Sherrard, German & Kelly, P.C. (“SGK”, “we”, “us”, “ours”) is committed to protecting the privacy of those who visit our website (the “Site”). This document sets forth the privacy policy (“policy”) for our Site. By using our Site in any way, you agree to be bound by this policy. You should read this policy, and if you do not agree to it, do not use the Site. Except for the limited situations mentioned below, we do not share or sell any of your information collected online.
When you visit our Site, we collect certain nonpublic information about you. Our policy is to keep this personal information confidential and safeguarded, and to use or share it only as needed to provide the Site and any web content to you, or as permitted or required by law. This policy does not address our processing of personal information in connection with our attorney-client relationships, which are addressed in our engagement agreements with our clients.
Information we collect:
Automatically – By browsing the Site, we do not ask you to enter any personal information about yourself. Nevertheless, we can collect nonpublic personal information about you in a couple of different ways. First, certain information that identifies you may be automatically and passively collected and stored on our or our service providers’ servers, including your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, operating system and information regarding what Site pages you accessed and when. We may also use Cookies and navigational data like Uniform Resource Locators (“URL”) to gather information regarding the date and time of your visit to our Site, and the information for which you searched and viewed. This type of information may be collected to make our Site and its content more useful to you. See the “Cookies” section below for more information about cookies, and your choices with respect to cookie collection when visiting the Site.
You provide – We also collect personal information from you that you may provide, such as your email address, phone number, mailing address, and business or professional association when you request information about our legal services and expertise, subscribe to our client alerts or newsletters, or register to attend a webinar or event that we post through the Site.
From Third Party Sources – We may obtain information about you from other sources, including through third party services and organizations to supplement information provided by you. For example, if you access our Site through a third-party application or site, such as an app store or a social networking site, we may collect information about you from that third-party site that you have made public via your privacy settings. This supplemental information allows us to verify information that you have provided to us and to enhance our ability to provide you with information about our services.
Cookies, Pixel Tags/Web Beacons, Analytics Information:
We, as well as third parties that provide analytics services to us, may use cookies, pixel tags, local storage, and other technologies (collectively “Cookies”) to automatically collect information through the Site. Cookies are essentially small data files placed on your computer, tablet, mobile phone, or other devices that allow us and our service partners to record certain pieces of information whenever you visit or interact with our Site.
- Cookies. Cookies are small text files placed in visitors’ computer browsers to store their preferences. Most browsers allow you to block and delete cookies. However, if you do that, the Site may not work properly.
- Pixel Tags/Web Beacons. A pixel tag (also known as a web beacon) is a piece of code embedded in the Site that collects information about users’ engagement on that web page. The use of a pixel allows us to record, for example, that a user has visited a particular web page or clicked on a particular link.
- Analytics. We may also use service providers to collect personal information regarding Site visits, or behavior and visitor demographics on our Site, such as Google Analytics, Marketo, LinkedIn Analytics, Facebook Analytics, Twitter Analytics and others. For more information about Google Analytics, go to: https://google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can opt out of Google’s collection and processing of data generated by your use of the Site by going to https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
How information is shared or used:
We do not share any personal information we collect from you with any third parties outside of SGK except in the very limited circumstances as noted in this section. We may share this personal information with our third-party service providers, who may use this information to provide us with better web and app content for your and our benefit. We may use personal information and other data about you to create de-identified and aggregated information, such as de-identified demographic information, de-identified location information, information about the computer or device from which you access our Site, or other analyses we create. We do not sell your personal information to anyone or share it for any marketing purpose. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties as permitted or required by law.
Third-Party services and websites:
The Site may contain links or references to other parties’ websites, such as social network sites (including Facebook, Linked In and Twitter, among others). This policy does not address, and SGK has no control over or responsibility for, the privacy policies or information gathering practices of any third party operating any website or app or providing any product or service, including those to which we may link and those which may link to us. The inclusion of a link on our Site does not imply endorsement of the linked website or service by us. We strongly recommend that you review the privacy policies of every online service you use before submitting any personal information and direct any concerns to the site administrator of that website.
Your choices regarding information sharing:
Please note, you cannot opt out of our sharing of your personal information with our processors or service providers, or our sharing of de-identified information, or your personal information as required by law, as described above. You may stop or restrict the placement of Cookies on your device or remove them by adjusting your preferences as your browser or device permits. Since we do not share or use your personal information for any purpose other than to operate and optimize our Site as described above, there is no other opt-out choices for personal information collected through the Site. If you wish to opt-out of any information sharing conducted by any third party website that you link to from us, or to us from them, you must do so in accordance with their specific opt-out policies and procedures.
How information is safeguarded:
We have procedures in place that we believe are reasonably designed to protect the security and confidentiality of your personal information. These include confidentiality agreements with companies we hire to help us provide services to you, password-protected user access to our internal computer files, restricted physical access to our servers, training of employees, and strict confidentiality policies that apply to all employees. Unfortunately, no system is 100% secure, and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any personal information that you provide to us. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we do not accept liability for unintentional disclosure.
Law applicable, cross border transfers of information:
Our Site is U.S. based and controlled, operated and administered by us and our service providers from offices and servers located within the United States. Our Site and this Privacy Policy is strictly intended for audiences located in the United States and are provided in accordance with and subject to applicable United States law. If you decide to continue to access our Site from your location outside the United States, you hereby agree that your use of the Site is subject to this Policy and your personal information will be transferred or processed in the United States, and you may have fewer privacy rights and protections than you have in your country of origin.
Children’s information:
The Site is not directed to children under 18 (or other age as required by local law), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you learn that your child has provided us with personal information without your consent, you may contact us as set forth below. If we learn that we have collected any personal information in violation of applicable law, we will promptly take steps to delete such information.
Special disclosures for California visitors:
A CALIFORNIA RESIDENT WHO HAS PROVIDED PERSONAL DATA TO A BUSINESS WITH WHOM HE/SHE HAS ESTABLISHED A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP FOR PERSONAL, FAMILY, OR HOUSEHOLD PURPOSES (A “CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER”) MAY REQUEST INFORMATION ABOUT WHETHER THE BUSINESS HAS DISCLOSED PERSONAL INFORMATION TO ANY THIRD PARTIES FOR THE THIRD PARTIES’ DIRECT MARKETING PURPOSES. IN GENERAL, IF THE BUSINESS HAS MADE SUCH A DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL DATA, UPON RECEIPT OF A REQUEST BY A CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER, THE BUSINESS IS REQUIRED TO PROVIDE A LIST OF ALL THIRD PARTIES TO WHOM PERSONAL DATA WAS DISCLOSED IN THE PRECEDING CALENDAR YEAR, AS WELL AS A LIST OF THE CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA THAT WERE DISCLOSED. CALIFORNIA CUSTOMERS MAY REQUEST FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT OUR COMPLIANCE WITH THIS LAW BY CONTACTING US BY EMAIL AT privacy@sgkpc.com, OR BY WRITING TO US AT 535 Smithfield Street, Ste. 300, Pittsburgh PA 15222 C/O “CA PRIVACY”, or by calling us at the toll free number (833) 984-2292. PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE REQUIRED TO RESPOND TO UP TO TWO REQUESTS PER CALIFORNIA CUSTOMER EACH YEAR AND WE ARE NOT REQUIRED TO RESPOND TO REQUESTS MADE BY MEANS OTHER THAN THROUGH THIS E-MAIL OR STREET ADDRESS OR TOLL-FREE TELEPHONE NUMBER.
Except as provided above, we do not share your personal information collected by us with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, and if that ever changes in the future, we will not do so without first giving you the opportunity to opt out. If you are a California resident, you may request information about our compliance with California law by calling us toll free at the number above, emailing us or sending a letter to us at the email or address shown above, addressed to “Attention: California Privacy Matters.” Any such request must include “California Privacy Rights Request” in the subject line and include your name, street address, city, state and zip code. Please note that we are only required to respond to up to two requests per visitor each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through this designated email address, mailing address or toll-free number.
California Business & Professions Code Section 22575(b) provides that California residents are entitled to know how SGK responds to “Do Not Track” browser settings. We currently do not respond to “Do Not Track” signals because a uniform technological standard has not yet been developed.
Privacy policy updates:
We reserve the right to change, modify, add or remove portions of our policy at any time without prior notice and at our sole discretion. We will post those changes on the Site and other places we deem appropriate. We will use information in accordance with the version of the policy under which the information was collected. All policy changes are effective immediately upon posting. The last date on which this policy has been updated is noted below, at the end of this policy.
Contact information:
If you have any questions, concerns or comments about our privacy policy, you may contact us by email to privacy@sgkpc.com, or by letter to Sherrard, German & Kelly, P.C., 535 Smithfield Street, Ste. 300, Pittsburgh PA 15222, Attention: Privacy Matters.