Last Updated: 7 February 2018
The Top Energy Consortium (“Top Energy”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) recognizes the importance of privacy. In this Privacy Policy, we describe how we collect, use, and disclose information that we obtain about users of our website topenergytraining.com, related subdomains such as topenergytrain.wpengine.com (collectively, the “Site”); the Top Energy mobile applications (collectively, the “App”); and the services available through our Site or App (the Site, App, and services available through them are, collectively, the “Services”).
By using any of our Services, you agree that any information that we collect from or about you through our Services, including personal information, anonymous information, and aggregate information, will be handled as described in this Privacy Policy.
Your use of our Services, and any dispute over privacy, is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use, including applicable limitations on damages and the resolution of disputes.
Information We Collect
We collect information about you directly from you and automatically through your use of our Services. We may combine information collected from or about you from these various sources.
- Information We Collect Directly From You. We collect information about you directly from you. The information we collect varies depending on your interaction with our Services. For example, if you register to use our Services, we may request your user name, password, payment card information, and billing address. We will also collect any other information that you provide to us through our Services, such as your home address and phone number; your name, email address, and the contents of your message if you contact us through a Site or App; or your responses to survey questions.
- Information We Collect About You from Third Parties. We may collect information about you from third parties, including marketing companies, such as textbook marketing companies.
- Information We Collect Automatically Through Our Site. We automatically collect information about you through your use of our Services, including without limitation, your Internet protocol (IP) address, the type of browser you are using, domain name, the website or application that led you to our Services, the website or application to which you go after leaving our Services, the dates and times you access our Services; the device you are using; operating system; unique device identifier; preferred language; and mobile network information. We may combine this with other information that we collect about you. Please see our Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms section below for more information.
How We Use Your Information
We may use your information, including personal information, for the following purposes:
- Providing and Improving Our Services. To provide and maintain our Services; to improve our Services; to develop new features, products, or services; to authenticate users; to process payments; to fulfill user orders and requests; to perform technical operations, such as updating software; and for other customer service and support purposes.
- Marketing and Communications. To communicate with you about your account and use of our Services, including to send you product or service updates; to respond to your inquiries; to provide you with news and newsletters, special offers, promotions, and other information we think may interest you; and for other informational, marketing, or promotional purposes. Our communications with you may include communications via email and push notification. Please see our section regarding Your Choices for more information about how to change your email or push notification preferences.
- Research and Analytics. To analyze how you interact with our Services; to monitor and analyze usage and activity trends; and for other research, analytical, and statistical purposes.
- Protecting Rights and Interests. To protect the safety, rights, property, or security of Disco, the Services, any third party, or the general public; to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; to prevent or stop activity that Disco, in its sole discretion, may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, an illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity; to use as evidence in litigation; and to enforce this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.
- Legal Compliance. To comply with applicable legal or regulatory obligations, including as part of a judicial proceeding; to respond to a subpoena, warrant, court order, or other legal process; or as part of an investigation or request, whether formal or informal, from law enforcement or a governmental authority.
How We Disclose Your Information
We may disclose your information, including personal information, as described in this Privacy Policy or as described to you at the time of collection or disclosure. We may disclose your information, including personal information, to the following entities:
- Affiliates. We may disclose your information to current or future affiliates or subsidiaries for research, marketing, and other purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy.
- Service Providers. We may disclose your information to our vendors, service providers, agents, or others who perform functions on our behalf. For example, we may disclose your information to service providers to process payments on our behalf.
We may also disclose your information, including personal information, in the following ways:
- Business Transfers. We may disclose your information to another entity in connection with, including during negotiations of, an acquisition or merger, sale or transfer of a business unit or assets, bankruptcy proceeding, or as part of any other similar business transfer.
- Protecting Rights and Interests. We may disclose your information to protect the safety, rights, property, or security of Disco, the Services, any third party, or the general public; to detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; to prevent or stop activity which Disco, in its sole discretion, may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, an illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity; to use as evidence in litigation; and to enforce this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.
- Legal Compliance. We may disclose your information to comply with applicable legal or regulatory obligations, including as part of a judicial proceeding; in response to a subpoena, warrant, court order, or other legal process; or as part of an investigation or request, whether formal or informal, from law enforcement or a government official.
- Aggregate and De-Identified Information. We may disclose aggregate, anonymous, or de-identified information about users for marketing, advertising, research, compliance, or other purposes.
Cookies and Other Tracking Mechanisms
We and our service providers use cookies and other tracking mechanisms to track information about your use of our Services. We or our service providers may combine this information with other information, including personal information, we collect about you.
For example, we or our service providers may use cookies to track visitor activity on our Site. A cookie is a text file that a website transfers to your computer’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes. We or our service providers may use cookies to track user activities on our Site, such as the pages visited and time spent on our Site. Most browsers allow users to refuse cookies. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your computer from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Visitors to our Site who disable cookies may not be able to browse certain areas of the Site.
We may also use clear GIFs, pixel tags, and other technologies. Clear GIFs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on your computer’s hard drive, clear GIFs are embedded invisibly on web pages. We may use clear GIFs (also known as web beacons, web bugs or pixel tags), in connection with our Site to, among other things, track the activities of Site visitors, help us manage content, and compile statistics about Site usage. We and our third party service providers also use clear GIFs in HTML emails to our customers, to help us track email response rates, identify when our emails are viewed, and track whether our emails are forwarded.
Third-Party Analytics
We may use third-party analytics companies, such as Google Analytics, to evaluate use of our Services. We or our service providers use these tools to help us understand use of, and to improve, our Services, performance, and user experiences. These entities may use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as web beacons or local storage objects (LSOs), to perform their services.
Do Not Track Disclosure
Our Services do not respond to Do Not Track signals. For more information about Do Not Track signals, please click here.
Third-Party Links
Our Services may contain links to third-party websites and applications. Any access to and use of such linked websites and applications is not governed by this Privacy Policy but instead is governed by the privacy policies of those third parties. We are not responsible for the information practices of such third-party websites or applications.
Interest-Based Advertising
We use third parties such as network advertisers to serve advertisements on our Site and on third-party websites or other media (e.g., social networking platforms). This enables us and these third parties to target advertisements to you for products and services in which you might be interested. Third-party ad network providers, advertisers, sponsors, and/or traffic measurement services may use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (including clear GIFs), Flash LSOs, and other tracking technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content to you. These third-party cookies and other technologies are governed by each third party’s specific privacy policy, not this one. We may provide these third-party advertisers with information, including personal information, about you.
Users in the United States may opt out of many third-party ad networks. For example, you may go to the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) Consumer Choice Page for information about opting out of interest-based advertising and your choices regarding having information used by DAA companies. You may also go to the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) Consumer Opt-Out Page for information about opting out of interest-based advertising and your choices regarding having information used by NAI members.
Opting out from one or more companies listed on the DAA Consumer Choice Page or the NAI Consumer Opt-Out Page will opt you out from those companies’ delivery of interest-based content or ads to you, but it does not mean you will no longer receive any advertising through our Site or on other websites. You may continue to receive advertisements, for example, based on the particular website that you are viewing (i.e., contextually based ads). Also, if your browsers are configured to reject cookies when you opt out on the DAA or NAI websites, your opt out may not be effective. Additional information is available on the DAA’s website at www.aboutads.info or the NAI’s website at www.networkadvertising.org.
Security
We have taken steps to help protect the personal information we collect. However, no data security measures can guarantee 100% security. You should take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your device and account by, among other things, choosing a robust password that nobody else knows or can easily guess and keeping your log-in information private. We are not responsible for any lost, stolen, or compromised passwords or for any activity on your account via unauthorized password activity.
Your Choices
- Accessing or Correcting Your Personal Information. You may access, modify, or delete the personal information that you have provided to us by logging into your profile settings or emailing us at [email protected] with what you would like updated. Please note that we may retain certain information about you as required by law or as permitted by law for legitimate business purposes. For example, if you request that we delete your information but we believe that you have violated our Terms of Use we may retain information about you in order to attempt to resolve the issue before deleting it.
- Opting Out of Emails. We may send periodic promotional emails to you. You may opt out of such communications by following the opt-out instructions contained in the email. Please note that it may take up to ten (10) business days for us to process opt-out requests. If you opt out of receiving emails about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still send you emails about your account or any Services you have requested or received from us.
- Opting Out of Push Notifications. If you download our App, we may send you push notifications. You may opt out of receiving push notifications by updating the push notification settings on your device.
Children
Our Services are not targeted to children under thirteen (13) years of age and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will promptly delete such personal information from our systems.
Responsibilities Under FERPA
Occasionally, an educational agency or institution may provide to Top Energy information protected under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 U.S.C. § 1232g (a)(4)(A); 34 CFR § 99.3). Top Energy accepts this information in order to offer educational services to students and educational institutions. We accept the minimum amount of personally identifiable information (PII) in order to provide our Services. Protected individuals are not required to provide written informed consent for the disclosure of certain Directory Information to third-party providers such as Top Energy. Top Energy accepts information from students and educational institutions limited to directory information excepted from the requirements of FERPA with the understanding that parents and eligible students are aware of the release of their information for the purposes of third parties’ providing educational services.
Top Energy remains committed to the right of protected individuals to control their data by “opting out” of educational services provided by us. Any user of our Services may at any time contact [email protected] to access, to amend, and to destroy information. The other provisions of this Policy apply to the use of our services and the collection of data and information. Parents or eligible students may seek more information about FERPA or the Directory Information Exception by visiting the Privacy Technical Assistance Center online at studentprivacy.ed.gov.
Contact Us
If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or the privacy aspects of our Services, please contact us at:
The Top Energy Consortium
Center for Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering
Cockrell School of Engineering
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station, C0304
Austin, Texas 78712
Changes to this Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy is current as of the Effective Date set forth above. We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, so please be sure to check back periodically. We will post any changes, including any material changes, to this Privacy Policy on our Site.
