Mobile Satellite Services Association
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Privacy Policy

Mobile Satellite Services Association (“MSSA,” “us,” “our,” or “we”) has created this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our commitment to your privacy and protection of personal information that we collect and process. The following discloses our information gathering, managing, protecting and dissemination practices with respect to personal information. By “personal information” we mean any information, alone or jointly with other similar information, that could be used to identify you, and as such term or similar term is defined by laws applicable to us. Unless the context indicates otherwise, the terms “you” and “your” refer to both you individually and any entity on whose behalf you are accessing www.mss-association.org (the “Website”) and our services offered through the Website and other channels (collectively, the “Services”).

This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect (our “Collection Places”):

  • On our public Website, (including its integrated third-party platforms);
  • On other platforms or websites, applications, online portals, electronic forms, surveys, interactive exhibits, and any other channel that we operate to facilitate our management of the Services we provide to you (e.g., conference registration sites, membership management systems, collaboration tools); and
  • In email, text, other electronic messages or by telephone or other communications between you and us and (if you are a member) between you and other members through the MSSA public Website, MSSA Member Tools and the MSSA Member Portal.

1. Acknowledgement of this Privacy Policy

By using or interacting with any of our Collection Places or any other Services provided by or on behalf of MSSA, you acknowledge that you have reviewed and understand the policies and practices described in this Privacy Policy, which are in addition to any other agreement that we might have with you, including but not limited to the MSSA Certificate of Incorporation, Bylaws, Antitrust Guidelines, Brand Standards, Rules of Membership, and Terms of Use (as may be amended from time to time) (collectively, the “Additional Terms”). To the extent there is a conflict between this Privacy Policy and any applicable Additional Terms, the Additional Terms will control unless they expressly state otherwise.

2. Information We Collect

(a) Personal Information You Provide Voluntarily

We collect personal information at our Collection Places provided by you directly when you receive or request our Services. For example, we may process your name, telephone number, email address, employer, professional title, home or business and mailing address, gender, details regarding your entity and business, your job title, username and password, company contacts for corporate members, photographs, education, and any other information that you voluntarily submit to us.

Do not provide personal information about third parties unless you are authorized or required to do so by contract or applicable law. You may provide personal information on behalf of another person if you have provided them with a copy of this Privacy Policy.. We may ask you to provide evidence of that notice.

The personal information you are asked to provide (we will let you know at the point of collecting your information whether its provision is optional or mandatory) is needed so that we may facilitate your access, purchase, use and/or participation in our Services, such as:

(a) Membership;
(b) Conferences & Events;
(c) Educational programs;
(d) Online forums;
(e) Product conformance activities;
(f) Volunteer opportunities;
(g) Surveys; and
(h) Any other services and products that are updates or extensions to our Services or relate to other member benefits.

If you choose not to provide us with your personal information, you may not be able to enjoy certain components of our Services.

Additionally, we will also collect personal information when:

  • You request us to contact you via mail, e-mail, or telephone to provide information, updates, or promotions about our Services;
  • We enter into agreements for affiliated partnerships (e.g., exhibitors, sponsors, advertisers).

We will provide you with appropriate notice and choice, including where necessary the means to limit the use and disclosure of your personal information, before we use or disclose the information for a purpose that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

(b) Information from Third-Parties

We may receive personal information about you from other sources, including your company/organization. For example, we may receive your personal information if: someone at your company/organization designates you as a contact person for that company/organization; another visitor includes it in any feedback, comments, photos, videos, or other information submitted via online portals, electronic forms, surveys, or interactive portions of in our Collection Places; or one of our employees or service providers provides or a third party acting on apparent authority provides it to us when registering you to access our facilities or in our Collection Places, apply for a job, or participate in one of our events.

For those Website users located outside the United States, we advise you that your information may at times be transferred or accessible by individuals who are located in countries with different data protection laws or that have not been determined to provide the same level of data protection as in your country, province, territory or geopolitical region. By providing us with your personal information, you acknowledge this potential transfer of your information across international boundaries to jurisdictions anywhere in the world, including the U.S. as permitted by local law and subject to appropriate cross-border data transfer mechanisms.

(c) Personal Information We Collect Automatically

In addition to the Collection Places as you navigate through and interact with our Website, we use tools to collect information about you, your computer access points, and the web browser that you use to connect to our Website. For example, cookies are tiny text files that we place on your computer’s hard drive when you visit certain areas of our Website, such as the password-protected MSSA Member Tools, MSSA Member Portal, and MSSA Helpdesk system, where cookies are used to register and present customized information to the user. You may delete the cookies after they have been placed on your hard drive, but they will reappear as soon as you access the password-protected MSSA Member Portal, MSSA Member Tools and MSSA Helpdesk system. If you would prefer to prevent your computer from accepting our cookies, please follow your internet browser’s steps for doing so. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some areas of our Website may take more time to work, or may not function properly.

We may also collect additional information from your web browser each time you visit our Website. We may collect information about the pages that you visit and the time spent on each web page or area of the Website, and other actions that you take while using our Website. This information may include your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, the type of browser, the time that your browser was used to access our Website, and the referring website’s address.

We may also collect information that cannot be used to identify you. For example, we may aggregate non-personal information about you and other individuals who visit our Website. Such aggregated information will not contain any information that can be linked directly back to you.

Our Service Providers (defined below) may also use other standard web-based technologies to analyze your movements while accessing our Websites. The technologies include web “beacons,” “pixel tags,” and “clear gifs.” These technologies help us ascertain the effectiveness of our product and service campaigns and marketing programs, allow us to customize the Services offered on or through our Website, and help determine the best use for Website content, and product and service offerings. Some of this information, including the IP address, may be stored on our Internet service provider’s server logs, and may be available for extended periods of time. Interactions with Third-Party Sites

This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by any third party, including through any application or content that may link to or be accessible from or through our Website. We are not responsible for any of the content, features, functionality, or privacy practices of other linked sites or services. The data collection and use practices of any linked third-party site will be governed by that third party’s applicable privacy notice, statement, or policy, and its terms of use.

3. Our Use of Your Personal Information

MSSA may use your personal information to:

(a) Provide information about our Services and affiliate partnerships;
(b) Fulfill your member benefits, including distribution of MSSA’s newsletters;
(c) Facilitate your attendance/participation at our conferences and events (both in person and virtual);
(d) Track your attendance at conferences and trade shows;
(e) Prepare invoices and process payments;
(f) Respond to any of your questions or requests or other communications you send to us;
(g) Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contract entered between you and us;
(h) Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide information to us;
(i) Present our Website effectively to you; or
(j) Perform any other legitimate purpose reasonably consistent with your membership or affiliated partnership.

Additional uses of your non-personal and personal information will allow us to tailor our Services specific to your needs, to help organize and manage our relationship with you or your business, to conduct business, to provide you with support, and to perform functions that are described to you at the time of collection.

In general, we will use the personal information we collect from you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your personal information. However, we may also use your personal information for other purposes that are not incompatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable data protection laws.

4. Our Disclosure of Your Personal Information to Third Parties

We may share your personal information with the following categories of recipients:

Third-party service providers (“Service Providers”) who provide services on our behalf, including (without limitation) administrative/operational services; data processing; membership services; marketing and communication services; meeting management services; website hosting services; membership database services; credit card processing; conference registration; conference mobile applications; conference/event hotels and venues; or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Policy or notified to you when we collect your personal information;

Other MSSA members may receive certain items of your personal information as part of a membership directory or through collaboration portals. In addition, if you sign up to attend a member meeting or other MSSA-sponsored event, all other MSSA members who sign up for the event will be notified of your intended attendance at the event and may be given your full name, address, company name, and email address. We are not responsible for other members use or misuse of your personal information; and

Affiliated partners, such as exhibitors, sponsors and advertisers, may receive membership lists or event attendance lists that include your full name, address, company name, and email address. We are similarly not responsible for the use or misuse of your personal information by our affiliated partners.

We may also disclose your personal information as is necessary to: (a) comply with any court order, law, or legal process; (b) cooperate with any government or regulatory request; (c) establish or exercise our legal rights; (d) protect the rights, property, or safety of MSSA, our employees, contractors, vendors, suppliers, and customers; (e) defend against legal claims; (f) help with internal and external investigations; (g) to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements; or (h) as otherwise required by law or permitted by law. We may disclose your information in connection with the merger of MSSA or any potential or actual third-party buyer transaction that involves the transfer or assignment of any part of the MSSA business or assets (including management of the Website).

5. Discussion Groups, Chats, Email Reflectors, and Forums

Our Website and Services may make discussion groups, chats, email reflectors (aka ListServs), and digital forums available to users. Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes public information and is transmitted to others at your own risk. Additionally, we cannot control the actions of other users of the Website, or Services, and any such digital forums, and therefore, you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose information through these areas of the Website or Services. We cannot and do not guarantee that the information you choose to disclose in any digital forums will not be viewed by unauthorized persons.

Some applications used for digital forums on the Website and Services are served by third parties. We do not control these third parties’ collection or use of your information or their tracking technologies or how they may be used. However these third parties may provide you with ways to choose not to have your information collected or used in this way.

6. Opt-Out; Other Rights

Newsletters, auto-generated emails, and updates from us often include links to manage any subscriptions directly. If you do not wish to receive these communications from us, you can opt-out by following the instructions contained in the messages you receive. Even if you opt-out of receiving these communications, we reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to our Website, including administrative messages. We do not offer you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving those communications.

You may have certain rights regarding your personal information depending on the jurisdiction in which you reside and where our Services are available. For example, you may have the right to obtain confirmation that we hold personal information about you; to access, correct, or delete your personal information; to withdraw any consent you previously provided to us; to object to or restrict our processing of your personal information in any other context; to deactivate, block, anonymize, or delete personal information as appropriate; or to request and receive a copy of the personal information you have provided us and to transmit this data to a third party. You can exercise all the rights applicable to you by contacting us (see details in the “Privacy Support Contact” section below) or submitting an online enquiry ticket on our Website.

7. Parties in the European Economic Area or UK

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), or the United Kingdom (UK), you may, in certain circumstances and depending on your location, have the following rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. Including the rights to:

  • access a copy of the information held about you
  • rectify any incorrect or incomplete data we hold about you. It is both in our interest and yours that any personal information we hold about you is accurate, complete and current. If the data we hold about you is inaccurate in any way, please contact us to have your personal information corrected. You can also update any incorrect contact information yourself by updating your profile information in the MSSA Member Tools or by emailing help@mss-association.org.
  • delete, restrict or remove the data we hold about you
  • transfer the data we hold about you to another party
  • object to any further processing of your data, if we are processing your personal information on the basis of our legitimate interests or for direct marketing.

The application of the above rights may vary depending on the type of personal information involved, and our particular basis for processing the personal information.

Please note that in respect of all these rights, we reserve the right to:

  • refuse your request based on the exemptions set out in the applicable data protection laws.
  • request certain information from you to enable us to confirm your identify.
  • charge you a reasonable administrative fee for any repetitive, manifestly unfounded or excessive requests.

If we refuse your request to exercise these rights, we will give reasons for our refusal and allow you to challenge our decision. If we have shared your data with others, we will tell them about your request to rectify, erase, restrict or object to the processing where possible. If you ask us, where possible and lawful to do so, we will also tell you with whom we shared your personal information so that you can contact them directly.

To exercise your rights, or if you have any concerns about how we handle your data, please contact us by emailing help@mss-association.org. If you are not satisfied after we’ve tried to resolve your request or issue, you also have the right to lodge a complaint with the data protection regulator for your country of residence.

8. California Privacy Rights

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 (known as the Shine the Light Act) permits customers who are California residents and who have provided us with “personal information” (as that term is defined in Section 1798.83) to request certain information about the disclosure of that information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident with questions regarding this, please contact us in the manner set forth under the heading “General Information and Privacy Support Contact”.

9. Data Storage and Security

We are committed to taking reasonable efforts to secure the information that you choose to provide us and that our Service Providers have implemented physical, electronic, and procedural security measures to assist with safeguarding your personal information, and to help protect against unauthorized access and disclosure. Notwithstanding our efforts, the Internet has inherent security risks. We cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, or to or from our Website or Services. MSSA has no responsibility or liability for the security of information transmitted via the Internet. You should take care with regard to how you handle and disclose your personal information or any username or password that you are required to use to access all of our Collection Places.

10. Do Not Track

Certain web browsers and other devices you may use to access the Website and Services may permit you to submit your preference that you do not wish to be “tracked” online. We do not currently commit to responding to these submissions, in part, because no common industry standard for “do not track” has been adopted by industry groups, technology companies, or regulators. We will make efforts to monitor developments around Do Not Track browser technology and the implementation of a standard. For information about DNT, please visit: www.allaboutdnt.org.

11. Children and Data Collection

Our Website content is not directed toward or intended for use by children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 16. If we or our Service Providers become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with personal information without parental consent, that information will be deleted from our databases. If you have questions about personal information that may have been submitted by a child under 16, please email us at help@mss-association.org.

12. Updates to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of this Website or Services after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the Privacy Policy periodically for updates. Where we change the Privacy Policy in a way that materially impacts our processing of your personal information, we will provide appropriate notice and choice. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you.

13. General Information and Privacy Support Contact

We are committed to protecting your personal privacy. If you have questions or comments about our efforts to protect your personal privacy, or if you require additional information about our privacy commitment, please contact us at:

Address: Mobile Satellite Services Association, 5000 Executive Parkway, Suite 302, San Ramon, CA 94583

Email: help@mss-association.org.