Olson Research Associates, Inc.
Asset/Liability management solutions for community banks...manage your bank, not your model.

Internet Privacy at Olson Research Associates, Inc.
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Effective Date: 09/08/2009

TRUSTe: Click to Verify Olson Research Associates, Inc. has been awarded TRUSTe's Privacy Seal signifying that this privacy policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe for compliance with TRUSTe's program requirements including transparency, accountability and choice regarding the collection and use of your personal information. TRUSTe's mission, as an independent third party, is to accelerate online trust among consumers and organizations globally through its leading privacy trustmark and innovative trust solutions. If you have questions or complaints regarding our privacy policy or practices, please contact the Olson Research Web Administrator. If you are not satisfied with our response you can contact TRUSTe here. The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through the web sites http://www.olsonresearch.com and http://www.bankdynamics.com. By displaying the TRUSTe trust mark, this web site has agreed to notify you of:

  1. What personally identifiable information we collect, be it first party or third party personally identifiable information. 
  2. The organization collecting the information.
  3. How the information is used.
  4. With whom the information may be shared.
  5. What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and distribution of the information.
  6. The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information under Olson Research Associates control.
  7. How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

The Federal Trade Commission has published numerous documents on electronic commerce and privacy on the internet. Click here for "Computers & the Internet: Privacy & Security".

Information Collection and Use

Olson Research Associates is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. Olson Research Associates collects information from our users at several different points on our website.

Use of email addresses
We record email addresses of customers and guests when they are provided on the forms on our web site or when they are given to us by the address owner with instructions to sign our guest book on their behalf. Addresses contained in email we receive (the "From" or "Reply To" addresses) are not recorded in a database. Any addresses we obtain as a referral by one of our customers are recorded in a separate database to help us avoid future "spam" email to these addresses. Any email sent to these addresses will contain instructions on how the owner can request that their address be removed from our database altogether.

Registration

For A/L Benchmarks® customers
Often, we create user accounts on behalf of our customers using previously provided contact information. Our customers can create their own accounts by providing an active email address and a code they would have obtained via our services previously. We use the email address to verify their identity and thus we require that it remain active. We require our customers maintain a password for their account.

For Guests
Some of the services of our website are completely open, that is, we don't request any identifying information or charge a fee to view or use the information. For some of our product information and for any free services, we require a user to provide an email address, name and company name and optionally provide other (address & phone number) identifying information.

Blogs and Testimonials

We post customer testimonials on the Website. These testimonials may include the customer's name. We obtain our customer's consent prior to posting testimonials. Any personally identifiable information a customer elects to disclose within their testimonial or in a blog (which requires log in using an open ID such as Facebook, Twitter, or registering an account) comment is publically available and can be used to send you unsolicited messages for which Olson Research is not responsible.
 
To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us at webadmin@olsonresearch.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why .

Cookies

A "cookie" is a small text file created by a web site server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. You can configure your browser to reject them completely, save them in memory (meaning that they disappear when you close your browser) or store them on your computer’s hard drive for as long as the web server requested. They are used to contain information about you (that you have provided) and/or your computer’s browser to help enhance your experience at that web site. For instance, some web sites (including ours) allow you to automatically sign-in to your account anytime you visit the site. This is done by using a cookie to store some of your account information. This type of feature will only work if you allow the cookies to be stored on your computer.

The web site server that created a given cookie is the only one that can retrieve the information within it. Other web sites cannot retrieve the cookies our server might create, and our server cannot view the cookies created at other sites.

If you configure your browser so that cookies are not stored, you may not be able enjoy certain features at our site (such as automatic sign-in.)

If enabled, the automatic sign-in cookies are linked to personally identifiable information.

Third Party Cookies

From time to time we employ the use of third party agents in collecting and analyzing non-personal aggregated information about our users. These third parties may use cookies and web beacons to this end. A web beacon is a one pixel image embedded within a web page to track page views. We use this statistical data to improve our site functionality.

Log Files

We use third parties to gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.
 
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole .

Sharing
We do not share any information we obtain (via our web site or otherwise) with any third parties for their promotional purposes. Where necessary for maintenance, we may provide access to information on our Website to the third party agent hosting the site on our behalf in providing better service to our users. This third party agent has no authorization to access or use any personal information we provide for their own promotional purposes.

Links

This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, Olson Research Associates, Inc., are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site.

Newsletter and Industry Report
We publish a monthly newsletter and a quarterly Industry Report. All customers and guests can choose to receive an email notice each time these publications become available at our web site. Please see our choice and opt-out below.

Downloaded Software

The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through this Web site, and does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded from the site.

Site and Service Updates

We also send our users (customers & guests) site and service announcement updates. We don't allow users to un-subscribe from service announcements, which contain important information about our web site services and considered a part of your use of our service. User’s can, however, elect not to receive product information. We also communicate with our users (both customers & guests) via email or phone to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account. Please see our choice and opt-out below.

Security

This website takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, their information is protected both online and off-line.

When our registration form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as customer code or regulatory identifiers), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as our sign-in form or any customer services page, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to
un-locked, or open, when you are just ‘surfing’.

To learn more about SSL, follow this link: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/S/SSL.html .

You can verify the authenticity of our server’s security with Thawte by clicking on the image at the right:

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users’ information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our employees must use password-protected screen-savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their password to re-gain access to your information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. If you have any questions about the security at our website, you can send an email to webadmin@olsonresearch.com.

Correcting and Updating Personal Information
If your personally identifiable information changes (such as a zip code or phone number), or if you no longer desire our web site services, we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove personal data that you have provided to us. This can be done at our web site’s account information page, by emailing our Web administrator, or by contacting us via postal mail, telephone or fax. Please see "Contacting the Web Site" below.
 
We will retain your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services. We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Choice/Opt-out
You are given the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having your information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point where we ask for the information. For example, our account information page has an ‘opt-out’ mechanism so you can be excluded from receiving email containing our marketing material. You have similar control of email subscriptions to our monthly newsletter and quarterly Industry Report. You can change this information yourself at our web site's account information page, by selecting the 'unsubscribe' link present in each email we send out, or you can request the changes by contacting our Web administrator via email, postal mail, telephone or fax. Please see "Contacting the Web Site" below.

Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our Homepage so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we would notify you by way of an email. You would have a choice as to whether or not we use your information in this different manner. We would use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.

Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve your privacy we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site.

Contacting the Web Site
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If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you may contact our Web Administrator:
  • By email at webadmin@olsonresearch.com
     
  • By postal mail:
    • Olson Research Associates, Inc.
      10290 Old Columbia Road
      Columbia, Maryland 21046
       
  • By telephone:
    • 888-657-6680
    • 410-290-6999
    • 410-290-6726 (fax)

We reserve the right to make changes to this privacy statement and encourage you to review it periodically to stay up-to-date. We shall update the date on the statement in such an event. Should we make material changes to the manner in which we use your collected personally identifiable information, we shall notify you by a prominent notice our Website, or by email.