EFFECTIVE DATE: January 1, 2020
We at SoftwareTrends respect your privacy and are committed to protecting the personal information you share with us. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, and disclose personal and other information that we obtain through our website www.SoftwareTrends.com (the “Site”) and how we use and disclose that information. This Privacy Policy applies to www.SoftwareTrends.com and to any other webpages, online platform or mobile app that are linked to this Privacy Policy.
By visiting the Site, you agree that your personal information will be handled as described in this Privacy Policy. Your use of our Site, and any dispute over privacy, is subject to this Privacy Policy and our User Agreement (at www.softwaretrends.com/user-agreement/), including its applicable limitations on damages and the resolution of disputes. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and subject to our User Agreement.
If you do not want your personal information collected, please do not submit it to us. If you have already submitted personal information and would like to review, correct or remove it from our records and systems, please contact us as described below.
By visiting and using the Site, you are deemed to have agreed to the provisions of this Privacy Policy, unless you are in the EEA or Switzerland in which case you are acknowledging that you have been provided this Privacy Policy.
1. What Information Do We Collect About You and Why?
We may collect information about you directly from you and from third parties, as well as automatically through your use of our Site.
Information We Collect Directly From You. If you subscribe to our newsletters, request materials from our clients, or complete the web form on the Contact Us page, we will ask you to fill out a brief form that requests some personal information such as your name, company, title, e-mail address, and telephone, as well as your areas of interest and the content of your message to us. Similarly, if you provide comments on any blog or community page we may host, you will need to log in – although you may do that via your social network account such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google+.
Registration/Account Setup — In order to use certain SoftwareTrends Services, you will be required to register and set up an account with us. We will need your name, job title, company, email and phone number. Registering and establishing an account is also necessary if you wish to engage directly with our clients, for example to download a client white paper, sign up for a webinar or access other information from them. (When you request a white paper, some of our clients may request that you answer, for example, a so-called “qualification” question, such as whether you plan to purchase software in the next 6 months. With your permission, we may provide certain personal information to our clients so you may engage directly with them via the Site or contact you with offers or promotions. Also, when you register, we may ask you to indicate whether you want to receive our email advisories, subscribe to our newsletter or agree to receiving online advertising from us and others. Please see our preferences page available at https://resources.softwaretrends.com/account/preferences.
Surveys — If you have given us permission to send you surveys, we collect personal information from you when you respond to a survey.
Social Media — The Site may include social media features, such as the Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter buttons. These features may also collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Site, and may set a cookie (see below) to enable the feature to function properly. These features may also give you the option to post information about your activities on our Site to your profile page to share with others within your network. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing them.
Information We Collect Automatically. We may automatically collect the following information about your use of our Site 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 the referring URL, or the webpage that led you to our Site. We may combine this information with other information that we have collected about you, including, where applicable, your username, name, and other personal information. Please see the section “Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms” below for more information.
2. How We Use Your Information
We use your information, including your personal information, for the following purposes:
- To communicate with you about your use of our Services, to respond to your inquiries or request for information, and client service purposes.
- To tailor the content and information that we may send, to offer location customization, and personalized help and instructions, and to otherwise personalize your experiences while using the Site.
- For marketing purposes. For example, with your prior consent we may use your information, such as your email address, to send you news and newsletters, or to otherwise contact you about services or information we think may interest you.
- To better understand how visitors access and use our Site and Services, both on an aggregated and individualized basis, in order to improve our Site and Services and respond to user desires and preferences, and for other research and analytical purposes.
If we would propose to use your personal information for any purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy, we will obtain your prior consent.
3. How We Share Your Information
We may share your information, including personal information, as follows:
- Other Site Visitors. If you post a comment on the blog pages or any other public area of the Site, your comment and identity will be available to, and searchable by, all users of the Site. However, this does not apply to any information you provide in a Contact Us inquiry.
- Affiliates. We may disclose the information we collect from you to our affiliates or subsidiaries; however, if we do so, their use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information will be subject to this Privacy Policy.
- Our Clients. The Site and Services are set up to enable direct communications between registered users and our clients, such as companies that are offering software products. To facilitate these direct communications, we may need to share certain personal information about you to these clients but will only do so if you agree. These communications via the Site are subject to this Privacy Policy.
- 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. We require that these parties only process the personal information for limited and specified purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy. These service providers are contractually obligated to protect the security of your personal information.
- Business Transfers. If we are acquired by or merged with another organization, if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another organization, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected from you to the other organization.
- 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 Privacy Policy, or as evidence in litigation in which is involved.
- Aggregate and De-Identified Information. We reserve the right to collect and may share demographic and other information in aggregate and anonymous terms for reporting purposes, research, or similar purposes.
If we propose to share your personal information for any purposes other than those described, we will obtain your prior consent. With your prior agreement, SoftwareTrends may sell your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes.
4. Legal Basis
Our legal basis for collecting and using your personal information
is (i) to do so with your consent; (ii) where we need the personal information
for performance of a contract or requested service, or (iii) where the
collection and use is in our or another’s legitimate interests and not
overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and
freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect the
personal information in question. If we collect your personal information with
your consent, you may withdraw your consent at any time. You understand and agree that we may collect,
use, disclose, and otherwise process the personal information you provide even
if you are located outside the United States.
5. How Long We Keep Your Personal Information
We typically only retain your information for the time necessary to provide a requested service, realize our legitimate business purposes and to comply with the law.
We will only retain personal information for the longer of the period if: (a) required by law, or b) there is a time-bound determination business need.
6. 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. 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).
Currently, our systems do not recognize browser-based “do-not-track” requests. You may, however, disable certain tracking as discussed in this section (e.g., by disabling cookies).
Cookies. Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser for record-keeping purposes. Some cookies allow us to make it easier for you to navigate our Site, while others are used to enable a faster log-in process or to allow us to track your activities at our Site. Cookies may also be deployed to enable targeted online advertising. There are general two types of cookies: session and persistent cookies.
- Session Cookies. Session cookies exist only during an online session. They disappear from your computer when you close your browser or turn off your computer. We use session cookies to allow our systems to uniquely identify you during a session or while you are logged into the Site. This allows us to process your online transactions and requests and verify your identity, after you have logged in, as you move through our Site.
- Persistent Cookies. Persistent cookies remain on your computer after you have closed your browser or turned off your computer. We use persistent cookies to track aggregate and statistical information about user activity, and to display advertising on third-party sites.
Advertising Cookies. Our Site may also use ad service providers, such as Google’s DoubleClick, to serve you personalized online ads. Your browser is assigned a pseudonymous ID used to track the ads that have been served to your browser and to identify those on which you’ve clicked. These providers may use cookies to select and serve you ads based on your browsing behavior.
For more information on how Google and DoubleClick, visit https://support.google.com/admanager/answer/7670381. To block certain ads served by Google, please visit https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922.
To learn more about targeted advertising and advertising networks and about your ability to opt out of collection of information by certain third parties, please visit the opt-out pages of the Network Advertising Initiative (here), or the Digital Advertising Alliance (here). Please note that opting out of cookies does not mean that you will not be served ads; you will continue to receive generic ads.
Disabling Cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can edit your browser options to block them in the future. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Visitors to our Site who disable cookies will be able to browse most areas of the Site, but some features may not function. You can find out more information about how to change your browser cookie settings at www.allaboutcookies.org.
Local Storage Objects. We may use Flash Local Storage Objects (“Flash LSOs”) to store your Site preferences and to personalize your visit. Flash LSOs are different from browser cookies because of the amount and type of data stored. Typically, you cannot control, delete, or disable the acceptance of Flash LSOs through your web browser. For more information on Flash LSOs, or to learn how to manage your settings for Flash LSOs, go to the Adobe Flash Player Help Page, choose “Global Storage Settings Panel” and follow the instructions. To see the Flash LSOs currently on your computer, choose “Website Storage Settings Panel” and follow the instructions to review and, if you choose, to delete any specific Flash LSO.
Clear GIFs, pixel tags and other technologies. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, clear GIFs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use clear GIFs (a.k.a. web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with our Site to, among other things, track the activities of Site visitors, help us manage content, and compile statistics about Site usage. We and our third-party service providers also use clear GIFs in HTML e-mails to our customers, to help us track e-mail response rates, identify when our e-mails are viewed, and track whether our e-mails are forwarded.
Third Party Analytics. We use automated devices and applications, such as Google Analytics and others, to evaluate usage of our Site. We use these tools to help us improve our Site, performance and user experiences. These entities may use cookies and other tracking technologies to perform their services. We do not share your personal information with these third parties.
Google provides further information about its own privacy practices and offers a browser add-on to opt out of Google Analytics tracking: (https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout).
7. User Generated Content
We invite you to post content on our Site and provide responses to our blog, including your comments, pictures, and any other information that you would like to be available on our Site. If you post content to our Site, the information that you post may be available to other visitors to our Site in accordance with the terms and conditions in our User Agreement (at www.softwaretrends.com/user-agreement). If you post your own content on our Site, your posting may become public and we cannot prevent such information from being used in a manner that may violate this Privacy Policy, the law, or your personal privacy. You are advised not to post personal information that may be available to other visitors.
8. Third-Party Links
Our Site may contain links to third-party websites and social media. Any access to and use of such linked websites is not governed by this Privacy 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.
9. 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 despite our efforts, no data security measures can guarantee 100% 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.
10. Access To My Personal Information
We make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either to correct your data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes.
You may request to modify or delete personal information that you have submitted by contacting us and requesting a copy of whatever identifiable information you have provided to us. 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 limited period of time.
11. What Choices Do I Have Regarding Use of My Personal Information?
If you have agreed, we may send periodic solicitations or informational emails to you, requests to participate in surveys, targeted advertising, and similar communications. You may opt-out of such communications by following the opt-out instructions contained in the e-mail. You may also contact us as provided below to request to opt out of receiving these communications. There is no cost to you to opt out.
Please note that it may take up to 10 business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt-out of receiving emails about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still send you e-mails about your account or any services you have requested or received from us.
12. Children’s privacy
Our Site is intended for individuals 18 years or older.
We do not knowingly collect information from children. In the
event that we learn that we have collected personal on the Site from a child
under age 16, we will delete that information promptly. If you believe that we
might have any information from a child under 16, please contact us at the
details at the bottom of this Privacy Policy.
13. Visiting our Site from outside the United States
If you are visiting our Site from outside the United States, please be aware that your information will typically be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is protected. By using our services, you understand that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Privacy Policy.
14. Visiting our Site from the European Economic Area (EEA) or United Kingdom (UK)
The Legal Basis for Using European and UK Personal Information
When we collect information about you through our Site, the legal basis on which we process your personal information is fulfillment of an agreement between us, namely, to provide you with the internship/employment consideration or the Newsletters and other information in response to your request. Our retention of your personal data and any subsequent communications are based on our legitimate interest in providing you with new and potentially relevant materials based on your geography, role, or company. As always, you can elect to opt out from receiving such future communications.
To the extent that we transfer personal information from the EEA or UK to a jurisdiction outside the EEA or UK that has not been adduced by the European Commission as providing adequate data protections (such as the United States), we will ensure that such personal information is safeguarded through appropriate contractual terms or other approved mechanisms.
Rights for EEA or UK Residents
In addition, if you are a resident of the EEA or UK, you have the right to:
- Find out if we use your personal information, to access your personal information, and receive copies of your personal information.
- Withdraw any express consent that you have provided to the processing of your personal information at any time without penalty.
- Access your personal information and have it corrected or amended if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Obtain a transferable copy of some of your personal information which can be transferred to another provider when the personal information was processed based on your consent.
- If you believe your personal information is inaccurate, no longer necessary for our business purposes, or if you object to our processing of your personal information, you also have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your data pending our investigation and/or verification of your claim.
- Request your personal information be deleted or restricted under certain circumstances. For example, if is using your personal information on the basis of your consent and has no other legal basis to use such, you may request your personal information be deleted when you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights or raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information, please contact us at as described below.
If you are not satisfied with our response, or believe we are processing your personal information in violation of the law, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Supervisory Authority (also known as Data Protection Authority) in your EEA country or in the UK. For our operations within the EEA or UK, our Lead Supervisory Authority is the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).
15. California Residents
California “Shine The Light” Law — Pursuant to California’s “Shine The Light law (California Statute § 1798.983), California residents are entitled to request, once a year and free of charge, certain information regarding what types of their personal information may be shared with third parties and, in some cases, affiliates, for those third parties’ and affiliates’ own direct marketing purposes. Under this law, a business is to either provide California customers certain information upon request or permit California customers to opt out of this type of sharing. You may request this information by contacting us at legal@softwaretrends.com and indicate in the email subject line, “California Shine The Light Request.” Please include your mailing address, state of residence and email address with your request.
California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) –The CCPA gives California consumers enhanced rights with respect to their personal information that is collected by businesses. First, California consumers may opt out of having their personal information sold to other persons or parties. Second, California consumers have a right to know:
- What specific pieces of information a business has about the consumer;
- Categories of personal information it has collected about the consumer;
- Categories of sources from which the personal information is collected;
- Categories of personal information that the business sold or disclosed for a business purpose about the consumer;
- Categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or disclosed for a business purpose; and
- The business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information.
Third, California consumers can request that the personal information a business has collected about them be deleted from the business’s systems and records.
In combination with our affiliates, SoftwareTrends is a covered business under the CCPA as it collects and processes the personal information of California consumers. This Privacy Policy provides the required notices to California consumers. The CCPA also prohibits covered businesses from providing discriminatory treatment to California consumers if they exercise their rights under the Act.
With your consent, SoftWareTrends may sell personal information to third parties. You can request to opt out of the sale of your personal information at any time by completing the online form (available at www.softwaretrends.com/ccpa) or by sending as email at legal@softwaretrends.com. We have 15 days after receipt to implement a request to opt out.
To make a “request to know” or request to delete your personal information, send us an e-mail at legal@softwaretrends.com. (Please put either “Request to Know” or “Request to Delete” in the subject heading of your email.) You may also submit these requests via an online form (available at www.softwaretrends.com/ccpa) or by mailing your request to address in the United States to:
SoftwareTrends (c/o PureB2B)
Data Protection Officer
222 Rosewood Drive
Danvers, MA 01923
We will honor these requests for US individuals whether or not you would qualify as a California consumer under the CCPA.
We will confirm receipt of your request to know or delete within 10 days along with a description of what steps we will take to verify and respond. We must provide the requested information or delete your personal information within 45 days of receipt of your request but can use an additional 45 days, but we will let you know additional time is needed.
When contacting us, we may ask you to provide certain, limited personal information, such as your name, email address and/or username to verify your request and to match with our records and systems. We will not retain this personal information or use it for any other purpose. And we need to search our records and systems only for the preceding 12 months.
Residents of other states may also have similar rights to request information about or delete their personal information. To inquire about exercising these rights, please contact us at legal@softwaretrends.com.
16. Changes to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is current as of the Effective Date set forth above. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, so please be sure to check back periodically. We will post any changes to this Privacy Policy on our Site (at https://www.softwaretrends.com/privacy-policy/). If we make any changes to this Privacy 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.
17. Contact Us
If you have questions about the privacy aspects of our Site or would like to make a complaint about this Notice, please contact us:
SoftwareTrends (c/o PureB2B)
Legal Department
222 Rosewood Drive
Danvers, MA 01923
