Last updated 01-18-13
1. Introduction
Questions. If you have any
questions or concerns about our privacy policy, contact our privacy team by
emailing support@thenextdds.com. You may also contact us by mail at 1000 Wyckoff Avenue, Mahwah, NJ, 07430.
Scope. This privacy policy covers all of THE
NEXT DDS. It does not, however, apply to entities that Next Media Group, Inc.
does not own or control, such as websites using the platform. By using or
accessing THE NEXT DDS, you agree to the privacy practices outlined herein.
No information from children under
age 18. If you
are under age 18, please do not attempt to register for THE NEXT DDS or provide
any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have
collected personal information from a user under age 18, we will delete that
information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any
information from a child under age 18, please contact us by emailing
support@thenextdds.com.
Parental participation. We strongly recommend that minors 18
years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any
information about themselves to anyone over the Internet and we encourage
parents to teach their children about safe internet use practices.
2. Information We Receive
Information you provide to us:Information
About Yourself. When you enroll in THE
NEXT DDS you provide us with information such as your name, email, and
projected graduation date. During the registration process, we give you the
opportunity to connect with your classmates, schools, and other dental students from around the country. You will
also be able to add a picture of yourself. In some cases we may ask for
additional information for security reasons or to provide specific services to
you. Once you register, you can provide other information about yourself by
connecting with, for example, your fellow students, groups, networks, and
communities.
Content. One of the primary reasons dental students use
THE NEXT DDS is to access educational materials and to share such content with
others. Examples include when you upload or take a photo, upload or record a
video, share a link to an instructional article or animation, create an event
or a group, make a comment, or send someone a message. If you do not want us to
store metadata associated with content you share on THE NEXT DDS (eg, photos),
please remove the metadata before uploading the content.
Information we collect when you
interact with THE NEXT DDS:
Site activity information. We
keep track of some of the actions you take on THE NEXT DDS, such as adding
connections (including joining a group or adding a classmate), creating a photo
album, commenting on an article, blog, or forum, rating a content feature,
or attending an event. In some cases, you are also taking an action when you
provide information or content to us. For example, if you share a video, in addition
to storing the actual content you uploaded, we might log the fact that you
shared it.
Access Device and Browser Information. When
you access THE NEXT DDS from a computer, mobile phone, or other device, we may
collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP
address, as well as the pages you visit.
Cookie Information. We use
"cookies" (small pieces of data we store for an extended period of
time on your computer, mobile phone, or other device) to make THE NEXT DDS
easier to use, to improve the quality of the educational contents shared
herein, to make our advertising better, and to protect both you and THE NEXT
DDS. For example, we use them to store your login ID (but never your password)
to make it easier for you to login whenever you return to THE NEXT DDS. We also
use them to confirm that you are logged into THE NEXT DDS, and to know when you
are interacting with our widgets and Share buttons and site advertisements. You
can remove or block cookies using the settings in your browser, but in some
cases that may impact your ability to use THE NEXT DDS.
Information from other websites. We
may institute programs with advertising partners and other websites in which
they share information with us:
- We may ask advertisers to tell us how our users
responded to the ads we showed them (and for comparison purposes, how other
users who didn’t see the ads acted on their site). This data sharing, commonly
known as “conversion tracking,” helps us measure our advertising effectiveness
and improve the quality of the advertisements seen by dental students.
- We may receive information about whether or not
you’ve seen or interacted with certain ads on other sites in order to measure
the effectiveness of those ads.
If in any of these cases we
receive data that we do not already have, we will “anonymize” it within 180
days, meaning we will stop associating the information with any particular
user. If we institute these programs, we will only use the information in the
ways we explain in the “How We Use Your Information” section below.
Information from other users. We may collect information about you
from other THE NEXT DDS users, such as when a connection tags you in a photo or
video, or provides details regarding a group you share.
3.
Sharing information on THE NEXT DDS.
This section explains how your privacy settings work, and how your information
is shared on THE NEXT DDS. You should always consider your privacy
settings before sharing information on THE NEXT DDS.
Name and Profile Picture. THE NEXT DDS is designed to make
it easy for you to find dental education content and connect with other dental
students. For this reason, your name and profile picture do not have
privacy settings. If you are uncomfortable with sharing your profile picture,
you should delete it (or not add one).
Contact Information. Your enrollment form--accessible through the "My Settings" icon--enables you to
control the notifications and preferences associated with your user profile.
Other. Additional
points to consider:
- Some of the content you share and the actions
you take will show up on your connections’ home pages and other pages they visit.
- Even after you remove information from your
profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable
elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise
distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or
stored by other users.
- You understand that information might be
re-shared or copied by other users.
- Certain types of communications that you send
to other users cannot be removed, such as messages.
- When you post information on another user’s
profile or comment on another user’s post, that information will be subject to
the other user’s privacy settings.
4.
Information You Share With Third Parties.
Connecting with an Application or
Website. When you connect with an application or website
it may have access to General Information about you. The term General
Information includes you and your connections’ names, profile pictures, year of
graduation, and content you shared. We may also make information about
the location of your computer or access device and your academic concentration
available to applications and websites in order to help them implement
appropriate security measures and control the distribution of age-appropriate
content. If the application or website wants to access any other data, it
will have to ask for your permission.
You should always review the policies of third-party applications and websites
to make sure you are comfortable with the ways in which they use information
you share with them. We do not guarantee that they will follow our rules. If
you find an application or website that violates our rules, you should report
the violation to us by emailing support@thenextdds.com and we will take action as
necessary.
Pre-Approved Third-Party Websites and
Applications. In order to provide you with useful social
experiences from THE NEXT DDS, we occasionally need to provide General
Information about you to pre-approved third-party websites that use THE NEXT
DDS at the time you visit them (if you are still logged in to THE NEXT DDS).
You can also block a particular pre-approved website or application by clicking
"No Thanks" in the user window when you visit that application or
website. In addition, if you log out of THE NEXT DDS before visiting a
pre-approved application or website, it will not be able to access your
information.
Exporting Information. You (and those you make your
information available to) may use tools like RSS feeds, mobile phone address
book applications, or copy and paste functions, to capture, export (and in some
cases, import) information from THE NEXT DDS, including your information and
information about you.
Advertisements. Sometimes the advertisers who present
ads on THE NEXT DDS use technological methods to measure the effectiveness of
their ads and to personalize advertising content. You may opt-out of the
placement of cookies by using your browser cookie settings to limit or prevent
the placement of cookies by advertising networks.
Links. When you click on links within THE
NEXT DDS you may leave our site. We are not responsible for the privacy
practices of other sites, and we encourage you to read their privacy
statements.
5.
How We Use Your Information
Next Media Group uses the information collected through THE NEXT DDS to try to
provide an educational, efficient, and customized experience. Here are some of
the details on how we do that:
To manage the service. We use the information we collect to
provide our educational services and features to you, to measure and improve
those services and features, and to provide you with customer support. We use
the information to prevent potentially illegal activities, and we use a variety
of technological systems to detect and address anomalous activity and screen
content to prevent abuse such as spam. These efforts may on occasion result in
a temporary or permanent suspension or termination of some functions for some
users.
To contact you. We may contact you with
service-related announcements from time to time. We may include content you see
on THE NEXT DDS in the emails we send to you.
To serve personalized advertising to
you. We know how important focus is on your university studies, and while you're pursuing your degree we will not share your information with advertisers without your consent. (An example of
consent would be if you asked us to provide your mailing address to an
advertiser to receive a free sample.) We allow advertisers to choose the
characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and we may use any
of the non-personally identifiable attributes we have collected (including
information you may have decided not to show to other users, such as your
graduation year or other such personal information or educational preferences)
to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. For example, we
might use your interest in operative dentistry to show you ads for adhesive
products, but we do not tell the advertiser/manufacturer who you are. As a dental student, we do not share your information with advertisers without your consent, but when
you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement there is a possibility
that the advertiser may place a cookie in your browser and note that it meets
the criteria they selected.
To supplement your profile. We may use information about you that
we collect from other THE NEXT DDS users to supplement your profile (such as
when you are tagged in a photo or mentioned in a status/group update). In such
cases, we generally give you the ability to remove the content (such as
allowing you to remove a photo tag of you) or limit its visibility on your
profile.
To help your connections find you. We allow other users to use contact
information they have about you, such as your email address, to find you,
including through contact importers and search. You can prevent other
users from using your email address to find you using the search section of
your privacy settings.
6.
How We Share Information
THE NEXT DDS facilitates the sharing of dental education content and such
information with others — connections and educators in your communities — while
providing you with privacy settings that you can use to restrict other users
from accessing some of your information. We share your information with third
parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you, reasonably necessary
to offer our services, or when legally required to do so. For example:
When you invite a classmate to join. When you ask us to invite a classmate
to join THE NEXT DDS, we will send your fellow dental student a message on your
behalf using your name. The invitation may also contain information about
other users your classmate might know. We may also send up to two
reminders to them in your name.
When you choose to share your
information with marketers. You
may choose to share information with dental manufacturers through offers on THE
NEXT DDS. This is entirely at your discretion and while you are enrolled in THE NEXT DDS as a dental student we will not provide your
information to such marketers without your consent.
When we share your information with marketers. Your contact information may only be shared with sponsors of THE NEXT DDS after you have graduated from dental school. On certain occasions, information may be shared in advance of your graduation to designated sponsors who offer job opportunities and/or special services that we believe will be of interest and benefit to you prior to graduation. The information we share will be limited to the following; your dental school, year of graduation, intended dental specialty (if any), and your contact information.
To help your classmates find you. By default, we make certain
information you have posted to your profile available in search results on THE
NEXT DDS to help your classmates find you. You can control who can see some of
this information, however, as well as who can find you in these searches,
through your privacy settings.
To give search engines access to
publicly available information. We generally limit search engines’
access to our site. We may allow them to access information published by Next
Media Group, Inc and user-generated information set to the “everyone” setting
(along with your name and profile picture) and your profile information that is
visible to everyone. You can change the visibility of some of your
profile information using the customizable sections of your privacy settings.
To help improve or promote our
service. Sometimes
we share aggregated information with third parties to help improve or promote
our service. But we only do so in such a way that no individual user can be
identified or linked to any specific action or information.
To provide you with services. We may provide information to service
providers that help us bring you the services we offer. For example, we may use
third parties to help host our website, send out email updates about THE NEXT
DDS, remove repetitive information from our user lists, process payments, or
provide search results or links (including sponsored links). These service
providers may have access to your personal information for use for a limited
time, but when this occurs we implement reasonable contractual and technical
protections to limit their use of that information to helping us provide the
service.
To advertise our services. We may ask advertisers outside of THE
NEXT DDS to display ads promoting our services. We may ask them to deliver
those ads based on the presence of a cookie, but in doing so will not share any
other information with the advertiser.
To respond to legal requests and
prevent harm. We
may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests
(including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the
response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from
jurisdictions outside of the United
States where we have a good faith belief
that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction,
apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally
accepted international standards. We may also share information when we have a
good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity or
to prevent imminent bodily harm. This may include sharing information with
other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.
Transfer in the Event of Sale or Change of
Control. If the
ownership of all or substantially all of our business changes, we may transfer
your information to the new owner so that the service can continue to operate.
In such a case, your information would remain subject to the promises made in
any pre-existing Privacy Policy.
7.
How You Can Change or Remove Information
Editing your profile. You may change or remove your profile
information at any time by going to your profile page and clicking “Edit My
Profile.” Information will be updated immediately.
Deactivating or deleting your
account. If you
want to stop using your account you may deactivate it or delete it. When you
deactivate an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be
deleted. We save your profile information (connections, photos, etc.) in case
you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users deactivate their
accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their
information until they return to THE NEXT DDS. You will still have the ability
to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you
delete an account, it is permanently deleted from THE NEXT DDS. You should only
delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may
deactivate your account on your My Profile page or delete your account by
emailing us accordingly at support@thenextdds.com.
Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from
your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain
viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was
otherwise distributed pursuant to your privacy settings, or it was copied or
stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with
that information on THE NEXT DDS. (For example, if you post something to
another user’s profile and then you delete your account, that post may remain,
but be attributed to an “Anonymous THE NEXT DDS User.”) Additionally, we
may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct
even if deletion has been requested. If you have given third-party websites
access to your information, they may retain your information to the extent
permitted under their terms of service or privacy policies. But they will
no longer be able to access the information through our Platform after you
disconnect from them.
Backup copies. Removed and deleted information may
persist in backup copies for up to 90 days, but will not be available to
others.
Non-user contact information. If a user provides your email address
to us, and you are not a user of THE NEXT DDS but you want us to delete your
address, you can do so by emailing support@thenextdds.com. However, that request
will only apply to addresses we have at the time of the request and not to any
addresses that users provide to us later.
8.
How We Protect Information
We do our best to keep your information secure, but we need your help.
Steps we take to keep your
information secure. We
keep your account information on a secured server behind a firewall. When you
enter sensitive information, we encrypt that information using secure socket
layer technology (SSL). We also use automated and social measures to enhance
security, such as analyzing account behavior for fraudulent or otherwise
anomalous behavior, may limit use of site features in response to possible
signs of abuse, may remove inappropriate content or links to illegal content,
and may suspend or disable accounts for violations.
Risks inherent in sharing
information. Although
we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information,
please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We
cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information.
We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We
cannot ensure that information you share on THE NEXT DDS will not become
publicly available. We are not responsible for third-party circumvention of any
privacy settings or security measures on THE NEXT DDS. You can reduce these
risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong
password and using up-to-date antivirus software.
9.
Other Terms
Changes. We may change this Privacy Policy from
time to time in order to improve the service of THE NEXT DDS. Unless stated
otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have
about you and your account. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will
notify you by publication here. If the changes are material, we will provide
you additional, prominent notice as appropriate under the circumstances.
Consent to Collection and Processing
in the United States. By using THE NEXT DDS, you consent to
having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.
Defined Terms. "Us," "we,"
"our," and "THE NEXT DDS" refer to Next Media Group, Inc.
and its website developed for the education of dental students unless otherwise
limited by the context.
Copyright © 2013 Next Media Group, Inc. All rights reserved.