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Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Wells Media Group, Inc. (“Wells Media”) is a business-to-business media company with a focus on the property/casualty insurance industry. We report news, provide access to resources and foster communities to inform and connect our audiences.

You may know us better by one of our brands: Insurance Journal, Carrier Management, Claims Journal, MyNewMarkets.com, or Academy of Insurance.

Introduction

Wells Media provides this Privacy Policy to communicate to you how we collect, use, maintain, protect and disclose information that we collect from or about you in conjunction with your access to and use of our Services.

This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect from all sources, including in connection with our websites, mobile sites, applications (“apps”), widgets, conferences, events, social media accounts, and electronic newsletters or communications (collectively the “Services”) that link to this Privacy Policy.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Services.

By using any Wells Media Services, you acknowledge you have read and accept this Privacy Policy.

This policy may change from time to time (see Updates). Your continued use of Services after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

If you wish to change any of the information that we maintain about you or wish to update preferences, you can do so at any time through your account or by contacting customer service.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we or our service providers handle your personal information, please contact privacy@wellsmedia.com.

For the purposes of the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”), the data controller is Wells Media Group, Inc., a California corporation, with principal place of business at 3570 Camino del Rio N., Suite 100, San Diego, CA 92108.

Information We Collect

This section details the information we may collect about you. We explain why, and how, we use it in later sections.

Information you provide to us:

We collect information when you submit it to us, such as when you fill in a form on our websites, create an account, subscribe to our email newsletters or magazines or text alerts, register for a report or webinar, make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase, set preferences or choose interest categories, enter a contest, promotion or survey, vote in polls or otherwise express an opinion. The information you submit may include basic personal details (such as name, title, city), contact details (such as home or business or delivery address, phone, email address), work details (such as job title, department, company name, address, phone), log in details (such as username, password), payment details (such as credit card information).

When you contact us via the Services or otherwise (such as such as by telephone or by email), you may provide certain personal data about yourself including basic personal details (such as name, title, city), contact details (such as home or business or delivery address, phone, email address), work details (such as job title, department, company name, address, phone) which will be stored by us.

When you use social media services. You can also create an account on our websites and subscribe to our services using your social media profile. If you select this option, we will automatically collect selected personal data about you from your social media account. The personal data we collect depends on your social media privacy settings for sharing such personal data, and may include name, profile picture, age range, gender, language, country and other public information.

Information that is collected automatically:

We may automatically collect various types of information about you, your computer or other device used to access our Services. This automatically collected information may include: network or IP address, information about your web browser (such as Chrome,

Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer), the type of operating system you are using, (such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS), the name of your Internet service provider (such as Comcast, Verizon, AT&T), device identifiers (such as an Apple IDFA or an Android Advertising ID), device settings, browser settings, the type of mobile device used to view the Service (such as iOS, Android), location information, individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to our Services, and information about how you interact with our Services, email open and click activity, the content and advertisements you have accessed, seen, forwarded and/or clicked on, type of ads seen, number of times ads were served, pages where the ads were served, etc.

What we collect can depend on the individual settings of your device and software. We recommend checking the policies of your device manufacturer or software provider to learn what information they make available to us.

We use cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies across our Services to collect information about you. We use GeoLite2 Data created by MaxMind, available from https://www.maxmind.com. This information can be used to improve the performance of our Services, make advertising more relevant and enhance your user experience. Please refer to our Cookie Policy for more information.

When you visit our websites, third parties (such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn) may place cookies on your browsers for targeted advertising purposes.

Information we obtain from partners and public sources:

In some circumstances, we collect information about you from our partners, social media services or from other commercially or publicly available sources. We may combine this information with other information we receive from or about you. We use this information to help us better understand our audience individually and in aggregate and to enhance the relevance of our content and advertising.

For example, in some cases we may get information such as job title and company name from social media services to help us better understand our audience and target advertising and marketing communications.

How We Use Your Information

Most of the time we use your personal data it is anonymized and used in aggregate. For example, to create demographic reports about our readers, to report how many persons viewed a web page or specific advertising.

Some common examples of how we use your personal information individually are: to process your order, to deliver a subscription you requested, to send you electronic newsletters you requested, to respond to your inquiry or feedback, to use your demographics or usage of our websites to serve you targeted advertising or communicate relevant offers that may be of interest to you or using web logs and web tracking to troubleshoot an issue with our Services.

To provide, maintain, and support the Services.

We require some of your personal information, so our Services can work as you would expect, for example, delivering a magazine to your correct address or sending you electronic newsletters you have subscribed to.

To contact you.

To communicate with you about the Services or your account with us, including responding to your comments, inquiries or requests.

To communicate with you about other products, programs or services that we believe may be of interest to you.

We may contact you to notify you of new Wells Media products and services, new features, news stories, special offers, partner offers, events, or other relevant information that may be of interest to you. You may also receive mailings or other communications from carefully selected partners, such as our referral partners or our customer satisfaction surveyors. We offer you the option to decline any or all of these marketing communications by following the directions included in our emails or other communications, or by contacting Wells Media directly.

To better understand our readers and users.

We use web tracking and analytics combined with third-party data to report demographics, interests and behaviors of our readers and users. For example, to report what content is most popular among our readers and users. This helps us better understand and serve our users, and to improve our products and services.

For the purpose of advertising.

We rely on advertising revenue to support our award-winning journalism. We need to process your information to understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant personalized advertising.

To deliver targeted advertising.

We may use any information we collect from and about you to assist us in delivering ads about products and services personalized to your individual interests. We may work

with third party online advertising companies, advertisers and ad networks who help deliver these ads to you. These third parties may collect and use information about your activities on Wells Media Services and on other websites, and other information about you, to limit the online ads you encounter to those we believe are consistent with your interests. To learn how to opt-out, please follow the instructions.

To protect our rights and the rights of others.

We may use your information as part of our efforts to keep the Services safe and secure. For example, to prevent abuse of our Services, fraud or potentially illegal activities. And to protect or defend our rights or the rights or well-being of our employees, users or others or if you are involved.

Consent.

We may use your information with your consent or at your direction.

How We Share Your Information

Insurance Journal may disclose your information that we collect or that you provide to us:

Other Wells Media Group Brands

We may share your information with members of the Wells Media group of products including websites and printed products, such as: Insurance Journal, Carrier Management, Claims Journal, MyNewMarkets.com, or Academy of Insurance and products related to these brands.

When you consent, agree or direct us to share

You may authorize us to disclose your information to others, such as when you register for a webinar from one of our advertisers.

Service providers

We engage service providers who help to support our business and improve our products. These service providers include, for example, mail houses for the distribution of our printed products; fulfilment vendors for delivery of our digital content and marketing; customer service agencies; hosts, organizers and sponsors of our events; organizations that host our Services or databases; and providers of online surveys and analytics. We have agreements in place with these data processors and they can only use your personal information under our instruction. For example, if you have a print subscription with us, we will disclose your information (address, contact details) to our distribution partners to facilitate delivery of our magazines.

Advertisers

We, and our advertising partners, use cookies to collect personal information and serve you with advertisements that we believe are relevant to you and your interests. These are known as personalized, or targeted, ads. There is more specific information about our advertising partners and data sharing in our Cookie Policy.

Social media providers

We may share information with social media platforms when you log in to our Services via a social media account or use components on our sites provided by social media platforms (such as the “Facebook Recommend” function). We may also share the information of our subscribers with social media partners for the following reasons:

  • To prevent existing subscribers from being targeted with subscription offerings on social media platforms.
  • To create lookalike audiences for the purposes of targeted advertising on social media platforms.
  • To encourage users to get the most out of their subscription.
Other users

Our sites are publicly accessible and anyone around the world who accesses our sites will be able to see anything you post to public areas of our websites, such as comments about an article or our forums.

Compliance with law, and protection of yours or our rights

To comply with legal or regulatory requirements or obligations in accordance with applicable law or court order, and otherwise as we believe is necessary or appropriate to satisfy any law, regulation or other governmental request, to operate our web site properly, or to protect or defend our rights or the rights or well-being of our employees, users or others or if you are involved (or are suspected by governmental authorities or our security functions to be involved) in any illegal activity, even without a subpoena, warrant or court order; or in case of emergency such as to safeguard the life, health, or property of an individual.

Successors in title

If Wells Media undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer or share all or part of our assets, including your information, in connection with such transaction, or in preparation for or contemplation of such transaction (for example, due diligence).

How We Retain and Protect Your Information

We continuously implement and update appropriate technical and organizational measures to help protect personal information under our control against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized access, loss, use, disclosure or alteration. Some of the safeguards we use to protect your personal data are firewalls, data encryption, and information access controls. However, no one can fully guarantee absolute data security. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us in accordance with the “Contact Us” section below.

We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law.

Your Rights and Choices

As our user, you have the right to be informed about how your data is collected and used. You are entitled to know what data we collect about you, and how it is processed. You are entitled to correct and update any personal information about you, and to request this information be deleted. You may amend your account information at any time, using the tools provided in your account control panel or by contacting us.

Please contact us if you have any concerns or questions about how we handle your data and personal information (see “Contact Us” below).

Tracking Technologies and Advertising.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when cookies are being sent. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this site may then be inaccessible or not function properly.

Targeted Advertising.

As described above, we use your personal information to provide you with targeted advertisements or marketing communications we believe may be of interest to you. For more information about how targeted advertising works, you can visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s (“NAI”) educational page.

You can opt out of seeing personalized or interest-based ads using the NAI opt out tool here www.networkadvertising.org/choices and the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) opt out tool here optout.aboutads.info. Please note you will still see ads even if you opt out, but they will not be personalized. You can also opt out of interest-based Google ads using Google’s Ads Settings. You can opt out of interest-based Facebook ads using Facebook’s Ads Settings. You can opt out of interest-based Twitter ads using Twitter’s Personalization and Data Settings.

Disclosure of your information for third-party advertising.

If you do not want us to share your personal information with unaffiliated or non-agent third parties for promotional purposes, you can opt-out by checking the relevant box located on the form on which we collect your data.

Promotional offers from Wells Media.

If you do not wish to have your e-mail address/contact information used by Wells Media to promote our own or third parties’ products or services, you can opt-out by using the following the directions included in our emails or other communications, or by contacting Wells Media directly. If we have sent you a promotional email, you may send us a return email asking to be omitted from future email distributions, or by using the unsubscribe link in the email. We may continue to send you notifications such as receipts or other transactional emails.

California Privacy Rights

California law permits users and customers who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information, if any, for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those third parties. See the “Contact Us” section below for where to send such requests.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) Notice

For California Residents Only

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, California residents have specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes Californians’ rights and explains how California residents can exercise those rights.

The intentions of the CCPA are to provide California residents with the right to:

  • Know what personal data is being collected about them.
  • Know whether their personal data is sold or disclosed and to whom.
  • Say no to the sale of personal data.
  • Access their personal data.
  • Request a business to delete any personal information about a consumer collected from that consumer.
  • Not be discriminated against for exercising their privacy rights.
Exercising Your CCPA Data Protection Rights

If you are a resident of California and would like to exercise these rights, we ask you to provide sufficient information to verify your identity. You may exercise these rights by calling us at 800-897-9965 x129 to submit a request, or by using the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” page on this site.

Your Rights Under the GDPR

EEA residents may exercise any of the rights described in this section by using the applicable functionality in our Services or by contacting us directly. If you reside outside of the European Union, you may have similar rights under your local laws.

You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of personal data or restriction of processing. You may exercise these rights at (Own Your Personal Data) or by contacting us directly.

Please note that we may ask you to verify your identity before acting on your request.

The GDPR provides the following rights for individuals:
  • The right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data.
  • The right to access their personal data.
  • The right to have inaccurate personal data rectified or completed if it is incomplete.
  • The right to have personal data erased.
  • The right to request the restriction or suppression of their personal data
  • The right to data portability, to retain and reuse their personal data for their own purpose.
  • The right to object to the processing of their personal data.
  • Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling.
Lawful basis for processing

We use your personal data according to the terms of the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of our use. We will process your personal data where:

  • you have provided your consent which can be withdrawn at any time;
  • where the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to perform services you have requested;
  • where we are required by law;
  • where processing is required to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
  • where the processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate commercial interests, except where such interests are overridden by your rights and interests.

Other Important Information

Updates to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time in order to reflect, for example, changes to our practices or for other operational, legal or regulatory reasons.

Updated versions will be posted to our web site and date stamped so that you are always aware when the Privacy Policy was last updated.

By using any Wells Media Services, you acknowledge you have read and accept this Privacy Policy.

Cookies

“Cookies” are pieces of information that may be placed on your computer by a service for the purpose of facilitating and enhancing your communication and interaction with that service. Many services use cookies for these purposes. We may use cookies (and similar items such as clear gifs, web beacons, tags, etc.) on our Services to customize your preferences, to customize content, to serve you targeted advertising, and for other purposes to make your visit more convenient or to enable us to understand how our Services are used. We may also use and place cookies (and similar items) on your computer from our third party service providers in connection with the Services, such as an analytics provider that helps us manage and analyze usage of our Services. In addition, our advertisers and business partners may set cookies and similar items on your computer when you use our Services. You may stop or restrict the placement of cookies on your computer or flush them from your browser by adjusting your web browser preferences, in which case you may still use our Services, but it may interfere with some of its functionality. Cookies and similar items are not used by us to automatically retrieve personally identifiable information from your computer without your knowledge. If you delete your cookies, change browsers or use a different cookie, our cookie (or an opt-out cookie) may no longer work and you will have to reinput (or opt-out) again.

Embedded content from other websites.

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website

Children

Our Services are not intended for children under 16 years of age. Wells Media does not knowingly target advertising to, or collect information from minors; however, we cannot always determine the age of persons who access and use our Services. If a child under 16 years of age provides us with his/her data without parental or guardian consent, we encourage the parent or guardian to contact us to have this information removed and to unsubscribe the minor from any future Wells Media marketing communications.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or complaints about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at: privacy@wellsmedia.com

Terry Freeburg, CFO
Wells Media Group, Inc.
3570 Camino del Rio N Ste 100
San Diego, CA 92108

Telephone: (619) 584-1100 x129
US Toll Free: (800) 897-9965 x129
Fax: (619) 584-1200 privacy@wellsmedia.com

Updated July 13, 2020