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Privacy Policy

Last updated: February 23, 2012

The American Skin Association, Inc. ("ASA") is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of our donors, visitors to our Website at www.americanskin.org or any successor website (the "Website") and other individuals who communicate with ASA. We wish to help you better understand the information we gather, how we handle it, whether we disclose it to anyone, and your options regarding our use of, and your ability to correct, this information. The following Privacy Policy applies when you make a donation to ASA, either online or otherwise, as well as when you visit the Website, or otherwise share your personal information with ASA. By accessing, using or visiting the Website, you agree to be bound by all the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy as posted at the time of your access, use or visit. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please stop using this Website. We can provide hard copies of our Privacy Policy upon request.

DONOR INFORMATION

If you make a donation, either online or otherwise, we will request certain personally identifying information about you (such as your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and credit card information). We use this information to process your donation and communicate with you about your donation or otherwise. In addition, we may store and use such information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, keep you updated about our work, analyze usage of the Website, and improve our Website's content, layout, and services.

It is unethical for third parties to gather your personally identifying information from any communication you have made with us, whether a donation or otherwise, for solicitation or any other purpose, either by manual or electronic means. The ASA does not grant permission to any third parties to use personally identifying information obtained under these circumstances.

We do not currently sell, rent, or exchange our mailing list to other organizations that solicit donations or sell any products. If we change our policy in this respect, we will notify you and give you the opportunity to opt out of our mailing list or otherwise indicate your mailing preferences. If you receive communications from us, it is because we believe you may be interested in the events and activities of the ASA. If you prefer not to receive promotional e-mail messages or other communications from us, please reply to the e-mail message with "remove" in the subject line or write to us asking to have your name removed from our mailing list and we will do so.

ASA reserves the right to employ companies to assist us with such functions as hosting our donor information database, sending postal mail and e-mail, modeling our data, organizing fundraiser events, processing online and mail donations and credit card payments and to perform various administrative tasks. These companies may have access to personally identifying information about you, but only to the extent needed to perform their functions. ASA requires that these companies keep such information confidential and used only for the purpose authorized by you. (See Security section below.)

OTHER INFORMATION

Through the Website or otherwise, you may decide to submit personally identifying information (such as your name, e-mail address and postal address) for purposes other than donating (such as receiving an e-mail newsletter or further information as to a particular topic). We collect and store this information and use it for the purposes for which you submitted it. In addition, we may use such information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, keep you updated about our work, analyze Website usage, and improve our Website's content, layout, and services. We do not currently share this information with any third parties, except those that assist us with certain operational functions, as described above.

OTHER DISCLOSURES

Please be advised that we may disclose personally identifying information about you to the government or to third parties pursuant to law enforcement inquiries, court orders, subpoenas and similar requests, or when we otherwise believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary or appropriate in connection with any activity that violates the law or may expose us to liability.

SECURITY

When you send personally identifying information about you to us by submitting an online form on our Website, the information you transmit will travel by high-grade encryption using the https protocol. If you have made a donation to ASA online, we require that the companies we work with to process your online donation payments use high-grade encryption and security protocols, and that all vendors processing check and credit card transactions received on our behalf meet all industry standards, certify their compliance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), and are audited to meet with the Statement on Auditing Standard 70 (SAS 70). The personally identifying information that you provide is stored in a secure location, including on password controlled servers which are accessible only by designated employees who are trained in the proper handling of such personally identifying information. Where you have made a donation to ASA online, we employ industry standard techniques such as firewalls, encryption, intrusion detection, and website monitoring to protect your personally identifying information from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the organization. You should be aware, however, that "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet; third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications and the ASA makes no representation, warranty or guarantee that our Website is protected from viruses, security threats or other vulnerabilities or that your information will always be secure. You hereby acknowledge that we are not responsible for any intercepted information sent via the Internet, and you hereby release us from any and all claims arising out of or related to the use of intercepted information in any unauthorized manner. If we become aware of any security breach which we know has resulted in unauthorized access of your personally identifying information, then we will endeavor to inform you of that breach as soon as it is practicable for us to do so.

COOKIES

Cookies are small text files that a website transfers to a website visitor's hard disk or browser for added functionality, or for tracking website usage. ASA reserves the right to use cookies in a limited capacity (e.g., cookies "expire" at the end of your user session). Our cookies do not capture or store any personally identifying information about you, or any data about your past usage of our Website. We use information captured by cookies only for blind statistical analysis, and to tailor our communications with the public.

NORMAL BROWSING

ASA does not collect any personally identifying information from you when you visit the Website, other than the IP addresses discussed below, unless you choose to provide such information to us.

You can browse the Website without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself. The information we gather during normal browsing comes from two sources: standard server logs collect information such as the IP (Internet Protocol) address, domain name, browser type, operating system, and information such as the Website that referred you to us, the files you downloaded, the pages you visited, and the dates/times of those visits.

Additionally, if you have come into the Website from one of our newsletters or from a website that has requested a link to us, we may ask your browser to accept a cookie that carries a general marketing source code with you as you browse through the Website, in order to help us match referring websites to donations made. This cookie does not capture or hold any personally identifying information about you, and is deleted when you end your session by leaving our Website or closing your browser.

EXTERNAL LINKS

This website contains links to other websites. Unless we expressly state otherwise, ASA makes no representations whatsoever concerning the content of those websites. The fact that ASA has provided a link to a website is not an endorsement, authorization, sponsorship, or affiliation with respect to such website, its owners, or its providers. There are risks associated with using any information, software, or products found on the Internet, and ASA cautions you to make sure that you understand these risks before retrieving, using, relying upon, or purchasing anything via the Internet.

Please be aware that ASA is not responsible for the privacy practices of other websites. Our Privacy Policy applies to all web pages under our domains, and not to any web pages not under our domains, regardless of any hyperlinks from a web page under our domains to a web page not under our domains.

NOTE TO PARENTS AND CHILDREN

ASA welcomes children to learn more about our organization and about the medical and educational issues presented on ASA website(s), and we are particularly respectful of the privacy of our young users. We encourage parents to monitor their children's use of the Internet and to help us protect their privacy by instructing them never to provide personal information on this website or any other without permission. We will never attempt to extract unnecessary information from our users, regardless of age. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA"), we will never knowingly request personally identifying information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with such information without consent, we will use our best efforts to remove such information from our files. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that a child under 13 has provided such information to us, he or she should contact us at info@americanskin.org.

MANAGING YOUR INFORMATION

We work to process and maintain accurately the information that you share with us. If you have donated to us and would like to access, correct or update your personal data or to adjust your mail preferences, you can do so by calling us at 800-499-SKIN (7546), or by sending us the update via postal mail sent to ASA, 6 East 43rd Street, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10017. We will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before providing or making corrections to your personally identifying information. If you have asked us to remove your personal identifying information from our databases or mailing lists, then we will use efforts consistent with industry standards to ensure that such information about you is safely destroyed by secure means, including through password protected communications.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may, from time to time, make changes to our Privacy Policy, based on your comments and our need to reflect accurately our data collection and disclosure practices. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your personal information, we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our Website. You agree to review this Privacy Policy each time you use our Website so you are aware of any changes we may have made to it.

QUESTIONS OR SUGGESTIONS

It is important to us at ASA to hear what our Website visitors and donors have to say about our services or our policies. If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Policy, or want to let us know what you think about our products and services, please send an e-mail to info@americanskin.org, call us at 212-889-4858 or write to us by postal mail sent to ASA, Attn: Donor Services, 6 East 43rd Street, 28th Floor, New York, NY 10017.

GOVERNING LAW

You agree that your use of this Privacy Policy and any disputes relating thereto shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of New York. Any dispute relating to this Privacy Policy shall be resolved solely in the state or federal courts located in Manhattan, New York. This Privacy Policy was last updated on February 23, 2012.