Privacy and Cookie Policy

This site is owned and operated by AIM. As we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information.

AIM gathers two types of information about users including

  • information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions, i.e. to receive our e newsletters; participate in polls and surveys
  • information AIM gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites.

This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers’ needs and to help us better understand the demographics of our audience. Under no circumstances does AIM divulge any information about an individual user of its website to a third party.

E newsletters
We offer a free electronic newsletter to users. AIM gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of joining AIM.

Surveys
AIM may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Usage Tracking
AIM  tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. AIM does break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser). AIM sometimes tracks and catalogues the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies
We may place a text file called a “cookie” in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. AIM uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you’ve set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site.

Use of information
AIM uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience, whether to provide interactive or personalised elements or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users. As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out e.g. electronic newsletters We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. AIM never shares newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas we do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don’t track which terms a particular user enters.

Sharing information
AIM uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help better understand our audience’s demographics. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

Security
AIM operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorised individuals have access to the information provided by our members.

Opt-out policy
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.

Your consent
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by AIM. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.