Privacy Policy - Global Surgical Expedition

Effective February 23, 13

I. OUR COMMITMENT TO PRIVACY

Global Surgical Expedition (“GSE”, “we” or “us”) is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. GSE has developed this Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) to help to protect your personal information. The Privacy Policy discloses the information we gather on www.givingtoextremes.org. (the “Site”), as well as ways in which we process and, share such information and how you can correct or change such information. Except where otherwise expressly indicated herein or on the Site, this Privacy Policy applies only to information collected on the Site and does not apply to information collected outside of the Site.

This Privacy Policy addresses our privacy practices relating to the general use of our Site by anyone who visits, browses or otherwise uses the Site (collectively, “You”). Before submitting information to the Site, please read this Privacy Policy. By visiting the Site, submitting information, making a donation or using any of our products or services, you acknowledge that you accept the practices and policies outlined in this Privacy Policy and consent to having your data transferred to and/or processed in the United States. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Site. If you have any questions, please contact GSE.

II.THE INFORMATION GTE COLLECTS

GSE is all about sharing information about our mission without requiring you to submit any more Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”) than is necessary to use the Site effectively. We do not require you to register or submit PII in order to visit the Site. Some activities on the Site can be performed without providing PII. When we ask for PII to, for instance, participate in an activity, set up an account or project page or make a donation, we will not require anyone to disclose more PII than we believe is reasonably necessary to participate in the activity. We collect the following categories of information from you:

A. Personally Identifiable Information Collected from Individuals

We may receive and store any information you enter on the Site or provide to us in any other way through or via the Site that would allow us to identify you personally or contact you. The PII you provide to us only will be used by GSE in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Examples of PII we may collect from you:

1. - If you set up a personal account, we collect your name, email address and birthday and, if you choose, your sex, any photos that you upload to the Site, your mailing address and phone number;
  - PII you provide about yourself when you send us an email or contact GSE.
  - PII you provide about yourself on your account page, a project page or anywhere else on the Site. For example, if you use any third party platforms, such as Facebook or Twitter, to share information about yourself on the Site, we collect that information.

You can choose not to provide us with certain PII, but then you may not be able to take advantage of all of the services and products offered on the Site.

B. Personally Identifiable Information Collected from Charities

If you are a charity or nonprofit (each a “Charity”) and you establish an account with GSE, we will collect the name, email address, birthday and phone number of the person who establishes a Charity account and claims your Charity (the “Charity Contact”). We also may collect, if the Charity Contact chooses to provide it, the Charity Contact’s sex, or any photos uploaded to the Site.

C. Passive Gathering of Information Electronically

1. - 1. Cookies

During the course of any visit to the Site, the pages you see, along with something called “cookies,” are downloaded to your computer. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. These cookies do not contain or collect any PII, but they do enable us to provide features such as personalization. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you usually can change your browser to limit or prevent cookies. Cookies in themselves do not personally identify the individual user, but rather the computer that is being used to access the Site. You may have the opportunity to set your computer to accept all cookies, to notify you when a cookie is issued, or to not receive cookies at any time. Different browsers may address cookies differently. If you set your browser to not accept cookies, it may result in certain personalized services not being provided to you when you use that computer.

1. - 2. Web Beacons

A web beacon is a transparent image file. Web beacons enable GSE to track website usage information, such as the number of times a given web page has been viewed. Web beacons are invisible to you and (unlike cookies) are not placed on your computer. They may be used in association with cookies to understand how visitors interact with the pages and content on the pages of the Site.

Web beacons also may be used to track whether you have opened an HTML email. When the email is opened, a part of the code that makes up the HTML page calls a web server to load the web beacon that then generates a record showing that the email has been viewed. Web Beacons may also recognize when the email was opened, how many times it was forwarded and which URL’s (links within the email) were clicked.

GSE does not use web beacons to collect or otherwise record any type of PII provided by or about any User.

E-mail Communications to You and Your Friends

When you send an email to GSE, we may retain your email address and the contents of the email you send.

When you invite friends to join GSE, donate to one of your projects or join a team, GSE will send an email to your friends. GSE does not store your friends’ email address or use that information for any purpose other than sending the email that you requested.

Non Personally Identifiable Information

From time to time, we may also ask you to provide us with non-PII that is data that is not intended to allow us to identify you personally, such as your first name, birthday or zip code. Your non-PII may be aggregated and used for our internal purposes or for creating reports for third-party advertisers and partners, or otherwise shared with third parties for any lawful purpose, without your permission. No third party is intended to be able to know who you are as a result of the use of your non-PII.

We also may automatically collect Site usage information, such as the numbers and frequency of users to the Site, pages visited and similar data. This data is used in the aggregate, that is, as a statistical measure, and not in a manner that is intended to identify you personally. Aggregate information generally is collected through the use of cookies and web beacons as discussed above. This aggregate information helps GSE determine general usage patterns and modify the Site in order to improve your experience. This type of aggregate information may be shared with third parties at any time.

III. HOW WE USE INFORMATION

When you provide us with your PII, we may use such information for a number of purposes, including:

oTo facilitate communication between GSE and you including, without limitation, responding to your questions or comments, sending emails concerning our products and services, or to contact you for feedback regarding us, advertisers or business partners;

oTo administer your account, process donations, provide products or services to you and for GSE marketing and promotional activities;

oTo provide a report to a Charity or an event supporting a Charity to whom you have made a donation or to alert a fundraiser to whom you have made a donation, supported a project or joined a team;

oTo provide a report to our advertisers or business partners that tells them who responded to a particular offer or to facilitate the fulfillment of an order that you have made with an advertiser or business partner

oTo provide our gift registry partners with all the necessary data to accurately update their gift registries, including data related to the establishment of a donation registry and the applicable Charities, the GSE Fundraiser(s) that established the donation registry, the applicable Event, the donors to such donations registry and the details of each donation;

oTo provide you with important functionality changes to the Site, new GSE services and special offers from GSE and reputable third parties that we think you will find valuable;

oTo customize, analyze, adjust and improve the Site to meet our your, advertisers’ or business partners’ needs and expectations;

oTo enforce our agreements with you, prevent fraud and other prohibited or illegal activities, for other legally permissible purposes and generally to ensure that we comply with applicable laws;

oTo send emails to friends based on your instructions as discussed in E-mail Communications to You and Your Friends.

IV. ACCESSING OR CHANGING YOUR PII

GSE allows you to change or correct inaccuracies in your PII by logging into your account and making changes to your PII.

V. DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES

GSE may give, share, sell or trade your PII to or with any third parties under the following circumstances:

A. Charities, Event Organizers & Gift Registry Partners

When you make a donation or register to, volunteer, fundraise or register for an event for a Charity or for an organization or event associated with fundraising (e.g., a marathon, walkathon, concert or similar), GSE shares with the Charity and Event Organizer your name, address, email address, birthdate, donation amount, date of transaction, transaction identification number and may also include the name of the project associated with the donation. If you wish to stop receiving communications from a Charity or Event Organizer, please contact the Charity or Event Organizer directly.

Also, if you establish a donation registry, GSE shares with any gift registry partners all of the details related to the donation registry sufficient to allow users of the gift registry partner to search for the donation registry, which will include your full name and email address, any co-registrant’s full name and email address, event date, event State, event type, unique registry ID and the applicable Charities. Also, if you make a donation to a GSE donation registry, GSE shares with any gift registry partners all of the details related to the donation including your full name, email and mailing address, date of donation and amount of donation. GSE will continuously provide this information to its gift registry partners to allow the gift registry partners to accurately update their gift registries. If you wish to stop receiving communications from a gift registry partner, please contact the gift registry partner directly.

B. Fulfillment of Services

We may retain other companies and individuals to perform certain functions on our behalf. Examples include, but are not limited to, companies and individuals who: (i) administer the GSE accounts; (ii) process donations; (iii) conduct surveys or promotional activities; (iv) deliver products; or (v) provide customer support, web hosting, internet service, and data analysis. Such third parties may be provided with access to PII needed to perform their functions but may not use such information for any other purpose.

C. Compliance with Law and Fraud Protection

We may disclose any information, including, without limitation, PII, that we deem necessary, in our sole discretion and without your prior permission, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request. We may also exchange information, including, without limitation, PII, with other companies and organizations for credit fraud protection, risk reduction and related activities or to protect the rights, property of safety of GSE, its agents, employees or affiliates or others. GSE reserves the right to disclose PII for a user who we believe is in violation of our Privacy Policy or other terms of service as posted on the Site, even without a subpoena, warrant, court order or other governmental request.

D. Sale or Transfer of Information

In the event of a sale, merger, liquidation, dissolution or sale or transfer of substantially all of the assets of GSE or the Site, PII and/or other information collected about you from the Site may be sold, assigned or transferred to the party acquiring all or substantially all of the equity and/or assets of GSE or the Site in order to permit the party to continue the operation of GSE and/or the Site or any successor version of the Site. By using the Site and providing PII to GSE, you consent to the sale and transfer of your information as described in this paragraph.

VI. BIRTHDAY INFORMATION

Your birthday is the most important day of the year and to make sure that everyone knows how special you are, GSE will share your birthday with other users of the Site. If you don’t care to share this information, , you can always instruct us to make your birthday private or you can just share it with your friends on GSE. You can always decide whether you would like to share your birthday by editing your account settings.

VII. CREDIT CARD INFORMATION

GSE does not collect, store or otherwise maintain any credit card information from individuals who make a donation through the Site.

VIII. IMPORTANT DISCLOSURES, PRACTICES AND CONTACT INFORMATION

A. Third Party Links

The Site may contain links to third-party websites. Please be aware that GSE cannot control and is not responsible for the information collection practices of such websites, which may differ from those of GSE. We encourage you to review and understand the privacy policies of these web sites before providing any information to them.

B. Data Security

We maintain a variety of commercially reasonable safeguards designed to protect your PII from unauthorized access and disclosure. For example, we use industry accepted tools and techniques to protect against unauthorized access to our systems.

You should be aware, however, that GSE has no control over the security of other websites on the Internet that you might visit even when a link may appear to those websites from our Site. If you share your computer or use a computer that is accessed by the general public, remember to sign off and close your browser window when you have finished your session. This will help to ensure that others cannot access your PII.

We want you to feel confident using the Site. However, no system can be completely secure. Therefore, although we take commercially reasonable steps to secure your information, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your PII, searches or other communications always will remain secure. In the event of a breach of the confidentiality or security of your PII, we will notify you if reasonably possible and as reasonably necessary so that you can take appropriate protective steps. We may notify you under such circumstances using the email address(es) we have on record for you. You should also take care with how you handle and disclose your PII. Please refer to the Federal Trade Commission’s Web site at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/menus/consumer/data.shtm for information about how to protect yourself against identity theft.

C. Children

The Site is not intended for persons under the age of 13. GSE does not knowingly market to, or solicit information, accept service or collect information from any person under the age of 13. If GSE becomes aware that any person submitting information to the Site is under the age of 13, we will attempt to delete the account and any related information as soon as possible. We require that only persons 13 years of age or older use the Site. By using the Site, you hereby represent that you are at least 13 years old.

D. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes in our practices. When we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the updated date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we make any material changes to our Privacy Policy, we only will notify You by sending an email to the email address(s) you provided to us, and by prominently posting notice of the changes on the Site. We will give you an opportunity to opt-out of any materially changed Privacy Policy or alternatively, delete the information you have provided to us. We recommend that you check the Site from time to time to inform yourself of any changes in this Privacy Policy or any of our other policies.

E. Contacting Us

If you have any questions about GSE generally, this Privacy Policy or the Site, please feel free to contact us either by sending an email to is [email protected] or through the Contact Us feature on the Site.

F. Users From Outside the United States

The Site is hosted in the United States and is governed by United States law. If you are visiting the Site from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. By using the Site, you consent to your information being transferred to our facilities and to the facilities of those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.

G. No Rights of Third Parties

This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.

H. California Privacy Rights

If you are a California resident, California law permits you to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their “direct marketing purposes” as such term is defined by California’s Shine the Light Law (California Civil Vode 1798.83). To make such a request, please email us at is [email protected].

We will provide a list of the categories of personal information disclosed to third parties for third-party direct marketing purposes, along with the names and addresses of these third parties. This request may be made no more than once per calendar year. We reserve our right not to respond to requests submitted other than to the email or postal address specified above. You should put “California Privacy Rights” in the subject line and in your request. You must provide GSE with specific information regarding yourself so GSE can accurately respond to the request.