We are committed to safeguarding your privacy. If you feel we need to change something please contact us with your feedback.
One of our guiding principles is to use open source tools and technologies. That extends to how we communicate with you and we endeavor to use systems we think we can trust not to misuse our - or your - data.
Browsing this website
We are trying to strike a balance between understanding what content people appreciate most (and least) on our site, and ensuring your information remains as private as possible. We therefore decided to use Piwik which is an open source analytics program that respects user privacy. We look at page views, referrers, geographies, exit pages, and try to discern patterns in what content most used. Piwik does not hold onto your data.
Signing up
Subscribing to our news updates (for example typing your email in the field in the footer and hitting ‘enter’) only asks for your email. This information is stored in our email service called Act-On. We will email you any time we post a blog (about once a week) or email a quarterly newsletter. You won’t be added to other mailing lists unless you ask. Since we don’t have your first name or last name, you’ll get very impersonal greetings. If you just want alerts of new blogs, please use RSS. We put opt-out links on all our emails.
If you sign up to become a member of GCI, we add you as an ‘inactive’ account in our CRM system, Sugar. Once your account is approved, and when you’ve signed your contract and paid your first year’s membership fee, we set your account to ‘active’. When you sign up we ask for contacts for: billing, technical, and business. The billing contact receives the invoices for annual membership fees and quarterly content registration fees. The technical contact is the one we send reports to about metadata, and the business contact receives general updates and, importantly, is the person we contact for voting in our annual election of board members.
Over time we might ask to be in touch with additional people at your organization, such as metadata quality, product management, production, and other interested colleagues. We will ask upfront and it is always possible to opt-out.
Depending on the type of account, you may receive a series of on-boarding emails that provide information about how to get started with your participation in GCI. We will also email you with significant news as and when things change, services are improved, or new services are introduced.
If you ask for support and raise a ticket with our support team, the information to send will be stored in our ticketing system, Zendesk. We don’t use your contact information for anything other than resolving your support ticket, and any logins or private details provided during a support conversation are secure.
Cookies
Cookies are files with small amount of data, which may include an anonymous unique identifier. Cookies are sent to your browser from a web site and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Like many sites, we use “cookies” to collect basic information. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent.
Email privacy
We categorically do not under any circumstances—however persuasive—sell or rent email addresses with parties outside of GCI. On rare occasions—and only where it prevents you from using a service you’ve signed up for—we may need to provide a contact email address to a supplier or partner in order for you to receive important information or technical support.
Links to other sites
Our website may contain links to some other sites. We can’t be responsible for the privacy policies and content of these other sites, nor whether they’ve maintained the links persistently. If you tell us that some links might be questionable, we will look into removing the link.
Security
GCI has taken steps to ensure that personal information collected is secure. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Using our metadata services
We offer both members and non-members a range of services to access metadata. In some cases, the provided metadata may include data (or metadata derived from data) that originated from sources other than our members (“third-party sources”). We will take steps to inform all users of our metadata delivery services about any third-party sources for the metadata. If the third-party source requires it, we will also provide their privacy policies or usage restrictions. We respect the terms and conditions, including the privacy policies, of the third-party sources and we expect the users of our metadata services to do so as well.
Changes to this privacy policy
This privacy policy is effective as of April 20187 and will remain in effect except with respect to any changes in its provisions in the future, which will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page.
We reserve the right to update or change our privacy policy at any time and you should check back periodically.
