GAZOPA PRIVACY POLICY
Effective Date: September 8th, 2008
Please Read Carefully Prior To Using GazoPa
Hitachi, Ltd. (“Hitachi” or “we”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. We want to share with you how we treat personal information about you that we receive in connection with this demonstration website (“GazoPa”).
The servers that host GazoPa are located in the United States and in other countries, and any personal details you provide to us will be processed by Hitachi in the United States and in other countries. Hitachi expressly excludes any representation or warranty, express or implied, with respect to the information available on GazoPa. Hitachi makes no representation about any third-party websites that may be accessed via links from GazoPa. By using GazoPa, you agree that the laws of the Japan, without regard to its conflict of laws principles, will govern all matters between you and Hitachi with respect to your use of GazoPa.
Information We Collect
We may require you to register for an account to use GazoPa that requires the submission of personal information through registration pages (referred to for convenience as “Registration Pages”), which may contain a function for collecting various pieces of your personal information including your name, title, address, email address, phone number, facsimile number, and information about your interests in and use of various products, programs, and services. We only collect your personal information if you voluntarily submit the information to us for such purposes as registering to use GazoPa, or requests for information, products, or services. For your information, through certain technologies employed by GazoPa, we also collect non-personally identifiable information about you. For more details about this type of data collection, please refer to the section below on cookies.
To protect your security and privacy, we require that you enter the personal information that we collect and that the information be current, although Hitachi disclaims any legal duty to verify the accuracy of any personal data that you provide to Hitachi. We will make good faith efforts to provide you with access to your personal data and either to correct this data if it is inaccurate or to delete such data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes. Please be aware that, to protect your security and privacy, Hitachi may take reasonable steps to verify your identity prior to making changes to your personal information. For your information, please note that it is our practice to monitor and in some cases record calls for staff training and quality assurance purposes.
How We Use the Information We Collect and Who We Share It With
Hitachi reserves the right to compile, save, use within the scope of our activities, and analyze any and all data (contact and personal data, use history, etc.) that we collect from you through GazoPa. We use the personal information that you provide to us for our internal purposes such as providing our products and demonstration services to users, including the display of customized content; auditing, researching and analyzing in order to maintain, protect and improve our demonstration services; ensuring the technical functioning of our network; and developing new services. We reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to the GazoPa service, such as service announcements, administrative messages and the GazoPa Newsletter, that are considered part of your GazoPa account, without offering you the opportunity to opt out of receiving them.
Hitachi has a general policy of not disclosing your personal information to third parties unless you have consented to such sharing. However, we may share the personal information you provide to us with trusted companies we have hired to provide services for us, such as sending out our newsletters, or collecting and processing information on our behalf. These companies – our vendors – are contractually bound to use personal information that we share with them only to perform the services we have hired them to provide. We may also share the personal information you provide to us if we have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce applicable Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of GazoPa, its users or the public as required or permitted by law.
We may also share your personal information in the event that the business of Hitachi is transferred to another entity by way of merger, sale of the company’s assets, or otherwise. If you consent to sharing of your personal information, we may share your information with Hitachi’s related entities and selected third parties so that they may provide you with or contact you regarding information and materials that may be of interest to you. Please refer to the section below on opting in and out.
We may also collect and group demographic and preferences information, responses to surveys and other personal information that we collect from you into an aggregate, non-personally identifiable form for disclosure to our existing or potential business partners, affiliates, sponsors or other third parties. However, please be assured that this aggregate data will in no way personally identify you or any other visitors to GazoPa.
From time to time, we may collect general, non-personal, statistical information about the use of GazoPa, such as how many visitors visit a specific page on GazoPa, how long they stay on that page and which hyperlinks, if any, they “click” on. We collect this information through the use of “cookies” and other tracking technologies, which are discussed in greater detail below in the section on cookies. We collect this information in order to determine which areas of GazoPa are most popular and to enhance GazoPa for visitors. As with other aggregated data, we may disclose such data to our existing or potential business partners, affiliates, sponsors or other third parties, but this aggregate data will in no way personally identify you or any other visitors to GazoPa.
Children’s Information and COPPA
We respect the privacy of children (i.e., those under the age of 13) as much as we do the privacy of other visitors to GazoPa, and will always seek parental consent when required by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). COPPA applies to commercial website operators such as Hitachi and governs the providing online of children’s personal information. COPPA generally (there are exceptions) requires parental consent before a commercial website operator may collect children’s personal information online.
Hitachi does not permit children to subscribe to the services Hitachi provides through GazoPa, and in the normal course of visiting and using GazoPa, children are not requested to provide personal information online to Hitachi.
Use of Cookies and Web Beacons
A “cookie” is a piece of data stored on your hard drive containing non-personally identifiable information about you. We may use cookies in order to collect certain information about you, such as IP addresses (e.g., whether you are logged on from a .com, .gov, or .edu domain), domain names (the Internet address of a computer), and the type of computer and operating system being used. We may also use cookies to identify your computer when you revisit GazoPa, to recall your authentication information, or to track statistical information related to navigation throughout GazoPa. We may collect such information to better operate GazoPa so as to enhance your experience while using GazoPa, and to share with advertisers to provide you with a more personalized visit to GazoPa. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personal information while on GazoPa.
Depending on the type of browser you are using, your browser may be set to alert you of cookies. You do not have to accept all cookies sent to you by GazoPa; however, depending on the particular cookie you reject, you may not be able to use some of the features of GazoPa.
We may also employ software technology known as “Web beacons” or “clear GIFs” which helps us keep track of what content on GazoPa is effective. Web beacons are small graphics with a unique identifier that are used to track the online movements of Internet users. Web beacons are embedded in the Web pages you review, so they are not stored on your hard drive. The Web beacons we use do not track or collect any personally identifiable information about you and they are in no way linked to your personally identifiable information.
Opting In and Out
When you submit personal information to us through the Registration Pages on GazoPa, you may be given an opportunity to opt in to receiving additional information other than GazoPa from Hitachi, Hitachi related entities, and/or selected third parties at the time of submitting your personal information to us. If you opt in, you may be added to our list of users who will receive promotional and marketing communications from us, our partners, and/or other third parties. If you initially opt in to receiving such communications and you later decide that you no longer want to receive them, you may opt out of receiving promotional and marketing communications from us and/or our partners and other third parties by contacting Hitachi at Hitachi, Ltd., GazoPa Project, 27-18, Minami Oi 6-chome, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 140-8572 Japan.
Links to Other Sites
For your convenience, GazoPa may from time to time include links to third-party sites whose information practices may be different than ours. Visitors should consult the other sites' privacy policies, as we have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.
Security of Information and Disclosures
Hitachi uses reasonable security measures to safeguard information concerning, and submitted by, users like you. Despite the security measures employed by Hitachi, you should be aware that it is impossible to guarantee absolute security with respect to information sent through the Internet.
Hitachi will, to the extent possible, control your personal information, and, except as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose your personal information to third parties. Although we are committed to maintaining the confidentiality of your personal information, if required by law, we reserve the right to disclose such information without first obtaining your consent.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time without prior notice.Your continued use of GazoPa shall constitute your acceptance of the modified Privacy Policy.
Contacting Us
If you have any questions or concerns relating to this Privacy Policy, please contact Hitachi at Hitachi, Ltd., GazoPa Project, 27-18, Minami Oi 6-chome, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, 140-8572 Japan.