Name | International Monetary Fund |
---|---|
Size | 200px |
Established | July 1944 |
Type | International Economic Organization |
Headquarters | Washington, D.C.United States |
Membership | 185 Nations (Founding); 187 Nations (To Date) |
Language | English, French, and Spanish |
Leader title | Managing Director |
Leader name | Christine Lagarde |
Main organ | Board of Governors |
Website | http://www.imf.org |
Remarks | }} |
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an intergovernmental organization that oversees the global financial system by taking part in the macroeconomic policies of its established members, in particular those with an impact on exchange rate and the balance of payments. The objectives are to stabilize international exchange rates and facilitate development through the influence of neoliberal economic policies in other countries as a condition of loans, debt relief, and aid. It also offers loans with varying levels of conditionality, mainly to poorer countries. Its headquarters is in Washington, D.C. The IMF’s relatively high influence in world affairs and development has drawn heavy criticism from some sources.
The International Monetary Fund was conceived in July 1944 originally with 45 members and came into existence in December 1945 when 29 countries signed the agreement, with a goal to stabilize exchange rates and assist the reconstruction of the world’s international payment system. Countries contributed to a pool which could be borrowed from, on a temporary basis, by countries with payment imbalances. The IMF was important when it was first created because it helped the world stabilize the economic system. The IMF works to improve the economies of its member countries. The IMF describes itself as “an organization of 187 countries (as of July 2010), working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty.”
The members of the IMF are the 187 members of the UN and Kosovo.
Former members are Cuba (which left in 1964) and the Republic of China.
The other nonmembers are North Korea, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Nauru, Cook Islands, Niue, Vatican City, and the rest of the states with limited recognition.
All member states participate directly in the IMF. Member states are represented on a 24-member executive board (five executive directors are appointed by the five members with the largest quotas, nineteen executive directors are elected by the remaining members), and all members appoint a governor to the IMF's board of governors.
All members of the IMF are also IBRD members and vice versa.
The IMF’s influence in the global economy steadily increased as it accumulated more members. The number of IMF member countries has more than quadrupled from the 44 states involved in its establishment, reflecting in particular the attainment of political independence by many developing countries and more recently the dissolution of the USSR. The expansion of the IMF’s membership, together with the changes in the world economy, have required the IMF to adapt in a variety of ways to continue serving its purposes effectively.
In 2008, faced with a shortfall in revenue, the International Monetary Fund’s executive board agreed to sell part of the IMF’s gold reserves. On April 27, 2008, former IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn welcomed the board’s decision of April 7, 2008, to propose a new framework for the fund, designed to close a projected $400 million budget deficit over the next few years. The budget proposal includes sharp spending cuts of $100 million until 2011 that will include up to 380 staff dismissals.
At the 2009 G-20 London summit, it was decided that the IMF would require additional financial resources to meet prospective needs of its member countries during the ongoing global financial crisis. As part of that decision, the G-20 leaders pledged to increase the IMF’s supplemental cash tenfold to $500 billion, and to allocate to member countries another $250 billion via Special Drawing Rights.
On October 23, 2010, the ministers of finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6 percent of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets. As of August 2010 Romania ($13.9 billion), Ukraine ($12.66 billion), Hungary ($11.7 billion), and Greece ($30 billion) are the largest borrowers of the fund.
In 1995 the International Monetary Fund began work on data dissemination standards with the view of guiding IMF member countries to disseminate their economic and financial data to the public. The International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) endorsed the guidelines for the dissemination standards and they were split into two tiers: The General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS).
The International Monetary Fund executive board approved the SDDS and GDDS in 1996 and 1997 respectively, and subsequent amendments were published in a revised “Guide to the General Data Dissemination System.” The system is aimed primarily at statisticians and aims to improve many aspects of statistical systems in a country. It is also part of the World Bank Millennium Development Goals and Poverty Reduction Strategic Papers.
The IMF established a system and standard to guide members in the dissemination to the public of their economic and financial data. Currently there are two such systems: General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) and its superset Special Data Dissemination System (SDDS), for those member countries having or seeking access to international capital markets.
The primary objective of the GDDS is to encourage IMF member countries to build a framework to improve data quality and increase statistical capacity building. This will involve the preparation of meta data describing current statistical collection practices and setting improvement plans. Upon building a framework, a country can evaluate statistical needs, set priorities in improving the timeliness, transparency, reliability and accessibility of financial and economic data.
Some countries initially used the GDDS, but later upgraded to SDDS.
Some entities that are not themselves IMF members also contribute statistical data to the systems: – GDDS – SDDS institutions:
Similarly, any member country can withdraw from the Fund, although that is rare. For example, in April 2007, the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced the expulsion of the World Bank representative in the country. A few days later, at the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that the country would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank. Chavez dubbed both organizations as “the tools of the empire” that “serve the interests of the North.” As of June 2009, both countries remain as members of both organizations. The government of Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country’s sovereign bonds.
A member’s quota in the IMF determines the amount of its subscription, its voting weight, its access to IMF financing, and its allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs). A member state cannot unilaterally increase its quota—increases must be approved by the Executive Board of IMF and are linked to formulas that include many variables such as the size of a country in the world economy. For example, in 2001, the People’s Republic of China was prevented from increasing its quota as high as it wished, ensuring it remained at the level of the smallest G7 economy (Canada).
In September 2005 the IMF’s member countries agreed to the first round of ad-hoc quota increases for four countries, including China. On March 28, 2008, the IMF’s executive board ended a period of extensive discussion and negotiation over a major package of reforms to enhance the institution's governance that would shift quota and voting shares from advanced to emerging markets and developing countries. Under existing arrangements, the industrialized countries (including Mexico) hold 57 per cent of the IMF votes. But the financial crisis has tilted control away from heavily indebted mature economies, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, in favour of the fast-growing, cash-rich, so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
Since the United States has by far the largest share of votes (approx. 17 percent) amongst IMF members (see table below), it has little to lose relative to European nations. At the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit, the U.S. raised the possibility that some European countries would reduce their votes in favour of increasing the votes for emerging economies. However, both France and Britain were particularly reluctant as an increase in China’s votes would mean China now has more votes than the UK and France. At a subsequent IMF meeting in Istanbul, the same month as the Pittsburgh Summit, former IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn then highlighted that “If we don’t correct them, we’ll have the recipe for the next major crisis.” Citing the seriousness of the issue to be tackled.
On October 23, 2010, the ministers of finance of G-20, governing most of the IMF member quotas, agreed to reform IMF and shift about 6 percent of the voting shares to major developing nations and countries with emerging markets.
!Members' quotas and voting power, and board of governors (Note: Voting shares before the changes made on July, 2011) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
style="padding:0; border:none;" |
SDRs!!Quota: percentage of total!! Governor! | Alternative Governor!! Votes: number!!Votes: percentage of total | |||||
42,122.4 | 17.72| | Timothy Geithner | Ben Bernanke | 421,964 | 16.77 | |
15,628.5 | | | 6.57 | Yoshihiko Noda | Masaaki Shirakawa | 157,025 | 6.24 |
14,565.5 | | | 6.13 | Jens Weidmann | Wolfgang Schäuble | 146,395 | 5.82 |
10,738.5 | | | 4.52 | François Baroin | Christian Noyer | 108,125 | 4.30 |
10,738.5 | | | 4.52 | George Osborne | Mervyn King (economist)>Sir Mervyn King | 108,125 | 4.30 |
9,525.9 | | | 4.01 | Zhou Xiaochuan | Yi Gang | 95,999 | 3.82 |
7,882.3 | | | 3.32 | Giulio Tremonti | Mario Draghi | 79,563 | 3.16 |
6,985.5 | | | 2.94 | Ibrahim A. Al-Assaf | Hamad Saud Al-Sayari>Hamad Al-Sayari | 70,595 | 2.81 |
6,369.2 | | | 2.68 | Jim Flaherty | Mark Carney | 64,432 | 2.56 |
5,945.4 | | | 2.50 | Aleksei Kudrin | Sergey Mikhaylovich Ignatyev>Sergey Ignatyev | 60,194 | 2.39 |
5,821.5 | | | 2.45 | Pranab Mukherjee | Duvvuri Subbarao | 58,955 | 2.34 |
5,162.4 | | | 2.17 | Nout Wellink | L.B.J. van Geest | 52,364 | 2.08 |
4,605.2 | | | 1.94 | Guy Quaden | Jean-Pierre Arnoldi | 46,792 | 1.86 |
4,250.5 | | | 1.79 | Guido Mantega | Alexandre Tombini | 43,245 | 1.72 |
4,023.4 | | | 1.69 | Elena Salgado | Miguel Ángel Fernández Ordóñez>Miguel Fernández Ordóñez | 40,974 | 1.63 |
3,625.7 | | | 1.52 | Agustín Carstens | Guillermo Ortiz Martínez>Guillermo Ortiz | 36,997 | 1.47 |
3,458.5 | | | 1.45 | Jean-Pierre Roth | Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf | 35,325 | 1.40 |
3,366.4 | | | 1.42 | Okyu Kwon | Seong Tae Lee | 34,404 | 1.37 |
3,236.4 | | | 1.36 | Wayne Swan | Martin Parkinson | 33,104 | 1.32 |
2,659.1 | | | 1.12 | Gastón Parra Luzardo | Rodrigo Cabeza Morales | 27,331 | 1.09 |
remaining 166 countries | 62,593.8| | 28.79 | respective | respective | 667,438 | 30.05 |
Following the recent economic crisis, the IMF has attempted to help emerging economies deal with large capital outflows.
The IMF sometimes advocates “austerity programmes,” cutting public spending and increasing taxes even when the economy is weak, in order to bring budgets closer to a balance, thus reducing budget deficits. Countries are often advised to lower their corporate tax rate. In Globalization and Its Discontents, Joseph E. Stiglitz, former chief economist and senior vice president at the World Bank, criticizes these policies. He argues that by converting to a more Monetarist approach, the purpose of the fund is no longer valid, as it was designed to provide funds for countries to carry out Keynesian reflations, and that the IMF “was not participating in a conspiracy, but it was reflecting the interests and ideology of the Western financial community.”
ODI research undertaken in 1980 pointed to five main criticisms of the IMF. Firstly, developed countries were seen to have a more dominant role and control over LDCs primarily due to the Western bias towards a capitalist form of the world economy with professional staff being Western trained and believing in the efficacy of market-oriented policies. Secondly, the Fund worked on the incorrect assumption that all payments disequilibria were caused domestically. The Group of 24 (G-24), on behalf of LDC members, and UNCTAD complained that the Fund did not distinguish sufficiently between disequilibria with predominantly external as opposed to internal causes. This criticism was voiced in the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis. Then LDCs found themselves with payments deficits due to adverse changes in their terms of trade, with the Fund prescribing stabilisation programmes similar to those suggested for deficits caused by government over-spending. Faced with long-term, externally-generated disequilibria, the Group of 24 argued that LDCs should be allowed more time to adjust their economies and that the policies needed to achieve such adjustment are different from demand-management programmes devised primarily with internally generated disequilibria in mind.
The third criticism was that the effects of Fund policies were anti-developmental. The deflationary effects of IMF programmes quickly led to losses of output and employment in economies where incomes were low and unemployment was high. Moreover, it was sometimes claimed that the burden of the deflationary effects was borne disproportionately by the poor.
Fourthly is the accusation that harsh policy conditions were self-defeating where a vicious circle developed when members refused loans due to harsh conditionality, making their economy worse and eventually taking loans as a drastic medicine.
Lastly is the point that the Fund's policies lack a clear economic rationale. Its policy foundations were theoretical and unclear due to differing opinions and departmental rivalries whilst dealing with countries with widely varying economic circumstances.
ODI conclusions were that the Fund’s very nature of promoting market-oriented economic approach attracted unavoidable criticism, as LDC governments were likely to object when in a tight corner. Yet, on the other hand, the Fund could provide a ‘scapegoat service’ where governments could take loans as a last resort, whilst blaming international bankers for any economic downfall. The ODI conceded that the fund was to some extent insensitive to political aspirations of LDCs, while its policy conditions were inflexible.
Argentina, which had been considered by the IMF to be a model country in its compliance to policy proposals by the Bretton Woods institutions, experienced a catastrophic economic crisis in 2001, which some believe to have been caused by IMF-induced budget restrictions—which undercut the government’s ability to sustain national infrastructure even in crucial areas such as health, education, and security—and privatization of strategically vital national resources. Others attribute the crisis to Argentina’s misdesigned fiscal federalism, which caused subnational spending to increase rapidly. The crisis added to widespread hatred of this institution in Argentina and other South American countries, with many blaming the IMF for the region’s economic problems. The current—as of early 2006—trend toward moderate left-wing governments in the region and a growing concern with the development of a regional economic policy largely independent of big business pressures has been ascribed to this crisis.
In an interview, the former Romanian Prime Minister Tăriceanu claimed that "Since 2005, IMF is constantly making mistakes when it appreciates the country's economic performances".
The delay in the IMF’s response to any crisis, and the fact that it tends to only respond to them rather than prevent them, has led many economists to argue for reform. In 2006 an IMF reform agenda called the Medium Term Strategy was widely endorsed by the institution’s member countries. The agenda includes changes in IMF governance to enhance the role of developing countries in the institution’s decision-making process and steps to deepen the effectiveness of its core mandate, which is known as economic surveillance or helping member countries adopt macroeconomic policies that will sustain global growth and reduce poverty. On June 15, 2007, the executive board of the IMF adopted the 2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance, a landmark measure that replaced a 30-year-old decision of the Fund’s member countries on how the IMF should analyze economic outcomes at the country level.
In 2009, a book by Rick Rowden titled The Deadly Ideas of Neoliberalism: How the IMF has Undermined Public Health and the Fight Against AIDS, claimed that the IMF’s monetarist approach towards prioritizing price stability (low inflation) and fiscal restraint (low budget deficits) was unnecessarily restrictive and has prevented developing countries from being able to scale up long-term public investment as a percent of GDP in the underlying public health infrastructure. The book claimed the consequences have been chronically underfunded public health systems, leading to dilapidated health infrastructure, inadequate numbers of health personnel, and demoralizing working conditions that have fueled the “push factors” driving the brain drain of nurses migrating from poor countries to rich ones, all of which has undermined public health systems and the fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries.
While the response to these moves was generally positive possibly because ecological protection and energy and infrastructure transformation are more politically neutral than pressures to change social policy. Some experts voiced concern that the IMF was not representative, and that the IMF proposals to generate only 200 billion dollars a year by 2020 with the SDRs as seed funds, did not go far enough to undo the general incentive to pursue destructive projects inherent in the world commodity trading and banking systems—criticisms often leveled at the WTO and large global banking institutions.
In the context of the May 2010 European banking crisis, some observers also noted that Spain and California, two troubled economies within Europe and the United States respectively, and also Germany, the primary and politically most fragile supporter of a Euro currency bailout would benefit from IMF recognition of their leadership in green technology, and directly from Green Fund–generated demand for their exports, which might also improve their credit standing with international bankers.
Currency devaluation is recommended by the IMF to the governments of poor nations with struggling economies. Some economists claim these IMF policies are destructive to economic prosperity.
The IMF is for the most part controlled by the major Western powers, with voting rights on the executive board based on a quota derived from the relative size of a country in the global economy. Critics claim that the board rarely votes and passes issues contradicting the will of the U.S. or Europeans, which combined represent the largest bloc of shareholders in the Fund. By contrast, executive directors that represent emerging and developing countries have many times strongly defended the group of nations in their constituency. Alexandre Kafka, who represented several Latin American countries for 32 years as Executive Director (including 21 as the dean of the Board), is a prime example.
EU ministers agreed on the candidacy of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Socialist Party MP and former finance minister in France, as managing director of the IMF at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council meeting in Brussels on July 10, 2007. On September 28, 2007, the International Monetary Fund’s 24 executive directors elected Dominic Strauss-Kahn as new managing director, with broad support including from the United States and the 27-nation European Union. Strauss-Kahn succeeded Spain's Rodrigo Rato, who retired on October 31, 2007. The only other nominee was Josef Tošovský, a late candidate proposed by Russia. Strauss-Kahn said: "I am determined to pursue without delay the reforms needed for the IMF to make financial stability serve the international community, while fostering growth and employment."
In April 2011, press reports linked the former United Kingdom prime minister Gordon Brown with the role as the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund. However, these reports received mixed reception. Ed Miliband, who succeeded Brown as the Labour Party’s leader after their general election defeat the previous year, backed Brown for the role as his handling of the global economic crisis three years earlier had been “outstanding.” However, the new Conservative prime minister David Cameron spoke of the possibility that he would block Brown from taking the position, as Brown “didn’t know” that the country was deep in debt during his leadership and that for this reason Brown might not be the best person to run the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF announced on May 15, 2011 that John Lipsky had become acting managing director. This was because of Strauss-Kahn's arrest in connection with charges of sexually assaulting a New York room attendant. Strauss-Kahn subsequently resigned his position on May 18.
On June 14, the IMF announced two candidates had been shortlisted for the post. These were Agustín Carstens, governor of the Mexican central bank, and Christine Lagarde, French finance minister.
Early in the contest the world's largest developing countries, the BRIC nations, issued an unusual statement declaring that the tradition of appointing a European as managing director undermined the legitimacy of the IMF and called for the appointment to be merit-based.
The Wall Street Journal noted that the U.S. faced a delicate dilemma in backing a candidate. On the one hand it had advocated for more emerging-market representation and governance reform, a position favoring Agustin Carstens. On the other hand, it would wish to maintain its hold on its appointment of the No. 2 spot at the fund and its selection of the head of the World Bank, a position favoring Christine Lagarde.
In the event, the U.S. came out in favour of Lagarde, along with the BRIC nations Brazil, Russia, India and China, and on June 28 Lagarde was accordingly confirmed Managing Director of the IMF for a five-year term, starting on July 5, 2011.
! Dates | ! Name | ! Nationality |
May 6, 1946 – May 5, 1951 | Camille Gutt | |
August 3, 1951 – October 3, 1956 | Ivar Rooth | |
November 21, 1956 – May 5, 1963 | Per Jacobsson | |
September 1, 1963 – August 31, 1973 | Pierre-Paul Schweitzer | |
September 1, 1973 – June 16, 1978 | Johannes Witteveen | |
June 17, 1978 – January 15, 1987 | Jacques de Larosière | |
January 16, 1987 – February 14, 2000 | Michel Camdessus | |
May 1, 2000 – March 4, 2004 | Horst Köhler | |
June 7, 2004 – October 31, 2007 | Rodrigo Rato | |
November 1, 2007 – May 18, 2011 | Dominique Strauss-Kahn | |
July 5, 2011 – | Christine Lagarde |
Category:1945 establishments Category:International development Category:International finance institutions Category:International economics Category:United Nations specialized agencies
ar:صندوق النقد الدولي an:Fundo Monetario Internacional ast:Fondu Monetariu Internacional az:Beynəlxalq Valyuta Fondu bm:Jɛnselekenaani Wariko Kondo bn:আন্তর্জাতিক অর্থ তহবিল zh-min-nan:Kok-chè Hòe-pè Ki-kim be:Міжнародны валютны фонд be-x-old:Міжнародны валютны фонд bs:Međunarodni monetarni fond bg:Международен валутен фонд ca:Fons Monetari Internacional cs:Mezinárodní měnový fond cy:Cronfa Ariannol Ryngwladol da:Internationale Valutafond de:Internationaler Währungsfonds et:Rahvusvaheline Valuutafond el:Διεθνές Νομισματικό Ταμείο es:Fondo Monetario Internacional eo:Internacia Monunua Fonduso eu:Nazioarteko Diru Funtsa fa:صندوق بینالمللی پول hif:International Monetary Fund fo:Altjóða Gjaldoyragrunnurin fr:Fonds monétaire international ga:Ciste Airgeadaíochta Idirnáisiúnta gl:Fondo Monetario Internacional ko:국제 통화 기금 hi:अंतर्राष्ट्रीय मुद्रा कोष hr:Međunarodni monetarni fond id:Dana Moneter Internasional is:Alþjóðagjaldeyrissjóðurinn it:Fondo Monetario Internazionale he:קרן המטבע הבינלאומית jv:IMF kn:ಅಂತರರಾಷ್ಟ್ರೀಯ ಹಣಕಾಸು ಸಂಸ್ಥೆ krc:Халкъла Арасы Ачха Фонд ka:საერთაშორისო სავალუტო ფონდი kk:Халықаралық пұл қоры rw:Ikigega Mpuzamahanga cy’Imari sw:IMF la:Aerarium Monetarium Internationale lv:Starptautiskais valūtas fonds lb:Fonds monétaire international lt:Tarptautinis valiutos fondas hu:Nemzetközi Valutaalap mk:Меѓународен монетарен фонд ml:അന്താരാഷ്ട്ര നാണയനിധി mr:आंतरराष्ट्रीय नाणेनिधी arz:صندوق النقد الدولى ms:Tabung Kewangan Antarabangsa mn:Олон Улсын Валютын Сан my:အပြည်ပြည်ဆိုင်ရာ ငွေကြေးရန်ပုံငွေအဖွဲ့ nl:Internationaal Monetair Fonds ne:अन्तर्राष्ट्रीय आर्थिक कोष new:अन्तराष्ट्रीय मुद्रा कोष ja:国際通貨基金 no:Det internasjonale pengefondet nn:Det internasjonale pengefondet oc:Fons Monetari Internacional uz:Xalqaro Valyuta Jamgʻarmasi pnb:انٹرنیشنل مونیٹری فنڈ nds:Internatschonal Geldfonds pl:Międzynarodowy Fundusz Walutowy pt:Fundo Monetário Internacional ro:Fondul Monetar Internațional qu:Mamallaqtapura Qullqi Qullqa rue:Міджінародный меновый фонд ru:Международный валютный фонд sq:Fondi Monetar Ndërkombëtar scn:Funnu Munitariu Ntirnazziunali simple:International Monetary Fund sk:Medzinárodný menový fond sl:Mednarodni denarni sklad sr:Међународни монетарни фонд sh:Međunarodni monetarni fond fi:Kansainvälinen valuuttarahasto sv:Internationella valutafonden tl:Pandaigdigang Pondong Pananalapi ta:அனைத்துலக நாணய நிதியம் th:กองทุนการเงินระหว่างประเทศ tr:Uluslararası Para Fonu uk:Міжнародний валютний фонд ur:بین الاقوامی مالیاتی فنڈ ug:خەلقئارا پۇل فوندى تەشكىلاتى vi:Quỹ Tiền tệ Quốc tế fiu-vro:Riikevaihõlinõ Rahafond war:Kanasodnon Pondo han Pananalapi wuu:国际货币基金组织 yo:Àjọ Ètò Owó Káríayé bat-smg:Tarptautėnis valiotas fuonds zh:國際貨幣基金組織This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
The World News (WN) Network, has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to user privacy. The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices for wn.com, as well as e-mail newsletters.
We do not collect personally identifiable information about you, except when you provide it to us. For example, if you submit an inquiry to us or sign up for our newsletter, you may be asked to provide certain information such as your contact details (name, e-mail address, mailing address, etc.).
When you submit your personally identifiable information through wn.com, you are giving your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy. If you would prefer that we not collect any personally identifiable information from you, please do not provide us with any such information. We will not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties without your consent, except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will use the information you provide us only for the purpose of responding to your inquiry or in connection with the service for which you provided such information. We may forward your contact information and inquiry to our affiliates and other divisions of our company that we feel can best address your inquiry or provide you with the requested service. We may also use the information you provide in aggregate form for internal business purposes, such as generating statistics and developing marketing plans. We may share or transfer such non-personally identifiable information with or to our affiliates, licensees, agents and partners.
We may retain other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Such third parties may be provided with access to personally identifiable information needed to perform their functions, but may not use such information for any other purpose.
In addition, we may disclose any information, including personally identifiable information, we deem necessary, in our sole discretion, to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal proceeding or governmental request.
We do not want you to receive unwanted e-mail from us. We try to make it easy to opt-out of any service you have asked to receive. If you sign-up to our e-mail newsletters we do not sell, exchange or give your e-mail address to a third party.
E-mail addresses are collected via the wn.com web site. Users have to physically opt-in to receive the wn.com newsletter and a verification e-mail is sent. wn.com is clearly and conspicuously named at the point of
collection.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 newsletter or communication or by e-mailing us at michaelw(at)wn.com
The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during registration and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100 percent secure, however. Therefore, though we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
If we decide to change our e-mail practices, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we think appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If we make material changes to our e-mail practices, we will notify you here, by e-mail, and by means of a notice on our home page.
The advertising banners and other forms of advertising appearing on this Web site are sometimes delivered to you, on our behalf, by a third party. In the course of serving advertisements to this site, the third party may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. For more information on cookies, you can visit www.cookiecentral.com.
As we continue to develop our business, we might sell certain aspects of our entities or assets. In such transactions, user information, including personally identifiable information, generally is one of the transferred business assets, and by submitting your personal information on Wn.com you agree that your data may be transferred to such parties in these circumstances.