Date of Last Revision: February 20, 2009
We built GlobalForce Network to make it easy for you to connect and share information with like-minded friends and people around the world who are interested in making a difference. While establishing our global community, our first and foremost consideration is your privacy.
Our stated Privacy Policy herein is designed to help you understand how we collect and use the personal information you decide to share when using the GlobalForce Website and Services, located at www.globalforcenetwork.com and it’s directly associated domains (collectively, “GFN” or “Websites”).
By using or accessing GFN, you permit the collection and use of your personal information as outlined below in our Privacy Policy. You should visit this page periodically to review any changes to the Privacy Policy.
1. INFORMATION We CollectGFN collects certain personal information (“User Data”) from you when you register for a GFN Member or Affiliate (collectively, “User”) account, including a Username, your gender and your eMail address, as well as location information such as the country you reside in. You can also choose to add additional personal information in your My Profile page including a photo. We collect information about your use of GFN that you do not explicitly submit. For example, we log your browser-type related information, IP address, requested URL, referring URL, and timestamp. If you create a User account on GFN certain information relating to your activity on the Website, such as the date and time at which you register and the text of the comments and contributions you make on GFN, and the time that you make them, is displayed in your profile and can be viewed by other Users, whether or not they are logged into an account. Internal messages you send to other users are not public.
2. USE of Your InformationWhen you register with GFN, you create your own profile and privacy settings. Personal information such as your Username and an optional profile photo may be visible to users in conjunction with messages or other postings that you contribute to GFN. Users may also view your profile, and any personally identifiable information you have included in your profile, by clicking on your Username when you post on GFN. You are required to provide an eMail address when you register with GFN. This eMail address will not be visible to Users who view your profile. If you are concerned with the privacy of your personal information, we recommend that you do not register with GFN. We may send eMails to the eMail address you provide in your profile in order to provide you with notifications related to your use of GFN or updates or news regarding GFN. Every time you visit a webpage, you send a lot of information to the web server. Most web servers routinely maintain access logs with a portion of this information, including browser-type related information, IP address, requested URL, referring URL and timestamp data, which can be used to get an overall picture of what pages are popular, what other websites link to GFN, and what web browsers people are using. We use this information to diagnose and resolve technical problems, administer GFN and otherwise provide the highest possible level of service to you. In addition, we use this information to perform statistical analyses of User behavior and characteristics in order to measure interest in and use of the various areas of the Website. In very rare instances, we may use this information to correlate Usernames and IP addresses of edits in investigating abuse of GFN. Regardless of whether you are registered with GFN or logged into your account, anytime you visit GFN you can be identified by your IP address. This is a series of numbers which identifies the Internet address from which you are contacting GFN. Depending on your connection, this number may be traceable only to a large Internet service provider, or more specifically to your school, place of business or home.
3. TRANSFER of InformationGFN will not make private information, such as your eMail address, available to third parties, unless you agree to release this information or unless one of the situations described in this paragraph occurs. GFN may preserve or disclose the content you post on GFN, as well as other information about you and your use of GFN, such as your eMail address, IP address and timestamp data, if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a subpoena, a court order or another legal process. Further, GFN may preserve or disclose such information in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities or suspected fraud; to protect the rights, property or personal safety of GFN, its Users or the general public or to enforce or apply the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy and/or the GFN Terms of Use, as the same may be amended from time to time.
GFN will notify you when information about you may be provided to third parties in ways other than explained above, and you will have the option to prevent such information sharing.
4. SHARED InformationGFN offers GFN branded promotional merchandise through its GFN Store and eco-friendly, sustainable products through its affiliated green e-commerce site (EcoMart). In order to facilitate a seamless User experience when you access our online stores, GFN will share your User Data when you register as a Customer to make a purchase. At that time you will be required to provide additional information such as a valid credit card or debit card, billing and shipping addresses in order to process your order. Our credit card processing company does not retain, share, or store any personally identifiable information except to provide these services and they are bound by confidentiality agreements which limit their use of such information.
5. LINKS to Other WebsitesGFN contains links to other websites to which GFN has no affiliation and therefore GFN is not responsible for their privacy practices. We encourage our Users to be aware when they leave our site to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by GFN.
6. COOKIESLike most websites, GFN requires “cookies” to function properly. Cookies are small text files that reside on a User’s computer and identify you as a unique User. We use cookies to refine our site and simplify the User experience. For example, we use session ID cookies to confirm that registered Users are logged in. These cookies terminate once the User closes the browser. By default, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID to make it easier for you to login when you come back to GFN without explicitly typing your Username and password every time. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature; however, you should note that cookies may be necessary to provide you with certain features (e.g. customized delivery of information) available on GFN.
7. CONTROLLING Your Personal InformationYou should be aware that when you voluntarily disclose personally identifiable information (e.g. your real name or eMail address) through messages, postings, or in other areas of GFN, that information, along with any substantive information disclosed in your communication, can be collected and used by third parties and may result in your receipt of unsolicited messages from other posters or third parties. Such activities are beyond the control of GFN. We strongly encourage you not to use your real name as your username on GFN. Please do not post any personal information on GFN that you expect to keep private. As a registered GFN User, you can edit some of the personal information you have included in your profile by logging in and accessing your account. You cannot, however, change your Username once you have registered. Upon your request, GFN will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete your GFN account and the personal information in your profile; however, it may be impossible to remove your account without some residual information being retained by GFN. Registered Users who wish to close their account should contact info@globalforcenetwork.com.
8. SECURITYGFN takes appropriate precautions to protect our User’s information. GFN User accounts are password-protected. GFN takes industry standard security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, as well as physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data. We limit access to your personal information to GFN employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.
When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number or your password), we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). (Click here to learn more about SSL). Because eMail and instant messaging are not recognized as secure communications, we request that you not send private information to us by eMail or instant messaging services. If you have any questions about the security of GFN Website, please contact us through the embedded form on our Help page.
Although we aim to take sufficient measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that personally identifiable information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.
9. EDITING or Removal of ContentAccess and control over most personal information on GFN is readily available through the profile editing tools. Registered GFN users may modify or delete any of their profile information at any time by logging into their account. Information will be updated immediately. Individuals who wish to deactivate their GFN account may do so on their My Profile page. Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of GFN.
Where you make use of the communication features of the service to share information with other individuals on GFN, however, (e.g. sending a personal message to another GFN user) you generally cannot remove such communications.
Some areas of GFN Website and Services contain editing history functionality which records and stores every change made to a webpage. All such changes are viewable by both registered and unregistered Users, regardless of whether the changes there are additions, modifications or deletions of content and whether they are made by a registered User or a representative of GFN. Thus, content that has been added to a webpage within GFN may permanently be accessible for viewing by our Users who look at the editing history of that webpage, even if such content had been deleted after being posted on GFN. Only a GFN administrator can permanently delete information from GFN and there is no guarantee that this will happen. Content that has been deleted can also be reinstated on a GFN webpage if a registered User or GFN representative chooses to revert to such content in the editing history. Please keep all of this in mind when posting and editing information on GFN.
10. INVITE-A-FriendRegistered GFN Users can elect to invite friends to join using an invitation template provided by GFN. Through the template, one eMail invitation containing a unique URL link is sent to each person whose eMail is entered by the sender. GFN has a No-SPAM policy and thus will not collect, rent or sell the eMail addresses entered by GFN members.
11. CHILDRENChildren under the age of 13 are prohibited from registering for a GFN account, posting or editing any content on GFN or providing any of their personal information to GFN or to any GFN User, but are otherwise permitted to access and view the information provided on GFN with the permission and supervision of a parent or guardian. GFN does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 sends personal information to us, we will delete that information as quickly as possible, and will use that information only to respond directly to that child (or a parent or guardian) to inform him or her that he or she cannot use the GFN Service. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us through the form on our privacy help page.
Only those individuals 18 years of age and older are authorized to register and use GFN Services.
12. ENFORCEMENTGFN regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. If you have any questions or concerns regarding GFN's treatment of personal information or this Privacy Policy if you want to exercise any of the rights that you are granted under this Privacy Policy, you can contact: info@globalforcenetwork.com or Privacy Matters c/o GlobalForce Network Inc., 408 – 1445 W. Georgia Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6G 2T3 When we receive formal written complaints, it is GFN's policy to contact the complaining User regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between GFN and an individual.
13. YOUR Privacy PracticesGNF respects the privacy rights of third parties, and you must do so as well on the GFN Service. If you collect, access or use information relating to any User of the GFN Service (including information contained in any User profile) you must obtain consent from the User and make it clear to the User that the collection, access and use is being carried out by you and not GFN.
14. TERMS of Use, Notices and RevisionsYour use of GFN, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. If you do not agree with these Terms, you should not use GFN Services. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's new effective date. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by eMail, or through notice on our home page. We encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.
QuestionsIf you have any questions about this Privacy Policy please eMail us at info@globalforcenetwork.com
