Privacy Notice
Last Updated: June 28, 2016
This Privacy Notice explains how the American Dental Association (“ADA”) and its subsidiary and affiliated entities (collectively, "ADA," "we," "us" or "our") collect information about you through our website and how this information is then used or disclosed. This Privacy Notice does not apply to websites that do not display or link to this notice or that have their own privacy notices or to information we may collect from you or about you in other ways, including through emails you may send to us.
ADA Contact Information
You may contact us about this Privacy Notice:
Via postal address:
American Dental Association
211 E. Chicago Ave.
Chicago, IL 60611
By email MSC@ada.org
How We May Use and Disclose Information We Collect About You
The information we collect via our website may be used and disclosed to improve the content of ADA.org and advance the ADA’s mission. For example, the ADA may use this information for purposes such as:
- Registering you for, or providing you with, programs and services you have requested
- Processing, fulfilling and following up on your orders or membership application
- Providing access to publications
- Responding to your emails or online requests
- Sending you information you request
- Sending and processing surveys and continuing education quizzes
- Publishing membership directories and registration lists
- Sharing with companies to offer you products and services that may be of interest to you
- Sharing your email address with companies to deliver communications on our behalf
- Sharing your email address as described below
- Sharing information about you with members and state and local dental societies
- Sharing information about you with service providers
- Sharing with third parties as required by law
- Sharing demographic information for research purposes
For each visitor to our website, where reasonably possible, our web server automatically recognizes only the user’s internet protocol (IP) address, but not the email address. Our system can recognize the identity of individuals who sign in using their usernames and passwords.
We collect information such as the internet protocol (IP) address of visitors to our website, aggregate information on what pages users access or visit, user-specific information on what pages users access or visit, and information volunteered by users, including from surveys, purchases and/or registrations. We also may collect the email addresses of those who communicate with us via email.
With respect to cookies: We use cookies for a number of purposes, including to administer our website and to record session information, such as items that users add to their shopping carts and user-specific information on what pages users access or visit.
Advertising on ADA.org may be served through a vendor that uses IP addresses for purposes such as controlling ad frequency.
The ADA, its subsidiary and affiliates may use or disclose your contact information and other information about you, such as your occupation, specialty, member status, graduation date and dental school, to alert you to new information, products and services, events and other opportunities. From time to time, we may also make your contact information and other information about you available to other organizations we believe to be reputable, such as companies whose products or services we think you might find interesting. If you register on ADA.org to attend an event, the ADA may provide an attendee list to other attendees and to entities that collaborate with the ADA on the event.
With respect to your email address: We generally do not knowingly disclose your e-mail address without your express or implied consent. We may disclose your e-mail address if you serve in a leadership capacity or if you provide your e-mail address in connection with an event or an attendee list. We have instituted opt-out capabilities to help you avoid receiving unwanted commercial email messages from the ADA. We will not knowingly give or sell your email address to any unrelated entity outside the ADA, its service providers, subsidiaries and affiliated entities, ADA members, and state and local dental societies.
The ADA maintains directories of dentists that may include information you submit via our website. These directories are shared with ADA members and state and local dental societies. A directory containing information about ADA members is publicly accessible on MouthHealthy.org; members may elect to provide additional information, such as email address and photo, through the expanded profile option.
The ADA may provide delegates’ names and mailing addresses in response to a request from a dental specialty organization. The Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA) publishes delegates’ names, districts, cities and states, as well as information, including ADA.org email addresses, about officers and trustees.
The ADA may share or license information about you to a third party if, in our sole discretion, we believe that it is (1) reasonably necessary to perform a service or deliver a product or publication; (2) authorized by you or as set forth in any applicable agreement (whether express or implied) between you and ADA, or with your consent; (3) permitted under this Privacy Notice; (4) required by statute or regulation; (5) of interest to dentists, dental students, members of the dental team, or consumers of dental services, or (6) in the good-faith belief that such action is appropriate for reasons of security or legal compliance.
If you participate in an activity such as attending or speaking at a program or authoring a publication, information such as your name and photo may be shared via ADA.org or ADA publications.
The ADA also occasionally hires other companies to provide services on our behalf, including, but not limited to, hosting of online resources, processing credit card transactions, packaging, order fulfillment, answering customer questions about products or services, consulting services, data modeling, printing, sending postal mail and processing membership and event registration. We will provide those companies with information they need to deliver the service. Third parties may collect information such as your IP address that may indicate your online activities over time or across different websites when you use our websites. At this time, this website does not respond to do-not-track signals.
If you use the ADA Credentialing Service the ADA transfers certain information about you into the ADA Credentialing Service, and you enter certain other information into the ADA Credentialing Service. The payors, hospitals and employers that you designate can access the information about you in the ADA Credentialing Service and can use it from time to time for credentials verification. The ADA and its service providers can access the information about you in the ADA Credentialing Service and can use it from time to time to make the service available. Security measures that include computer safeguards and secured files and buildings are in place to protect your personal information from unauthorized access and use. If information about you is disposed of, it will done securely.
Your Rights and Responsibilities
It is important when you wish to exercise your rights that you contact us via any of the means listed in the first section of this Privacy Notice.
While the ADA takes measures to protect your personal information, no security measure or network is entirely secure. Your password to access ADA.org should be complex and should never be shared with anyone, and should be changed from time to time. After you access ADA.org, you should log off and exit your browser so unauthorized persons cannot access the site.
If you do not want to receive email, postal mail, telephone calls from us in the future, or if you do not want us to share your contact information in the manner described above, please provide us with your exact name, email and postal addresses, phone and fax numbers and, if appropriate, ADA membership number to msc@ada.org. It may take up to four weeks for your opt out to become effective. While we will continue to share information we maintain about you with our service providers, subsidiary and affiliates, and with state and local dental societies, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that any other specific contact information you so identify is removed from lists we share with other organizations.
On request we may provide site visitors with access to information that they submitted via ADA.org, such as certain transaction information (e.g., dates on which users made purchases, amounts and types of purchases), communications that the visitor has directed to our site (e.g., emails, user inquiries), and contact information (e.g., name, address, phone number).
On request we may also offer the ability to have inaccuracies corrected in contact information, financial information, unique identifiers, transaction information and certain other data.
You may also contact us at msc.ada.org if you believe your information is being used improperly.
You may provide consent to additional uses and disclosures; for example, in connection with a product or service offered by the ADA, an affiliated entity, or a third party.
Children's Privacy
We do not knowingly solicit data online from, or market online to children under the age of 13.
More About Our Privacy Practices
With respect to other websites and servers: ADA.org contains links to other websites. We have no control over and take no responsibility for the privacy practices or content of those sites.
We use Doubleclick for Publishers (DPF) Small Business to serve ads on our site.
When users choose to make payments via credit cards, they do so on the website of a third party service provider. We do not store or reuse credit card information unless you have given us your credit card information directly and authorized us to do so.
Changes, Comments and Questions
If our Privacy Notice changes at some time in the future we will post the revised Privacy Notice to our website to notify you and the changes will be effective on the day that we post the revised privacy notice. The latest version of our Privacy Notice will always be available at ADA.org. If you are concerned about how your information may be used, please check back at our website periodically.
We welcome your comments or questions about our Privacy Notice and privacy practices. If you feel that this site is not following its stated policy, please let us know.