We collect information from you in two ways. First, you provide us with certain information when you register for, download, access, and otherwise use our Sites or Services. Second, we collect certain information automatically as you interact with our Sites and Services.

Information You Provide to Us. We collect personal information you provide directly to us. For example, we collect information from you when you interact with us a member or prospective member, create an account to access certain features of our Services, send us an email, fill out a form, respond to a survey, register for an event or otherwise communicate with us. We also collect personal information when entering into agreements regarding affiliated relationships including with exhibitors, sponsors, advertisers. The types of information that we may collect include your name, telephone number, email address, employer, professional title, home or business and mailing address, gender, details regarding your entity and business, your job title, username and password, company contacts for corporate members, photographs, education, and other information that you might provide to use in an online form, or when you contact us by email or telephone.

The personal information you are asked to provide (whether or not its provision is mandatory) is requested so that we may facilitate your access, purchase, use and/or participation in our Services including:

• Membership
• Conferences & Events
• Educational programs
• Online forums
• Certification/accreditation activities
• Volunteer opportunities
• Surveys
• Other activities that are updates or extensions to our Services or relate to other member benefits.

If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, you may not be able to access certain components of our Services.

Information We Automatically Collect. When you access or use our Services, we may automatically collect certain information about you, including:

• Log Data. As is true of most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include your internet protocol (IP) address, browser type, device identifier, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, clickstream data, and other usage data. We may combine this automatically-collected log information with other information we collect about you.
• Information Collected by Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies.

We and our service providers may use various technologies to collect information, including cookies and web beacons. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in device memory that help us to, among other things, improve our Services and your experience, see which areas and features of our Services are popular and count visits. Web beacons are clear, electronic images that may be used on our Services or in our emails and help deliver cookies, count visits, understand usage and campaign effectiveness and determine if an email has been opened and acted upon. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted content you can delete the cookie files from your hard drive, or avoid them altogether, by configuring your browser to reject them or to notify you when a cookie is being placed on your hard drive. Not all features of the Services will function as intended if you reject cookies. Before using our Site, you are advised to check your current browser settings to ensure that the settings reflect your consent for us to place cookies on your devices.

Our service providers may also use other standard web-based technologies to analyze your movements while accessing our Websites. Some of the information collected, including IP address, may be stored on our Internet service provider's server logs, and may be available for extended periods of time. We may also use tools such Google Analytics.

Our website content is not directed toward children who are under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from children. If we become aware that a visitor under the age of 16 has submitted personal information without verifiable parental consent, we will remove his or her information from our files. Please contact help@threadgroup.org if you become aware that a child for which you are the parent or guardian has provided us with personal information without your consent.

We may also collect information that cannot be used to identify you. For example, we may aggregate non-personal information about you and other individuals who visit our Sites. Aggregated information will not contain any information that can be linked directly back to you.

We may use personal information collected from or about you for any of the following purposes:

To respond to your requests. These requests may include processing orders and processing requests for information about our Services and affiliate relationships.

To fulfill and service your membership in the Alliance.

To provide and market our Services. We may inform you about our Services, conference and other events and otherwise perform marketing activities. Further, we may use information for analytics purposes.

To facilitate your attendance at conferences and events.

Verify Users. We may use personal information to manage and verify your account and the identity of users of the Services.

To meet legal requirements. We may be required to provide personal information to comply with legally mandated reporting, subpoenas, court orders, or other requirements.

Other purposes. We may use personal information for any other legal, business or marketing purposes that are not inconsistent with the terms of this policy and that are permitted by applicable data protection laws.

We may disclose your personal information in the following circumstances:

Internally. In order to provide Services through our Sites or applications that require the input of information, we may need to share your information within the Alliance and its representatives.

Third party service providers. We may provide personal information to business partners, third-party vendors, contractors and other service providers, who may use the information to fulfill requests, provide administrative and operational support, contact you in connection with the performance, operation, and support of the Services, performing marketing and communications services, provide membership database services, or as otherwise appropriate in connection with a legitimate business need. Further, we may disclose personal information to service providers who host or facilitate conferences, seminars and webinars; email-delivery services and other technology providers; and third parties that may assist in the delivery of marketing materials, technical support services, or other products, services or other information. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services.

Other Alliance Members. Other Alliance members may receive certain items of your personal information as part of a membership directory or through collaboration portals. In addition, if you sign up to attend a member meeting or other Alliance-sponsored event, all other Alliance members who sign up for the event will be notified of your intended attendance at the event and may be given your full name, address, company name, and email address.

Affiliated Parties. We may share membership lists or event attendance lists that include your full name, address, company name, and email address with affiliated third parties such as exhibitors, sponsors and advertisers.

Third Party Analytics Providers. We may share personal information with third parties who conduct marketing studies and data analytics, including those that provide tools or code which facilitates our review and management of our Services.

Transfer or Assignment in Connection with Business Transfers. We may disclose your information in connection with the merger of the Alliance or any transaction that involves the transfer or assignment of some or all of our assets.

Response to Legal Requirements, Subpoenas, or Protection of Our Rights. We may share personal information as and when we believe in our sole discretion that disclosure is necessary or appropriate to meet legal requirements, to comply with a subpoena or court order, cooperate with a law-enforcement or government request, to investigate fraud, or to protect our rights.

Publicly Posted Content. If you post comments, images, and other content to a public-facing page that we control, that information associated with your user name will be publicly viewable.

With Your Consent. We may share some or all of your information with any other third party with your affirmative consent. For instance, we may display quotes from members with consent.

Third-Party Websites. Our Sites may contain links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the data collection, use practices, policies, or cookie use of the third party sites that you have accessed from our Sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our Sites and to read the privacy policies of each website that collects personal information.

Opt-Out. The first time that you provide us with registration information through our website, you may be offered the opportunity to subscribe to and receive additional information about our Services. Each commercial e-mail that we send to you will offer you the opportunity to opt-out of continuing to receive such messages. You may unsubscribe or opt out of all future communications from us that do not relate to Services you have ordered by removing your contact and personally identifiable information from our marketing and communications databases by (a) sending an email to us at help@threadgroup.org, or (b) clicking the unsubscribe link on any email marketing communication you receive. We may take up to 10 business days to process your opt-out requests. In some instances, we may have already shared your information with one of our authorized third parties before you changed your information preferences, and you may briefly continue to receive e-mail even after you have opted out. FTC e-mail compliance guidance allows us to send you transactional and relationship e-mail without offering you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving those types of e-mail. We will provide you with the choice and means for limiting the use and disclosure of your personal information before we use or disclose the information for a purpose that is materially different than the purposes described in this policy.

"Do Not Track Requests." Your Internet browser and mobile device may allow you to adjust your browser settings so that "do not track" requests are sent to the websites you visit. We respect your wishes and will not track user activity once "do not track" signals have been activated.

European Union Privacy. If you are accessing our Sites from the European Union or are a resident of the European Union, you have the following rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) effective as of May 25, 2018: to be informed about your personal data and how it is being processed, to access, correct and erase personal data, to restrict further processing, to obtain and reuse your data for your own purposes across different services and to object to processing.

We take reasonable measures to protect your personal information in an effort to prevent loss, misuse, and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. However, like other businesses, we cannot guarantee 100% the security or confidentiality of the information you provide to us. You should take care with regard to how you handle and disclose your personal information or any username or password that you use to access our Sites. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure please notify us.

Our Sites may make digital forums available to its users. Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes public information, and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose information through these areas of the Sites.

If you have questions regarding this privacy policy, or if you would like to assert any of your rights above, you can contact us at help@threadgroup.org or write to:

Thread Group, Inc.
5000 Executive Parkway, Suite 302
San Ramon, CA 94583 USA


We encourage you to raise any concerns and we will investigate and attempt to resolve any complaints or disputes regarding the use and disclosure of personal information in accordance with this policy. If a complaint or dispute cannot be resolved through our internal process, we agree to submit the dispute to resolution using a third party resolution provider as required by any applicable local law.