Privacy Policy Outline
This privacy policy describes MICPA’s current policies and practices with regard to personal data collected by MICPA through its websites, conestogasteaks.com, leadersedge.conestogasteaks.com, and businessedge.conestogasteaks.com (hereinafter referred to collectively as “MICPA’s websites”). This privacy policy is independent from MICPA’s offline personal data collection practices. The term “personal data” refers to personally identifiable information about you, such as your name, birth date, email address or mailing address and any other information that is identified with you personally. Please read this privacy policy carefully. By continuing to interact with MICPA’s websites, you are consenting to the practices described in this privacy policy.
Notification of Changes to This Policy
The MICPA is continually improving and adding new functionality and features to its websites and improving and adding to our existing products, services and programs. Because of these ongoing changes, changes in the law, and the changing nature of technology, MICPA’s data practices will change from time to time. If our data practices change, MICPA will post the changes on our web sites to notify you of the changes. We encourage you to check this page frequently. This policy was last updated on July 20, 2020.
Personal Data Collected Through MICPA’s Websites
Other than cookies, as described below, the only personal data MICPA currently collects through its websites is the information you voluntarily give us when you use our sites.
For example, you may use this site to contact MICPA with questions and comments. When you fill out a form on our websites, you may provide your name and other contact information, including your company’s name, your email address and your mailing address or the mailing address of your company or other personal information. When you submit information, purchase products or register for events through conestogasteaks.com, you will receive a confirmation email to the address we have on file. When you use our websites to search for information you are not providing us with any personal information. The MICPA does not collect or retain any identifying information about you when you use the search features.
Use of Personal Data Collected Through MICPA’s Websites
The MICPA uses the personal information you provide to answer your question or resolve your problem. The MICPA uses this information to help us improve the content and functionality of our websites, to better understand our customers and markets and, where appropriate our affiliates, to improve our products and services. The MICPA may use this information to contact you in the future to tell you about products or services we believe will be of interest to you. If we do so, each communication we send you will contain instructions permitting you to “opt-out” of receiving future communications.
Similarly, we may provide “subscription” email services, which enable you to receive current news impacting the CPA profession or the latest course offerings. For all such services, we will provide an opportunity to “opt-out” of, or cancel, the subscription.
Anonymous Data Collected Through MICPA’s Websites
In addition to the information you provide when you use our websites, MICPA uses technology to collect anonymous information about the use of our websites. For example, we use technology to track how many visitors access our websites, the date and time of their visit, the length of their stay, and which pages they view. We also use technology to determine which web browsers our visitors use and the address from which they accessed our sites (for example, if they connected to a MICPA website by clicking on one of our banner ads).
This technology does not identify you personally. It simply enables us to compile statistics about our visitors and their use of our sites. The MICPA and our affiliates use this anonymous data to improve the content and functionality of our websites, to better understand our customers and markets, and to improve our products and services.
Disclosure of Your Personal Data
The MICPA may share some or all the personal data collected through this website with our affiliates, who use this data in accordance with this Privacy Policy. The MICPA may, on a limited basis, share personal data collected through its websites with affiliates who act for or on behalf of the MICPA (for example, companies that provide support services to us like insurance, or that help us market our products and services). These companies may need information about you in order to perform their functions. These companies are not authorized to use the information we share with them for any other purpose. In addition, there may be some other, limited circumstances in which MICPA may share or transfer the personal data in our databases, for example, to comply with a legal requirement or for the administration of justice.
While no method of data transmission is guaranteed against unlawful third-party interception or other misuse, MICPA uses commercially reasonable efforts to ensure protection of your data including industry-standard encryption and offline security methods in our physical facilities.
MICPA works with third party vendors to provide a more customized experience for you. To do so, we disclose personally identifiable information about you (specifically, your name and email address) to those vendors, though we do not allow them to re-sell or use that information for their own purposes.
Link to Other Sites
The MICPA’s websites contain hyperlinks to other sites that are not operated by MICPA. These hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only and do not imply any endorsement of the activities of these third-party web sites or any association with their operators. The MICPA does not control these websites and is not responsible for their data practices. We urge you to review the privacy policy posted on any site you visit before using the site or providing any personal data about yourself.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Compliance and Related Information.
The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) regulates online collection of information from persons under the age of 13. It is our policy to refrain from knowingly collecting or maintaining personal information relating to any person under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, please do not supply any personal information through MICPA’s websites. If you are under the age of 18 and have already provided personal information through MICPA’s websites, please have your parent or guardian contact us immediately using the information provided at the end of this privacy policy so that we can remove such information from our files.
Cookies and Web Beacons
By continuing to use MICPA’s websites, you are agreeing to our placing cookies and/or web beacons on your computer in order to analyze the way you use MICPA’s websites. Please read this cookie policy carefully for more details about the information we collect when you use MICPA’s websites.
In order to help enhance the performance and functionality of MICPA’s websites, we utilize session, persistent and third-party “cookies” that store a small piece of data on a users’ computers and collect certain information about the users’ visit to MICPA’s websites. We also use cookies to understand users’ browsing and buying activities so that we can measure the success of online advertising campaigns we run on MICPA’s websites. MICPA’s websites also use web beacons (either directly or from our partners), along with cookies, to determine if a user has visited a website. These beacons aid in providing more relevant advertising to the user, as well measuring the success of an advertising campaign.
Cookies are small text files that web servers typically send to users’ computer when they visit a website. Cookies are stored as text files on users’ hard drive and can be accessed by web servers when the user visits a website or views an advertisement. A session cookie is a cookie that stores information as a user is using MICPA’s websites but is deleted once the browser session is finished. A persistent cookie is a cookie that stores information as a user utilizes MICPA’s websites and stores and uses that information in connection with future visits of the user to MICPA’s websites. Third-party cookies and/or web beacons are cookies or web beacons provided by our technology and/or advertising partners. Any third-party cookie or web beacon that we authorize for use on MICPA’s websites only collects that information described below for the same stated purposes as if we were directly collecting the information. For a third-party cookie or web beacon, the third-party will have access to the collected information in order to provide us with information or services to enhance the performance and functionality of MICPA’s websites. Essential cookies perform activities that are strictly necessary to help MICPA’s websites function or help with the transmission of a communication. Non-essential cookies perform activities that are not strictly necessary to help site functionality and include functionality/personalization cookies, performance and analytics cookies, and advertising and targeting cookies.
The cookies and web beacons we use collect non-personally identifiable information about users of MICPA’s websites, including: browser used to access the site, date and time, the URL of the page being loaded, users who have visited a particular website(s), any previously assigned cookie identification (a unique identifier assigned to a user to identify repeat visitors), browser window size, the geographic location of the user, device and operating system used to access MICPA’s websites. The information we collect from these cookies and web beacons is used to determine information about a user’s visit to MICPA’s websites, including the number of visits, average time spent, pages viewed, navigation history through the website, and other statistics. This information is used to enhance the users experience while visiting MICPA’s websites and to improve the performance of MICPA’s websites by, among other things, allowing us to monitor website performance, making MICPA’s websites easier to use, measuring the effectiveness of promotional placements, and tailoring MICPA’s websites (including the ads and offers a user receives) to better match a user’s interests and preferences.
Cookies Used by the MICPA
Strictly Necessary Cookies. These essential cookies perform activities that are strictly necessary to help MICPA’s websites function and helps with the transmission of a communication. Essential cookies help identify you when you sign in, automatically fill in an online form, enable you to navigate around MICPA’s websites and use their features or provide you with services you have requested. If you block these cookies, it may affect the functionality and use of MICPA’s websites during your visit.
Functionality/Personalization Cookies. These cookies help save information that you have entered so that MICPA’s websites can recognize you, remember your username, remember your choices such as font size, color and language preference or region, and customize or personalize site content for you when you return. The information these cookies collect may be anonymized. They cannot track your browsing activity on other sites. Some of these cookies may be set by third parties and you should refer to their website privacy policy for additional information. If you block these cookies, it may affect the functionality and use of our site during your visit.
Performance and Analytics Cookies. These cookies gather information about how you use MICPA’s websites. Analytics cookies allow us to track traffic patterns on the site so we can optimize our web development and content efforts to better meet your needs. Some of these cookies may be set by third parties and you should refer to their website privacy policy for additional information.
Advertising and Targeting Cookies. These cookies help us provide relevant advertising to you, measure its effectiveness or limit the number of times you have seen it. They record your visits to MICPA’s websites, including the links you follow to other sites, so that we can tailor MICPA’s websites, communications and advertising or remember whether you have visited MICPA’s websites before. We may share this information with third parties. Third parties such as advertising networks or web traffic analysis services may place these cookies on MICPA’s websites, and you should refer to their website privacy policy for additional information.
Third-Party/Embedded Content. These cookies are set by third parties whose content is embedded in MICPA’s websites (e.g., video). They may track your online activity in order to enhance your experience or assess the success of their application. We have no direct control over the information these cookies collect. Please review the third party’s privacy policy and privacy settings before clicking on embedded content in our site.
Social Media Widgets. These cookies allow us to integrate social media functions into MICPA’s websites and may also be used for advertising purposes. Please review the third party’s privacy policy and privacy settings before clicking on a widget.
Web Beacons. In addition to cookies, we use other technologies to recognize and track visitors to MICPA’s websites. A web beacon (also known as a “tracking pixel” or “clear GIF”) is a clear graphic image (typically a one-pixel tag) that is delivered through a web browser or HTML email, typically in conjunction with a cookie. Web beacons allows us certain functionality, for example, monitoring how users move from one page within a website to another, to track access to our communications, to understand whether users have come to a website from an online advertisement displayed on a third-party website, to measure how ads have been viewed and to improve site performance.
Do Not Track. We do not respond to web browser “do not track” signals. As such, your navigation of MICPA’s websites may be tracked as part of the gathering of quantitative user information described above. If you arrive at our site by way of a link from a third-party site that does respond to “do not track” requests, the recognition of any “do not track” request you have initiated will end as soon as you reach MICPA’s websites.
You can adjust the settings in your browser in order to restrict or block cookies that are set by MICPA’s websites (or any other website on the Internet). Your browser may include information on how to adjust your settings. Alternatively, you may visit www.allaboutcookies.org to obtain comprehensive general information about cookies and how to adjust the cookie settings on various browsers. This site also explains how to delete cookies from your computer.
You can control and delete these cookies through your browser settings through the following:
Or you can also use the following cookie management and disposal tool from Google Analytics by downloading and installing the browser plug-in from the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Users who prefer not to accept cookies can set their Internet browser to notify them when they receive a cookie or to prevent cookies from being placed on their hard drive. If you consent to our collection of cookies and you subsequently wish to withdraw your consent, you will need to manage the settings on your web browser to delete all cookies and disallow further acceptance of cookies. Please note that disabling cookies on your browser will prevent us from tracking your activities in relations to MICPA’s websites, however, it may also disable some of the functions and features of MICPA’s websites and these sites may not work properly.
Governing Law
This privacy policy forms part of our web site Terms of Service and as such shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Michigan.
Questions About Our Privacy Policy
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or concerns about the way MICPA processes your personal data, please contact the MICPA at 248.267.3700 or toll-free in Michigan at 1.888.877.4273.
