Fembot Privacy Statement
July 12, 2018
The Fembot Collective (referred to herein as “we”, “us,” and “FC”) and its publications and projects recognize the importance of your privacy. We are committed to transparency and disclosure of how we gather and use personal and nonpersonal information on our websites. This privacy statement (“Privacy Statement”) serves as the agreement (“Agreement”) between FC and you regarding your use of the Fembot platforms, including but not limited to Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, and Technology.
This Privacy Statement explains how we collect and use your information and the choices you can make regarding your information. Our goal is to be minimally intrusive while providing a robust environment for open professional exchange. As a result, much of the information you share and your activity on FC may be seen by any visitor to it, regardless of whether the visitor is a member of FC. Our goal is to be clear about how we use the personal and nonpersonal information you provide through your membership in the Collective.
We may modify this Privacy Statement, along with the rest of the Agreement, at our sole discretion. We will take reasonable steps to notify you of any changes to this Privacy Statement in a manner commensurate with the nature of the changes; however, we urge you to review this Privacy Statement periodically.
1. LOCATION OF SERVERS AND TRANSFER OF INFORMATION: SPECIAL ALERT TO NON–UNITED STATES USERS
Our servers are located in the United States. If you are located outside the United States, be aware that the information you provide us will be transferred to the United States and that the law applicable to the protection of User Information in the United States may be different from the laws of your jurisdiction. By using FC or providing us with information through it, you consent to this transfer and to the collection, storage, processing, and use of your information in the United States as described in this Privacy Statement and the Terms of Service.
2. Information We Collect
In this Privacy Statement, the personal information you provide to FC and your activity on the Network that we record is referred to as “User Information.”
Your Account Profile. Your account at FC may be connected to a social identity provider, if you use Google or Twitter to authenticate your account, or to your institutional identity provider.
When you use Google to authenticate, the login process takes place on Google’s servers. FC receives the following information:
– Your unique Google identifier, a string of digits that identifies your account
– Your e-mail address or addresses known by Google
– Whether your e-mail address or addresses have been verified by Google
That information is recorded in our user database, but only your Google identifier is used to connect to your account. Google may send additional information, including your Google profile URL, your profile picture, and your name; this information is not recorded and is not used by FC.
No other user information sent by an identity provider will be collected during the authentication process.
You may choose to complete additional fields in your Profile with User Information that you provide. Any such User Information you volunteer for your Profile, such as your photo, your professional history, your Twitter username, your interests, status updates, and your Web site URL, will also be visible to any visitor to the Network. Please do not post any personal identification numbers or other private information not required for registering for or using the Network.
a. Your Activity. We also collect information about your use of FC. For example, we collect information about your activity on FC, including the posts you have created, public and private groups of which you are a member, contacts you have made (but not any messages you have exchanged), and discussion topics you have started or participated in. This activity information is included in the definition of your User Information and is connected to your account.
b. Nonpersonal Data. Like most Web sites, FC uses cookies and may use other technology to obtain nonpersonal data (“Nonpersonal Data”) from visitors. This Nonpersonal Data may include browser type, IP address, language preference, referring site, and the date and time of each visitor request. You can remove or block cookies using the settings in your browser, though doing so may affect your ability to use the Network.
3. Uses of Your Information in Your Profile; Sharing User Information with Third Parties
FC is a professional scholarly network designed to promote collaboration and discussion among scholars, students, and practitioners working on gender, new media, and technology, as well as dissemination of members’ work to the broader intellectual community online, and as such, it counts openness among its primary values. In collecting User Information, FC’s purpose is to allow our members to connect and interact with one another. As a result, much of your activity and communication that takes place within FC is openly visible to any visitor to FC, whether or not the visitor is an FC member or is logged in, and is likewise visible to search engines. This section describes how certain User Information will be made available on FC.
a. Profile and Activity Information. All the User Information you supply for your Profile (such as your publications, educational background, etc.) will be viewable by any visitor to FC, whether or not the visitor is an FC member or is logged in. If you do not wish to share this User Information, do not add it to your Profile. Similarly, except as specifically described below, all of your activity on FC will be viewable by any visitor to FC, including through your Profile, whether or not the visitor is an FC member or is logged in.
b. Private Activities. Limited portions of your activities on FC are private—for example, restricted only to administrative staff. Your activity in these sections will not appear in your Profile, and only certain other FC users, as described below, will be able to see this activity.
c. Private and Hidden Groups. The Ada review site (hosted on CommentPress) is visible to all Collective Members during open peer review. After open peer review, all contributions that have not been accepted for publication will be hidden. All contributions that have been accepted for publication will remain publicly accessible, along with comments made by reviewers.
d. FC Communications. We may use your User Information to send you important messages about FC through e-mail or through other means available. For example, we may send you important messages about the operation of FC (e.g., if we add or change functionality or change our Terms of Service or this Privacy Statement) via the Fembot Collective websites or the Fembot Collective listserv (sponsored by the University of Oregon).
e. Nonpersonal Data. We may use Nonpersonal Data to help diagnose and repair issues with your use of the Network, administer the Network, monitor Network usage, provide customization options, understand how our visitors use FC, make decisions about how to change and adapt the Network, and create anonymous statistics. From time to time, we may release Nonpersonal Data in aggregate form (for instance, by publishing trends in FC usage). We will not release individual information, only aggregate information.
f. Sharing Information with Third Parties. FC takes the privacy of our users very seriously, and we do not sell, rent, or otherwise provide your User Information to third parties, except as described in this Privacy Statement, unless disclosure is reasonably necessary in our opinion to (1) comply with legal process, including, but not limited to, civil and criminal subpoenas, court orders, or other compulsory disclosures; (2) enforce this Agreement; (3) respond to claims of a violation of the rights of third parties; (4) respond to customer service inquiries; or (5) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the FC, its platforms, our users, or the public.
The FC uses third-party service providers (“Service Providers”) to provide certain services, such as hosting, which are necessary for the FC’s operations, including the operation of the web platforms. We also use Service Providers to enhance member experience by, for example, providing integrations with services for discovering and disseminating scholarly work. We will take reasonable measures to ensure that these Service Providers will access and use User Information only for the purpose of providing services to the FC or on our behalf. (See Section 5, “Security,” below.)
4. Your Choices
By using FC and providing User Information to us, you expressly and voluntarily accept the terms and conditions of this Privacy Statement and the Agreement of which it is a part. Providing your information to FC is entirely voluntary. If you no longer wish to share your User Information, you can revise your Profile or close your account, as described in this section. However, you cannot change how your nonprivate activity on FC is shared, except by closing your account.
a. Accessing and Changing Your Profile Information. You can review the information you provided for membership and make changes to that information by contacting us at [email protected]. After your change is processed, the FC may retain residual copies of the old information in its backup and archival copies of its database for a limited period of time.
b. Closing Your Account. If you wish to close your account, please contact us at [email protected]. We will delete all information associated with your account, and if you ever wish to use the social-networking features of FC again, you will need to resubmit all information associated with your account and reestablish all connections. Please note that, to maintain the continuity and integrity of the discussions, groups, and other interactive features on FC, your submissions to those sections will not be removed in connection with the closing of your account.
5. Links to Third-Party Web Sites
FC may contain links to Web sites controlled by third parties (“Third-Party Web Sites”), whether provided by us or by other users. If you follow any link to a Third-Party Web Site, you should review that site’s terms of use and privacy policy to find out how the site treats the information you provide it. We are not responsible for Third-Party Web Sites or their privacy practices.
6. Security
We will take reasonable measures to protect the integrity of private communications on FC and to protect against loss, corruption, and alteration of the information on FC. However, even protected sites can be subject to hacking, technological glitches, user misconduct, and administrative errors, and we assume no liability for any of these actions or occurrences or their results.
7. Children under Age Thirteen
FC is not intended for use by children under the age of thirteen. By using FC you represent to us that you are at least thirteen years old. If you are not at least thirteen years old, you may not use FC. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected any personally identifiable information from a child under the age of thirteen, we will delete that information. If you are a parent or guardian and you believe that your child under age thirteen may have provided personally identifiable information through tFC, please contact us at [email protected].
8. Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, the practices of FC, or your dealings with us, you can contact us by email at [email protected], or by mail at the following address:
Carol Stabile, Managing Editor
The Fembot Collective
Hendricks Hall
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97203
