Privacy Policy
The Chopra Foundation Privacy Policy
Updated: May 16, 2024
The Chopra Foundation (“Chopra”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) takes the privacy of those visiting our web sites (“you”) very seriously. We provide this Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) because you have the right to know what information we collect, how it is protected and used, and the circumstances under which it may be disclosed. This Policy describes our use and sharing of personally identifiable information (“PII”) that we collect when you register for or use certain services. The term “User” refers to visitors and to those who register for certain services. This Policy applies to the services offered by us on our web sites, including The Chopra Foundation web site (www.choprafoundation.org), choprapost.com and any other web site that posts this Policy (collectively, the “Web Site”), and any other features, content, or applications offered from time to time by us in connection with the Web Site (collectively, the “Services”).
I. Personally Identifiable and Other Information We Collect
We collect information from Users of the Web Site.
A. Information About Our Users
The minimum age to use or register for the Services is 13 years old. We do not knowingly collect PII from children under the age of 13. Children under the age of 13 should not provide any information on the Web Site. We ask that parents supervise their children while the children are online.
Users may wish to request information about us or our products, to participate in our Services (such as contests, offers and surveys), or to submit user-generated content (including scholarly articles), suggestions, photos, videos, and other information to us. In connection with each of those items you may be asked to provide information that could identify you personally, such as your name, company, title, phone number, email address, mailing address, and/or credit card number. In addition, if you wish to register for certain Services, download certain information, or upload information like user-generated content, photos and videos, you may be required to provide certain additional information that can identify you personally, such as your member name or username, your password, contact information, occupation, workplace, interests, age, marital status, education, and children, and other information. Users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of any passwords they are given to access our Web Site and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under their passwords. Information that you voluntarily provide that is not required by us is provided by you in your sole discretion.
We may supplement the information we collect about you online with outside records from third parties to enhance our ability to serve you, to tailor our content to you, and to offer you opportunities to purchase products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. We may combine the information we receive from those sources with information we collect through the Web Site. In those cases, we will apply this Policy to any PII received, unless we have disclosed otherwise. If you send someone else a communication from the Web Site, such as sending an article to a friend, we use the information you provide (typically, names and e-mail addresses) on a one-time basis to facilitate the communication and we do not use it for any other marketing purpose, unless we obtain consent from that person.
We collect your payment card information if you make a donation or subscribe to or purchase any of our Services.
From time to time our interactions with you will be conducted over the telephone or video-conference, and such telephone calls and video conferences may be recorded.
We may enable you and others to participate in in-person, telephonic or online group lessons, meditations, workshops and other sessions as well as in online groups, chat rooms and message boards. In connection with these forums you may have the opportunity to share comments, perspectives and other information with The Chopra Foundation community. Please note that some content for these forums, including chat rooms and message boards, may remain publicly accessible indefinitely and may be accessible on websites not hosted by The Chopra Foundation. Other forums, including group lessons, meditations and workshops may be recorded and remain accessible to other participants in the session or the particular program to which the session relates. You may also share testimonials or reviews of our products and services or ideas and comments about ways to improve the Services for public display or for our private use.
B. Aggregated Data
We compile anonymous, aggregated statistics from Users for a variety of internal and marketing purposes. Such purposes include benchmarking, determining appropriate levels of hardware, determining the numbers of employees that will be needed to provide the Services to our Users, and reporting numbers of Users and/or web sites that use the Services. This anonymous, aggregated data is not used in any way that can identify an individual person or User.
C. Web Site Viewing Information
1.Cookies
We use cookies to make the Web Site easier to use and more useful. When you visit the Web Site our servers send a cookie to your computer. By themselves, cookies do not personally identify you, but instead simply recognize the web browser you are using. If you do not otherwise affirmatively provide PII about yourself to us, either by, for example, registering with us, responding to a promotional offer, or filling out a form, you will remain anonymous to us.
There are two types of cookies: session and persistent. Session cookies disappear from your computer when you close your web browser or turn off your computer. Persistent cookies remain on your computer after you close your browser or turn off your computer. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file. If you have chosen to identify yourself to us then we use session cookies containing encrypted information to allow us to uniquely identify you.
We use persistent cookies that only we can read and use to identify browsers that have previously visited the Web Site. When a User provides us with PII, a unique identifier is assigned to them. This unique identifier is associated with a persistent cookie that we place on the User’s web browser. We are very careful about the security and confidentiality of the information stored in persistent cookies. For example, we do not store account numbers or passwords in persistent cookies. If you disable your web browser’s ability to accept cookies, you will be able to navigate our Web Site, but you will not be able to successfully use certain of the Services.
Some of our business partners (e.g., advertisers) may use cookies on our Web Site. We have no access to or control over these cookies. See “Third Party Advertisers.”
2. Log Files
As is true of most web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. Log files include internet protocol (‘IP’) addresses, device (your computer or other device used to access the Web Site) identifiers, browser type, internet service provider, referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends, to administer the Web Site, to see how users move around the Web Site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We do not link this automatically-collected data to other PII. We collect certain information from your visit to the Web Site via industry standard and commercially available web analytics solutions.
Our Web Site uses Google Analytics which cookies to identify the frequency of use of certain areas of our Web Site and to identify preferences. For more information regarding how Google collects, uses and shares your information, please visit www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. Google will use this information to analyze Users’ use of the Web Site, compile reports on activity for us, and perform further services associated with Web Site use and Internet use. Google may also transmit this information to third parties where required by law or to the extent that third parties process these data on behalf of Google. You can deactivate Google Analytics using a browser add-on if you do not wish the analysis to take place. You can download the add-on here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.
3. Clear Gifs (Web Beacons) and Embedded Scripts
We use clear gifs (a.k.a. web beacons) that help us better manage content on the Web Site by informing us what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users. In contrast to cookies, which are stored on a user’s computer hard drive, clear gifs are embedded invisibly on web pages and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. We do not tie the information gathered by clear gifs to our customers’ other PII. We use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. If you would like to opt-out of these emails, please see “Choice and Opt-Out.”
Third party applications (such as widgets) created by third party developers may also be available on the Web Site. Third party applications are small bits of software, often with interactivity, that can be installed into Users’ profiles or shared with other Users. However, we do not control the third–party developers, and cannot dictate their actions. When a User engages with a third–party application, that User is interacting with the third–party developer, not with us. We encourage Users not to provide PII to the third party’s application unless the User knows the party with whom it is interacting.
An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the Web Site, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your computer or device from our web server or a third–party service provider, is active only while you are connected to the Web Site, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.
4. Social Media Platforms
We operate social media pages on third party networks and have social media icons on our Web Site. Further, you may log into your Web Site account via social media credentials. When you visit or link to our social media pages, or log into your Web Site account with social media credentials, data is processed both by us and the applicable social media provider. Social media providers are unaffiliated with us, and we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of social media providers. Social media providers have their own terms of use and privacy policies, and we encourage you to review those policies whenever you visit their websites or interact with their platforms.
II. Use of Information Collected
We use the information you provide to us as follows:
We may also use the information that you provide to us to contact you to further discuss your interest in the Chopra Foundation and our Services, and to send information about us or our partners (such as marketing promotions and events). We store any voluntarily provided email we receive for archival purposes and for our own marketing purposes if we feel that it is consistent with the nature of the inquiry. The information is collected and stored in a manner that is appropriate for the nature of the data that we collect and the need to fulfill your request.
When we collect credit card information, the sole purpose of the collection and use of that information is to effect transactions for the sale of products and services or accept donations. In some instances, purchases and donations through a Web Site may not be handled by us but instead be handled by a third party, such as by PayPal, as described in Section III.B. below.
We may in the future allow Users to browse for certain non-PII information to help connect with other Users (e.g., interests). We may also enable Users to publicly display some PII if they choose to do so. Search engines may index the portion of a User’s PII that is voluntarily publicly displayed by a User.
If you have consented to receive promotional materials (e.g., newsletters) or notifications from us, we may periodically use your email address to send you such materials related to the Services. If you want to stop receiving such materials from us you can change your profile settings. In addition, you can opt out of, or unsubscribe from, e-mails at any time by following the instructions contained in those e-mails.
Some information you provide to us in response to: (i) multiple choice questions like “interests;” (ii) information you add to open-ended questions; and, (iii) browsing behavior, may be used to customize the online ads, special promotions, e-mails, and other marketing information you encounter to those we believe are aligned with your interests. For example, based on your interests we might display an advertisement about one of our products or services that you may not be familiar with, or about an event that you may be interested in.
We rely on the following legal grounds to process your personal information:
Consent. Some uses of your PII as described in this Privacy Policy are subject to your consent, such as marketing email communications.
Performance of a contract. We may need to collect and use your PII to enter into a contract with you and to perform Services that you request.
Legitimate Interests. We may use your PII for our legitimate interests to provide our Services and to improve our Services and the content contained thereon. We may use technical information as described in this Privacy Policy and use personal information for our marketing purposes consistent with our legitimate interests and any choices that we offer or consents that may be required under applicable law.
Compliance with Legal Obligations. We may use your personal information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations.
III. Information Sharing and Disclosure
A. Advertising, Analyticsand Aggregated Information
As described elsewhere in this Policy, we may customize the advertising and marketing messages you receive on the Web Site, or may work with outside companies to do so. Your information may be shared with these companies so this customization can be accomplished. Anonymous click stream, number of page views calculated by pixel tags, and aggregated demographic information may also be shared with our advertisers and business partners.
We may also perform statistical analyses of user behavior and characteristics in order to measure interest in and use of the various areas of the Web Site. In addition, we may in the future inform advertisers of such information as well as the number of users that have been exposed to or clicked on their advertising banners.
B. Personally Identifiable Information
We may sometimes permit third parties to offer registration-based services through the Web Site. We are not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties and users should check the applicable privacy policy of such parties when providing PII to them.
We may in connection with the Web Site use the services of third parties (i.e., technology consultants and CRM vendors), who may, in the course of providing services to us, be given access to the information you have provided to us.
Our employees, agents, and contractors must have a business reason to obtain access to your PII. We may share your PII with those who help us manage or provide the Services (e.g., message board administration, statistical analyses, data processing, and order fulfillment), or with outside contractors, agents or sponsors who help us with the administration, judging and prize fulfillment aspects of contests and promotions.
These outside contractors or agents may temporarily store some information on their servers. We may also provide your PII to a third party in those instances where you have chosen to receive certain information and have been notified that the fulfillment of such a request requires the sharing of your PII. We also may share your PII with companies that are affiliated with us if we have a business reason to do so.
The information gathering and order/donation processing for a Web Site may be handled by a third party vendor, such as PayPal. Their credit transactions are handled with industry-standard SSL encryption to protect your information.
C. Agents and Service Providers
We use a credit card processing company when necessary to bill for products and services and to process donations. We do not retain, share, store or use PII for any other purposes.
We use other third parties to provide shopping services and to assist with providing a community environment/social network, on our Web Site. When you sign up for the Services we will share the PII that is necessary for the third party to provide the Services.
D. Law Enforcement and Assignment
We reserve the right to disclose your PII pursuant to a subpoena or other judicial or administrative order, when required by law, when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, the rights of our affiliated companies, the rights or safety of any individual or the public, and rights of our Users or any third party. In addition, if we sell all or part of our business, make a sale or transfer of all or a material part of our assets, or are otherwise involved in a merger or transfer of all or a material part of our business, we may transfer your PII to the party or parties involved in the transaction as part of that transaction.
E. Co-branded Areas
Certain areas of the Web Site may be provided to you in association with third parties (“Co-Branded Areas”) and may require you to disclose PII to register for and access products and/or services. Such Co-Branded Areas will identify the third–party associates. If you elect to register for products and/or services at Co-Branded Areas you may be providing your information to both us and the third party associates. Moreover, if you sign-in to a Co-Branded Area with a username and password obtained on the Web Site, your Personal Information may be disclosed to the identified third party associates for that Co-Branded Area and will be subject to the posted privacy policies.
F. Sweepstakes, Contests, And Promotions
We may offer sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions (together, a “Promotion”) through the Web Site that may require registration. By participating in a Promotion, you are agreeing to the terms, conditions or official rules that govern that Promotion, which may contain specific requirements of you, including, except where prohibited by law, allowing the sponsor(s) of the Promotion to use your name, voice and/or likeness in advertising or marketing associated with the Promotion. If you choose to enter a Promotion, PII may be disclosed to third parties or the public in connection with the administration of such Promotion, including, without limitation, in connection with winner selection, prize fulfillment, and as required by law or permitted by the Promotion’s official rules, such as on a winners list.
G. Your Created Content, Social Networking, and Public Information
The Web Site may permit you to submit writings, video, audio, graphics, photographs, pictures, information, questions, comments, suggestions, ideas or other content, including PII (collectively, “Your Created Content”). Your Created Content may be published online or offline in any media or format (currently existing or hereafter developed). Others may have access to Your Created Content and may have the ability to share it with third parties. You may have the opportunity to engage in social networking through the Web Site, such as creating a public profile, sharing Your Created Content, and inviting others to connect with you. We do not control who will have access to the information that you choose to make public and cannot ensure that parties who have access to such publicly available information will respect your privacy or keep it secure. This Policy does not apply to any information that you disclose publicly, share with others or otherwise upload onto the Web Site. We are not responsible for the accuracy, use or misuse of any content or information that you disclose or receive through the Web Site.
H. Name and Likeness
We may publish your name, voice, likeness and other PII that is part of Your Created Content (or any portion of the content), and we may use the content, or any portion of the content, for advertising, marketing, publicity and promotional activities. For full terms and conditions regarding Your Created Content that you submit to the Web Site, please review our Web Site Terms of Use.
I. Storage and Transfer of Information
The Web Site is operated in the United States and intended for users located in the United States. If you are located in the European Union, Canada, or anywhere else outside of the United States, please note that information we collect, including, without limitation, PII, will be transferred to, processed, and stored in the United States. The data protection laws in the United States may differ from those of the country in which you are located, and your PII may be subject to access requests from governments, courts, or law enforcement in the United States according to laws of the United States. By using the Web Site or providing us with any information, you consent to this transfer, processing and storage of your information in the United States. Please be aware that any information you provide to us or we obtain as a result of your use of the Web Site that is shared with our affiliates or vendors may be transferred to, processed, and stored at locations outside of the United States if those affiliates or vendors are located outside of the United States. Any information processed, transferred or stored by affiliates or vendors that are located outside of the United States will be subject to applicable privacy laws in the country in which such affiliates or vendors are located. By using or providing your information to the Web Site you consent to the collection, transfer, storage and processing of your information in this manner.
IV. Your Privacy Rights and Choices
A. General.
This section is subject to specific disclosures on privacy rights set forth below. We are committed to facilitating the exercise of your rights granted by the laws of your jurisdiction, which may include the right to request the correction, modification or deletion of your personal information and the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information (as applicable). We will do our best to honor your requests subject to any legal and contractual obligations. If you would like to make a request, cancel your account or request we delete or no longer use your account information to provide you Services, contact us at info@choprafoundation.org or make changes to any user profile information connected to your account as available.
Section (B) below describes the rights of those individuals located in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another jurisdiction that has adopted laws substantially similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
In certain instances we provide you the opportunity to “opt-out” of having your PII used for certain purposes. For example, if you sign up for the Services but do not wish to receive any additional marketing material from us, you may so indicate your preferences in your profile (if available) or click on the “unsubscribe” link in the communication.
If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each communication. You may also update your profile on the sites that contain a profile and change your newsletter and promotional communications’ preferences.
Users may update or change their PII by editing their profile through a registration form or otherwise. We will make good faith efforts to make requested changes in our then active databases as soon as reasonably practicable. You may cancel or modify your communications such as newsletters that you have elected to receive from the Web Site by following the instructions contained within an e-mail or by logging into your user account and changing your communication preferences.
Subject to local law, you may have additional rights under the laws of your jurisdiction regarding your personal data, such as the right to complain to your local data protection authority and the right to appeal our decision regarding a data access request.
B. Your European Privacy Rights and Choices.
While we do not specifically market our Services outside the United States, we will provide accommodations for the rights of those who reside in the European Union, the United Kingdom or another jurisdiction that has adopted laws substantially similar to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), whose privacy rights include the following:
V.Retention of Your Information
We retain PII we collect for so long as reasonably necessary to fulfill the purposes for which the information was collected and to perform our contractual and legal obligations. We will retain PII to comply with privacy requests, to manage active accounts, as required by law, in order to resolve disputes, or to enforce our agreements. We will retain the PII we process on behalf of our Users as directed by them. We may also retain copies of your PII for disaster recovery purposes, to prevent fraud or future abuse, or for our legitimate business purposes.
Notwithstanding the generality of the foregoing, we store email addresses until the user requests to be unsubscribed or removes themselves through any self-service tools offered to the user.
We do not store payment card information; rather we utilize a payment processor and store only an electronic receipt that sets forth confirming payment details, such as purchase date, the expiration date of the payment card and the payment ID, but not complete payment card information.
VI. Third Party Advertisers and Analytics Service Providers
The Web Site may use third parties such as network advertisers to serve advertisements on the Web Site and may use third party analytics service providers to evaluate and provide us with information about the use of the Web Site and viewing of our content. Network advertisers are third parties that display advertisements based on your visits to the Web Site and other web sites you have visited. The Web Site’s third–party ad network providers, the advertisers, the sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may themselves set and access their own cookies, web beacons and other tracking technologies on the device you use to access the Web Site and track certain behavioral information regarding users of your device through a device identifier. These third–party cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies are set to, among other things: help deliver advertisements to you that you might be interested in; prevent you from seeing the same advertisements too many times and understand the usefulness to you of the advertisements that have been delivered to you. Any images (or any other parts of a web page) delivered by third parties in association with third-party cookies may serve as web beacons, which enable third parties to carry out the previously described activities. Third party cookies and web beacons are governed by each third party’s specific privacy policy, not this one.
California Do Not Track Disclosure: Our Web Site does not respond to Do Not Track browser signals.
VII. Security
The security of your PII is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (“SSL”).
We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the PII submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
VIII. Links to and Content From Other Sites
Our Web Site may contain links to and content from other web sites (“Linked Sites”), and those Linked Sites may collect web site usage information and information that identifies the computer or device you are using when web pages from the Web Site are sent to your browser. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of Linked Sites. Linked Sites are not under our control and we are not responsible for the contents of any such Linked Sites, any link contained in such Linked Sites, or any changes or updates to such Linked Sites. We are not responsible for any transmission received from any third-party web sites including any webcasting or other methods of transmission. Links to Linked Sitesare provided only as a convenience. We do not endorse any content of any Linked Site made available through our Web Site. We encourage all Users of our Web Site to read the privacy policies of each and every web site visited when linking directly from our Web Site.
This Policy applies only to information collected by the Web Site.
IX. Public Areas of the Web Site/Bulletin Boards/Chat Rooms
If you use a public area of the Web Site or a bulletin board or chat room on the Web Site, you should be aware that any PII you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the PII you choose to submit in these forums.
In addition, if you provide to us directly, or you choose to post on the portions of the Web Site that are viewable by others, any comments, ideas, or suggestions that are accompanied by your name (which is PII), or your first name and your last name initial, we may use both your comments, ideas, and suggestions, and your name, for our marketing purposes without compensation or acknowledgment of any kind.
X. Changes in this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to modify this Policy at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this Policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page. Your continued use of the Web Site after we post a revised Policy constitutes your acceptance of the new Policy and its terms. If, however, we materially change our practices regarding the collection or use of your PII, your PII will continue to be governed by the Policy that was in place at the time you provided the PII unless we provide notice to you of the changes in the Policy and you do not object to the change.
XI. Contact Information
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at the address or telephone number listed below.
The Chopra Foundation – 501(c)(3) organization (#36-4793898)
41 E 11th St 11th Floor
New York, NY 10003
(office): +1 (917) 391-0374