STS Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy for
Southeast Tourism Society Website

To protect the privacy of Southeast Tourism Society’s members and other visitors to its website, it has implemented the following policy.

Southeast Tourism Society (“STS”) values your privacy. In this Privacy Policy (“Policy”), we describe how we collect, use, and disclose information that we obtain about visitors to our website www.southeasttourism.org (the “Site”) and the services available through our Site (collectively, the “Services”), and how we use and disclose that information. In this Policy, we also briefly describe the information that we collect online in our capacity as a service provider, in our provision of services to our professional association members.

By visiting the Site, or using any of our Services, you acknowledge that your personal information will be handled as described in this Policy. Your use of our Site or Services, and any dispute over privacy, is subject to this Policy and our Terms of Service, including its applicable limitations on damages and the resolution of disputes.

The information we collect is controlled by Southeast Tourism Society, which is headquartered in the United States at Southeast Tourism Society, 555 Sun Valley Drive Suite E-5, Roswell, GA 30076, USA.

The Information We Collect About You

What Information Does Southeast Tourism Society Collect?

Most data Southeast Tourism Society collects is used only to better serve our members. It is our general policy to collect and store only information that our members and other visitors to our website provide, e.g., name, address, e-mail, ZIP code, gender, and income.

We collect information about you directly from you and from third parties, as well as automatically through your use of our Site or Services.

Information We Collect Directly From You

From General Users

Southeast Tourism Society does not collect any information except that provided by the visitor to our website. We collect the domain name from each visitor as well as statistical information such as the number of visitors and the pages viewed. Other information may be collected through e-newsletter lists, mailing lists, online request forms, contests, feedback forms, surveys, and personal interest forms. Any information that a visitor to our website provides will be stored in a secure location and will be used only for those purposes for which it was given, except as set forth below.

From Members, Conference Registrants and Other Customers

To gain access to members-only resources on southeasttourism.org, members are asked to register and provide some limited information. Southeast Tourism Society asks members to provide their name, title, organization name, business phone and e-mail. Similar information may be submitted to Southeast Tourism Society through membership applications, conference or seminar registration, and other related registrations. Additionally, for some e-mails sent in HTML format by Southeast Tourism Society to its members through its electronic newsletters, we will collect specific information regarding what the recipient does with that email. For those emails, Southeast Tourism Society will monitor whether a recipient subsequently clicks through to links provided in the message. Other information collected through this tracking feature includes: email address of a recipient, the date and time of the recipient’s “click,” a message number, name of the list from which the message was sent, tracking URL number and destination page. Southeast Tourism Society only uses this information to enhance its services to its members. This information is not sold or otherwise disclosed to any third party, except as set forth below.

The type of information we collect depends on how you use our Site and Services. When you use the Site or Services to manage your publication’s advertisements, we will collect your project code, advertiser code, your name, username and password, order number, your company name, your email address, and your phone number. If you order article reprints, we will collect your email address, shipping address, phone number, your company name, and information about the publication you are requesting reprints from. If you make a renewal payment through the Site, we will collect your username, password, your order number and publication code, and your payment information. If you contact us with an inquiry or request, we will collect your name, email address, business information, and the contents and purpose of your communication.

Information We Collect Automatically

We may automatically collect the following information about your use of our Site or Services through cookies, web beacons, and other technologies: your domain name; your browser type and operating system; web pages you view; links you click; your IP address; the length of time you visit our Site and/or use our Services; and the referring URL, or the web page that led you to our Site. We may combine this information with other information that we have collected about you, including, where applicable, your personal information. Please see the section “Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms” below for more information.

How We Use Your Information

How We Share Your Information

We may share your information, including personal information, as follows:

Our Members

Disclosures to Third Parties. Southeast Tourism Society also makes member contact information available through the Southeast Tourism Society Membership Directory to members and the public using its website and to those who register for its conferences/education programs.

We may share information we collect from you with our members about our services for them, such as to confirm orders or for billing purposes.

Service Providers

We may disclose the information we collect from you to third party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform functions on our behalf.

Business Transfers

If we are acquired by or merged with another company, if any of our assets are transferred to another company, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected from you to the other company.

In Response To Legal Process

We also may disclose the information we collect from you in order to comply with the law, a judicial proceeding, court order, or other legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena.

To Protect Us And Others

We also may disclose the information we collect from you where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our Terms of Use or this Policy, or as evidence in litigation in which STS is involved.

Aggregate And De-identified Information

We may share aggregate or de-identified information about users with third parties for marketing, advertising, research or similar purposes.

Our Use of Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms

We and our third party service providers use cookies and other tracking mechanisms to track information about your use of our Site or Services. We may combine this information with other personal information we collect from you (and our third party service providers may do so on our behalf).

Third-Party Ad Networks

We use third parties such as network advertisers to serve advertisements on our Site and on third-party websites or other media (e.g., social networking platforms). This enables us and these third parties to target advertisements to you for products and services in which you might be interested. Third-party ad network providers, advertisers, sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (including clear GIFs), Flash LSOs and other tracking technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content to you. These third-party cookies and other technologies are governed by each third party’s specific privacy policy, not this one. We may provide these third-party advertisers with information about you.

Users in the United States may opt out of many third-party ad networks. For example, you may go to the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) Consumer Choice Page for information about opting out of interest-based advertising and their choices regarding having information used by DAA companies. You may also go to the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) Consumer Opt-Out Page for information about opting out of interest-based advertising and their choices regarding having information used by NAI members.

Online Behavioral Advertising And How You Can Opt-Out

We may work with third-party advertising companies who may utilize cookies and web beacons, and data collected on our services, to customize advertisements to you on our services, as well as on other websites or mobile applications in their networks beyond our services. Among other things, these customized advertisements may advertise our products and services and third party products and services on websites or mobile applications not affiliated with us. Some of these ads are online behavioral advertising – which serve advertisements that are more likely to be of interest to you using non-personal behavioral information. Such ads may contain cookies that allow monitoring of websites and mobile applications (including our own services) and your response to such advertisements. Cookies or web beacons placed by these companies do not collect personal information, and the third-party advertising companies do not have access to or use your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number or other personal information; they may however, anonymously track your usage across our services and other websites or mobile applications in their networks. We limit companies that place our ads from using information for any purpose other than to assist us in our advertising efforts.

For more information about these third-party advertising companies’ privacy policies, visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s website at http://www.networkadvertising.org. If you prefer to not receive targeted advertising, you can opt-out of network advertising programs that use your information. To do so, please visit: the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out page.

Third-Party Links

Our Site and Services may contain links to third-party websites. Any access to and use of such linked websites is not governed by this Policy, but instead is governed by the privacy policies of those third party websites. We are not responsible for the information practices of such third party websites.

Security of My Personal Information

We have implemented commercially reasonable precautions to protect the information we collect from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Please be aware that no data security measures can guarantee security.

You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your password, phone, and computer by, among other things, signing off after using a shared computer, choosing a robust password that nobody else knows or can easily guess, and keeping your log-in and password private. We are not responsible for any lost, stolen, or compromised passwords or for any activity on your account via unauthorized password activity.

Access To My Personal Information

You may modify personal information that you have submitted by logging into your account and updating your profile information. Please note that copies of information that you have updated, modified or deleted may remain viewable in cached and archived pages of the Site for a period of time.

If you are a resident of the European Union, please see the Information for EU Individuals section below for additional information on accessing your information and other legal rights available to you under European Union law.

What Choices Do I Have Regarding Promotional Communications?

We may send periodic promotional or informational emails to you. You may opt-out of promotional emails by following the opt-out instructions contained in the email. Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving promotional emails about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still send you emails about your account or any Services you have requested or received from us.

Children Under 13

Our Services are not designed for children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information from our systems.

Information For EU Individuals

The legal basis for using your personal information. We collect, use, and share your personal information where we are satisfied that we have an appropriate legal basis to do this. This may be because:

Our use of your personal information is in accordance with your consent (for example, when you consent to sharing your personal information with an advertising sponsor in order to receive a complimentary session on the Services).
Our use of your personal information is in our legitimate interest as a commercial organization (for example in order to make improvements to our products and services and to provide you with information you request); you have a right to object to processing as explained in the section below titled Your legal rights;
Our use of your personal information is necessary to perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract with you (for example where we use your payment information when you purchase our Services); and/or
Our use of your personal information is necessary to comply with a relevant legal or regulatory obligation that we have (for example, where we are required to disclose personal information to a court or tax authority).

If you would like to find out more about the legal bases on which we process personal information, please contact us using the details below.

Your Legal Rights

Subject to certain exemptions, and in some cases dependent upon the processing activity we are undertaking, European Union individuals have certain rights in relation to your personal information:

Right to access, correct, and delete your personal information

You have the right to request access to the personal information that we hold about you and:(a) the source of your personal information; (b) the purposes, legal basis and methods of processing; (c) the data controller’s identity; and (d) the entities or categories of entities to whom your personal information may be transferred.

You also have the right to request that we delete your information.

We are not required to comply with your request to erase personal information if the processing of your personal information is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation or for the establishment, exercise, or deference of legal claims.

Right to restrict the processing of your personal information

You have the right to restrict the use of your personal information when (i) you contest the accuracy of the data; (ii) the use is unlawful but you do not want us to erase the data; (iii) we no longer need the personal information for the relevant purposes, but we require it for the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims; or (iv) you have objected to our personal information use justified on our legitimate interests verification as to whether we have a compelling interest to continue to use your data.

We can continue to use your personal information following a request for restriction, where:

we have your consent; or
to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
to protect the rights of another natural or legal person.

Right to data portability

To the extent that we process your information (i) based on your consent or under a contract; and (ii) through automated means, you have the right to receive such personal information in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or you can ask to have it transferred directly to another data controller.

Right to object to the processing of your personal information

You can object to any processing of your personal information which has our legitimate interests as its legal basis, if you believe your fundamental rights and freedoms outweigh our legitimate interests. If you raise an objection, we have an opportunity to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests which override your rights and freedoms.

Right to obtain a copy of personal information safeguards used for transfers outside your jurisdiction

You can ask to obtain a copy of, or reference to, the safeguards under which your personal information is transferred outside of the EEA.

Right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority

You have a right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority if you have concerns about how we are processing your personal information.

We ask that you please attempt to resolve any issues with us first, although you have a right to contact your supervisory authority at any time.

How to Exercise Your Rights

If you would like to exercise any of the rights described above, please send us a request to STS@SoutheastTourism.org. In your message, please indicate the right you would like to exercise and the information that you would like to access, review, correct, or delete.

We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.

Cross-border Transfer of Information

STS generally maintains servers and systems in the United States hosted by third party service providers. We also may subcontract the processing of your data to, or otherwise share your data with, other third parties in the United States or countries other than your country of residence. As a result, where the personal information that we collect through or in connection with the Services is transferred to and processed in the United States or anywhere else outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for the purposes described above, we will take steps to ensure that the information receives the same level of protection as if it remained within the EEA, including entering into data transfer agreements, using the EU Commission approved Standard Contractual Clauses, or by relying on certification schemes such as the EU – US Privacy Shield. You may have a right to details of the mechanisms under which your data is transferred outside the EEA.

Contact Us

If you have questions about the privacy aspects of our Services or would like to make a complaint, please contact us by calling 770-542-1523.

Changes to this Policy

This Policy is current as of the Effective Date 9/1/2019. We may change this Policy from time to time, so please be sure to check back periodically. We will post any changes to this Policy on our Site. If we make any changes to this Policy that materially affect our practices with regard to the personal information we have previously collected from you, we will endeavor to provide you with notice in advance of such change by highlighting the change on our Site.

How to Contact Us

We welcome your questions and comments surrounding privacy.

Please contact us at:
770-542-1523
Southeast Tourism Society
555 Sun Valley Drive, Suite E-5
Roswell, GA 30076