InformAsia Privacy Policy

(As of November 6, 2007)

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 InformAsia 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 InformAsia Network is defined as all English-language, United States based web sites, web pages and channels owned, controlled and/or operated by InformAsia.

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@informasia.info.

We will notify visitors 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 InformAsia gathered from individual visitors prior to any such significant change in our Privacy Policy without first obtaining the 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 InformAsia 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, InformAsia reserves the right to make non-significant changes to our Privacy Policy that will not affect InformAsia'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 InformAsia 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 InformAsia's Terms of Service.

A. Information that InformAsia collects

InformAsia gathers two basic types of information:

1. Information provided to InformAsia

In order to use many of InformAsia's features, tools and services, we do not ask you for personally identifiable information. However, InformAsia's 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 InformAsia and/or an InformAsia sponsor or partner or (ii) collected by InformAsia and shared with an InformAsia 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 InformAsia's policy.

2. Information gathered by InformAsia

When you visit the InformAsia Network and interact with the services and tools that reside there, InformAsia and third parties with whom InformAsia has contracted to provide services to InformAsia 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).

B. How information is collected and disseminated

The information collected by InformAsia is used to create aggregated portraits of the InformAsia 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 InformAsia audience is. For example, we may create a report that tells advertisers that 60 percent of our members are professors in a certain field, 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.

ORDER FORMS AND TRANSACTIONS WITH E-COMMERNCE PARTNERS AND ADVERTISERS
SURVEYS AND POLLS
LINKS TO PARTNER AND ADVERTISER SITES
INFORMATION COLLECTED BY AEI THROUGH IP ADDRESS AND COOKIES
INFORMATION COLLECTED BY THIRD PARTY ADVERTISING SERVICES
INFORMATION SHARING POLICY
GUIDELINES REGARDING CHILDREN
CONTACT INFORMATION

1. 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, InformAsia 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 InformAsia visitor to submit or receive information, as the case may be.

When you provide personal financial and other personally identifiable information to one of InformAsia's e-commerce partners, this transaction will occur on the e-commerce partner's site, not the InformAsia 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.

2. Surveys and polls

Our surveys ask for opinions on various issues and very often these surveys and polls are sponsored by or associated with InformAsia 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 InformAsia 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).

3. Links to partner and advertiser sites

The InformAsia Network contains links to advertiser and partner websites. We cannot be responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such non-InformAsia 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 InformAsia 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 InformAsia advertisers and partners, InformAsia 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. InformAsia will use commercially reasonable efforts to contractually require all such third party advertisers and partners to agree to abide by the terms of this Privacy Policy, 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. InformAsia 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.

4. Information collected by InformAsia through IP address and cookies

a. 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 visitors and possibly even ban those visitors who are not complying with our Terms of Service.

b. 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 InformAsia Network can then read the cookies whenever you visit the InformAsia websites. We use cookies to save a 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 InformAsia experience so that your visit to InformAsia 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 InformAsia services that require registration, if any, in order to participate or will have to re-register each time you visit the InformAsia Network. To learn more about the types of cookies used by the InformAsia Network, click here.

5. 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. InformAsia 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 InformAsia Network and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

6. Information sharing policy

InformAsia does not sell or otherwise share personally identifiable information with unaffiliated third parties without your consent except in the following instances: (a) unless required by applicable law or pursuant to a court or similar order; (bi) as deemed necessary, in InformAsia's discretion, to protect the legal rights or the property of InformAsia, a member or third party, or to prevent personal injury; and/or (c) in the event InformAsia 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 InformAsia or its affiliated entities (including, without limitation, in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In addition, InformAsia 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 InformAsia, provided that such third parties are bound by InformAsia's Privacy Policy.

Please note, however, that InformAsia reserves the right to share any personally identifiable or other information about you which you provide to (or which is gathered by) the InformAsia 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.

7. Guidelines regarding children

Personal information about children is a concern for all of us. At InformAsia, we take the protection of children's privacy very seriously. InformAsia does not encourage participation or visitation by children.

8. Contact information

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or anything else about InformAsia, you can contact us at the following email address: feedback@informasia.info.