CDM Publishing, LLC, D.B.A. as Smart + Strong and POZ (“Smart + Strong” or “POZ”) operates the POZ.com Web site.
The privacy of the users of POZ.com is important to POZ.
Please read the following POZ Privacy Policy:
This privacy policy governs how POZ treats personally identifiable information (such as your name, e-mail address, physical address, and other information about you that is not publicly available) that POZ receives and collects in connection with your use of the POZ.com Web site and POZ Personals, a dating service for HIV positive people, and other services that POZ may offer, such as, bulletin boards and chat rooms, on POZ.com (the “Service”). POZ may update this policy from time to time by posting a notice of such update on POZ.com or by notifying you directly.
You will need to provide personally identifiable information in order to register for the Service.
Personally identifiable information will be used by POZ only as provided below or for the following purposes: to contact you; to fulfill your requests in connection with the Service or POZ.com, such as for products or services; to match you with another user on POZ Personals; to perform analyses of user behavior in order to measure customer interest in the various areas of POZ.com; or for such purposes as are described at the point of collection. POZ uses list services to send out information and change notices to users. While POZ only uses list services that it believes are responsible, it will not be liable for any breach of security or for any other action by such list services.
POZ does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from a child under the age of 13.
POZ uses reasonable precautions to keep secure all personally identifiable information that you share with us. However, e-mail is not secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive, you may want to send it by postal mail instead. If we share demographic information with third parties, we will give them aggregate information only. POZ does not disclose, give, sell, lease or transfer personally identifiable information to third parties, except to provide products or services that you request, with your prior consent, or, in POZ’s sole and absolute discretion, as follows: as required by law, such as to respond to subpoenas, or court, administrative, or governmental orders; to protect the rights of POZ; in connection with possible breaches of POZ’s terms of use; in connection with claims that the rights of third parties have been violated; or in connection with possible illegal activity, misrepresentation, fraud or harm to any person.
POZ uses “cookies,” pieces of data stored on users’ hard drives for record keeping purposes. Cookies can make the POZ.com Web site and the Service more useful by storing information about the User’s preferences.
ADDITIONAL EU DISCLOSURES
Our role as data controller
CDM Publishing, LLC, D.B.A. as Smart + Strong and POZ (“Smart + Strong” or “POZ”) operates the POZ.com Web site, generally acts as the data controller of your information submitted through our website.
If you are situated in the EU and have any complaints regarding our privacy practices as data controller, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to your local Supervisory Authority. We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach your Supervisory Authority so please contact us in the first instance. Please see our contact details below in the section titled “Contact Us”. If you are situated in the EU and have a complaint, please contact us at website@poz.com.
Provision of personal data and failure to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with our services). In this case, we will not be able to provide services to you.
Legal basis for our processing of your personal data
Below are the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data:
- Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us at website@poz.com.
- Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
- Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us at website@poz.com. If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis that allows us to do so. Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
Collection of personal data from third party sources
We also collect personal data about you from various third parties and public sources.
- If you register for your services using Facebook, Twitter or other social media sites, we will import your information from those social media sites.
- We may also obtain information through automated technologies (see section titled “Information Collection”)
Withdrawing your consent
If we are relying on your consent to process your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at website@poz.com.
Use of your personal data for marketing purposes
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising:
- Promotional offers from us: We may use your personal data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing). You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or used our services and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.
- Third-party marketing: We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any company outside our company for marketing purposes.
To see how you can opt out of marketing communications, please see the section titled “Opt-Out”.
Rights of EU Data Subjects
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons that will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information that override your rights and freedoms.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
To exercise your rights, please contact us at website@poz.com.
OPT OUT
Opting out of messages from us
To opt-out of any future promotional messages from us, you should send an unsubscribe request to us at website@poz.com. If you do not want your personal information or personal data shared with any third party who may use such information for direct marketing purposes, then you may opt-out of such disclosures by sending an email to website@poz.com. We will process your request within a reasonable time after receipt. Please note that if you opt out in this manner, certain aspects of the Website may no longer be available to you.
Opting out of interest based advertising
The online advertising industry provides a service through which you may opt-out of receiving targeted ads from certain data partners and other advertising partners that participate in self-regulatory programs. We comply with the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising set forth by the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) and the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (“EDAA”). You can opt-out of targeted advertising from certain providers at www.aboutads.info/consumers. Please note that by opting out, you will continue to see generic advertising that is not tailored to your specific interests and activities. To be clear, cookie-based opt-outs must be performed on each device and browser that you wish to have opted-out. For example, if you have opted out on your device browser, that opt-out will not be effective on your mobile device. You must separately opt out on each device. EU residents who have provided their consent to our use of cookies and similar technologies can use the EDAA’s opt out tool that can be found at http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/.
Opting out of cookies
If you want to stop or restrict the placement of cookies or flush any cookies that may already be on your computer or device, please refer to and adjust your web browser preferences. Further information on cookies is available at www.allaboutcookies.org. By deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of our Website or some of its functionality may be affected. Cookies and similar items are not used by us to automatically retrieve personally identifiable information from your device without your knowledge. For more information about cookies, please visit our Cookie Policy.
Opting out of location tracking
You may also adjust the settings on your mobile device to allow or restrict the sharing of location information. For example, the “location” permissions on your mobile device may allow you to elect whether to never share location information with us, to share location information only while you are using the App, or always share location information even if you are not using the App. If you elect to not share your location information, you may be unable to access some features of our Services that are designed for mobile devices. Also, in the event that you prevent the sharing of location information, we may still estimate your general location based on the IP address you use to access our Services.
DATA RELATING TO CHILDREN
Our Website is designed for those 18 years of age and older. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under the age of 13 (or such other age as may be restricted under local law). If we are made aware that we have received such information, or any information in violation of our policy, we will use reasonable efforts to locate and remove that information from our records.
CROSS BORDER TRANSFERS
Our website is maintained in the United States. If you are visiting from the regions with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from those in the United States, please note that you may be transferring your information to the United States and in other countries around the world. You freely and specifically give us your consent to export and use your information within the United States and in other countries as specified in this Privacy Policy. You understand that data stored in the United States may be subject to lawful requests by the courts or law enforcement authorities in the United States. If you are situated in the EU, whenever we transfer your personal data to processors outside of the EU, we ensure appropriate and suitable safeguards are used in such transfer. We may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in the EU For further details, see European Commission: Model contracts for the transfer of personal data to third countries.
CALIFORNIA PRIVACY
If you are a California resident this section applies to you. Under California Law, California residents have the right to request in writing from businesses with whom they have an established business relationship, (a) a list of the categories of personally identifiable information, such as name, email address and mailing address and the type of services provided to the customer that a business has disclosed to third parties (including affiliates that are separate legal entities) during the immediately preceding calendar year for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes and (b) the names and addresses of all such third parties. To request the above information, please contact us at website@poz.com. If you do not want your personally identifying information shared with any third party who may use such information for direct marketing purposes, then you may opt out of such disclosures by sending an email to us at website@poz.com.
UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions from this privacy policy at any time. However, if at any time in the future we plan to use your information in a way that materially differs from this privacy policy, we will post such changes here or email you. We encourage you to periodically review the website for the latest information on our privacy practices. You are bound by any changes to the privacy policy when you use the website after such changes have been first posted.
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy you can contact us at website@poz.com.
Effective: May 25, 2018