This Privacy Policy applies to the BlackDoctor.org Web site (“Company Site” or “Site”), which is owned and operated by BlackDoctor, Inc. The BlackDoctor.org Web site contains links to other sites. Once you enter another Web site (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that BlackDoctor.org is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other site.
We hope that reading our Privacy Policy gives you a clear idea of how we manage information about you.
Many of the specific tools and services on our website do not require registration. If you use our Website without registering, the only information we collect will be non-personal information through the use of cookies. If you choose to register with our Web site for certain Interactive Tools or other services, we may require you to submit personally identifiable information. Depending on the tool or service you have selected, we may also collect personal health information. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information you submit to Blackdoctor.org. Inaccurate information will affect the information you receive when using our site and tools and our ability to contact you as contemplated in this Privacy Policy. For example, your email address should be kept current because that it is how we communicate with you.
Applicability and User Restrictions
Unless specifically stated otherwise, this Privacy Policy applies to information collected on the Company Site, which also may be governed by separate or additional policies and does not apply to information about you collected by our affiliated providers, third-party Web site (e.g., ad serving and tracking services), applications or offerings linked to or otherwise accessible from the Company Site. The information collected or received by such affiliated providers and third parties is subject to their own respective privacy policies, which we encourage you to review. We are not responsible for compliance with other Web site’s privacy policies or practices.
The Company Site is not directed to children under the age of thirteen (13). In compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (”COPPA”), we use reasonable commercial efforts to adhere to the prohibition on the collection of personal information online from children under the age of thirteen (13) without first obtaining verifiable parental consent. At a minimum, the Company Site prohibits registration by, and will not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from, anyone under the age of thirteen (13). Company Site use and membership is void where prohibited by law.
Information We Collect and How We Use It
Whether you are a Company Site visitor or a registered member, we take certain steps to protect your information. Collection of information is usually grouped into two categories: Personal Information, which is information that is personally identifiable to a specific member (further defined below), and aggregate information, which is general demographic information that does not identify any individual member. We may use or disclose aggregate information to selected partners for any purpose.
The Company adheres to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the “Principles”), developed by leading industry associations to apply consumer-friendly standards to online behavioral advertising across the Internet. To learn more about the Principles, please go to www.aboutads.info.
Registration
Certain features and services of the Company Site may require you to first complete a registration form and create a username and password. During registration, you are required to provide certain Personal Information. We may use this information to contact you about the services on our Site in which you have expressed interest. In addition to Personal Information collected for registration purposes, we may collect and store the following:
(a) your responses to the offerings and advertisements presented on the Site;
(b) information about the Site’ services or features that you use, and how frequently you use them;
(c) commercial transaction-related information (such as credit card or other preferred means of payment, billing or shipping information, or a history of products purchased through the Company Site);
(d) your responses to or entries for surveys, sweepstakes, and contests and requests for services, products, newsletters or information;
(e) customer service information about you as a user of a Company Site, including any suggestions you submit to us for review;
(f) community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, correspondence through our Site, and correspondence sent to us;
(g) your activity on the Company Site, including adding a friend, sharing a photo or video, or accessing an application;
(h) your activity on certain third party Site or services for which you have consented to connect or share through your account on a Company Site;
(i) information from other companies, such as demographic and traffic data; and
(j) other information from your interaction with our Site, services, content, and advertising, including computer and/or mobile device connection and location information, browser type, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the Site, ad data, IP address and standard web log information.
Personally Identifiable Information We Collect About You
We collect Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to us when you register as a member of BlackDoctor.org and/or when you update your member profile. We use the Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select, send you emails about Web site maintenance and updates, and inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy.
User Content
Please note that whenever you publicly disclose information about yourself online (e.g., through email, social networking platforms, forums, message boards, chat areas, or similar web pages), such information may be collected, exported and used by people that you do not know. Posting personal information in public places may result in unsolicited communications, including unwanted email messages or other forms of contact. Always be smart about the information you provide online. We bear no responsibility for any action or policies of any third parties who collect any information you may disclose on the Company Site.
Personal Information
As used in this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means personally identifiable information collected online about an individual, such as a first and last name, a physical street address, an e-mail address, a telephone number, a social security number, or any other information that permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual. You can browse the Company Site without telling us who you are or revealing any Personal Information about yourself. However, there are certain features and services (including social networking) that may not be available for your use without providing Personal Information. If you choose to provide us with Personal Information, you consent to the transfer and storage of that information on our servers. Further, you consent to e-mail or other marketing communications sent by us, unless you unsubscribe from such messages or opt-out, as described below.
Cookies
To enhance your experience with the Company Site, we may use “cookies.” Cookies are small data files that we place in your computer’s browser when you visit the Company Site. We may use cookies for a number of purposes, such as tracking usage patterns, measuring the effectiveness of advertising, to help serve advertisements, limiting multiple responses and registrations, facilitating your ability to navigate the Company Site, and as part of a verification or screening process. Cookies automatically identify your web browser whenever you visit the Company Site, help us determine which areas are popular and further personalize your experience on the Company Site. If you do not wish to allow for use of cookies, you can generally opt-out of providing this information by setting your browser to reject cookies. However, please be aware that some areas of the Company Site may not provide you with an acceptable user experience if you have disabled the use of cookies. Please refer to www.aboutads.info for more information.
Security of Your Personal Information
The Company employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice to secure information collected through the Company Site. We also use internal protections to limit access to your Personal Information to only those people who need the information to perform a specific request. However, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Information will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy (e.g., as a result of unauthorized or otherwise unlawful third party access), and you transmit such information to us at your own risk.
Web Beacons and Similar Technologies
The Company Site and our e-mail messages may contain a small graphic image called a web beacon that monitors and collects certain limited information about the viewer of the web page or e-mail message. Web beacons typically are very small (generally 1-by-1 pixel) and invisible to the user, but, in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page or e-mail message, including an advertisement or HTML content, can act as a web beacon. We may use web beacons or similar technologies for a number of purposes, including without limitation, to count visitors to our web pages or to monitor how our users navigate the Company Site, and we may include web beacons or similar technologies in e-mails in order to count how many e-mails (or particular articles, links, etc.) that we send are actually opened. Additionally, our advertising providers may use web beacons or similar technologies to personalize and measure the effectiveness of their advertisements using data gathered over time from users of the Company Site. If you would like more information about the information collection practices of some of these third-party advertising companies and to learn which of these companies allow you to opt out of this type of information collection, please click here.
IP Address and Log Files
Upon visiting the Company Site, we may collect and store your browser type and IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Company Site, to help identify and analyze user trends, to customize content and advertisements offered to you, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
Sharing Your Information with Third Parties
Third Party Content
When you are visiting the Company Site, certain content may be served directly by third parties. This third party content may use cookies, web beacons, Javascript or other technologies. We do not have access to or control the use of such technology by third parties, including the information they collect or how they use such information.
Applications and Websites
The Company does not own or operate certain applications or websites (e.g., games or tools) accessible through the Company Site. As a result, when you use these third-party applications or websites, we may share your information along with the location of your computer or mobile device to enable your use of such services and for age verification and security purposes, among other purposes. For example, the Company may offer you the option to connect your member profile and activity on the Company Site with certain third-party services such as Facebook, Foursquare or Twitter (“Third Party Services”). When you consent to publish your information or activity on the Company Site to any Third Party Services, such information will be viewable by the communities on such Third Party Services and may be used by such Third Party Services in accordance with their posted privacy practices. Similarly, if another member in your friend list uses a third party application or website, it may receive your non-private member information so that you may be separately linked with your friend. If the application or website seeks any further information, your consent should be requested. We cannot guarantee that such applications or websites will follow our privacy practices, so we encourage you to always review their information sharing policies and to report any application or website that may be in violation of our privacy practices.
Online Shopping Services
Company Site may offer shopping services either directly or through a partner that operates a service under contract with us. If a Site offers shopping or other commercial services, the customer order form will ask you to provide certain Personal Information, including credit card or other payment data. The financial information that you provide will be used by the Company or its partners to bill you for products and services that you request and for any other uses to which you have consented. By giving the Site your payment data and related Personal Information, you are authorizing us to give that information to the merchant and credit card company; and you are authorizing the Company’s partner directly to confirm and fulfill your order. In addition, the Company and/or its partners will use contact information from the order form to fulfill your orders and for customer service purposes. The Company will not otherwise use or distribute your financial information without your prior approval.
Other Third Parties
Our employees, agents and contractors must have a “need-to-know” business reason to obtain access to your Personal Information. We may share your Personal Information with those who help us manage or provide content or other services for the Company Site (e.g., forum administration, order fulfillment, statistical analyses, data processing), or with outside contractors, agents or sponsors who help us with the administration, judging and prize fulfillment aspects of contests, promotions, and sweepstakes. Such outside contractors, agents or sponsors may temporarily store some information on their servers, but they may only use your Personal Information to provide the Company Site with a specific service and not for any other purpose. We may also provide your Personal Information to a third party where you have chosen to receive certain information and have been notified that the fulfillment of such a request requires sharing your Personal Information. We also may share your Personal Information with any affiliated companies and partners if we have a business reason to do so.
BlackDoctor eNewsletters
In order to subscribe to such newsletters via email, we need your contact information, such as name and email address. At registration and at various times as you use BlackDoctor.org, you will be given the option of receiving recurring informational/promotional newsletters via email from BlackDoctor.org and/or directly from third parties. These emails will not contain Personal Health Information. At the time you sign up for our email newsletters or any time thereafter, you can choose to opt-in to receiving additional promotional emails from BlackDoctor.org.
Opt Out: You can unsubscribe from the newsletters by simply clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email newsletter. An email to our automated unsubscribe service will be created on your computer. Click the “send” button. You will then be unsubscribed from that newsletter within two to three business days. You may also unsubscribe or change any of your email preferences by clicking on the applicable links in your email newsletter or by changing your profile within the Join BlackDoctor.org page.
BlackDoctor.org Email A Friend
When you use BlackDoctor.org’s “Email a Friend,” BlackDoctor.org emails the article or other content you designate to your friend’s email address and identifies your email address as the sender. BlackDoctor.org uses the friend’s email address to send your friend the particular email you requested. Such information may be collected and stored to send such articles or other content. Your friend may contact feedback@blackdoctor.org to request that we remove this information from our records.
Message Boards and other Public Forums
As a service to our users, BlackDoctor.org features message boards, chat rooms and other public forums where users with similar interests or medical conditions can share information and support one another or where users can post questions for experts to answer. We also offer online discussions moderated by medical or healthcare experts.
Any information shared (including Personally Identifiable and Personal Health Information) that you reveal in a chat room, message board, Ask Our Expert posting or online discussion is by design open to the public and is not a private, secure service. You should think carefully before disclosing any Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information in any public forum. What you have written may be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties and may be used by others in ways we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes.
Changes To This Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy’s new effective date. We encourage you to refer to visit this Privacy Policy frequently to stay informed regarding our current privacy practices. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you and your activity on our Company Site.
As the owner of this Site, the Company retains all ownership rights to the information collected at this Site. In the event the Company goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your Personal Information will likely be among the assets transferred.
Legal Compliance
We may access or disclose your Personal Information without your consent in order to: (i) protect or defend our legal rights or property, including those of our affiliated companies or their employees, agents and contractors (including enforcement of our agreements); (ii) protect the safety and security of other users of the Company Site or members of the public, including responding to claims that a listing or other content violates the rights of others, or protect anyone’s rights, property, or safety; (iii) protect against fraud or for risk management purposes; or (iv) comply with the law or legal process. In addition, if the Company Site is sold to or merges with another company not owned by or affiliated with Company, we may transfer your Personal Information to any acquiring or merging party as part of that transaction.
If Abuse Occurs
Although we make every effort to ensure that our e-mail list is safe, the Internet is such that we cannot guarantee that our list is invulnerable to attacks. If you believe there has been a breach of our security, please contact us at once at feedback@blackdoctor.org.
CONTACTING US
If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us any time by email at feedback@blackdoctor.org or by mail at:
309 W. Washington, Suite 250
Chicago, IL 60606
Last revised October 31, 2018
DMD Healthcare Communications NetworkSM Privacy Statement
This digital service participates in the DMD Healthcare Communication NetworkSM (the “Network”), and as such has implemented various technologies
for universal registration/login among all Network member websites. These technologies are managed by DMD Marketing Corp. (“DMD”), and may involve the collection, receipt, and sharing of information with DMD, its clients and other Network members. If you would like to understand how this digital service’s participation in the Network affects your privacy, please click here: http://usersupport.dmdconnects.com/PrivacyPolicy.htm
Please note that the Network registration/login system may be different from the registration/login used by this digital service for other products and services. To the extent that anything in this privacy policy conflicts with the policy for the Network technologies, the conflict will be resolved in favor of the policy applicable to the Network technologies.