Privacy Policy

Society for Disability Studies

SDS Privacy Policy

What we do--and don't do--with the information that we get from you

Last Revised: August 5, 2008. Approved by unanimous consent by the SDS board of directors: September 2008

This is a web site of Society for Disability Studies (SDS). We can be reached at:

The City University of New York
101 W. 31st Street (12th floor)
New York, NY 10001
Phone: (646) 344-7250

The following describes the policies and practices of Society For Disability Studies with regard to the collection and use of personal information from users of www.disstudies.org, any of its sub domains, subscribers to our various products, members, and donors. Throughout this page, the terms “we,” “us,” and “our” are meant to include SDS staff, contractors, and volunteers. Our web site is hosted by Text Drive (www.textdrive.com).

We have the utmost respect for your privacy and will not trade, sell or exchange your personal information with anyone without your explicit permission. We only share your information with third parties in order to provide you services, as described below.

When it comes to collection and use of personal information, our guiding questions are:

“Will having this information help us better serve this individual?”
“Do we have permission to use the information in this way?”
“Is this use of the information required in order to fulfill the expectations of the individual?”

Information we collect about you

Membership Registration

In order to become a member of SDS or to obtain certain premium content as a part of your membership benefits, you need to go through a registration process. Our membership registration is currently conducted by using an online database system called Regonline (http://www.regonline.com). During registration, you must supply us with your valid email address (which can be used is your unique user name), name, and a password. Optionally, you may provide other demographic information like zip/postal code, profession, and issue areas of interest. You may update and change this information by visiting https://www.regonline.com/sdssubscribe.

Browsing the site

When you visit our website, we collect information about your session (e.g. session length, pages visited, files downloaded) based on either the IP address of your computer (if you are not a registered user), or your unique user identifier (if you are a registered user). Our website uses cookies to facilitate this tracking. For an excellent description of cookies and how they work, see Wikipedia on cookies.

This information is stored in log files maintained by our website host. Log data is used in aggregate to analyze how people use our website. The information collected in log files is intended to understand usage patterns, page popularity, etc. We use a web analysis tool called Google Analytics that helps filter some of this information.

Donating

When you donate to SDS, whether online or by mail, we ask for your name, address, email address, phone number, and payment method. If you pay by check, we keep a photocopy of your check. If you pay by credit card, we keep a record of the transaction in a secure manner. We also maintain pertinent information about you and your gifts in a secure database, including but not limited to gift amounts, dates, payment types, and any special gift terms or conditions. We use SSL security on our web site to ensure encrypted transactions

Commenting on a blog post or other content

You are welcome and encouraged to comment on our blogs or other content. You do not need to register in order to do this; you only need to supply your name, your comment, and your email address should we need to follow up with you regarding your comment. Only the name you supply and your comment will be displayed on the site to the public. This information is stored by our content management system. Due to excessive spam and potential abuse, we do not permit anonymous comments.

Forwarding an item to a friend

Throughout our web site, we offer the option for you to forward items to a friend. In this process, we use an online form to collect your name, email address, an optional comment from you, and the email address of your friend. This information is used to deliver the item to your friend, but is not stored by us; the email address(es) that you provide to use this feature will only be used to send the requested item.

Participating in a survey, contest, or special offer

SDS may host optional surveys, contests, and special offers from time to time, each of which may ask you for additional information about your experience, opinion, or demographics. This information is maintained on a secure server accessible only by staff. If other terms apply to this information, you will be notified as to its possible use prior to your participation.

How we use the information

Aggregate information

Our goal is to help you be an effective advocate for, or broadcaster of, important ideas. Therefore, the majority of the information we collect, from website tracking to survey responses, has to do with what your interests are and how you use (or would like to use) our work. We analyze this data in aggregate and in segments and use this information in order to provide better research, content, design, organization, and delivery of our work to you.

Email addresses

If you are a registered user, your email address is your unique identifier, or user name. As a registered user, you are able to download premium content and have access to special membership benefits. We may also send you by email occasional invitations to surveys, appeals for funds, and administrative or other notices regarding the web site, its contents, and your registration. You will also receive information on SDS’s annual conference and other events of interest.

Donors who supply their email address may also receive occasional updates and appeals for funds via email, independent of any membership registration, with the option to opt-out at any time.

When you submit questions or comments to a SDS staff member by email (via a link on the website, e.g.), we will use your e-mail address to respond directly to you.

Except as explained in this policy, Society for Disability Studies does not send unsolicited e-mail.

Other individual information

When you are logged into the site, your “user name” may appear on every page. When you participate in any public forum hosted by or on behalf of SDS, information you submit will be made publicly available and attributed to you. For example, when you provide a public comment on a blog post or other page, both your comment and the name you supply will be shown on the page for other website visitors to see. This information may be copied or shared by other people, and SDS has no control over who obtains the information or what they do with it.

If you supply us with your postal address you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on research and services, fundraising, or upcoming events.

If you supply us with your telephone number we will only call you with information regarding orders your have placed, donations, member benefits, or to update contact information. On rare occasions, we may contact you by phone to seek input or advice on a particular policy issue or opportunity.

If you make a donation to SDS, we will acknowledge your generosity on the web site and other fundraising materials, unless you request at the time of your donation to be acknowledged anonymously. We will also use the information you provide to deliver notes of thanks, tax receipts, and your benefits of membership, including books and invitations to special events.

If your participation in a contest, survey, or special offer entitles you to a prize or other gift of thanks, we will use information you provided to us to fulfill your prize. Some survey information may be maintained with your profile so we can tailor the presentation of our work to you. Some fundraising activities such as contests require us to report information to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. In that case, our staff will contact you to gather additional private information necessary for such reporting requirements.

With whom we share the information

We may share aggregate information about our audience (e.g. demographics, interests, website usage) with donors, partners, website users or other interested parties. Please note that this is not personal information, only general summaries of the activities and interests of our audience. Any exception to this policy will be identified under your user profile on our web site.

Membership Directory/person search

As a part of our web site and as a part of the membership benefits, members of SDS are eligible to view research interests and other information about SDS scholars. You may control what information is displayed about you by following the procedures outlined below. SDS will only show information that you explicitly indicate.

Third party service providers

We will not share individually-identifying personal information about you with third parties without your permission, with the exception of service providers or other organizations we contract with to fulfill services on our behalf (e.g. delivering email or mail, executing credit card transactions), providing accommodation service at conferences and events, or under the circumstances described in Compliance with Legal Requirements below.

Compliance with Legal Requirements

We may disclose personal information if we are required to by law, or we believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law or with legal process, (b) protect and defend our rights and property, (c) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of disstudies.org or SDS’s work, or (d) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public. As such, if you attempt to pose as someone else, we may disclose information about you or your actions as part of an investigation into any harm done by your actions.

Security

When we transfer and receive certain types of sensitive information, such as financial information, we redirect visitors to a secure outside vendor’s server (such as Regonline or Paypal). To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online.

We use a secure (SSL) certificate with 128-bit encryption for parts of the web site that allow you to make changes to your private information and conduct transactions. Your web browser will indicate this by placing a lock icon when you are viewing secure pages.

Business Transitions

If Society for Disability Studies were to merge with or acquire another entity, or sell a portion of its assets, some information regarding donors, subscribers, registered website users, and/or website visitors may be transferred.

How you can manage the use of your information

At https://www.regonline.com/sdssubscribe and at http://www.disstudies.org, you can update or correct inaccuracies in your registration information, donate to the organization, change or request your password, and keep your information updated.

SDS maintains other information, especially about donors, that may not be accessible on the website. Upon request we will provide you with access to information that we maintain about you, including financial information (e.g., credit card account information), transaction information (e.g., dates on which customers or donors made purchases or donations, amounts, and types of purchases), or contact information (e.g., name, address, phone number). If you need this information corrected or updated, please call, email, or write us at the contacts provided above.

We respect those that wish to receive the benefits of registration but otherwise wish to have no contact at all with the organization. If you wish to have no email contact, phone contact, or mailings from SDS, please call, email, or write us at the contacts provided above. We will process the request within 10 business days of receiving notice. We reserve the right to contact you for customer service purposes regarding any transactions you initiate with SDS.

Miscellaneous

We do not currently partner with or have special relationships with any ad server companies. The organization retains the right to hold advertising campaigns on the web site or by other means.

Society for Disability Studies is not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of websites to which it links or for its partners.

From time to time, we may use website visitor information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at some time in the future we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

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