Privacy Policy

GTNF Trust – Privacy Policy

The GTNF Trust privacy policy is applicable to all publications, events and digital properties operated by the GTNF Trust, including the GTNF Conference, Tobacco Reporter magazine and Vapor Voice magazine. The GTNF Trust is a division of TMA, a nonprofit organized under Section 501(c)(6) of the United States Internal Revenue Code.

Effective from: July 1, 2021

Introductions and General Terms

The GTNF Trust (“we” or “us”) recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of information provided to us by clients, registrants and readers. This document (“Privacy Policy”), which includes our cookies policy, represents our commitment to protecting the personal information we hold about our subscribers, customers, prospective customers, newsletter subscribers, survey responders, web visitors, event/webinar/website registrants, conference attendees and speakers who are a part of the GTNF Trust media community.

The following guidelines have been created to demonstrate our commitment to managing and safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this privacy policy and/or applicable laws of the United States and the state of North Carolina. We will process the personal information you have supplied to us to conduct and manage our business to enable us to give you the most appropriate marketing information, service and products. These are what we consider to be our “Legitimate Interests.” We endeavor to always keep your data accurate and secure and to honor your data preferences.

Our Location and Contact Information:

Privacy Manager
GTNF Trust
1121 Situs Court
Suite 370
Raleigh, NC 27606
Phone: (919) 872-5040
Email: privacy@gtnftrust.org

This location is the place where all business and interactions between you and us occur.

The Information We Collect

We collect information you provide to us, including personally identifiable information, in the course of using, engaging with or otherwise interacting with our products, services and events. You (“User”) can, among other activities, subscribe to one of our products (such as magazines, digital magazines and newsletters); request information from us or one of our partners; engage in various activities like taking surveys, entering contests or awards programs or otherwise expressing an opinion; participate in one of our online forums or communities; or register for our conferences and other events (either in-person or virtual).

We may also collect information about your professional interests, opinions and/or your use of various products, services and programs. For example, we ask you to provide your job responsibilities or your professional interests to qualify for a free magazine subscription. In some cases, you can submit information about other people—for example, registering for one of our events or nominating someone for an industry award.

Audience and Minimum Age Requirements

All platforms operating under the GTNF Trust are directed toward and solely intended for businesses, organizations and their employees and are not intended for a general or consumer audience.

We do not intentionally collect or maintain information from individuals known to us to be under the age of legal purchase for tobacco and nicotine products in the jurisdiction in which individuals access our systems or attend our events.

It is the policy of the GTNF Trust to not engage with anyone under the age of 18 or under the age of purchase for tobacco and nicotine products in their jurisdiction of domicile, if different from 18. All online events are governed by the laws of the state of North Carolina and the United States of America, which is where your data is processed and the jurisdiction of domicile for the GTNF Trust. When registering for an event accessed via the internet, you are expressly agreeing to enter into a license to view that event as if you and the event are in the United States. The age of purchase in the United States is 21, and under U.S. law, anyone under age 21 is a minor.

We may request certification or verification of your age. This information is retained only insomuch as is necessary for verification of age and compliance with legal requirements. The GTNF Trust also collects email addresses for the purpose of registering attendees for events. The GTNF Trust may share your email address with third parties for the purposes of event management and post-event audience analysis or upon receipt of lawful legal process. In the event the GTNF Trust collects such information and then determines that the registrant providing this information is a minor, the collected information will be permanently deleted from our records, and we will instruct any third-party provider to do likewise.  

Data We Collect Through Your Use of Our Websites

In addition to the information you provide to us directly, we, our partners, advertising networks, advertisers or other third-party service providers may also collect non-personally identifiable information when you visit our webpages, open our emails or engage with any of our other products and services. This includes such information as the type of browser and operating system you are using, your IP address, your device identifiers, your internet service provider and location-based information as well as the content you interacted with, viewed or accessed. This data may be combined and linked with data from other sources.

We may receive information about you from any third parties with which we partner, using cookie technology to personalize advertisements for services. For detailed information on cookies we use, please see the “Cookies” section below.

How We Use Your Data

We may use the information you share with us and the information we collect through your use of our sites in the ways described below and as described at the time of capture:

  • Magazine subscriptions
  • Newsletters
  • Events
  • Customer services
  • Research
  • Direct and email marketing

We use the personal information that you provide to us in order to provide products, services and programs to you. As part of a subscription and/or registration agreement, subscribers and registrants will be contacted by us through email, mail and/or phone to communicate with them about their subscription and/or registration. They will be contacted for renewal, requalification and survey updates concerning their account profile and special offers related to their subscription and/or registration. You may unsubscribe from newsletters and other email communications at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email you are no longer interested in receiving.

From time to time, we may contact you on our behalf or on the behalf of select third parties to notify you of special offers or other products, services, programs or events.

We will never sell your information.

Who We Share Your Data With

The GTNF Trust discloses publicly available or volunteered technical or reference information of users in aggregate form only, and not specific individual data, to advertisers and certain other third parties.

The GTNF Trust has formed partnerships with a variety of carefully selected companies with which we share data in order to carry out the activities described in the section titled “How We Use Your Data” above. These third parties are contractually bound to use personal information only to perform the services that we hire them to provide.

We may also disclose personal information to third parties in, but not limited to, the following circumstances: (1) in the event we buy or sell any assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such asset; (2) if we are under duty to disclose or share personal data to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce our terms and conditions or other agreements or to protect the rights, property or safety of the GTNF Trust.

Accessing/Correcting/Updating Personal Data

You may view and update information that you previously submitted to the GTNF Trust by sending us an email at privacy@gtnftrust.org or writing to us at the above address. Current subscribers and registrants can also access and change their information by selecting the appropriate link in the email product or by visiting the website on which their current subscription/registration resides. A request to change information may not be accommodated if the request conflicts with legal requirements or could result in incorrect information. Requests to view or change personal information may take a few days to process.

How Long We Keep Your Personal Data

We will hold your personal information in our systems for only as long as is required to provide you with the products and/or services you have requested.

We will retain your email address after you opt out of receiving emails to ensure that we continue to honor and respect that request. To unsubscribe from marketing emails at any time, please click on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email and update your account preferences. You may also contact us to inform us if you do not wish to receive any marketing materials from us. In some circumstances, you can ask us to delete your data.

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data sent to your browser from a server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Most browsers allow users to block the receipt of cookies but doing so may compromise your ability to use certain features of our websites. We do not collect personally identifiable information in this way; however, if you provide us with personally identifiable information, we may associate that information with the information that is collected automatically.

We may use cookies to store website visitors’ preferences, record session information, record user-specific information, such as what pages users access and visit, customize page content based on a visitor’s browser type or other information that the visitor sends, and store users’ names and passwords.

You may disable cookies or the systems you use may do it automatically. However, disabling cookies may result in an unoptimized user experience. For example, your passwords or pre-fill functions may not work, or pages may take longer to load or may not fully load.

Analytics

The GTNF Trust’s portfolio of websites uses Google Analytics and Squarespace as its primary solution for tracking website visits, interactions, payment processing and event registration. The GTNF Trust uses website analytics data to help improve the way we deliver content and online experiences to visitors. Our use of these tools is subject to the terms and conditions of these vendors, including, but not limited to, their own privacy policies as applicable to an organization operating in the United States. For full details on how Google processes your data, please visit: https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/2919631?hl=en&ref_topic=1008008 and https://www.squarespace.com/privacy.

Third Parties

Except as stated above, the GTNF Trust does not disclose or transfer individual data records to third parties unless it reasonably believes it is required to do so by applicable law or valid legal process or to protect its property interest.

Third parties may place and use tracking mechanisms (tracking pixels) on our webpages or in the emails we send to you. This privacy policy does not cover any use of information that such third parties may have collected from you or the methods used by these third parties to collect that information. (Examples: cookies, web beacons and clear GIFs.)

Some of our webpages, products and series contain links to third-party sites and services whose privacy practices may be different than our own. We allow you to connect with other third-party sites and services. You should consult the other third-party sites’ and services’ privacy notices to better understand their privacy practices.

Security

The GTNF Trust takes every precaution to protect your information from unauthorized uses. When you submit sensitive information via our websites, the information is protected both online and offline.

We won’t knowingly allow anyone under 18 to register with us or to provide any personal information about themselves to us.

Users Outside the United States

Our websites are operated in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, be aware that upon accessing our sites, you are connecting to and transacting all business in the United States and are subject to the laws of the United States and the state of North Carolina. By using our websites, participating in any of our products or services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to this transfer and to our collection and use of your information as set forth above.

Policy Updates

From time to time, we may use provided information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy policy. If our information practices change, we will immediately post any adjustments to our policy on this website. This will serve as your notification of these changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, check this page periodically.

Enforcement

If you have concerns that this site is not following its stated information policy, please contact us through the above postal address, email link or phone number.