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American Mandarin Society Privacy Policy

Effective date: September 13, 2021

1. General

At the American Mandarin Society, we care about your personal data, so we have prepared this Privacy Policy to explain how we collect, use, and share it.

This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) details the personal data the American Mandarin Society and our related products, services, and courses (“AMS”, “we”, “usorour”) receive about you, how we process it and your rights and obligations in relation to your personal data. AMS is the data controller for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and any relevant local legislation (“Data Protection Laws”). 

By using or accessing the Website or our related products, services, and courses, including the online course Chinese For Effective Professional Engagement, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. We may update our Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we do this and the changes are material, we will post a notice that we have made changes to this Privacy Policy on the Website for at least 7 days before the changes are made, and we will indicate the date these terms were last revised at the bottom of the Privacy Policy. Any revisions to this Privacy Policy will become effective at the end of that 7-day period.

2. U.S. Governing Law

The Website and Course are designed for and target U.S. audiences, and is governed by and operated in accordance with the laws of The United States. We make no representation that the Website or our related products, services, and courses are operated in accordance with the laws or regulations of, or governed by, other nations, and we do not warrant or imply that the Website and Course are appropriate for use outside of the United States. By using the Website or our related products, services, and courses, you certify that you meet the age and other eligibility requirements set forth in our standard Agreement. If you do not meet such age and other eligibility requirements, please discontinue using the Website and Course immediately, as your continued use indicates that you are agreeing to the collection, use, disclosure, management and storage of your information as described in this Policy.

If you are located outside of the United States, you use the Website and our related products, services, and courses at your own risk and initiative, and you are solely responsible for compliance with any applicable local, national and international laws. By using the Website or our related products, services, and courses, and/or providing us with any information, you: (a) consent to the transfer and processing of any information to and in the U.S., (b) acknowledge that U.S. law may provide a lower standard of protection for personal data than the laws of your location, and (c) understand that we will collect, transfer, store, process, manage and/or handle your information in accordance with this Policy and U.S. law. Consequently, to the fullest extent permitted by law, you hereby waive any claims relating to the processing of your information in accordance with this Policy that may arise under the laws and regulations of any other country or jurisdiction.

3. Information We Collect

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and share your personal data. We may, and you authorize us to, use and disclose any information: (1) we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, governmental request or legal process served on us or our affiliates; (2) to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities; (3) to enforce our standard Course Agreement, take precautions against liability, investigate and defend ourselves against any third party claims or allegations, assist government enforcement agencies, or protect the security or integrity of the Website or our related products, services, and courses; (4) to exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Website or our related products, services, and courses, our users, or others; (5) to other companies and organizations for credit fraud protection and risk reduction; and (6) to enforce any agreement we have with you. We also use your personal information for our everyday business purposes such as security, operations, reporting, making back-ups, and legal compliance.

As we develop our business, we may buy or sell assets or business offerings. User, email, and visitor information is generally one of the transferred business assets in these types of transactions. We may also transfer such information in the course of corporate divestitures, mergers, or dissolution (e.g., sales in bankruptcy or liquidation where the business is not continuing as a going concern).

We fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use the Website or our related products, services, and courses for illegal activities. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we in good faith believe to be unlawful, as determined in our sole discretion. Release of your personal information for security purposes to any person or entity under any circumstances, including, without limitation, in connection with any government investigation or litigation, shall be based on a determination made solely by us, exercising our own discretion, permission for which is expressly granted by you to us in accordance with this Policy.

We may also use your contact information to send you email or other communications regarding, among other things, questions related to your accounts, reminders about upcoming events, or to respond to your questions. We may also use this information to let you know about new or special product offerings, features and services, or to notify you about updates to this Policy as described below. We may also share aggregated anonymous information about our users with other third parties. For example, these aggregated statistics may include the number of users we attract to the Website or our related products, services, and courses or an analysis of the various characteristics of our users. None of this aggregated data, however, is tied to you or your organization-specific information when it is disclosed to any third party except as set forth herein. We will also disclose user information when we believe in good faith that such disclosures will help us comply with all applicable laws and other governmental regulations, for example, responding to a court order or subpoena. We will also disclose this information when we determine in good faith that the disclosure will help enforce our standard terms and agreement, protect the safety or security of our users or their data and/or to protect the safety or security of the public, our Website or our related products, services, and courses, business or our other property. Finally we will disclose and transfer personally identifiable, account and other information to a third party who acquires all or a substantial portion of our business in a merger, purchase of all or a substantial portion of our assets or some other transaction. If we become the subject of a bankruptcy proceeding, all of our information may also be transferred in a transaction approved by the bankruptcy court. You will be notified of any such transaction in an email or by a prominent notice posted on the Website.

4. Cookies

When you enter the Website, we collect your browser type and your IP address (a unique address that identifies your computer on the Internet). If accessed from a mobile device, we may collect your device type, your device ID, and your IP address.

In addition, we store certain information from your browser using “cookies.” A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. We use session ID cookies to confirm that users are logged in. If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to deny or accept the cookie feature; however, you should note that cookies may be necessary to provide you certain features available on the Website or our related products, services, and courses.

5. Use of information obtained by AMS

AMS may occasionally send you service related and product change announcements through the general operation of the Website or our related products, services, and courses. We may send you reminder notifications to support the delivery of products, services, and courses. We process your data to help provide you with services and offer personalized features, to understand and improve our service and to keep our service safe and secure. We may also use your contact information to send you notifications regarding new services, offers and promotions offered by AMS if you affirmatively consent to receive such communications.

6. Third party websites and links

Please note that you may have cookies placed on your computer by third party websites that refer you to our service. Although we do not share your personal data with these third party websites unless it is reasonably necessary to offer the service, they may be able to link certain non-personally identifiable information we transfer to them with personal data they previously collected from you. Please review the privacy policies of each website you visit to better understand their privacy practices. In addition, AMS would like to inform you that anytime you click on links (including advertising banners), which take you to third party websites, you will be subject to the third parties’ privacy policies.

Our services may contain links to other sites operated by third parties. AMS does not control such other sites and is not responsible for their content, their privacy policies, or their use of personal data, including any personal or financial information collected by our third party payment processor to process payments for in-app purchases. AMS’s inclusion of such links does not imply any endorsement of the content on such sites or of their owners or operators except as disclosed on the services. Any information submitted by you directly to these third parties is subject to that third party’s privacy policy.

7. California privacy rights

Residents of California have the right to:
o   Know what personal information we collect about you and from where we collect it.
o   Access a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
o   Understand how we process your personal information and how it may be shared.
o   Opt out of having your personal information shared with certain third parties.
To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@mandarinsociety.us.

8. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Policy, the practices of, or your dealings with, the Website or our related products, services, and courses you may contact us at privacy@mandarinsociety.us or by mail to: American Mandarin Society – Privacy, 950 N. Washington St., Ste 316, Alexandria, VA 22314.