Privacy Policy

WHAT IS “VALUES OF THE WISE”?

This website is owned and operated by Values of the Wise, LLC (“Values of the Wise”). Values of the Wise’s mission is to help you to be the architect of your life, design your belief systems, build your future, and live a life of value. To accomplish those goals, we provide information via printed products, the web, personal coaching and instruction, assessment tools, weblogs, and a radio show. Values of the Wise values the trust of its members, guests, and friends who visit our website, read our books, and participate in our programs. Values of the Wise recognizes the responsibility of that trust and is aware of the concerns that individuals have about their privacy. Values of the Wise is committed to protecting the privacy of all its website visitors. The following Privacy Policy describes how we protect our visitors’ privacy, the types of information that we collect through our websites, and how we use that information.

WHAT DATA IS COLLECTED? Values of the Wise gathers two types of information about visitors to our website: Personal Information, which is provided voluntarily, and Tracking Information, which is automatically collected from all visitors to our website Personal Information collected by Values of the Wise may be:

• Registration information, including contact name, mailing address, e-mail address, and phone number, may be collected in order to enable participation in various features of the website.
• Survey information that is collected only when voluntarily submitted by an individual to our website. At certain times, you may be asked to participate in surveys, which are generally aimed at obtaining general information; for example, situations testing your values, ethics, personal experiences, or your reactions to a particular issue or dilemma. Because information obtained in these surveys is connected with individual subscribers and is used internally to better market our services, participation is voluntary. In addition, we may occasionally poll our readers. Such polls are solely for our use and participation is voluntary.
• Personal information may be provided by individual users voluntarily. In most cases, personally identifiable information is not maintained. It is used internally by Values of the Wise and not shared. Once the information has been used for its intended purpose, it is deleted. Because of the brevity of the period when the information is held, no mechanism is provided to enable users to alter or delete information they have submitted.

Membership

Currently, we do not require users to become members of Values of the Wise in order to have access to the products and services available on our website. However, if you’d like to receive one or more of our free email newsletters, gain access select articles, or be notified of new blog entries, we require you to register and become a Values of the Wise member. In order to register, you’ll have to supply us with your email and postal addresses, choose a unique user name and password, and provide us with some additional information about yourself (such as the reason for your visit to valuesofthewise.com, etc.). Additionally, you will be required to verify your email address by clicking on the activation link in the welcome letter that will be sent to you upon your submission of a completed registration form.

Premium Services

If you’d like access to one or more of our premium subscription-based services, you first must register as a member of Values of the Wise™ as described above. Then, on the subscription registration page for the premium service you are interested in, you’ll need to supply us with the information specified to activate your free trial or paid subscription.

HOW IS COLLECTED DATA USED?

• Values of the Wise does not sell or disclose personal information about you to other people or nonaffiliated companies, except to provide you with products or services, when we have your permission, or under the following circumstances:
• In response to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process, from law enforcement agencies, or state and federal regulators;
• Should we provide the information on a confidential basis to nonaffiliated companies we engage as contractors or agents to perform services for us, such as maintaining software, sending direct mail, or administering a contest. Information will be shared with such contractors only to the extent reasonably necessary for them to perform their services on our behalf and pursuant to confidentiality obligations;
• If we were to sell or otherwise transfer substantially all of the assets of our company or to any other company or website that we own or operate and any product or service that we offer. In that situation, we will require such third party to honor our current Privacy Policy until the third party provides you with notice of changes to our Privacy Policy and permits you to exercise any rights you may have under applicable law to limit disclosures of information about you. Use of Information Values of the Wise uses personal information obtained from its users as stated in this Privacy Policy and to enhance users’ experiences on our sites. No personally identifiable information will be shared with third parties or used to market third party services or products. We reserve the right, however, to disclose such information to any third party if we believe that we are required to do so for any or all of the following reasons: (i) by law; (ii) to comply with legal processes or governmental requests; (iii) to prevent, investigate, detect or prosecute criminal offences or attacks on the technical integrity of the web site or our network; and/or (iv) to protect the rights, property, or safety of Values of the Wise, the users of the website, or the public.
• Free Newsletters If you’re a registered member of Values of the Wise, we may send you free mailed or email newsletters containing selected stories, advertisements and links to our sites.
• Special Offers and Advertisements We may occasionally send you special offers and advertisements for products or services offered by third parties. We will not disclose any of your personal information to such third parties when we do this. If you do not wish to receive third party offers and advertisements, please email jasonmerchey(at)icloud.com

Children’s Privacy and COPPA Compliance

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) applies to the online collection of personal information from children under 13. Although Values of the Wise’s website is not aimed at children under 13, nor does Values of the Wise have any intention of collecting information from children under 13, Values of the Wise voluntarily complies with COPPA because Values of the Wise feels that compliance is in the best interest of children. Values of the Wise does not use its website to collect any personally identifiable information from children under 13 years of age. Any input form that requests personally identifiable information and that is expected to be viewed by children under 13 years of age is accompanied by a notice that submissions cannot be accepted from users under 13 years of age. Where “age” or “date of birth” is requested, no information will be stored or transmitted unless the response indicates that the user is 13 years of age or older. Providing personal information is never a prerequisite for accessing any of the content or resources on this website. A child’s refusal to provide personal information via a Web interface will never result in the child’s being denied access to any online content or resource the child would be able to access were the information submitted. Values of the Wise welcomes children to learn more about our organization and, where appropriate, find opportunities to participate. However, we encourage this to be done only with their parents’ knowledge and supervision. Special notices urging children to get their parents’ permission before providing any personal information will be incorporated into our site.

Security of Credit Card Information

Values of the Wise ensures that appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures are in place to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use the information we collect online. We care about the safety and security of your transaction. We use encryption and the https security protocol to communicate with your browser software. This method is the industry standard security protocol, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to intercept the credit card information you send to us. Companies we work with to process credit card transactions also use high grade encryption and security protocols. Purchases may also be made by emailing jasonmerchey(at)icloud.com

Security of Personal Information

The same encryption and https security protocols used for financial transactions on our site are used in collecting personal information. In addition to maintaining privacy and security controls over information you share with us, Values of the Wise works to accurately process your contribution information. Values of the Wise limits access to personal information about you to those employees whom we determine need access to that information to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to guard your personal information. However, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our servers, nor can we guarantee that information that users supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet.

Your Independent Relationship with Other Companies

Please note that this Privacy Policy will not apply to your independent relationships with other companies that from time to time may offer you products and services on Values of the Wise’s sites. Those companies’ privacy policies will govern how they collect, use and disclose personal information that you provide to them.

Policy Modifications

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at jasonmerchey@icloud.com Values of the Wise reserves the right to update and revise this Privacy Policy at any time. You can determine if this Privacy Policy has been revised by referring to the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We may modify this privacy policy and will post those changes here. If the privacy policy changes in the future, we will not treat any personal information you have submitted to us under the current Privacy Policy in a manner that is materially inconsistent with this Privacy Policy, without your prior consent. It may be necessary to deviate from this general policy in unique instances and for specific purposes. In such instances, a link will be provided to a description of the deviation. This link will be placed where it can be reasonably expected to be noticed prior to submitting any information for which this privacy policy is modified or exempted in any way.