Synth LLC d/b/a the B2SMB Institute and its subsidiaries (collectively, “B2SMB Institute”, “we”, “us” or “our”) knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This privacy policy applies to B2SMB Institute websites, extensions, landing pages, and other online properties to you in your capacity as: (i) an unregistered user, (ii) a member or registered user; and/or (iii) an employee of a member or registered user of the present website or any of the B2SMB Institute’s websites, online events, and online learning portals.

Amendments to this privacy policy will be posted at this URL and will be effective when posted. Your continued use of any of our websites following the posting of any amendment, modification or change shall constitute your acceptance thereof. By visiting the present website or any of the foregoing websites, you are accepting the practices described in this privacy policy.

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION DO WE GATHER?

• We receive and store any information you enter on our websites or provide to us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features.
• We may also receive information about you from other sources and add it to your account information. This information might be public information or data you provided with necessary and proper permissions.
• We use the information that we gather for such purposes as responding to your requests, customizing future visits for you, improving our online products and services, notifying you of new products and services, conducting market research, and otherwise communicating with you.
• We participate in multiple ad networks. When you visit our websites, these networks place a cookie on your browser. These cookies contain no Personally Identifiable Information (PII). They identify you as a visitor to our website, and allow us or our clients to display relevant advertising to you both on our site, and after you leave our site on ad placements throughout the ad networks’ participating websites. To opt out of the targeted advertising provided by the B2SMB Institute, please visit the National Advertising Initiative opt-out page: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
• We gather date, time, certain information about a user’s browser and system or device configuration and capabilities, navigation history and IP address for all visitors to our websites.
We use this information for our internal audit log, for trend analysis and system administration, and to gather broad information about our audiences and their geographic locations. Non-personal demographic and profile data is used to tailor your experience at our websites, showing you content we think might be of interested to you. This information may also be shared with advertisers on an aggregate and/or non-personal basis.
• Visitors to B2SMB Institute websites should understand that by using these websites, information may be collected about them via cookies placed on their hard drive to enhance or customize the experience. By visiting any of our websites, you give us permission for the use of cookies for this purpose.
• Other third party ad servers or ad networks may also use cookies to track users’ activities on this website to measure advertisement effectiveness, to deliver targeted advertising, or for other reasons. We are not responsible for the use of information obtained or shown to visitors as a result of the data collected by third party advertisers.
• We use cookies and common data collection technologies, including associated web beacons and transparent GIFs associated with cookies, on our newsletters and in our email campaigns to collect information both on an aggregate and individual basis.

HOW WE USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

• We share customer information with trusted agents and partners who work to perform functions on our behalf, including data processing, order and publication fulfillment, sending postal mail and e-mail, processing credit card payments, providing customer service, and providing marketing assistance (including direct and targeted marketing).
• We may send offers on behalf of our carefully selected business partners, or you may receive offers directly from our business partners. Our business partners include all of our affiliated companies as well as other selected businesses with which we have a relationship and which have agreed to adhere to our strict standards for providing quality products and services, responding to your needs, and protecting customer information. Keep in mind that if you take advantage of an offer from a B2SMB Institute business partner and become their customer, they may independently wish to send offers to you. In this case, you will need to inform them separately if you wish to decline receiving future offers from them.
• Due to the technology behind our websites, your personal information may also be shared with designated website partners in order to reduce the number of registrations you need to make on our websites. This is an effort to make use of our websites more convenient for you.
• We may use your IP Address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our Websites. We may also use your IP Address to help identify possible misuse or misappropriation of passwords and members-only access
• We use your information to enhance your website experience, including member-only content or discounts, and to deliver or display personalized content that matches your professional goals and responsibilities.
• We use your information to contact you, either by online electronic communication (such as e-mail), or by regular mail or telephone, including to offer you opportunities to connect directly with your peers and with sellers of products or services that may be of interest to you.
• We may also invite you to join our communities via third party social and professional networking sites.
• We may use your information any other purpose that we tell you about when you give us the information or to which you consent.
• We release customer information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with law; enforce or apply our conditions of use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of the Company, our users, or others.
• In the event of a sale of all or part of one of our businesses, we may share customer information related to that business as part of the transaction.

E-COMMERCE TRANSACTIONS

Payment information that is collected by us and/or our payment processor is used to check your purchasing qualifications and to bill you for products and services. When you place an order online with us, your personal details and credit card information are scrambled using industry-standard SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption technology before being sent over the Internet. Although we cannot guarantee encryption or the privacy of your personal details and credit card information, SSL makes it very difficult for your information to be stolen or intercepted while being transferred. Our credit card transactions are maintained by several companies. All information sent to those companies is encrypted, which will protect it against disclosure to third parties. When we receive your order, it is kept encrypted until our credit card processor is ready to process it. When you conduct a transaction with a third party to whom you are linked from one of our websites, you should review such vendor’s policy regarding e-commerce transactions on their website. The Institute is not responsible for products and services transactions that are consummated at third party websites.

PUBLIC FORUMS

Our Websites may make public chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available to you from time to time. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose any personal information.

WHAT CHOICES DO I HAVE?

• Connecting directly with other companies for marketing purposes. In addition to providing you with our own editorial content, we offer you the opportunity to access others’ branded content and product information. When you choose to take advantage of that content or information, you choose to have your name and contact details transferred directly to that other company. We will provide your contact information to another company or companies when you choose to:
• Sign-in to one of our online properties to access registration-required, or “gated” content. Access to gated resources provided or sponsored by another company is contingent on your agreement that your contact details may be shared with the other company. We may track your interest in that company’s content or our own content over time and disclose your ongoing interest to that company;
• Register for a specific webcast, online event, website, newsletter, or other offering which is sponsored or co-sponsored by another company or companies;
• Attend one of our face-to-face events. Exhibitors may be given an attendance list for the event. A sponsor of a special, sponsored conference session will also be given information about you if you choose to attend that company’s session. Your future interaction with online content from an exhibitor or sponsor to whom you provided your contact data to may also be tracked and disclosed to that exhibitor or sponsor.
• Receiving email marketing messages from us. You may opt-out of our email marketing lists by following the directions at the bottom of our promotional emails and newsletters. Please note that we have a number of brands and promotional email vehicles and allow you to opt-out selectively. From select websites, you may also view and modify all of your email preferences using your preferences page available on each website. To remove a specific email address from all email marketing from the Company, you may also send a request to info@B2SMB Institute.com.
• Whether your account information is up to date. Please help us keep your account information up to date. You may manage or update your online registration and print subscriptions by following the link to your preference page after you have logged on to any B2SMB Institute website.
• Participation in Ad Networks. If you do not want to view targeted advertisements on our site or through our participating ad networks, please opt out at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.
• Forward to a Colleague: While visiting our websites or reading our newsletters and promotional emails you may choose to use the “Forward to a Colleague” tool which allows you to inform a colleague about content of interest to you. The information you provide will be used to send a one-time email to your colleague, inviting them to our website(s). We will not add your colleague to a mailing list and will not send them further email unless they choose to receive such communications from us. When using the “Forward to a Colleague” tool you are contacting your colleague directly and as such you acknowledge that you are responsible for this correspondence and not the Company. If you provide us with personal information concerning another individual (such as an email address), you represent and warrant that you have obtained all necessary consents from that individual to enable us to use that personal information for the identified purpose.

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT COOKIES

You also have choices about cookies: We place cookies that identify you, or allow third parties to do so on our behalf, for the following purposes:

• To recognize you automatically when you return to a gated website.
• To understand your interests in content, both our own and that of other companies, on our websites.
• To control access to gated online events such as webcasts.
• To provide automatic access to our gated content via email communications sent directly to you.

You may use the tools in your browser to decline, disable, or delete any cookies.

If you decline, disable, or delete the session cookie for one of our gated websites you may remain on the website but you will not be able to access or download any gated content or access your personalized online preferences page. You must also accept the session cookie used to manage access to registration-only online events for the duration of your participation.

HOW SECURE IS INFORMATION ABOUT ME?

We take appropriate and industry-standard administrative, technical, and physical measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure or destruction. While we do work hard to protect your privacy, no method of security is 100% effective and we cannot be responsible for the actions of those who may gain unauthorized access to your personal information. B2SMB Institute MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE AS TO THE ULTIMATE EFFECTIVENESS OF THESE MEASURES. You remain responsible for protecting your sign-in credentials and for the security of information in transit to us over the Internet.

We also take reasonable and appropriate steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete, and current; however we depend upon you to update or correct your information whenever necessary.

We work to protect the security of your financial information during e-commerce transmissions by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input.
We reveal only the nameplate of your credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express) when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company or payment processor during order processing.

CONTESTS AND SWEEPSTAKES

When we run a contest or sweepstakes relating to our websites, it will be accompanied by a set of rules. The rules, available in every applicable email invitation and/or entry webpage for each contest or sweepstakes, specify how the information gathered from you for entry will be used and disclosed (if it is different than as described in this privacy policy). In conjunction with your entry in such contest or sweepstakes, personally identifiable information will be collected only if you voluntarily submit it.

CONDITIONS OF USE, NOTICES, AND REVISIONS

If you choose to visit B2SMB Institute’s website(s), your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this privacy policy and our terms and conditions of service, separately available on all of our websites, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of appropriate laws. If you have any concern about privacy at B2SMB Institute’s website(s), please email a thorough description to us at info@B2SMB Institute.com, and we will try to resolve it. Our industry changes constantly. This privacy policy and our terms and conditions of service will change also, and use of information that we gather now is subject to the privacy policy in effect at the time of use.

CHILDREN’S GUIDELINES

Our products, services, events, and offerings are directed to professionals only. No one under the age of 13 is eligible to use our websites and should not provide any personal information. As a practice, we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. In the event that we learn that we have collected information from a child under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we will promptly delete this information from our database.

YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits customers of B2SMB Institute who are California residents to request certain information regarding its disclosure of their personally identifiable information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an e-mail to info@B2SMBI.com specifying that you seek your “California Customer Choice Notice.” Please allow thirty days for a response.

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, the practices of B2SMB Institute with respect to personal information, or your dealings with our web properties, you may email client services at info@B2SMBI.com.