Last Updated: December 31, 2017

I. WEBSITE PRIVACY

BY USING OR ACCESSING OUR WEBSITE OR BY PROVIDING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO US ON OR THROUGH THIS WEBSITE, YOU CONSENT TO THE COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF THAT INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY.

General

Yoga Alliance (referred to herein as “Yoga Alliance,” “we” or “us”) respects the privacy of our Members and others who visit our Website(s) www.yastandards.com (the “Website”). This Privacy Policy describes the information about you that we collect through the Website, and how that information is used, maintained and, in some cases, shared. To fully understand your rights we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy. By using or accessing the Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, do not use or access the Website. We may, from time to time, revise or update this Privacy Policy. This may include making changes to the way we collect, maintain, and store information. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post notice of the modifications to the Privacy Policy on yastandards.com. Please check the “Last Modified” legend at the top of this page to see when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Changes will become effective immediately. If you disagree with any of the terms of this Privacy Policy in its current form, or in the future, in any of its modified forms, your sole remedy is to discontinue your use of the Website.

 

What Information We Collect About You and How We Use It

Information You Provide to Us

Yoga Alliance gathers and retains personal information about you when you voluntarily submit it to us. For example, if you choose to complete and submit a form or otherwise provide information through our Website, including but not limited to the “Contact Us” page, we will use the data you submit to respond to your inquiry and consider your request. We will retain the information you submitted and may use or disclose your information as provided in this Privacy Policy.

URLs and IP Addresses

Like many other websites, we collect information about users’ utilization and navigation of the Website. This information helps us to design the Website to better suit our users’ needs. Information collected from Website visitors includes: domain name used to access the internet, browser used, pages visited, referring site URLs and Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. We use this information as provided in this Privacy Policy, including, for example, to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer the Website, to help identify you, to gather broad demographic information and to provide relevant advertising to you. We track the keywords that are entered into our search engine and the terms selected to browse and filter information in order to measure interest in specific topics, and we may monitor which terms a particular user enters. We may also record information about individual behavior or use of the Website.

Cookies

Like most websites, we employ cookies on certain pages of the Website. Cookies make using the Website easier by, among other things, saving your preferences for you. We may also use cookies to deliver content tailored to your interests. Our cookies may enable us to relate your use of the Website to personally identifying information that you previously submitted. If your browser is set to reject cookies, or if your browser notifies you that you are about to receive a cookie and you reject it, then your use of the Website may not be as efficient or as enjoyable as it would be if the cookie were enabled. The information that we collect with cookies allows us to improve our membership benefits and information, to statistically analyze usage of the Website, and to improve and customize our content and other offerings. We may link cookies to other information about you that we have collected. However, we only disclose information collected with cookies to third parties on an aggregated basis without the use of any information that personally identifies you.

We do not use technology that recognizes a “do-not-track” signal from your web browser.

The cookies we use on our Website include:
Session cookies: These temporary cookies expire and are automatically erased whenever you close your browser window. We use session cookies to grant you access to content and to enable actions you must be logged in to do.
Persistent cookies: These usually have an expiration date in the distant future and remain in your browser until they expire or you manually delete them. We use persistent cookies to better understand you use patterns so we can improve the Website. For example, we may use a persistent cookie to associate you with your user account or to remember that your choices on the Website, but this only works when cookies on our site are enabled.
Third party cookies: We permit limited third parties to place cookies through the Website to provide us with better insights into the use of the Site or user demographics or to provide relevant advertising to you. These third parties may collect information about a consumer’s online activities over time and across different websites when he or she uses our website. For example, we utilize Google Analytics to analyze usage patterns of the Site. Google Analytics generates a cookie to capture information about your use of the Site which Google uses to compile reports on website activity for us and to provide other related services. Google may use all or a portion of your IP address to identify their cookie, but this will not be associated with any other data held by Google. To learn more about the privacy policy of Google Analytics, click here. To block the Google Analytics cookie, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We may also permit third party service providers to place cookies through our Website, as indicated above, to perform analytic or marketing functions where you are notified of them and you have consented to the usage. We do not control the use of such third party cookies or the resulting information and we are not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties.

Social Networking Activities

The Website includes the ability for you and other users to link to social networking websites. As a result, we receive information about you when you choose to post or otherwise share information about our Website on these social networking websites. We may also receive information about you from your social networking account depending on your privacy setting for that account; you can control this by adjusting your privacy setting on your social network account. We may use such information about you as provided in this Privacy Policy in a variety of ways, including, for example, to administer the Website and enhance your experience with Yoga Alliance, and to communicate with you about the Website and new offerings associated with Yoga Alliance. We may keep all of this information indefinitely.

Account Creation

Before you can utilize some portions of the Website, we will require that you create an account and provide us with your first name, last name, and email address, and create a password. You may also need to verify your account post creation by email verification. This information will be used as provided in this Privacy Policy including, for example, for identification purposes, to communicate with you regarding your account with us, and to facilitate the functioning of the Website. We may keep all of this information indefinitely.

Financial Transactions

When you engage in any financial transaction through the Website, you will be asked to provide certain of your financial information, such as your debit card, credit card or PayPal account and billing address. We will only keep this information as long as necessary to complete the transaction or series of recurring transactions authorized by you.

How Personal Information May Be Used or Shared

We will not share, rent, sell or otherwise disclose any of the personally identifiable information that we collect about you through the Website, except in any of the following situations:

  • We may use the information we collect from you to fulfill your requests, to manage the Website, to communicate with you about membership, registration, products, services, events and other opportunities related to yoga, to conduct research and analysis and to expand our services and outreach. We have instituted opt-out capabilities to ensure that you do not receive unwanted promotional email or mail from Yoga Alliance, as discussed below in the “Opting Out of Communications” section.
  • We may disclose information that we collect about you to our third-party contractors and payment processors who perform services for us in connection with the Website, or to complete or confirm a transaction or series of transactions that you conduct with us. We may also disclose information to service providers or suppliers if the disclosure will enable that party to perform business, professional or technical support for us, including, for example, marketing partners, analytics services and research services. We may disclose information that we collect about you to verified Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers or other verified members who provide continuing education in connection with their provision of courses offered to members that are recognized for Continuing Education credit by Yoga Alliance; these providers are permitted to use the information in order to provide the courses offered but are not permitted to use the information for their own unrelated purposes.
  • As part of Yoga Alliance’s Affinity and Sponsorship Program, we may provide your information to our partners and sponsors, so as to provide access to benefits and communicate important information about them. We may also provide such information to other select third parties approved by Yoga Alliance as offering products or services relevant and useful to you. Yoga Alliance endeavors to pre-approve the content of any third party communications. If you do not want Yoga Alliance to share your information with any of its approved partners, sponsors, or other relevant third parties, please contact us at the email or phone number listed below under Contact, and state your request along with your first and last name, email and postal address and phone number. We will make every effort to process all such requests within 30 days.
  • We may disclose information about you as part of a merger, acquisition or other sale or transfer of the assets or business of Yoga Alliance.
  • We may be legally obligated to disclose information about you to the government or to third parties under certain circumstances, such as in connection with illegal activity on the Website, or to respond to a subpoena, court order or other legal process. We reserve the right to release information that we collect to law enforcement or other government officials, as we, in our sole and absolute discretion, deem necessary or appropriate.
  • We may share aggregated or anonymous information that cannot identify you with third parties. For example, we may disclose the number of visitors to the Website or the number of people who have downloaded a particular document.

Publicly Displayed Information

Yoga Alliance is an online directory (the “Registry”) accessible to the public at www.yogaalliance.org. If you are a Member, the Registry allows interested parties – including potential clients and employers – to find you. However, you choose how much or how little information you want displayed, as described below.

Registered Yoga Teachers

Yoga Alliance collects personal information about Registered Yoga Teachers (“RYT”) during and after the registration process. An RYT controls whether they appear publicly in the Directory by managing the online profile in their personal account. For directions about how to manage online accounts, view our website, or email info@yogaalliance.org.

Registered Yoga Schools

Yoga Alliance collects personal information about Registered Yoga Schools (“RYS”) and their trainees during the registration process and after. Some of that information is automatically included in the online Registry for an RYS, specifically: name of school and school locations, city, state and zip code of school locations, designation, school teachers, and types of yoga. An RYS may post additional information on their public profile by making selections in online account settings.

Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers

Yoga Alliance verifies certain providers of continuing education courses for members to complete as part of their requirements to maintain the RYT Designation. Courses may be offered by Experienced Registered Yoga Teachers (“E-RYT”) or by individuals who have relevant knowledge and a desire to provide a course that meets Yoga Alliance’s standards in one or more verified Educational Categories. Information about Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers may be included on the Site including, for example, their name, affiliation and other information they choose to share with members. For directions on how to include information please email info@yogaalliance.org. Information provided by continuing education providers will be used and disclosed as provided in this Privacy Policy.

Opting Out of Communications

If you no longer want to receive promotional emails from Yoga Alliance on a going-forward basis, you may opt out of receiving emails by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of those email you receive or, if you have an online account, you may log in to your account and make changes to your communication preferences. If you are having difficulty unsubscribing using the above methods, please contact us directly at the email or phone number listed below under Contact.

Please allow ample time for us to process your request. However, please note that even if you opt out from receiving promotional emails, we will continue to send you service-related communications and may need to keep information we have collected about you for record-keeping, research and other purposes.

Security

To help protect the privacy of data you transmit through the Website, where personally identifiable information is requested, we use technology designed to encrypt the information that you input before it is sent to us. In addition, we take steps to protect the user data we collect against unauthorized access. However, you should keep in mind that the Website is run on software, hardware and networks, any component of which may, from time to time, require maintenance or experience problems or breaches of security beyond our control.

Please also be aware that despite our best intentions and the guidelines outlined in this Privacy Policy, no data transmission over the Internet or encryption method can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Links to Other Websites

We do not endorse and are not responsible for the information practices or privacy policies of websites operated by others that may be linked to our Website, including the websites of our program partners and sponsors. If you decide to access a third party’s website that may be linked to this Website, you should consult that website’s privacy policy. This Privacy Policy governs only information that we directly collect, and not websites, services or applications that do not link to this Privacy Policy or that are maintained or controlled by other companies or organizations, including third party websites linked to from the Website. The inclusion of a link or reference on the Website does not imply endorsement of the linked site by us.

Children’s Privacy

This Website is not intended for children under the age of 13. If you are under 13 years of age, please do not use or access this Website at any time or in any manner. By using this Website, you affirm that you are over the age of 13. Yoga Alliance does not seek through this Website to gather personal information from or about persons under the age of 13.

Your California Privacy Rights

Under California law, a California resident with whom we have an established relationship has the right to request certain information with respect to the types of personal information we have shared with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, and the identities of those third parties, within the immediately preceding calendar year, subject to certain exceptions. All requests for such information must be in writing and sent to us at the mailing address set forth below.

Access from Outside North America

If you access the Website from outside of North America, information that we collect about you will be transferred to servers inside North America and maintained indefinitely, which may involve the transfer of information out of countries located in the European Economic Area. By allowing us to collect information about you, you consent to such transfer and processing of your data.

Governing Law

By choosing to visit our Website or provide information to us, you agree that any dispute over privacy or the terms contained in this Privacy Policy will be governed by the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia. You also agree to abide by any limitation on damages contained in our Terms of Use, available at yastandards.com/terms-of-use, or other agreement that we have with you.

Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we use the personal information you may provide us, or for technical questions about the operation of the Website, please contact us at info@yogaalliance.org or by phone at 1-888-921-9642.

II. OTHER PRIVACY

You may provide personal information to us other than on or through the Website. Aside from through the Website, other ways we collect personal information include via email, telephone, facsimile, postal mail, or in person. If we use any information on or through the Website that we collected other than on or through the Website, the Website Privacy terms, above, will apply in their entirety to the use of such information. If personal information you have provided is not used on or through the Website, then the only sections of the Website Privacy terms above that will apply to the use of such information are: “How Personal Information May Be Used or Shared,” “Governing Law,” and “Contact.”