Natural Gas

PIPE EXCHANGE PRIVACY POLICY

Last Updated: August 2019

Pipe Exchange LLC (“Pipe Exchange,” “we,” “us,” and “our”) respects your privacy. This privacy policy (this “Privacy Policy”) explains the accepted privacy practices for our online service and product listings (collectively, the “Services”) found via our website at https://pipexch.com/ (the “Website”). It describes the ways in which your personal information is collected and used, and the rights and options available to you with respect to such information.

If you have questions or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy and/or our privacy practices in general, please contact us as described in this Privacy Policy. 

Personal Information that Pipe Exchange collects

In the course of signing up for the Pipe Exchange e-publication and/or contacting Pipe Exchange via the “Contact Us” section of the Website, you may choose to provide personal information (e.g., your name, phone number, email address, etc.). We will explicitly indicate the fields designated for mandatory completion. If you do not enter the requisite data in the mandatory fields, you will not be able to receive the e-publication and/or complete the relevant contact form.  It’s important that you understand there is no requirement by law for you to provide Pipe Exchange with your personal details – the information you share with us is entirely voluntary.

We request that you provide Pipe Exchange with complete, accurate and correct details. Your failure to do so will likely result in Pipe Exchange being unable to contact you about your inquiries into our Services.  

If, at any time, you provide Pipe Exchange with personal details about another person, you expressly represent and warrant that you represent and warrant that (1) you have that person’s explicit consent to provide such details to Pipe Exchange; and (2) such person has given explicit consent (a) for Pipe Exchange to collect, process, use and store such information as set forth in this Privacy Policy and any commercial agreement you have entered into with us. When we receive end user data in this capacity (i.e., as a data processor), we will carry out your instructions (i.e., as the data controller) with regards to its usage and processing of such data, and will not use such data outside the scope of our processing activities unless required by applicable law.

Content that you provided for publication on the Website

From time to time, Pipe Exchange may enable you to post content on the Website (i.e., on a blog, in a community forum, etc.), or to provide Pipe Exchange with content that Pipe Exchange will post.  In either scenario, by making available such content to Pipe Exchange, you expressly acknowledge, agree and warrant that: (i) such content may be published on the Website; (ii) such content may be used by Pipe Exchange in various other capacities and for various purposes as Pipe Exchange deems appropriate, including without limitation, improving the Services and managing complaints; and (iii) such content does not violate any other person’s right to privacy, does not violate any applicable laws, and does not otherwise infringe any other party’s intellectual property rights. In addition to the foregoing, you should be aware that any content you provide in these areas may be read, collected, and used by others. Based on the foregoing, we ask that any content you provide to Pipe Exchange for publication DOES NOT INCLUDE ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU OR ANYONE ELSE.

If, at some point, you request the removal of your content from the Website, Pipe Exchange will undertake reasonable efforts to accommodate your request, but it may not be possible to do so.  If that should happen, we’ll notify you accordingly.

Information gathered when using the Services

Pipe Exchange may collect information pertaining to your activity on the Website, including content that you create, information or advertisements that you have read, the web pages you visited, offers and Services that were of interest to you, the location of the computer and the Internet Protocol (IP) address through which you had access to the Website and more. Additionally, Pipe Exchange may collect or use the assistance of third parties to collect and analyze anonymous, statistical or aggregative information related to your use of the Website (and if applicable, the Services offered thereon), including information related to your personal details and activities.

Marketing Communications

Pipe Exchange does not use any of your information collected or provided for any marketing purposes. In the event this changes we will update you of such changes as required by applicable law.

Other Use of Information

We will store the information you provide and the information we collect about your activity on the Website throughout our databases (the “Databases”). We reserve the right to use such information for the following purposes:

• To provide the Services on the Website and to enable you to use them;
• To improve and expand the Services and content offered on the Website, including to create new services and content which correspond to the requirements and expectations of the users of the Website and to modify or cancel existing Services and content. The information used by Pipe Exchange for this purpose will be mainly statistical information, and will not identify you personally;
• To improve and customize your experience and other users’ experience with both the Website and related Services;
• To contact you occasionally, either by Pipe Exchange or by a third party acting on our behalf, regarding the Services. Subject to applicable laws and aside from our first communication, we will only contact you about Pipe Exchange’s offerings if you permit us to do so.  Even if you authorize Pipe Exchange to contact you, your authorization may be revoked/withdrawn by you at any time and you may opt out of the Website’s mailing lists by following the unsubscribe instructions in each of the emails you receive or by contacting us as described below; 
• To contact you if you or someone in your organization requests a product demonstration or product information;
• To contact you as and when Pipe Exchange believes it to be necessary for technical, administrative or security reasons;
• To analyze and provide statistical information to third parties. This information will not identify you personally; 
• For the orderly and proper operation and development of the Website and associated Services; or
• For any other purpose specified in this Privacy Policy.

Choice and Opt-Out

You can always opt not to disclose information to us, but keep in mind that some information may be needed to create an account or take advantage of some of the features of the Website. Even if you have agreed to receive operational communications from us, you may always decide to stop receiving such materials by sending an email to privacy@pipexch.com

Transfer of Information to Third Parties

Pipe Exchange will not transfer your personal details and any information collected pertaining to your activities on the Website (provided that such details and information identify you personally) to any third party, except in the following cases or as otherwise outlined in this Privacy Policy:

• If Pipe Exchange reasonably believes that you have abused your rights to use any of the Services, or performed any act or omission that Pipe Exchange reasonably believes to be violating any applicable law, rules, or regulations. Pipe Exchange may share your information in these cases, with law enforcement and other competent authorities and with any third party, as may be required to handle any result of your wrongdoing;
• If Pipe Exchange reasonably believes that it is required by law to share or disclose your information in order to prevent, investigate, or take action regarding illegal activities.  In addition, to establish or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims;
• Further, your personal information may be disclosed as permitted or required by, or in response to lawful requests by applicable local law enforcement agencies or regulatory agencies, or agencies with responsibility to oversee and enforce national security;
• In any case of dispute, or legal proceeding of any kind between you and Pipe Exchange, or between you and other users or third parties with respect to, or in relation with the Services;
• In any case where Pipe Exchange may reasonably believe that sharing information is necessary to prevent serious damage to your person or property or to the person or property of any third party;
• If Pipe Exchange organizes the operation of the Services within a different framework, or through another legal structure or entity, or if Pipe Exchange is acquired by, or merged with another entity, provided however, that those entities agree to be bound by the provisions of this Privacy Policy;
• Pipe Exchange may share personally identifiable information and information related to your use of the Website, with companies or organizations connected to or affiliated with Pipe Exchange, such as service providers (e.g., an email service provider to send you emails on our behalf), with the express provision that their use of such information must comply with this Privacy Policy; or
• Pipe Exchange is also entitled to transfer or share anonymous, statistic or aggregative information with companies or organizations connected to Pipe Exchange, and with suppliers, business partners, advertisers, and every third party, according to Pipe Exchange’s absolute discretion; however, Pipe Exchange will not disclose your identity to them, knowingly or deliberately, without receiving your consent.  

Children’s Online Privacy Information

Pipe Exchange does not knowingly collect personal information from minors who are under the age of 16 through the Website and/or the Services thereon. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with personally identifiable information without his/her consent, then he or she should contact Pipe Exchange at the information described below. If we become aware that a child under the age of 16 has provided us with personally identifiable information, we will delete such information from our files. Further, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires parental consent for collection of data from children younger than the age of 13 years old. For tips on protecting children’s privacy online, generally, please view the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) website at http://www.ftc.gov/privacy/privacyinitiatives/childrens.html.

Cookies 

1. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small text file that is stored in your web browser that allows Pipe Exchange or a third party to recognize you. Cookies might be used for the following purposes: (1) to enable certain functions; (2) to provide analytics; (3) to store your preferences; and (4) to enable ad delivery and behavioral advertising.

Cookies can either be session cookies or persistent cookies. A session cookie expires automatically when you close your browser. A persistent cookie will remain until it expires or you delete your cookies. Expiration dates are set in the cookies themselves; some may expire after a few minutes while others may expire after multiple years. Cookies placed by the website you’re visiting are sometimes called “first party cookies,” while cookies placed by other companies are sometimes called “third party cookies.”

2. What cookies are used when I use the Pipe Exchange Website?

When you access and/or use the Website, Pipe Exchange or a third party may place a number of cookies in your browser. Some of the cookies will only be used if you use certain features or select certain preferences, and some cookies will always be used.

Each cookie serves one of four different purposes:

1. Essential Cookies: These first party cookies allow users to use a feature of the Website such as: (i) staying logged in, or (ii) making purchases.
2. Analytics Cookies: These cookies track information about how the Website is being used so that we can make improvements and report on our performance. We may also use analytics cookies to test new ads, pages or features to see how users react to them. Analytics cookies may either be first party or third party cookies.
3. Preference Cookies: These first party cookies store your Website preferences.
4. Ad Targeting Cookies: These third party cookies (also known as “behavioral” or “targeted” advertising) are placed by advertising platforms or networks in order to: (i) deliver ads and tracks ad performance, and (ii) enable advertising networks to deliver ads that may be relevant based upon your activities.

Finally, we may set cookies within emails we send to you (if you have consented to receiving emails from us). These cookies are used to track how often our emails are opened and clicked on by our customers. You can manage email cookies in the same way as website cookies, as explained above.

3. How do third parties use cookies on the Pipe Exchange Website?

Third party companies like analytics companies and ad networks generally use cookies to collect user information on an anonymous basis. They may use that information to build a profile of your activities on the Website and other websites that you’ve visited.

4. What are my cookie options?

If you don’t like the idea of cookies or certain types of cookies, you can change your browser’s settings to delete cookies that have already been set and to not accept new cookies. To learn more about how to do this, visit the help pages of your browser. Please note, however, that if you delete cookies or do not accept them, you might not be able to use all of the features we offer, you may not be able to store your preferences, and some of our pages might not display properly.

You may also opt out of third party cookies by following the instructions provided by each third party in its privacy policy.

5. Do you use any other user tracking technologies?

We use additional technologies to help track user activities and preferences. For example, we use Google Analytics and when you visit the Website via Facebook, we use tracking pixels.

6. Interest-Based Advertising

We and third parties engage in interest-based advertising provided by vendors in order to deliver advertisements and personalized content that we and other advertisers believe will be of interest to you. To the extent third-parties are using cookies or other technologies to perform these services, Pipe Exchange does not control the use of this technology or the resulting information for online, mobile, or email advertising, and is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties. Advertisements, emails, and other messages may be delivered to you by Pipe Exchange or its service providers based on your online or mobile behavior, your search activity, your geographic location or other information that is collected by us or obtained from third parties. Some of our vendors and we may use our own or third-party aggregated or anonymized personal information, demographic data, and other inferred commercial interests to assist in the delivery of our advertisements to you.

In addition, we and our business partners use third parties to establish deterministic or probabilistic connections among devices (such as smartphones, tablets, and computers) to deliver more relevant advertising to you and for advertising analytics and reporting purposes. This means that information about your use of websites or applications on your current device may be combined with information from your other devices. We also may share this information and other inferences with third parties to allow them to target advertising, personalize content, or analyze behavior. This allows, for example, advertisements you see on your tablet to be based on activities you engaged in on your smartphone. These business partners may share and combine information from cookies with identifiers (such as device IDs assigned by Google or Apple) and IP addresses to make connections among related devices. This also allows for a more personalized experience across the Website.

If you have any questions about our Cookie Policy, you may contact us by sending an email to privacy@pipexch.com or by writing to us at:  14025 West Road, Suite 100, Houston, TX 77041

Social Media Features

The Website includes social media features, such as the Facebook and LinkedIn buttons/icons. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Social media features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on the Website. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it. 

Links to Third Party Sites

The Website may contain links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by Pipe Exchange. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected by the Website. 

How We Store Your Information

Data Security

Pipe Exchange implements data security systems and procedures to secure the information stored on Pipe Exchange computer servers. Such systems and procedures reduce the risk of security breaches, but they do not provide absolute security. Therefore, Pipe Exchange cannot guarantee that the Website and Services are immune to unauthorized access to the information stored therein and to other information security risks.

Our Commitment to Data Security. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the correct use of information, we have applied reasonable and appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. We also limit access to personal data and confidential information on our systems to only those employees with a specific need to access this information. However, due to technological limitations and the risk of unlawful interceptions and accessing of transmissions and/or data, we cannot completely assure you, and you should not expect, that your personal information, and any other electronically communicated information, will be absolutely confidential.

The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive financial information via our Website, the transmission of that information is encrypted using secure socket layer technology (SSL).

Please remember that you play a valuable part in security as well. To the extent you have created an account on our Website, your password to access our site, which you select at registration, should never be shared with anyone and should be changed frequently.  After you have finished using our site, you should log off and exit your browser so no unauthorized persons can use our site with your name and account information.

Information Retention and Access to Personal Information. We’ll retain information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you the Services, to comply with applicable law, resolve disputes, and to enforce our agreements.   If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire to use and access our Services, you may correct, update, delete/deactivate your information by emailing Pipe Exchange via the contact information listed below. Before Pipe Exchange is able to provide you with any information or correct any inaccuracies, however, we may ask you to verify your identity and to provide other details to help us to respond to your request. But please note: (1) there might be some latency in deleting this information from our servers and back-up storage; (2) we will not delete anonymized data and may continue to use it as describe in this Privacy Policy; and (3) we may retain information if necessary to comply with our legal, tax or accounting obligations, resolve disputes, manage security risks, or enforce our agreements. Even if you cease your use of the Services, we may retain certain information in order to meet our obligations.

Under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84, California residents are entitled to ask us for a notice identifying the categories of personal information which we share with our affiliates and/or third parties for marketing purposes, and providing contact information for such affiliates and/or third parties.  If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to: privacy@pipexch.com

International Transfer of Information Collected

We are a global company, with customers around the world and it is important to note that the Services, and the Website, may be operated via servers situated in the United States and elsewhere. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that any information which you supply to Pipe Exchange (including, without limitation, personal information (e.g., your name, phone number, email address, etc.) may be transferred to, processed, and used in the United States and elsewhere. To provide you with the Services, you irrevocably and unconditionally consent that we may store, use, process, transfer and transmit such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy in the United States and locations around the world – including those outside your country which may provide different rules, regulations, and protections regarding privacy. Information may also be stored locally on the devices used to access the Services, which may be mobile.

We have taken appropriate safeguards to ensure that your personal data will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Policy, whether your personal data is within our control or has been entrusted to our third party service providers and partners.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

From time to time, Pipe Exchange may change the terms of this Privacy Policy. Changes will take effect once they are posted online and by accessing and/or using the Website or Services after we make any such changes to this Privacy Policy, you are deemed to have accepted such changes.  If you do not agree with any of the amended terms, you must avoid any further use of the Website and/or Services offered by Pipe Exchange.

Inquiries or Concerns?

You may contact Pipe Exchange by emailing us at privacy@pipexch.com and we will do our best to provide a prompt response to your question.