Privacy Policy

Updated and Effective: January 16, 2025 (prior version October 24, 2023)

Issuer Direct Corporation (doing business as ACCESS Newswire Inc.) (“ACCESS” "ANW" or “we”) owns and operates various websites (the “Sites”).

Our Sites include, but are not limited to, the following, accessnewswire.com, accesswire.com, newswire.com, pressrelease.com and others.

We want you to feel comfortable using the Sites, so we have created this Privacy Policy to inform you of what information we may collect from you on the Sites and how we may use that information. As we note in this Privacy Policy, we may collect different types of information and utilized them in different ways depending on which of our Sites you use.

It also describes your choices regarding use, access and correction of your personal information. Please take a moment to review the terms of this Privacy Policy. By using the Sites, you agree to accept the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Sites. This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected on the Sites. It does not apply to information that we may collect by means other than on the Sites.
 
 

l. Personal Information

A. Active Collection and Use:

In order to access the Sites, services and the information available on the Sites, you may be required to register with the Sites and provide some personal information, such as your name, email address, telephone number and certain financial information, including but not limited to credit card information. If you provide us with personal information, we will retain and may use that information to contact or respond to you.

We also may retain or use your information for the period of time needed to pursue our legitimate business interests. This time period will not exceed 10 years unless otherwise agreed by you in writing. Our legitimate business interests may include customizing the services we provide to you and to ensure compliance with ACCESS policies and applicable laws, ensuring you are satisfied with ACCESS’s support and services, authentication confirmation for secure handling of ACCESS’s customer accounts, etc. We will retain such information even if you elect to delete your account with us but will only use it as described above.

We also collect potentially personally identifying information like “IP addresses” (as discussed in more detail below) for logged in users and for users leaving comments on WordPress.com blogs. ACCESS only discloses logged in user and commenter IP addresses under the same circumstances that it uses and discloses personally identifying information as described below so long as the user in not logged in, except that blog commenter IP addresses and email addresses are visible and disclosed to the administrators of the blog where the comment was left.

Our services collect, store and process this personal information on servers in the United States of America.

We collect your personal information to:
 

• Provide you with a tailored experience to our Platforms.
• Notify you about your account activity.
• Process transactions and collect requests as directed by you.
• Provide customer support and resolve disputes.
• Verify your identity and account information.
• Identify, prevent, and report potentially prohibited, fraudulent or illegal activities.
• Provide transaction, risk mitigation and “KYC -Know Your Customer” reports to our Financial Institution Partner(s) and/or merchants as necessary and or required.
• Contact you at your telephone number by voice or SMS to validate the telephone number or your account.
• Notify you about important changes to ANW’s Platform and/or ANW’s terms and conditions.
• Provide you with news, offers and information about ANW’s offerings based on your communications preferences.
• Any other purpose that we disclose to you in the course of providing ANW’s Services to you.
• Compare and create audiences based on interest of your personal data and or requests.

B. Aggregate Information and Passive Information Collection:

From time to time, we may collect general, non-personal, statistical information about the use of the Sites, such as how many visitors visit a specific page on the Sites, how long they stay on that page, and which hyperlinks, if any, they “click” on.

We collect this information through the use of technologies such as “cookies” and “IP addresses,” which are discussed in greater detail below. Our system may also automatically collect operational information about the technology you use, such as your browser, type of computer, operating systems, internet service providers and the domain name of the Sites from which you linked to our Sites.

We collect this information in order to determine which areas of the Sites are most popular and to enhance the Sites for visitors. We may use this information for security purposes, to detect and to block security breaches and to provide you with a safe online environment. We may also share this information with our partners.

C. IP Addresses:

An IP address is a number that's automatically assigned to your computer whenever you're surfing the web. Web servers, the computers that “serve up” web pages; automatically identify your computer by its IP address. ACCESS collects IP addresses for purposes of system administration, to report aggregate information to third parties and to track the use of the Sites. When visitors request pages from the Sites, our servers log the visitors' IP addresses. It is not our practice to link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, which means that a visitor's session will be logged, but the visitor remains anonymous to us. However, we reserve the right to use IP addresses to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with the Site's policies or to protect ACCESS, the Sites, its visitors, or others.

D. Cookies, Beacons and Successor Technologies:

We partner with a third party to display advertising on our website or to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partner may use cookies or similar technologies in order to provide you advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you wish to opt out of interest-based advertising, you may elect to do so on your account page. In addition, ACCESS and our partners use cookies and similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to an individual's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. Cookies make web-surfing easier by saving your preferences while you're at the Sites. The use of cookies is an industry standard -- you'll find them at almost all websites.

By showing how and when visitors use the Sites, cookies help us see which areas are popular and which are not. Information such as the total number of visitors and pages viewed is most easily tracked with cookies. We may use the information from cookies to make improvements and updates to the Sites and to tailor our services to our visitors' needs.

You have the option of disabling cookies using your browser preferences. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, please be aware that some features of the Sites may not function properly or may be slower if you refuse cookies. If you would like more information about cookies and targeted advertisements or to opt out of having this information used by companies that are part of the Network Advertising Initiative, please visit www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

Pages of our Sites may contain electronic images known as web beacons-also referred to as single- pixel gifs-that permit ACCESS to count users who have visited those pages and for other related website statistics-(e.g., recording the popularity of certain website content and verifying system and server integrity). Web beacons are not used to access your personal information on the Sites; they are solely used to compile aggregated statistics concerning the use of the Sites. Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, the time and date of a page view, and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides.

In addition to the foregoing, we use certain analytics platforms, which will track certain personal information of yours. Information collected about you is limited to age, gender and affinity categories. If you would like to opt out of the collection of such information you may do so on your account page. Further, most Web browsers provide technology plugins that prevent your data from being collected and used by analytics platforms.

E. User Data Supplementation:

We may receive information about you from other sources, including publicly available databases or social media sites, combine this data with information we already have about you. This helps us to update, expand and analyze our records, identify new customers, and provide products and services that may be of interest to you.

Examples of the types of personal information that may be obtained from public sources or purchased from third parties and combined with information we already have about you (for the purpose of creating more tailored advertising and products), may include: Purchased marketing data about our customers from third parties, Data and other information available publicly on social media sites.

F. Do Not Track Signals:

At this time we do not have the ability to comply with any setting within your web browser that would send “do not track” signals or other similar technology that would provide consumers the ability to exercise choice regarding the collection of personally identifiable information.

ll. Disclosure of Personal Information

A. Personally Identifiable Information:

We may use information collected via these Sites to improve the content of our Sites, to customize the Sites to your preferences, to communicate information to you (if you have requested it), for our marketing and research purposes, to ensure you are no longer contacted in the event you unsubscribe from marketing campaigns, to market future available services and software of relevant interest to you, and for any other purpose specified.

Except for the limited situations discussed in this Privacy Policy, we will not share your personally identifiable information with any third parties. We may sometimes use third parties to perform certain services for us, such as hosting web Sites, sending postal mail and providing data analysis. We may provide personally identifiable information to those businesses when that information is necessary for them to respond to your requests or otherwise perform their duties. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only as necessary to provide these services to us.

B. Legal Notice:

In certain situations, ACCESS may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to comply with national security or law enforcement requirements.

We may also disclose your personal information as required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or other legal process, when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government request or subpoena.

If ACCESS is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, you will be notified via email and/or a prominent notice on our website, of any change in ownership, uses of your personal information, and choices you may have regarding your personal information. We may also disclose your personal information to any other third party with your prior consent.

We may buy other businesses or their assets or sell our business assets. Customer information is generally one of the business assets involved in such transactions. Thus, in the event that ACCESS sells all or part of its assets, or in cases of liquidation, dissolution, reorganization or other transfer of the business, customer information, including any visitor information collected through the Sites, may be one of the transferred assets.

Finally, ACCESS reserves the right to disclose visitor information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) ACCESS rights or property, other visitors, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. ACCESS also reserves the right to disclose visitor information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it. However, we will have no liability for disclosure of information obtained due to errors in transmission or the unauthorized intervention of third parties.

C. Agreement Information:

We may group information into aggregate visitor data in order to describe the use of the Sites to our existing or potential business partners or other third parties, or in response to a government request. However, please be assured that this aggregate data will in no way personally identify you or any other visitors to the Sites.

III. Links to Other Sites

Please be aware that when you are on the Sites, you could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. There may be links to other sites from the Site's pages that take you outside our Sites. These other sites may send their own cookies or other tracking technologies to visitors collect data or solicit personal information. The privacy policies of these other sites may be significantly different from this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites and cannot guarantee the security of any of your personal information collected there.

IV. Security

Protecting the security of your personal information is very important to us.

When you transmit personal information from your computer to our servers, your information is protected by both a “firewall” (a combination of computer hardware and software that helps keep unauthorized visitors from accessing information within our computer network) and industry standard SSL (secure socket layer) encryption. Once we receive your transmission, we will take reasonable precautions to ensure its security on our systems. While we utilize all of our security and data protection preventative measures, the internet is inherently insecure. As a result, while ACCESS strives to protect your personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and cannot be responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your personal information.

Users are required to sign-in to specific secured areas of the Sites and services using a user ID and password. These authenticate the user and are designed to safeguard against unauthorized access and use of a user's account. The user ID and password are used on a secure web page and encrypted when transmitted over the internet.

The safety and security of your information also depends on you.

If you have access to password-protected features, never share your password with anyone else, notify us promptly if you believe your password security has been breached, and remember to log off of this site before you leave your computer. Similarly, any personally identifiable information or personally sensitive data that you disclose through online forums and blogs hosted on the Sites, may be collected and used by others. We recommend caution when giving out personal information to others in these public online forums.

If at any point you suspect or become aware of a security incident (i.e. your password is stolen or you receive suspicious communication from someone holding themselves out to be an ACCESS employee or from a fake website claiming to be affiliated with ACCESS), please forward the communication to us or report the incident by email to privacy@accessnewswire.com as soon as possible.

V. Privacy Policy for Children

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13 on the Sites. If you are under the age of 13, please do not provide any personal information to us. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of 13, we will make commercially reasonable efforts to delete such information from our database.

VI. Changes to These Terms

The terms of this Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes to this Privacy Policy by posting a notice, on the homepage of the Sites for a reasonable period of time prior to the changes becoming effective, that this Privacy Policy has been updated, and by changing the “Updated and Effective” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. We encourage you to check this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of the Sites following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

VII. Access and Review of Your Personal Information

Our services collect, store, and process personal information on servers in the United States of America.

When using our Sites and services, we make commercially reasonable efforts to provide you with access to your personal information and either correct this data if it is inaccurate or delete inaccurate data at your request if it is not otherwise required to be retained by law or for legitimate business purposes.

ACCESS provides you with information about whether we hold, or process on behalf of a third party, any of your personal information on your account page.

You may access, correct, or request deletion of your personal information by accessing your account page. In certain circumstances we may be required by law to retain your personal information or may need to retain your personal information in order to continue providing a service.

We will respond to these requests within a reasonable timeframe.

Users must identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected or removed prior to processing such requests, and we may decline to process such requests that are deemed unreasonable or inappropriate. In any case, the information access and data corrections are performed free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort. Due to the methods that we maintain certain services, once your information is corrected or deleted; residual copies may take a period of time before they are deleted from our active systems and may remain in our backup systems.

VIII. International Privacy Principles

A. EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-E.U. DPF) for Data Transferred to the United States:

ACCESS complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce. ACCESS has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and from the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) in reliance on the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. ACCESS has certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.

ACCESS is responsible for the processing of personal data it receives, under each Data Privacy Framework Program, and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. ACCESS remains liable for all data transferred under the DPF Principles unless we can prove we were not a party giving rise to the damages.

Pursuant to the DPF Principles, we acknowledge the right of EU, UK, and Swiss individuals to access their data. Such individuals may also correct, amend, or delete the personal information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or has been processed in violation of the DPF Principles. Individuals wishing to exercise this right should refer to Section VII. Access and Review of Your Personal Information for more details regarding how they can gain such access.

We will provide an individual opt-out choice, or opt-in for sensitive data, before we share your data with third parties other than our agents, or before we use it for a purpose other than which it was originally collected or subsequently authorized. To request to limit the use and disclosure of your personal information, please submit a written request to privacy@accessnewswire.com.

In compliance with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF), ACCESS commits to resolve complaints about our collection or use of your personal information transferred to the U.S. pursuant to the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF. EU, UK, and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints should first contact ACCESS.

ACCESS has further committed to refer unresolved DPF Principles-related complaints to a U.S.-based independent dispute resolution mechanism, BBB NATIONAL PROGRAMS. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint, or if your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed, please visit www.bbbprograms.org/dpf-complaints for more information and to file a complaint. This service is provided free of charge to you.

If your DPF complaint cannot be resolved through the above channels, under certain conditions, you may invoke binding arbitration for some residual claims not resolved by other redress mechanisms. See https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/ANNEX-I-introduction-dpf.

With respect to personal data received or transferred pursuant to the DPF Principles, ACCESS is subject to the regulatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In certain situations, ACCESS may be required to disclose personal data in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

B. GDPR for EU Individuals

As of May 25th, 2018, ACCESS has been in compliance with Regulations (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of on the free movement of such data, known as the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), and ACCESS’s processing and control of personal information if you are located within the European Union will be in accordance with the standard set forth in the GDPR.

EU individuals with GDPR complaints are encouraged to contact us directly at privacy@accessnewswire.com. You also have the right to bring any grievance directly to the Data Protection Authorities (DPA’s) in your area. Please refer to https://ec.europa.eu/justice/article-29/structure/data-protection-authorities/index_en.htm to locate your specific DPA.

C. Email or Newsletter Preferences

You may also be provided an option to choose to subscribe to an email list. If you subscribe to our electronic mailing list and later decide to opt-out, simply follow the instructions that are included in each email.

IX. Consent

By using our platforms, visiting our sites, you are consenting to the terms of this Privacy Policy, except as otherwise required by law or the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF or the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Frameworks (Swiss-U.S. DPF). As you become a registered user on our Site, from time to time, you will be asked to consent again to the use of your information based on your request. It should be noted for purposes of GDPR regulations, we will be required to have you consent to this use each and every time a request is made in a manner consistent with the GDPR standard, to learn more about GDPR, please

visit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regulation.

Such action could be email double opt in verification, SMS verification for two-factor authentication, and or a clickwrap or checkboxes to consent to the use.

X. Questions

At any time, if you believe that ACCESS has willingly violated the above Privacy Policy, please let us know by sending an email to privacy@accessnewswire.com.

ACCESS values your trust and will take the appropriate measures to ensure that the Sites and services we provide to you are secure.

Any questions that you may have regarding this Privacy Policy should be directed to privacy@accessnewswire.com.