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home · Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
ICOMMONS WEBSITE PRIVACY POLICY
Effective date: May 29, 2007
Please read this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) carefully as the terms may have changed since your last visit to this website.
By registering as an iCommons User (“User”), you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.
iCommons respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, store and use the information that you provide to us through www.icommons.org (the “Website”). Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy, unless you subscribe to a particular service with a different privacy policy, as for example, if you register for an iCommons Summit event.
This Privacy Policy does not apply to any third-party sites even if accessed via our Website. iCommons assumes no responsibility for the privacy practices or the content of those websites nor how they handle and store personal information that you provide to them. Please carefully read any third-party privacy policies before agreeing to their terms or using those websites.
This Privacy Policy applies from the Effective Date for all use of the Website after such date. iCommons may occasionally amend this Privacy Policy to reflect regulatory requirements or changes in our information collection, use or disclosure practices. If this Privacy Policy is changed, the new Effective Date will be noted here. You should therefore return here regularly to view our most up-to-date Privacy Policy.
If you have questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy, please contact us at data@icommons.org or at Data Protection, 54 Bath Ave., 1st Floor, Offices at the Grace, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa.
iCommons.org is a community networking site.
While we respect your privacy, the nature and purpose of the Website is to allow you and other Users to network together and communicate about yourselves and to share information about your activities in an open and transparent manner. Personal information that you choose to make available on the public sections of our Website, including the articles, blogs, wikis, and Profile pages, can be viewed by anyone with internet access. We cannot control the uses that are made of information on our public pages by third parties, so we urge you to think carefully when deciding what personal information you wish to make available.
What is personal information?
Personal information means any information relating to a natural person, who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his or her physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.
Opting Out
Please contact data@icommons.org to opt-out of the various uses of your personal information. You may opt out at any time even if you have previously given your consent. Click here to unsubscribe from the iCommons mailing list. Click here to unsubscribe from the iCommonsLab newsletter. Other iCommons mailing lists can be accessed at http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/icommons.
How may I review and correct my personal information?
You have the right of access to any identifiable personal information about you that we maintain at the time of your request. iCommons is committed to providing you with reasonable and practical access to your information to allow you the opportunity to identify inaccuracies. When commercially practicable, if iCommons is informed of the inaccuracy we will make the appropriate corrections. You may request the updating or amending, or a copy of, any personal information that we hold about you by contacting us at data@icommons.org or at Data Protection, 54 Bath Ave., 1st Floor, Offices at the Grace, Rosebank, Johannesburg, South Africa.
What personal information do you collect and how do you collect it?
From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information in order to receive or use services at www.icommons.org ("Services"). Providing some of this personal information is necessary in order for iCommons and its service providers to deliver the Services you select, however, it is the nature and purpose of the Website is to allow you and other users to network together and communicate about themselves and their activities in an open and transparent manner. Personal information that you choose to make available on the public sections of our Website, including the blogs, wikis, and Profile pages, can be viewed by anyone with internet access. We cannot control the uses that are made of information on our public pages by third parties, so we urge you to think carefully when deciding what personal information you wish to make available.
A) Keying in your details:
iCommons collects personal information about you when you voluntarily submit it to us by: sending an email to us or signing up to receive newsletters and join mailing lists: registering as a Website User; posting content to the public sections of the Website, such as articles, agenda items, blogs, wikis, or a photo for your User Profile; editing, commenting, voting or browsing on our website; by donating money to us or purchasing merchandise from our Website. We also collect information for service administration purposes.
B) Automatic collection of personal information:
We use software known as “cookies” that automatically transfers to a directory on the hard drive of your computer when you are browsing the Website. Cookies automatically collect and store information about your activities while visiting the Website, such as your IP address, the web pages you view, the times you view them, the number of visits you have made, and information about the browser you are using. In addition, iCommons uses this browsing information to understand how the website is being used, to refine it to suit our visitors’ interests and for systems administration and other internal purposes.
Cookies only identify a personal computer, not the person using it; however for users with a dedicated IP address, the address itself may be personal information. If you use a public Internet access provider, your IP address probably varies from session to session. We do not link browsing information to the personal information you submit to us.
You may disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you chose to not accept cookies, this does not affect the functionality of the Website, but it may impair your use of or prevent access to some areas.
C) Information from third parties:
iCommons may also obtain information about you directly from third parties, such as new delivery address details from our carriers if you purchase merchandise. We will use this information to update our delivery records and account information.
What does iCommons use my information for?
The main reasons we collect and store your personal information are to ensure that we can respond to your requests and inquiries, to provide the services and features that you wish to use on our website and so that you can communicate with others regarding your iCommons-related activities.
We use the personal information you provide to us by email to respond to your request, for example, to reply to your email or to send you communications about news and events related to iCommons. We may associate this email address back to your previous experiences with us. We will know whether you receive emails from us, subscribe to any services we offer and will be able to associate this with any other contact information you may have given us.
When you subscribe to our discussion forums such as email discussion lists, blogs and wikis, the personal information you submit to subscribe is used by iCommons for the purpose of managing those services. Your name and/or email address and communications to these services will also typically be visible to other list and wiki participants and to the general public in the discussion archives.
When you register as an iCommons User through the Website, the user name and location you give us will be stored and made publicly available. The email address you provide through your User Profile will be made public only if you elect to receive emails or project participation invitations sent through your User Profile, in which case your email address will only be shown to users to whom you reply. We do not track or store your emails to other users.
If you are a Node participant, the Node leader may use your name or other information in reporting about Node activities. You must contact the Node leader if you do not wish the leader to publish any personal information about you in the Node sections of the Website.
All other User Profile information that you provide, including any photos you upload, will be publicly available to anyone with Internet access. In addition, when you submit articles, agenda items, edits, comments, votes or otherwise activate any of the input features available to Users, your contributions and any personal information you have included in them will be publicly accessible and your actions will be tracked, stored and linked from your User Profile.
If you donate funds directly to iCommons, or if we receive your personal information for such purposes from PayPal or Moneybookers when they manage such transactions on our behalf, we will, unless your donation is anonymous, use your personal information to process your donation and to report personal donor information as required by relevant government taxing and other authorities.
If you donate funds to iCommons either via PayPal or Moneybookers, your personal information will be sent to, handled and stored by PayPal (http://www.paypal.com/) and Moneybookers (http://www.moneybookers.com/app/) in accordance with their own terms of use and privacy policies.
When you browse our Website, our servers may collect information indirectly and automatically (through, for example, the use of your "IP address") about your activities while visiting the Website, including the web pages you view and the times you view them and information about the browser you are using.
We do not link browsing information to the personal information you submit to us but for some of you with a dedicated IP addresses, the address itself may be personal information. We use this browsing information for internal purposes such as to help understand how the Website is being used and to improve it, and for systems administration purposes. An IP address is a number that is assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. In some cases your IP address stays the same from browser session to browser session; but if you use a consumer Internet access provider, your IP address probably varies from session to session.
If you are notified on an icommons.org site that your information may be used to allow iCommons to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that we may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance.
Users 16 and under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to iCommons. You are not permitted to provide us with any personal information without such consent.
Where do you hold my personal information?
When you communicate by email to us or to join mailing lists or wikis, your messages may be stored by our email and wiki hosting contractors Ibiblio at www.ibiblio.org and Google at www.google.com on their servers, wherever located.
Any information you provide via our Website is sent to and stored by our Website hosting service providers, depending on how you are transmitting the information. All information that you convey through our Website is collected and stored by DG Incubation at Lotus Calyx 102, 2-22-3 Jiyugaoka, Meguro-ku, 152-0035 Tokyo, Japan. DG Incubation can be reached by post at Yamazaki Bldg, 2-43-15 Tomigaya, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 151-0063, Japan at calyx@labml.ito.com. DG Incubation makes daily backups of data stored on its servers. The information stored by DG Incubation is also available to our technical support contractors, Instituto Sociocultural Overmundo, Rua Voluntarios da Patria, 45, sala 1007, Botafogo, Rio de Janeiro/RJ, Brazil CEP 22270-900 and Tecnopop, Praia do Flamengo 100 • 1101, Rio de Janeiro-RJ, Brazil CEP 22210-030. All information that you submit for User registration via the website at icommons.pentabarf.org will be collected and stored by our User registration database manager, Chaos Computer Club (http://www.ccc.de) in collaboration with Multimedijalni Institut (http://www.mi2.hr/) for the purpose of managing registration activities. Chaos also makes daily backups of data stored on its servers.
iCommons transmits, stores and processes the personal information obtained from the websites described above on servers located in Brazil, Croatia, Germany, Japan and the US. Personal information will also be sent to our South Africa office for processing and communications. The laws on holding personal information in these countries may not be as rigorous as they are in the European Union.
To what other parties might iCommons transfer my personal information?
We support respect for privacy and strive to protect your information as much as possible consistent with our ability to provide our programs to the public and to meet our regulatory obligations. Personal Information that you provide iCommons may subject us to legal obligations towards you in the way we use those data. We may be required to collect the information fairly and let you know if we share it with anyone else. When using your personal information, iCommons will act in accordance with current legislation applicable to it.
iCommons will not sell your personal information to third parties without your prior consent except as part of a transfer of ownership of the company.
On occasions we may share your personal information with third parties as described above. iCommons may collate statistics about site traffic, merchandise sales, donations etc, which we pass on to trusted third parties to assist us in improving the services we provide to you, but this information is not personally identifiable information. We may also use demographic information to tailor the Website to the interests of Users, which we share with third parties, again on an aggregate basis only so that they can build up a better picture of our user base.
By purchasing merchandise or event admission, or making a donation, you consent to iCommons sharing your personal information with third parties as is necessary to process your transaction, for example, to banks, credit card companies, and carriers. You also consent to us exchanging information with other companies in the interests of fraud detection and prevention and credit risk reduction or abuses of the websites managed on our behalf.
We may disclose your personal information as required by law when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process served on us or on our Website. All contributions you make to our Website are governed by the Terms of Use policy on the Terms of Use page. If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on our sites, we may use whatever information we have about you to stop such behaviour. We may use it to inform relevant third parties including as your employer, email or internet service provider, and law enforcement agencies.
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