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

Vertibrae understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our members. Your Vertibrae Account Information is password-protected for your privacy and security. Vertibrae will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to anyone.

Information We Collect from Unregistered Visitors
Visitors to each of our web sites can access the web site'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 web site 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. On most of our sites, you must register with us to view the entire site. We sometimes use this information to communicate with you, such as to notify you when you have won one of our contests or when we make changes to our subscriber agreements, to fulfill a request by you for an online newsletter, or to contact you about your account with us.

Information We Collect When You Register
Members registering for services on our web sites are asked to provide us with identifying information, such as name, contact information, health professional certification 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 you want to receive periodic emails. Vertibrae web sites ask for the member's consent before collecting personally identifiable information.

We may also 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
Vertibrae may set and access Vertibrae cookies on your computer. Cookies are a technology used by the Vertibrae web sites to identify a user as the user moves through the web site. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer's hard drive that identifies the computer you are using. We may use cookies to personalize our web sites and to track your usage across all of our web sites.

Your web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or be notified each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, web sites that are cookie enabled will not recognize you when you return to the web site, and some web site 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 web site places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. For example, in the future you may be able to elect to have our web sites "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 ask to use cookies on our site. We have told them that we do not want them to use cookie information to track our members' activities once they leave our sites. However, we do not have total control over how sponsors use cookies on our web site. If you become aware that a Vertibrae sponsor is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact Vertibrae to assist us in resolving the problem.

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. Vertibrae sites sometimes may offer contests, sweepstakes, or promotions that are sponsored by or co-sponsored with identified third parties. By virtue of their sponsorship, these third parties may obtain personally identifiable information that visitors voluntarily submit to participate in the contest, sweepstakes, or promotion. Vertibrae has no control over the third-party sponsors' use of this information. The Vertibrae site will notify you at the time of requesting personally identifiable information if third-party sponsors will obtain such information. Agents and contractors of Vertibrae who have access to personally identifiable information are obligated to protect this information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy by, for example, not using the information for any purpose other than to carry out the services they are performing for Vertibrae.

Aggregate Data
We create aggregate data about visitors to our web sites for product development and improvement activities. We also use it for market analysis. We may provide information from our web sites 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 resides in a particular geographical area, or we may provide information to a potential sponsor about what percentage of our users view specific information. When aggregated health information is provided, we pool it from many individual records, and before it is used we strip it of any data that could be used to identify an individual. We require any third party that receives aggregate health care data to agree not to attempt to re-identify the people it belongs to. Depending on our agreement with the third parties, we may or may not charge for this information.

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 web sites. 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 you can decide whether to give them any information.


• Companies and People Who Work for Us: We often contract with other companies and individuals to help us provide services. For example, we may host some of our web sites on another company's computers, hire technical consultants to maintain our web-based tools, or work with companies to remove repetitive information from member lists, analyze data, provide marketing assistance, and provide customer service. In addition, we reserve the right to 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 agree 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 members on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. We will 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 members to receive an email from another business, and we will make clear that by opting in you are submitting your data to a third party. You can elect not to 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 web site) to another company, we will require them to honor the applicable terms of this privacy policy.


• Legal Requirements: We may release personal information when we believe release is required to comply with law.

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

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

Other than as described above, Vertibrae will not release personally identifiable information to a third party without the member's consent.

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.

Vertibrae 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. Vertibrae uses both passwords and usernames to authenticate users. Users are responsible for maintaining their own passwords.

Our data center is physically secure and protected from unauthorized access by unauthorized persons. Physical access to the servers requires individual authorization and authentication.

Privacy Questions or Concerns about Any of Our Web Sites
For privacy questions or concerns about any of Vertibrae's web sites, please contact us by email at info@vertibrae.com or by postal mail at:

Vertibrae, Inc.
Privacy Officer
532 Broadway
9th floor
New York, NY 10012

Our Commitment to Security
We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online.

How You can Access or Correct Information
For information on how you can correct or change the personally identifiable information that this Vertibrae site has collected about you online, please contact webmaster@vertibrae.com

To protect your privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to help verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

Last updated February 9, 2001