Last revised: 2011 May 31

Personal Information

In general, you can visit this Web site without telling us who you are and without giving any personal information about yourself. There are times, however, when we may need information from you. For example, in response to a request from us, you may choose to give us your name and address or e-mail id so that we may correspond with you, enable specific services for you at this Web site, or fulfill your requests. We intend to let you know how we will use such information before we collect it from you; if you tell us that you do not want us to use this information to make further contact with you beyond fulfilling your requests, we will respect your wishes.

If you request something from this Web site, we will use the information you provide to fulfill your request. To help us do this, we may share information, with others, for instance, other parts of IBM, IBM's Business Partners, financial institutions, shipping companies, postal or government authorities (for example, Customs authorities) involved in fulfillment. In connection with a transaction we may also contact you as part of our customer satisfaction surveys or for market research purposes.

Discussion Forums, Chat Rooms, Wikis, and Mailing Lists

If you participate or contribute to a discussion forum, chat room, a Wiki or mailing list hosted at this Web site, you should be aware that the information you provide to those systems will be made broadly available to others, inside or outside IBM, who have access to this Web site and/or those systems. Also, please recognize that individual forums and chat rooms may have additional rules and conditions. Each participant's opinion on a forum or chat room or expressed in a contribution to a wiki or mailing list is his or her own and should not be considered as reflecting the opinion of the Host.

Our Worldwide Practices

IBM is a global organization, with legal entities, business processes, management structures, and technical systems that cross borders.

Our privacy practices are designed to provide protection for your personal information, all over the world.

We may share your personal information within IBM and transfer it to countries in the world where we do business.

Some countries may provide less legal protection for your information. In such countries IBM will still handle information in the manner we describe here.

Information Security and Quality

We intend to protect your personal information and to maintain its quality. We implement appropriate measures and processes, such as using encryption when transmitting certain sensitive information, to help us to keep your information secure and to maintain its quality.

Use of Suppliers

In some cases IBM uses suppliers to collect, use, analyze and otherwise process information on its behalf. It is IBM's practice to require such suppliers to handle information in a manner consistent with IBM's policies.

Cookies, Web Beacons, and Other Technologies

We sometimes collect non-identifiable information from visits to this Web site to help us provide better customer service. For example, we keep track of the domains from which people visit, and we also measure visitor activity on this Web site, but we do so in ways that keep the information non-identifiable. This information is sometimes known as "clickstream data." The Host or others on the Host's behalf may use this data to analyze trends and statistics and to help us provide better customer service.

Additionally, social media buttons on this site may log certain information such as your IP address, browser type and language, access time, and referring Web site addresses, and, if you are logged in to those social media sites, they may also link such collected information with your profile information on that site.

Also, when we collect personal data from you in a transaction, we may extract some information about that transaction in an non-identifiable format and combine it with other non-identifiable information such as clickstream data. This information is used and analyzed only at an aggregate level to help us understand trends and patterns. This information is not reviewed at an individual level. If you do not want your transaction details used in this manner you can disable your cookies.

We collect the information we mentioned in the previous paragraphs through the use of various technologies, including one called "cookies." A cookie is a piece of data that a Web site can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your computer as an anonymous tag that identifies your computer but not you. Some of the Host's pages use cookies, sent by the Host, or other technologies to better serve you when you return to the Web site. You can set your browser to notify you before you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it. You can also set your browser to turn off cookies. If you do so, however, this Web site may not work properly.

This Web site may use Web beacon or other technologies to better tailor this Web site to provide better customer service. These technologies may be in use on a number of pages on this Web site. When a visitor accesses these pages, a non-identifiable notice of that visit is generated which may be processed by us or by our suppliers. These Web beacons usually work in conjunction with cookies. If you don't want your cookie information to be associated with your visits to these pages, you can set your browser to turn off cookies.

If you turn off cookies, Web beacon and other technologies will still detect visits to these pages, but the notices they generate cannot be associated with other non-identifiable cookie information and are disregarded. For more information, please see How to work with Cookies.

Disclosures Required By Law

Please be aware that in certain circumstances, it is possible that personal information may be subject to disclosure pursuant to judicial or other government subpoenas, warrants, or orders.

Notification of Changes

This privacy statement was last updated on the date indicated at the top of this document. A notice will be posted on the home page of this Web site for 30 days whenever this privacy statement is changed in a material way.

Privacy Questions and Access

If you have a question about this statement, you can send an email to the open-services.net Web site coordinator at webmaster@open-services.net. You can also contact us at this address if you have a question about the Host's handling of your information.

If you wish to obtain a copy of personal information you provided to this Web site, or if you become aware the information is incorrect and you would like us to correct it contact us at webmaster@open-services.net.

Before the Host is able to provide you with any information or correct any inaccuracies, however, we may ask you to verify your identity and to provide other details to help us to respond to your request. We will endeavor to respond within an appropriate timeframe.