Your Privacy

Privacy Statement

We understand that the privacy of users is important. To that end, we have adopted the following policy with regard to the collection, use, and dissemination of personal information requested from visitors to this site. Personal information is information associated with a user's name or personal identity. We are providing this policy below so that you may understand the terms and conditions associated with the provision of any personal information to us. Please note, however, that this policy has been developed with the recognition that Internet technologies continue to develop and evolve rapidly, and that such changes may require us to alter our Privacy Policy. Any such alterations will not affect our general commitment to the protection of our visitors' privacy. We will post any changes to our Privacy Policy on this page. Your continued use of this Website constitutes acceptance of such terms and policies.

General Statement

You may visit our website and complete all of the learning activities contained herein without identifying yourself. We strongly encourage users of this site not to share any personally identifyable information. As a general rule, Harvard Business School will not sell, swap, rent, or otherwise disclose to any third party any such personal information for commercial purposes. However, it is important to note that some of the interative tools on this website are hosted by third parties (specifically Qualtrics, Disqus and Vimeo). Please carefully check the privacy policies of these providers before sharing any of your personal data.

We reserve the right to disclose any information gathered on the site under special circumstances, including disclosures required by law, court order or circumstances under which disclosure, at our sole discretion, is necessary to protect the legal rights, including the intellectual property rights, of Harvard Business School or the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Usage Information Collected and Use of Information

Harvard Business School may collect other information about its users that is not connected with any specific personal identity, such as data about usage and service operation. The following summarizes the types of information that we may collect.

SYSTEM INFORMATION, IP ADDRESSES AND REFERRERS

When you connect to our website, our web server may record the numerical Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using, information about your browser and operating system, date and time of access and the internet address and page which linked you to our site. We use such information to help diagnose problems with the website, to administer and improve our website and to generate aggregate statistical reports that analyze general user information and demographics. Unless required by legal process, we do not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable. This means that user sessions may be tracked by IP address, but a user's identity remains anonymous.

In addition, we ordinarily do not disclose to third parties site usage by individual IP addresses, but may do so in very limited circumstances when complying with law or legal process, working with consultants assisting us in fixing or improving our site, or in monitoring and improving the security of our network. Our staff monitors search terms that users enter into our Search Engine, but this tracking is never associated with individual users.

Cookies

Cookies are unique bits of computer data that many major websites will transfer to your computer the first time that you visit. Cookies are stored on your hard drive and may be later accessed by the website to track prior usage. We use cookies on this site to track your progress through the learning units and modules. The information that we collect using cookies is anonymous and not personally identifiable. It does not contain your name, address, telephone number, or email address.

You may be able to set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when one is being sent. It is likely that some portions of our site will not operate properly if cookies are disabled.

External Links

This site contains links to external resources and other independently run Web sites that are not controlled by Harvard Business School or Harvard University and are not covered by this privacy policy. Harvard Business School is not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of such Web sites.

Security Precautions

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Internet communications, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. While Harvard Business School remains committed to protecting the privacy of our users, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. We do so by using secure technology, privacy protection controls, and restrictions on employee access, however, we make no representations regarding the veracity of such measures.