(Effective 4/5/2011)
The California Medical Association (CMA) is strongly committed to protecting the privacy of its user community. The intent of this Privacy Policy is to detail the information that may be gathered about individuals who visit the CMA website (the Website), how that information is used and disclosure practices. Please note that this policy applies only to the Website, and not to the Websites of other unrelated companies or organizations to which we provide links or to any software that may be downloaded from this Website.
From time to time, we may amend this Privacy Policy by posting it to the Website and changing the date on this page noting when it was last updated. Your continued use of the Website following the posting of any changes shall constitute your acceptance of the revised Privacy Policy.
What Information Do We Collect About You? We collect two types of information: (1) non-personally identifiable information (Non-PII) for everyone who visits our Website; and (2) personally identifiable information (PII) for registered users and everyone who purchases or requests products, services, information or resources.
- Non-PII. Website Usage Information. Cookies, IP Addresses and Logs. We employ "cookies" to collect information about you and your usage of the Website. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your computer and collects information about how you use our Website. We also gather information about your individual use of our services, such as types of data accessed, times and volume of use, duration of sessions and other similar usage or system data. If you are not logged into our Website but are browsing the Website's public areas, we log IP addresses and domain names. We cannot use this technical Non-PII to identify you personally.
- PII. For all registered users and everyone who purchases or requests products, services, information or resources, PII includes information provided to CMA by you, including your contact information (such as name, address, zip code, email address, telephone number, facsimile number) and payment information (such as credit card number, expiration date, name printed on credit card, billing address and credit card security code). For registered users with Members Only Access, PII also includes information provided to CMA by you or your county medical society as part of the membership application or renewal process, or by the California Medical Board, including your demographic information (such as education, specialty, mode of practice and similar information).
How Do We Use Your Information?
- Non-PII. Non-PII is aggregated for system administration and to monitor usage of the Website. It is utilized to measure the number of visits to our Website, average time spent, number of pages viewed and to monitor various other Website statistics. This monitoring helps us evaluate how visitors use and navigate our Website so we can improve the content.
- PII. We use PII to provide information you request, register you for our services, or contact you when requested. We may use PII about you as a customer, former customer or user of the Website to develop and inform you about products, services, information or resources that we believe may be of benefit or interest to you or to help provide you with better service.
How Do We Share Your Information?
Disclosure of Your PII to Third-Parties. Except as provided below, we do not share your PII with non-affiliated third parties without your permission.
- We may disclose your PII in connection with the sale, assignment, or other transfer of the business or a portion of the business of our site, including a corporate merger, consolidation, restructuring, sale of assets or other corporate change of our direct or indirect parent companies that affects us.
- We may need to release your PII when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a criminal investigation, a court order, or legal process served on our Website. We may also share your personal information if we believe it is necessary in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of the Terms and Conditions of Use, or as otherwise required by law.
- Service Providers: We also may disclose information to outside companies that help us bring you the products, services, information and resources we offer. For example, we may work with an outside company to: (a) manage a database of customer information; (b) assist us in distributing e-mails; (c) assist us with direct marketing and data collection; (d) provide us storage and analysis; (e) provide fraud prevention; and (f) other services designed to assist us in maximizing our business potential. We require that these outside companies agree to keep confidential all information we share with them and to use the information only to perform their obligations in the agreements.
- Business Affiliates: CMA may disclose your PII to business affiliates, subsidiaries or affinity partners who may offer you products, services, information or resources that we believe may be of benefit or interest to you
For Registered Users with Members Only Access: CMA shares your PII with your corresponding county medical society as part of and to facilitate your dual membership with that entity and CMA. CMA may also share your PII, individually, categorically or as part of CMA’s membership list, with its business affiliates, subsidiaries or affinity partners.
Permission: In addition, we may disclose or sell your PII to third-parties with your permission.
How Do I Opt-Out? We desire to keep you in control of the PII you provide. Accordingly, you can review, correct, change, remove or restrict the use or sharing of the PII you provide to CMA. In order to do so, or to elect not to receive future communications from CMA, please email with your specific request.
How Is My Information Protected? We take reasonable steps to protect the confidentiality of your PII, including physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards as required by law. We continually review our security procedures and mechanisms to ensure that reasonable protections are in place.
Links To Other Sites. The Website may contain links to third-party sites that are not under our control. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of such third-party sites or your use of the same.
Your California Rights. Under California law (Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code) residents of California have the right to request from a business, with whom the California resident has an established business relationship, certain specific information with respect to the types of personal information the business shares with third parties for direct marketing purposes by such third party and the identities of the third parties with whom the business has shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year.
To obtain this information from CMA, please contact our Member Services Department by: (1) using the contact us form on the website; (2) calling 800-786-4262 Monday through Friday 9am - 5pm PT; or (3) writing to CMA, 1201 J Street, Suite 200, Attn: Member Services, Sacramento, CA 95814. You must provide a current California address for our response. Please note that not all information sharing is covered by the "Shine the Light" law, and we will only include in our response information relating to our sharing practices for covered information.