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Privacy Policy

Skincareguide.com Ltd. ("SkinCareGuide") understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our customers. SkinCareGuide is committed to honoring your privacy. The document you are reading is our privacy policy for our websites that are accessible by patients/consumers and medical professionals. It describes what information we may collect about you, what uses we may make of it, how you can tell us what to do with your information, and what precautions we take against unauthorized access or use of your information.

About this Privacy Policy

Website Covered
This privacy policy applies only to those parts of our website that provides health care information and services, and that may be used by patients/consumers and medical professionals.

Our websites are password protected for physicians. They provide peer-reviewed articles, reference tools, medical and clinical information and resources, medical news, medical conference coverage, treatment updates, and accredited continuing education for healthcare professionals. It also has tools intended only for the use of a trained healthcare professional.

SkinCareGuide is our consumer-focused network of websites. It includes health information such as health-related articles, references, tools, editorial content, and advertising. We also provide health self-assessment tools that allow you to enter information about your health.

Skincareguide.com Ltd. is the name we use to refer to our entire company. When we refer to ourselves as "we" or "SkinCareGuide", we mean our company, Skincareguide.com Ltd., including any subsidiary that we control (for example a subsidiary that we own) and our network of SkinCareGuide websites. We may share information among our subsidiaries that we own or control, but it is always protected under the terms of this privacy policy.

You can read more about our company, obtain investor information, and find out how to contact us by viewing the About Us section on SkinCareGuide.

This privacy policy only applies to SkinCareGuide websites. You should read the privacy policy at each website that you visit after you leave one of our sites. We are not responsible for how other websites treat your privacy, once you leave a SkinCareGuide site.

Privacy Policy Changes
As our privacy policies change in significant ways, we will make every effort to notify you of the changes. Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect our use of individually identifiable health information. When the privacy policies change in a way that significantly affects the way we handle personal information, we will not use the information we have previously gathered without obtaining consent from the appropriate individual. We will post privacy policy changes on our websites in a timely manner.

Information We Collect

In this section of our privacy policy, we discuss the different types of information we may collect about you, and the ways in which we collect them.

Information We Collect from Unregistered Visitors
Visitors to each of our patient websites can access the website's home page, and browse some areas of the site, without disclosing any personally identifiable information. We do track information provided to us by your browser, including the website you came from (known as the "referring URL"), the type of browser you use, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. If you are a physician, you will need to register with us to use the physician side of the site.

Information We Collect When You Register
Customers registering for services on our websites are asked to provide us with identifying information, such as name, gender, contact information, and other identifying information. On our registration screen, we clearly label which information is required for registration, and which information is optional and may be given at your discretion. You will also be given a choice about whether or not you want to receive newsletter information. SkinCareGuide websites will ask for the customer's consent before collecting personally identifiable information.

Information from Outside Sources
We may also collect information about physicians or other healthcare professionals who register on our websites from other sources in order to verify their licensure status and identity. In some cases we may ask customers for information after they register.

Other Information
Additional Forms and Emails: We may ask you to provide additional information after you register if you want to obtain additional services or information or to resolve complaints or concerns.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are a technology used by the SkinCareGuide websites to identify a user as the user moves through the website. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer's hard drive that identifies the computer you are using. We use cookies to personalize our websites and to track your usage across all of our websites.

Your Web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, Websites that are cookie enabled will not recognize you when you return to the website, and some website functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies.

Although cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information, if you are a registered user we may associate your registration information with cookies our website places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. For example, you can elect to have our websites "remember" your user name and password and bypass the sign-in process on each visit to the site. Without cookies, this functionality would not be possible.

Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers.) We have told them that we do not want them to use cookie information to track our customer's activities once they leave our sites. However, because of the way advertisements are served on our websites, we do not have total control over how advertisers use cookies on our website. If you become aware that a SkinCareGuide advertiser is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact our privacy officer (at privacy@skincareguide.com) to assist us in resolving the problem.

Children's Privacy

SkinCareGuide's websites are designed and intended for use by adults, and are not intended for, nor designed to be used by children under the age of 18. However, minors under the age of 18 may only register for our websites that collect or present personal healthcare information with the prior written consent of their parent or legal guardian, and then only under the direct supervision of that parent or guardian. The parent or guardian is responsible for providing supervision to ensure the minor's authentication information is kept secure and the credibility of the health record is maintained. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we know is a child under the age of 13.

Uses We Make of Information

In this section of our privacy policy, we identify the ways we may use information about you that we have collected.

Aggregate Data
We create aggregate data about visitors to our websites for product development and improvement activities. We also use it for market analysis. We may provide information from our websites in aggregate form, with identifying information removed, to third parties. For example, we may tell a health care partner what percentage of our registered users reside in a particular geographical area. When aggregated health information is provided, we pool it from many individual records and strip it of any data that could be used to identify an individual before it is used. Any third party that receives aggregated health care data must agree not to attempt to re-identify the people to whom the information belongs. For example, we may provide information to a potential advertiser of a product that would appeal to patients with acne about what percentage of our users have acne. Depending on our agreement with the third parties, we may or may not charge for this information.

Marketing and Advertising
We may target our advertising or marketing depending on the information we have about you. For example, a user we know is a woman may receive advertising for products targeted at women that a male user would not see, or a user that we know is a healthcare professional who treats acne may receive advertising for new acne therapies. In neither case would the advertiser have access to any individually identifiable information about you.

We may also personalize our website based on your interests. For example, you may see different articles in different places on our website based on information you have shared with us, or information we have gained by observing your previous behavior, or information we may have gained from your interactions with a third party that shares information with us. We use information for our own internal marketing, research, and related purposes.

Third Parties
In addition to aggregate information (discussed previously), we may share some kinds of information with third parties as described below.

Other Companies:
We have strategic relationships with other companies who offer products and services on our websites. When you are interacting with those companies, different rules and privacy policies may apply. For example, if you order a book from a bookstore on one of our sites, you will be asked to provide identifying information and credit card information to the company that runs the bookstore. We do not control the collection or use of information you provide under those circumstances, but we do require that those companies clearly state their policies so that you can decide whether to give them any information.

Companies and People Who Work for Us:
We sometimes contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services. For example, we may host some of our websites on another company's computers, hire technical consultants to maintain our web-based health tools, or work with companies to remove repetitive information from customer lists, analyze data, provide marketing assistance, and provide customer service. In addition, if you are a healthcare professional, we may validate your licensure status and other information against available databases that list licensed health care professionals. In order to perform their jobs, these other companies may have limited access to some of the personal information we maintain about our users. We require all such companies to comply with the terms of our privacy policies, to limit their access to any personal information to the minimum necessary to perform their obligations, and not to use the information they may access for purposes other than fulfilling their responsibilities to us. We use our best efforts to limit the use of other companies in areas where personally identifiable healthcare information may be involved.

Promotional Offers:
Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. We provide a variety of mechanisms for you to tell us you do not want to receive such promotional offers. For example, we may provide an opt-in box for consumers to receive an email from another business, and we make it clear that by opting in you are submitting your data to a third party. You can elect to not receive promotional material from us by updating your member profile.

Business Transfers:
If we transfer a business unit (such as a subsidiary) or an asset (such as a website) to another company, we will require them to honor the applicable terms of this privacy policy.

Legal Requirements:
We may release account and other personal information when we believe release is required to comply with the law. We may release personal health information, including information from a medical record, if, in our judgment after review by an attorney, the release is compelled by law or regulation, or if the release is necessary to prevent the death or serious injury of an individual.

When we share information with third parties, we ask that they agree in writing to abide by SkinCareGuide's privacy policies.

If we discover that a third party inadvertently disclosed personal information about any of our customers, we will take immediate action to prevent further occurrences.

Other than the cases described above, SkinCareGuide will not release personally identifiable information to a third party without the customer's consent. Also, if we ask your consent to release personal healthcare information to a third party, we will use our best efforts to clearly define and limit the scope of your consent.

Protection of Information

In this section of our privacy policy, we discuss the security measures we take to protect information that we have collected about you.

General Policies
We have implemented technology and security policies, rules and other measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from unauthorized access, improper use, alteration, unlawful or accidental destruction, and accidental loss. We also protect your information by requiring that all our employees and others who have access to or are associated with the processing of your data respect your confidentiality.

SkinCareGuide uses security methods to determine the identity of its registered users, so that appropriate rights and restrictions can be enforced for that user. Reliable verification of user identity is called authentication. SkinCareGuide uses both passwords and usernames to authenticate users. Users are responsible for maintaining their own passwords.

Storage of Health Information
Personally identifiable health information you share with us is stored on our database servers at SkinCareGuide data centers or hosted by third parties who have entered into agreements with us that require them to observe our Privacy Policy. We have a firewall to prevent individuals from accessing information without authorization. Data centers are physically secure and protected from unauthorized access by unauthorized persons. Physical access to the servers requires individual authorization and authentication.

Information in our data centers is backed up routinely, in order to aid in the recovery of information in the event of accidental damage of information or due to a natural disaster. The backup media is stored in a physically secure storage facility.

Access to Information and Choices
In this section of our privacy policy, we tell you how to obtain and correct information we have about you, and how to choose what types of information you may share with us.

Correction of Information We Have About You
If you believe that non-medical registration information collected by our website(s) is in error, you may edit your personal profile any time that you like. Requests for deletion of your record may result in your removal from the registry, but we may keep certain demographic information about you for product improvement purposes. You may contact Web Customer Support and ask for the changes that you would like to make.

SkinCareGuide.com Employees
SkinCareGide employees are required to keep customer information private, as a condition of their employment with the company. Only selected, authorized SkinCareGuide employees are permitted to access your health information.

Employees are required to sign a confidentiality agreement. All employees and contractors must abide by our privacy policy, and those who violate that policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination of their employment and legal action.

Privacy Questions or Concerns about One of Our Websites
For privacy questions or concerns about one of our websites, please contact privacy@skincareguide.ca.

Revision date: This policy was last updated on January 6, 2005.


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