Web Site Privacy Statement
This Privacy Statement sets forth the practices of
the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) regarding the collection and use of
information relating to the SME Web site and other activities of SME.
SME created its policy with a fundamental respect for
the rights to privacy of our members, customers and visitors.
Some pages of the Web site may be accessed only by
members of SME, SME Committees, or affiliates, although most of the Web site may
be accessed by all who visit the Web site.
Information Collection and Use
When registering for our educational
events or trade shows, using our Web site, ordering products, and signing up for
certain selected services (such as free subscriptions), you may be asked for information
about yourself, including but not limited to contact information (such as name,
e-mail address, mailing address and phone number) or demographic information (such
as job title and purchasing responsibilities, company information and professional
certification).
If you sign up to become a member of SME, you are asked
for personal information such as your education level, interests, and date of birth.
This information is used to better understand our membership and is not disclosed
to outside organizations.
Some of our publications, products and services are
free to subscribers who meet certain demographic criteria. Independent auditors
may need to certify the eligibility of these subscribers. In order to do that, we
may ask you for information (such as mother's maiden name) that we disclose to the
auditors strictly for audit verification purposes.
For our services that require payment (such as certain
events, products and subscriptions), we collect credit card information (such as
account name, number and expiration date), which is used for billing purposes only,
and is not otherwise shared, except with a reputable third party processing vendor.
SME uses secure socket layer (SSL) technology when you make purchases or send credit
card and login information to SME.
We offer some interactive and community features such
as discussion boards, webcasts and user profiles. Personal information sent or posted
via such features becomes public information for which we are not responsible.
We have features through which you may submit information
to us (such as our feedback forms). Requests for service, support or information
may be forwarded as needed to best respond to a specific request. Under some circumstances,
we may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our internal administrative
purposes, and to help us better serve customers.
From time to time we may invite you to provide information
via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely
voluntary and therefore you have a choice whether to disclose requested contact
information (such as name and mailing address) and demographic information (such
as zip code or job title). In addition to other uses set forth in this policy, contact
information collected in connection with surveys and contests is used to notify
the winners and award prizes and may be shared with sponsors of such surveys or
contests.
Automatically collected data
Web servers automatically collect
information about visitors, and ours does as well. This information includes the
date, time, and navigation history of the session, as well as your browser type,
and IP address. This information does not contain anything that can identify you
personally. Automatically collected data may be used to deliver content specific
to your interests and to honor your preferences.
At this time, we do not use "cookies,"
(a "cookie" is a piece of data stored on the user's hard drive containing information
about the user). Cookies make it possible for websites to reduce the number of times
you are required to login or to tailor the Web site to fit your interests. Most
Internet browsers allow you to erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block
cookies, or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to the instructions
or help screen of your browser to learn how it handles cookies.
Some of our business affiliates may
use cookies on our sites in ads or promotions. We have no access to or control over
these business affiliates' cookies, so we urge you to read their privacy policies
for information.
Information about you that may be stored in our database
We may check the information you
have provided during the shopping process or via any of our forms, e-mail, forums
or discussion groups against any information we have about you in our customer database.
We do this to ensure that we maintain the most current and accurate information
about you as a valued customer.
Our database may contain your name,
title, affiliation, industry classification, address, phone and fax numbers, and
e-mail address, if you provide them. We may also collect additional information
about you including but not limited to: site registration, member ID numbers and
your participation with SME (magazine subscriptions, offices, committees, councils,
boards or task forces on which you serve or have served, membership status, meetings
attended, products purchased, events attended, etc.).
How we use information about you
Automatically collected data such
as cookies and log files help us understand the interests of our visitors in order
to enhance their experience on our sites. We also use this information for our internal
security audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad
demographic information about our user base for aggregate use.
We may use information you have provided
to process transactions you request. We may also use this information to inform
you of new products and upcoming events that may be of interest to you, based on
your participation in SME activities, purchases of products, or interests in technologies
you have indicated. You may choose not to receive these communications.
We may combine demographic information
you have supplied with site usage data to produce general profiles, in aggregate
form that cannot identify you personally, about our members, customers' and visitors
and their preferences in the content of the site and advertising.
We use aggregate demographic information
about our members, customers and visitors to improve our service, for marketing
purposes and/or industry reporting purposes.
Shared data
We partner with other third parties
to provide specific services. For example, exposition registration services may
be provided by a third party. These third parties are not allowed to use information
about you except for the purpose of providing these services.
We may share aggregated or composite information that
does not identify you personally with our advertisers, exhibitors and business affiliates.
SME may be required to provide information about any of its customers or prospective
customers to law enforcement or government agencies.
Security
When our registration/order form
asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social
security number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption
software in the industry - SSL.
Links
This Web site contains links to other
sites. Please be aware that SME cannot be responsible for the privacy practices
of other sites. We urge you to read the privacy statements of Web sites that collect
personally identifiable information.
Students and Children
SME will not knowingly collect personally
identifiable information from anyone under 13 years of age, unless it is necessary
to respond to a one-time request. Once the request has been answered, SME will delete
the requesting child's personally identifiable information.
Preferences, Permission, Opt-out
If you wish to be excluded from marketing
by SME via mail and/or e-mail, phone or fax, please contact our SME Resource Center
at (800) 733-4763 or e-mail
service@sme.org to make that change to your
account.
Updates to this privacy statement
SME may, in its sole discretion,
update this statement at any time by posting the amended statement on the Web site,
and it shall be effective upon posting.
Contact, questions, comments, complaints
If you would like to communicate
with SME regarding privacy issues, or have questions, comments, or complaints regarding
this Web site or its policy practices, or if you feel that SME is not abiding by
our privacy policy statement, please contact our SME Resource Center at (800) 733-4763
or e-mail service@sme.org.