Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium

Privacy Policy
(Revision Date October 20, 2006)

Please read the following Privacy Policy before using the Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium, Inc. ("LCTC"), website, LupusClinicalTrials.org (lupusclinicaltrials.org), referred to throughout as the “Site.”

Table of Contents
Our Commitment to Privacy
The Information We Collect
Use of the Information We Collect
Removing or Changing Your Information
Cookies
IP Address Tracking
Our Commitment to Privacy and Security
Our Commitment to Children’s Privacy
Links to Other Websites
How to Contact Us
Other Terms and Conditions

Our Commitment to Privacy
LCTC is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy is intended to disclose and describe the privacy practices of the Site so that you will be empowered to make informed decisions about using the Site. We have provided a link to this Privacy Policy on every page of the Site so that it will be easy for our users to find and access.

Your use of the Site constitutes your acceptance of and agreement to be bound by the provisions of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy, please exit the Site immediately.

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time to keep up with technical innovation, new types of Site content, and for other reasons. All revisions to this Privacy Policy will be effective upon notice, the new revision date being posted at the top. We may also post additional notices highlighting changes or revisions below, and any such notice posted below will be dated and will remain posted until the next revision is made. Your continued usage of the Site after any revision(s) to this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of the revised website Privacy Policy. We encourage you to refer to this Privacy Policy frequently, and to regularly check the revision date shown at the top and any notices which may appear below.

Revisions Since Preceding Publication Date: October 20, 2006

None

The Information We Collect
We refer to information that can be used to identify you as “Personal Information.” When you visit the Site, LCTC collects Personal Information only when you choose to provide it to us voluntarily. For example, we collect Personal Information when you choose to use various tools or services or participate in surveys where your Personal Information (such as your name and email address) is requested, or if you email LCTC through or regarding the Site.

We also collect nonpersonal information that you provide to us by responding to nonpersonal surveys and/or questions on the Site as well as information about your use of the Site, including any emails, special promotions, and newsletters that we send to you. For example, LCTC may use “cookies” or other technology to collect nonpersonal information about your use of our site or emails we send to you. LCTC does not store any Personal Information in any cookies on your computer. Cookies are described in more detail below.

Use of the Information We Collect
We may use your Personal Information internally for our own purposes, including managing and maintaining the Site, to improve our services to you, or to analyze your use of, and to study trends regarding use of, the Site.

In addition, unless you check the appropriate box when you submit your Personal Information or you contact us to request that we not use your Personal Information, we may use your Personal Information (for example, your email address) to send you certain mailings prepared by us, such as newsletters with articles about health and wellness issues for people with lupus or people caring for persons with lupus, or other materials. We also may use the Personal Information you provide to let you know when new content is available at lupusclinicaltrials.org, or to alert you to conferences and other events, materials, goods, or services that we believe would be valuable to you and are consistent with our mission.

Your Personal Information will not be sold, disclosed, or made available to any third party without your permission except as set forth in this Policy. Circumstances where LCTC may divulge or transfer your Personal Information include when you give us permission to do so, in response to an order from a governmental authority, or when LCTC otherwise has a legal duty to make the information available to a legally authorized party. We also reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we believe to be unlawful, and to release to such agencies Personal Information about users of the Site who we believe to be engaged in or involved with such unlawful activities. In the event that LCTC is (or all or substantially all of our assets are) sold to or otherwise acquired by a third party, merges with a third party, files for bankruptcy, ceases operations and dissolves, or undergoes a consolidation or reorganization pursuant to which the assets of LCTC have been or are to be transferred to an affiliated entity, you acknowledge and agree that Personal Information about you collected and maintained by LCTC may be transferred to a third party without notice to you or your consent.

In the event that LCTC is obligated to disclose your Personal Information pursuant to a legal or administrative proceeding you will be notified of the order requiring such disclosure. LCTC, however, may without notice de-identify your Personal Information and combine it with others’ information in such a way that no one could trace the information back to you directly (i.e., anonymous, aggregated data). This anonymous, aggregated data and other nonpersonal information may be shared with other organizations for research and other purposes, and otherwise treated as nonpersonal information.

Any nonpersonal information that you provide to us or that we collect about you will be treated as public information and may be used or disclosed accordingly.

Removing or Changing Your Information
We offer the following options for you to remove or change the Personal Information you have provided to us:

(1) send an email to [email protected];

(2) call us at 212-593-5180; or

(3) send us mail addressed to:
Lupus Clinical Trials Consortium, Inc.
221 E. 48th St., Ground Floor
New York, NY 10017.

Cookies
Cookies are small computer files that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive when you visit the Site. Cookies allow us to know how often you visit the Site and what activities you conduct while on the Site (such as what parts of the Site you visited, whether you filled out a survey, etc.).

Every computer is assigned a different cookie by LCTC. We use cookies to collect aggregate information about usage of the Site to identify popular areas and enhance performance planning. For example, our cookies allow us to statistically monitor how many people are using the Site, and for what purposes and to determine the popularity of certain content on the Site. Similarly, our cookies allow us to see how many people read and respond to emails we may send.

To protect your privacy, we do not store any Personal Information on our cookies, and we do not associate our cookies with Personal Information that you have given us.

The browser software on your computer 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. Your computer’s browser software also will allow you to delete cookies.

Please be aware that websites outside of lupusclinicaltrials.org to which we provide links may use cookies when you visit them, and may use their cookies differently from LCTC. We are unable to control the use of cookies by those websites, and thus recommend that you carefully review their privacy policies before using them.

IP Address Tracking
An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet/World Wide Web. All computer identification on the Internet is conducted using IP addresses. IP addresses allow computers and servers to recognize and communicate with each other. So when your computer talks to our computer, our computer identifies your computer using its IP address and if you access a page on the Site, our computer automatically enters your IP address into a log.

We use IP addresses to administer the Site and to collect aggregate information about usage of the Site in order to identify popular areas of the Site and enhance performance planning. To protect your privacy, we do not associate IP addresses with any records we may have that contain Personal Information that you have given us.

Our Commitment to Privacy and Security
LCTC employs security measures to safeguard online communications and our online environment. These measures are modified from time to time as our online environment and security technology evolve. Our security technology includes the use, in appropriate circumstances, of firewalls, password protection, and servers located in a secure co-location facility. However, we cannot guarantee, and do not warrant or represent, that Personal Information collected from or submitted to the Site will be protected against loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties.

Our Commitment to Children’s Privacy
Protecting the privacy of children is very important to LCTC. For that reason, the Site is directed only to persons who are age 18 or older and no part of the Site is structured to attract anyone under age 13.

In addition, we never collect or maintain Personal Information from anyone we know to be under age 13, and if we find out that any of our databases contains Personal Information from someone we know to be under age 13, that information will be promptly deleted from our databases.

Links to Other Websites
To provide our visitors with other valuable information, the Site may include links to websites operated by third parties or references to other publications or events sponsored by third parties. LCTC exercises no authority over and is not responsible for any of these third-party websites, events or publications, each of which maintains independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures and each of which is responsible for its own content.

These destination links and references are provided only for your convenience and, as such, you access them at your own risk. However, because we wish to ensure the integrity of the Site, any comments pertaining to the Site or any site(s) or material(s) accessed through the Site’s links or references would be greatly appreciated. LCTC assumes no responsibility or liability for the independent methods or actions, and is not responsible for the independent policies or procedures, of any website other than the Site, including but not limited to any destination sites to which the Site provides links.

How to Contact Us
If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email addressed to [email protected].

Other Terms and Conditions
In addition to this Privacy Policy, your use of the Site is governed by the Site’s Terms and Conditions, which are available on the Site. Please read them carefully. These Terms and Conditions are fully incorporated and made a part of this Privacy Policy by this reference, and they include terms governing choice of law, the venue for disputes, and other matters that are of importance to the construction and application of this Policy.