which any revision has been made. Please note that this Privacy Policy is also incorporated into UChic's Terms of Service. h3. *A. Information that UChic collects* UChic gathers two basic types of information: 1. *Information provided to UChic* In order to use many of UChic's features, tools and services, we ask you to register to become a member. During this member registration process, we will ask you for personally identifiable information such as your name, email address, mailing address, zip code, country, gender, birthdate, age, member name and password. In addition, you may choose to provide UChic with additional information including marital status, household income, education and employment status. UChic uses the information it gathers for several purposes, such as to understand more about our audience's interests, to communicate with you and to give you a better experience when visiting the UChic Network by personalizing tools, content, services and email messages (more details below). UChic also uses this information to build new services and develop offers that UChic believes are more relevant and valuable to you. UChic, its advertisers and partners may ask you for information in order to provide you with access to goods, services and tools. When personally identifiable information provided by you is (i) collected by UChic and/or an UChic sponsor or partner or (ii) collected by UChic and shared with an UChic sponsor or partner, your permission will be obtained and you will be advised as to which privacy policy (ies) will control the collection and dissemination of the information provided if different from UChic's policy. 2. *Information gathered by UChic* When you visit the UChic Network and interact with the services and tools that reside there, UChic and third parties with whom UChic has contracted to provide services to UChic may collect information on your actions. This type of information is generally collected from two sources. One is from the server log files and the other is from cookies. Please read more about them in section B(9). h3. *B. How information is collected and disseminated* The information collected by UChic is used to create aggregated portraits of the UChic audience, portraits which present anonymous statistical demographic information but no personally identifiable information. This aggregated information is used, among other things, to determine trends and needs, and also to supply market research to potential advertisers and partners to help them understand whom the UChic audience is. For example, we may create a report that tells advertisers that 60 percent of our members are females in a certain age range, so that they can determine which of their products or services are most appropriate for our members. In order to better describe how information is collected and disseminated, please carefully review the list below. 1. MEMBERSHIP REGISTRATION 2. ORDER FORMS AND TRANSACTIONS WITH E-COMMERCE PARTNERS AND ADVERTISERS 3. ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTERS AND REMINDERS 4. PUBLIC FORUMS/CHAT ROOMS/MESSAGE BOARDS/BULLETIN BOARDS 5. SURVEYS AND POLLS 6. CONTESTS AND SWEEPSTAKES 7. "SEND THIS TO A FRIEND" AND POSTCARD SERVICE 8. LINKS TO PARTNER AND ADVERTISER SITES 9. INFORMATION COLLECTED BY UCHIC THROUGH IP ADDRESS AND COOKIES 10. INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING SERVICES 11. INFORMATION SHARING POLICY 12. UCHIC OPT-IN/OPT-OUT POLICY 13. CHANGE/MODIFY/ARCHIVED INFORMATION 14. HOW WE PROTECT AND SECURE YOUR INFORMATION 15. GUIDELINES REGARDING CHILDREN 16. CONTACT INFORMATION 17. *Membership registration* Many areas of the UChic Network are reserved for UChic members who have registered with us; for example, message boards and access to special services such member pages, special offers and sweepstakes. This is necessary so that UChic can assure the quality of its forums. Registration is free. The membership registration form currently requires you to choose a member name and password and provide UChic with your first and last names, email address, mailing address, zip code, country, gender, age and birthdate. The form also includes optional information that you may choose to provide to us like marital status, household income, education and employment status. The personally identifiable information you provide during membership registration will not be given to unaffiliated third parties without your consent except in the limited circumstances described in the section of this Privacy Policy entitled "Information Sharing Policy". 18. *Order forms and transactions with e-commerce partners and advertisers* The information provided via order forms is generally shared with advertisers and partners on an aggregated basis. In the event that an advertiser or partner wishes to offer free samples, or provide information about products and services and to do so requires personally identifiable information, UChic will provide you with the ability to "opt-in" and will often provide you access to the Privacy Policy of the advertiser for your review via a link. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, "opt-in" is generally defined as any affirmative action by an UChic member or visitor to submit or receive information, as the case may be. When you provide personal financial and other personally identifiable information to one of UChic's e-commerce partners, this transaction will occur on the e-commerce partner's site, not the UChic Network and as such the financial and personally identifiable information you provide is collected by and controlled by the Privacy Policy of that e-commerce partner. It is important therefore that you familiarize yourself with the Privacy Policy of the e-commerce site with which you transact business. 19. *Electronic newsletters and reminders* UChic offers free electronic newsletters on a variety of topics. If you choose to subscribe to any of these newsletters, currently the only information you will be required to provide is a valid email address. In order to receive these newsletters you must opt-in to receiving them. Generally, UChic does not share mailing lists from its electronic newsletters with third parties. However, in some situations, UChic may share its newsletter mailing lists with third parties who provide newsletter and/or reminder fulfillment services on behalf of UChic. In these instances, such third parties will be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy. Additionally, UChic may provide third parties with a list of UChic members and visitors who have opted-in to receiving additional information from third parties. In those instances where you opt-in to subscribe to a newsletter through a third-party email service or advertiser or partner, the email address information sometimes will be located on the third party's server, in which case we generally will notify you. In those cases, any information you provide is subject to that entity's Privacy Policy, not this one. Some of our partners' and advertisers' sites require that you specifically opt-out from receiving their newsletters. As a result, to stop receiving them you will need to affirmatively opt-out from the third party newsletter. 20. *Public forums/message boards/message boards/bulletin boards* Throughout the UChic Network various public forums such as message boards, "ask the expert" areas and various question and answer areas are available to you as a registered UChic member. Please remember that any information you disclose in these public forum areas becomes public information and is immediately accessible on the UChic Network, so it is important for you to exercise discretion and appropriate caution when deciding to reveal personal information in these areas. UChic may decide to utilize the content of Q&A's, interactions with experts, and/or message board content throughout the UChic Network and in promotions in order to enhance UChic's editorial, advertising, promotional and similar activities. In those cases we often provide authorship credit by listing the author's member name. We therefore encourage you to use care in protecting your identity when you choose a member name and to keep your member name confidential. 21. *Surveys and polls* Our surveys ask for opinions on various issues and very often these surveys and polls are sponsored by or associated with UChic advertisers and partners. Occasionally, we may request demographic information (like zip code, age or gender). Most information obtained through surveys and polls is aggregated and used internally or shared with advertisers and partners only in the aggregated form. In the event personally identifiable information is requested as part of surveys or polls about any UChic member or subscriber, such personally identifiable information is never provided to unaffiliated third parties without your consent. In these instances you may expressly choose to receive information from a sponsor, in which case your information is provided to that sponsor only. Some survey answers may be added to your member portrait (so that we can better provide you with content, ads and offers that are most appropriate for you). 22. *Contests and sweepstakes* We regularly operate sweepstakes, contests and giveaways throughout the UChic Network. We typically ask you for your email address (to notify you if you've won, or not). We also ask for first and last names, and sometimes post office addresses in order to verify the entrant's identity. In some situations, we need additional information as part of the entry process, such as a prize selection choice. This information is shared with an unaffiliated third party: * When you choose to receive information from a third party sweepstakes sponsor; * When a sweepstakes is hosted by UChic but administered by a sponsor, again, we will advise you of this in the sweepstakes rules; or * Most sweepstakes and contests will also ask you to consent to the release of information contained within the entry form for tax purposes if you become a winner. You should carefully review the rules of each sweepstakes, contest and giveaway which you enter as they may contain additional important information about UChic's or a sponsor's use of your personally identifiable information. 23. *"Send this to a friend" and postcard service* UChic offers the ability to forward an article to another person via email or to send an electronic postcard. If you use either of these services, we will use the recipient's email address in order to send the article or postcard and we will also ask for your email address. In the case of postcards, we will ask for your email address and each may be stored so that we can ensure delivery and that the recipient can retrieve the postcard. We do not use the recipient's email address for any other purpose unless such recipient gives us permission to do so. 24. *Links to partner and advertiser sites* The UChic Network contains links to advertiser and partner websites. We cannot be responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such non-UChic websites, and we do not control the practices of any of our advertisers or partners to whom we are linked. However, we generally will advise you when you are leaving the UChic Network through a link, and when that advertiser's or partner's Privacy Policy controls the collection and dissemination of the information you provide. In order to participate in the partner and/or advertiser supplied services and tools you may be required to provide personally identifiable information to the advertisers and partners whose tools and services you have chosen to interact with. Each advertiser and partner will request different information from you. In any instance where personally identifiable information is required to be provided to or shared with UChic advertisers and partners, UChic generally will advise you when such advertiser or partner will receive your personally identifiable information, and further advise you as to which Privacy Policy will control the collection and dissemination of personally identifiable information you provide. UChic will use commercially reasonable efforts to contractually require all such third party advertisers and partners to agree to abide by either the terms of this Privacy Policy or the Health Internet Ethics principles, as applicable. The information you provide via links to co-branded pages, co-branded sites, third party sites or tools may be shared with advertisers and partners on an aggregated basis and in these instances your permission will not be requested since no personally identifiable information will be shared or provided to these third party sponsors or advertisers. UChic will, however, use commercially reasonable efforts to contractually require all such third party advertisers and partners to agree not to use any non-personally identifiable information about you, in conjunction with other sources of information, or otherwise, to identify you. If you have additional questions about how one of our advertisers, partners or sponsors use information about you, we urge you to contact them directly. 25. *Information collected by UChic through IP address and cookies* _IP Address_ Your IP address is a number that is assigned by your ISP (Internet Service Provider) to your computer to identify its location. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website. We also sometimes use IP addresses to communicate with members and subscribers and possibly even ban those members who are not complying with our "Terms of Service":http://www.universitychic.com/tos/. _Cookies_ Our site uses a feature of your browser to set a "cookie" on your computer. Cookies are small packets of information that a site's computer stores on your computer. The UChic Network can then read the cookies whenever you visit the UChic websites. We use cookies to save your password so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our site, to deliver content specific to your interests, to track the pages you've visited and to make sure you don't see the same ads repeatedly. These cookies allow us to use the information we collect to customize your UChic experience so that your visit to UChic is as relevant and as valuable to you as possible. You may modify your browser preference to provide you with choices relating to cookies. You have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject cookies you may be unable to use those UChic services that require registration in order to participate or will have to re-register each time you visit the UChic Network. 26. *Information collected by third party advertising companies* Our advertising is currently served by third party advertising companies which deliver a cookie to you so the ads you see can be tracked and ensures that you are not shown the same ad too many times. Since the third party advertising company only tags your computer with a number, they know nothing about who you are. UChic does not provide these third party advertising companies with any personally identifiable information. However, these companies may use non-personally identifiable information about your visits to the UChic Network and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. 27. *Information sharing policy* UChic does not sell or otherwise share personally identifiable information with unaffiliated third parties without your consent except in the following instances: (i) unless required by applicable law or pursuant to a court or similar order; (ii) as deemed necessary, in UChic's discretion, to protect the legal rights or the property of UChic, a member or third party, or to prevent personal injury; and/or (iii) in the event UChic is required to transfer personally identifiable information to a third party in the event of a sale, merger, assignment, joint venture or other transfer or disposition of a portion or all of the assets or stock of UChic or its affiliated entities (including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In addition, UChic reserves the right to allow access to its systems to third parties providing necessary technical services when such access is required in order to provide those services and to provide your personally identifiable information to third parties who provide services on behalf of UChic, provided that such third parties are bound by UChic's Privacy Policy. Please note, however, that UChic reserves the right to share any personally identifiable or other information about you which you provide to (or which is gathered by) the UChic Network with any or all of its subsidiaries and affiliates (collectively, our "Affiliates") (subject to the opt-out right set forth at the end of section B(12) with respect to disclosures of personally identifiable information to Affiliates for their direct marketing uses) and will also have access to any such information which you provide to (or which is gathered by) the web sites of any of our Affiliates. 28. *UChic opt-in/opt-out policy* Upon registration or from time-to-time, you may be asked to indicate whether you are interested in receiving information from us about special offers or news about our sites and advertisers. You will also be provided with the opportunity to opt-in to receive offers directly from select companies other than UChic. If you do choose to receive these communications by means of an opt-in, we will occasionally send you an email message that matches your request(s). You may, of course, always choose not to receive any of this information from us. We currently provide the following opt-out opportunities: * Upon registration, you can choose to receive no communications from us other than an initial member welcome message. * At any time, you can follow a link provided in every newsletter or email message (except for e-commerce confirmation emails) to unsubscribe from that mailing list or email service. * At any time, you can contact us through "feedback@universitychic.om":feedback@universitychic.com to have your contact preference changed to "Do Not Contact Me." * Please note that UChic reserves the right to contact you in the event of a change in the UChic Terms of Service and/or this Privacy Policy. * At any time, you can contact us through "feedback@universitychic.om":feedback@universitychic.com to opt out of having your personally identifiable information shared with our Affiliates for their direct marketing purposes. 29. *Change/modify/archive information* UChic provides you with the ability to access, correct or change certain information in your member portrait at any time, including contact information or other information you've provided to us. However, you cannot currently change your member name although you may re-register and choose a new name. To review, modify or delete your member information, please "click here"http://www.univeristychic.com/users/. Please be advised that UChic currently archives information it collects on its members and visitors. 30. *How we protect and secure your information* UChic has numerous security measures in place to protect you from the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control, including your credit card information if you choose to conduct an e-commerce transaction on the UChic Network. All of your member information, as well as other sensitive areas like your free UChic email account, require use of your password. We recommend that you do not share your password with anyone. UChic uses industry-standard tools, such as firewalls, to ensure that your information is secure and confidential. 31. *Guidelines regarding children* Personal information about children is a concern for all of us. At UChic, we take the protection of children's privacy very seriously. UChic does not encourage participation or visitation by children. Visitors who are known to be under the age of 13 are prohibited from becoming a member. Anyone under the age of eighteen is discouraged from participating in any sex related chats or message boards and we ask that no one less than eighteen years of age become a community volunteer. 32. *Contact information* If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or anything else about UChic, you can contact us at the following email address: "feedback@universitychic.om":feedback@universitychic.com