This Data Protection and Privacy Policy (“Policy”) is intended to explain to you, as a user of BNI or our services, what personal data we collect about you, how we use that data, with whom it may be shared, and your options about such uses and disclosures.

Categories of personal data collected about you and others

A. General. Personal data refers to any information about an identified or identifiable individual. When you engage in certain activities on our Site, such as purchasing a product, submitting content and/or posting content on any of our blogs, or sending us feedback, we may ask you to provide certain information about yourself. Examples of personal data may include your first and last name, email address, mailing address, telephone numbers, age group, gender and other identifying information. When setting up your profile on our Site, you may be asked to provide an e-mail address, phone number, and address.

We gather certain information about you based upon where you visit on our Site, and what other sites may have directed you to us. This information, which is collected in a variety of different ways, is compiled and analyzed on both a personal and an aggregated basis. This technology enables us to determine (i) your IP Address of your computer and its geographic location from installing the applications onto your computer or mobile device; (ii) your search terms or interactive behavior via BNI Site; (iii) your purchasing behavior; (iv) source of the information sought by you during your search; and (v) the age of your results data (collectively, “Shared Information”).

B. Other Information You Provide.  We may also collect and store any personal data you enter on our Site or provide to us in some other manner, including personal data that may be contained in any comment you post to our Site. This includes your images (both still and moving).

C. Information About Others.  We may also collect and store personal data about other people provided to us by users, potentially including their businesses, contact details including email addresses and/or IP addresses. This data is used in the legitimate interests of providing information to potential members, for the purposes of generating invitations to Chapter meetings and other BNI events, and for the provision of certain other information related to the potential purchase of goods or services from BNI.

D. Automatic Collection of Data.  Information concerning your computer hardware and software is automatically collected and may be shared with other BNI or affiliated websites. This information may include: your IP address, browser type and language, domain names,  access  times,  referring  website  addresses  and  the  content  of  any undeleted cookies that your browser previously accepted from us (see “Cookies” below).

E. Cookies.  When you visit our Site, if you provide opt-in consent, we may use one or more “Cookies” to make our Site easier for you to use and to personalize your online experience. Through the use of a cookie, we also may automatically collect information about your online activity on our Site, such as the web pages you visit, the links you click, and the amount of time you spend on the Site. You can withhold or withdraw consent, but if you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to sign in or use some of the features offered on our Site.

F. Other Technologies.  We may use the ever-evolving Internet technology, such as web beacons and other similar technologies, to track your use of our Site. We also may include web beacons in company e-mail messages, newsletters, or notifications to determine whether messages have been opened and/or acted upon. This enables us to customize the services we offer our Site visitors to deliver targeted advertisements and to measure the overall effectiveness of our online advertising, content, programming or other activities.

G. Information From Other Sources.  We sometimes supplement the information that we receive that has been outlined in this Policy with information from other sources and companies. Such outside information includes updated delivery and address information from carriers or third parties, which enables us to correct our records and deliver, for example, future communications more easily; account information, purchase or redemption information, and page-view information from some merchants with which we operate co-branded businesses or for which we provide technical, fulfilment, advertising, or other services; search term and search result information from some searches conducted through the Web search features; search results and links, including paid listings (such as Sponsored Links from Google); and credit history information from credit bureaus, which we use to help prevent and detect fraud and to offer certain credit or financial services to some customers.