Your privacy is critically important to us, so at PlatteForum we have a few fundamental principles. If you find content on the PlatteForum website you believe violates our Privacy Policy, please contact us immediately.

We don’t ask you for personal information unless we truly need it.

We don’t share your personal information with anyone except to comply with the law, develop our services, or protect our rights.

We don’t store personal information on our servers unless required for the on-going operation of one of our services.

“PlatteForum” operates a website at platteforum.org. It is PlatteForum’s policy to respect your privacy regarding any information we may collect while operating our website. If you have questions about deleting or correcting your personal data please contact us.

Website Visitors

Like most website operators, PlatteForum collects non-personally-identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. PlatteForum’s purpose in collecting non-personally identifying information is to better understand how PlatteForum’s visitors use its website. From time to time, PlatteForum may release non-personally-identifying information in the aggregate, e.g., by publishing a report on trends in the usage of its website.

PlatteForum also collects potentially personally-identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for logged in users and for users leaving comments on articles published. PlatteForum only discloses logged in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally-identifying information as described below, except that blog commenter IP addresses are visible and disclosed to the administrators of the blog where the comment was left.

Personally-Identifying Information

Certain visitors to PlatteForum’s websites choose to interact with PlatteForum in ways that require PlatteForum to gather personally-identifying information. The amount and type of information that PlatteForum gathers depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, we may ask visitors who sign up for membership at platteforum.org to provide a username and email address.

Those who engage in transactions with PlatteForum — by donating or purchasing services, for example — are asked to provide additional information, including as necessary the personal and financial information required to process those transactions. In each case, PlatteForum collects such information only insofar as is necessary or appropriate to fulfill the purpose of the visitor’s interaction with PlatteForum. PlatteForum does not disclose personally-identifying information other than as described below.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, PlatteForum may change its Privacy Policy from time to time, and at PlatteForum’s sole discretion. PlatteForum encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your continued use of this site after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of such change.

Protection of Information

PlatteForum discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only to those of its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations that

(i) need to know that information in order to process it on PlatteForum’s behalf or to provide services available at PlatteForum’s websites, and

(ii) that have agreed not to disclose it to others.

Some of those employees, contractors and affiliated organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using PlatteForum’s websites, you consent to the transfer of such information to them. PlatteForum will not rent or sell potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information to anyone.

Other than to its employees, contractors and affiliated organizations, as described above, PlatteForum discloses potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information only in response to a subpoena, court order or other governmental request, or when PlatteForum believes in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of PlatteForum, third parties or the public at large.

If you are a registered user of an PlatteForum website and have supplied your email address, PlatteForum may occasionally send you an email to tell you about new features, solicit your feedback, or just keep you up to date with what’s going on with PlatteForum and our services. We primarily use our website to communicate this type of information, so we expect to keep this type of email to a minimum.

If you send us a request (for example via a support email or via one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish it in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. PlatteForum takes all measures reasonably necessary to protect against the unauthorized access, use, alteration or destruction of potentially personally-identifying and personally-identifying information.

Email Communication

PlatteForum sends a newsletter and occasional nonprofit marketing updates that we believe will be useful to individuals that subscribe to our website or blog, download a white paper, or request updates. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every email. We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law.

Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. PlatteForum uses cookies to help PlatteForum identify and track visitors, their usage of PlatteForum website, and their website access preferences.

PlatteForum visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before using PlatteForum’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of PlatteForum’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.