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Website Privacy Notice – American Kennel Club

 

THE AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB

PRIVACY NOTICE

 

Last Updated: 12/11/2023

We have updated our Privacy Notice, effective from December 11, 2023, to:

  • Update third parties who may collect, use, disclose and otherwise process personal information in connection with our services.

If you have any questions about these changes, do not hesitate to contact us at privacyinfo@akc.org.

Prior versions of this Privacy Notice are available here.

Welcome! We are American Kennel Club, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to advancing the study, breeding, exhibiting, running and maintenance of purebred dogs. This Privacy Notice explains how The American Kennel Club, Inc. (“AKC”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information (as defined below) in connection with our websites (the “Sites”) and other websites we own and operate that link to this Privacy Notice, our mobile applications (the “Apps”) and the related content, platform, services, products, and other functionality offered on or through our online services (collectively, the “Services”). It does not address our privacy practices relating to AKC employees and other personnel.

What is Personal Information?

When we use the term “personal information” in this Privacy Notice, we mean information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to an individual. It does not include aggregated or deidentified information that is maintained in a form that is not reasonably capable of being associated with or linked to an individual.

Our Collection of Personal Information

Sometimes we collect personal information automatically when an individual interacts with our Services and sometimes, we collect personal information directly from an individual. At times, we may collect personal information about an individual from other sources and third parties, even before our first direct interaction.

NFT Program Participants: Please note that by virtue of the public nature of the blockchain, including the Ethereum Blockchain, the holdings and transactions associated with your cryptocurrency wallet address you use as part of AKC’s NFT Program will be publicly available and accessible to third parties. This includes, but is not limited to, your public sending address (including, but not limited to, cryptographically secure non-fungible tokens (“NFTs”), the public address of the receiver, the amount sent or received, and any other data a user has chosen to include in a given transaction. Information stored on the blockchain may not be able to be modified or deleted due to the immutable nature of the blockchain. Transactions and addresses may reveal information about the user’s identity and information can potentially be correlated now or in the future by any party who chooses to do so. Please review how privacy and transparency on the blockchain works.

Personal Information Collected from Individuals

We may collect the following personal information submitted to us by individuals through the Services:

  • Contact Information, including first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, email address, mailing address, employer, job title, company name, phone number and communication preferences.
  • Inquiry and Communications Information, including information provided in custom messages sent through the forms, to one of our email addresses, or via phone. This includes online registrations (such as event planning information), information inputted in our chat function and order information through the AKC Shop. This also includes information provided in order to subscribe to any of our newsletters (such as email address) or magazines, or contact information provided on our Services.
  • Account Information, including first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, company name, employer, job title, email address, username, profile information, club affiliation, AKC registration number(s), dog breed(s), name and associated details, litter information, medallions (including NFT medallions), account balances, payment and purchase history information, awards, and any other information you provide to us. Please note we utilize a third-party provider to process payments on our behalf and do not accept payment directly through our Services.
  • Online Marketplace or Shopping Information, including first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, email address, mailing information, location, payment history, and products and services considered or purchased. If you offer products or services for sale on our Services, we may also collect your personal information, such as first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, organization, email address, postal address, location, billing information and products and services you offer for sale.
  • NFT and Crypto Information, including your name, contact information, account information, NFT ownership information, including digital assets and tokens, and other NFT-related information (e.g., transfers of NFTs between accounts, the corresponding smart contracts, amounts paid, and metadata describing each NFT and its properties as a digital asset). We also may collect crypto information from you including your username and public blockchain address associated with your self-hosted crypto wallet, crypto wallet types, amounts of digital assets and account balances. Please note we utilize third-party providers to process and facilitate payments and purchases on our behalf and do not accept payment directly through our Services.
  • Groomer, Trainer and Breeder Information, including name, contact information (such as email address, mailing address and phone number), organization name, specialty, location, registration and subscription information, certification and licensing information, personal avatar, billing information, statistics about your profile and listings, photos and videos and any other information you choose to provide in your public bio, products and services you offer, purchase history, account balance, and other information you choose to provide to us.
  • Community-Related Information, including first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, company, mailing address, videos watched, any comments you provide on any blog posts or any blog posts you “Like”, any messages related to different programs or offerings through our Services including, but not limited to, the AKC GR Legislative Action Center and the Scent Work affiliation, information you type into any “search” or “question” field, information entered into any forms available on the Services, and contact information.
  • AKC Canine College Information, including first and last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, company, mailing address, information you provide in your profile, registration information, contact information, certification information, billing information, products and services purchased or considered, purchase history and information provided in any of our online forms, including any of our evaluation forms.
  • Club Information, including club member information, first name, last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, mailing address, email address, telephone number, whether the club member is a breeder, exhibitor, or judge, or holds an office in the club, and number of years’ experience for each club member.
  • Contest, Sweepstakes, and Survey Information, including information provided when you enter a contest or sweepstakes, or information included in any questions submitted through surveys or content of any testimonials.
  • Donation Information, including first and last name, club affiliation, donation type, donation amount, phone number, email address, billing information and payment history.
  • Event Information, including seminar information, registration information, club name, judge number, attendee badge information, awards, and contact information.
  • Dog and Litter Registration Information, including first name, last name, middle initial, suffixes and prefixes, mailing address, email address, phone number, dam registration number, sire registration number, litter number, certificate issue date, litter compliment, name and address of individuals to whom you have transferred a dog or litter, dam lease information, and any information provided during the registration process and/or through the use of AKC’s online recordkeeping services.
  • Employment Application Information, including your contact and demographic information, educational and work history, employment interests, information obtained during interviews and any other information you choose to provide, if you apply for employment.

Personal Information Automatically Collected

As is true of most digital platforms, we and our third-party providers may also collect personal information from an individual’s device, browsing actions and website usage patterns automatically when visiting or interacting with our Services, which may include log data (such as internet protocol (IP) address, operating system, browser type, browser id, the URL entered and the referring page/campaign, date/time of visit, the time spent on our Services and any errors that may occur during the visit to our Services), analytics data (such as the electronic path taken to our Services, through our Services and when exiting our Services, as well as usage and activity on our Services) and location data (such as general geographic location based on the log data we or our third-party providers collect). Please note that our systems may also record personal information that you type into our Sites and other online services even if you do not choose to submit it.

We and our third-party providers may use (i) cookies or small data files that are stored on an individual’s computer and (ii) other, related technologies, such as web beacons, pixels, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies and logging technologies (collectively, “cookies”) to automatically collect this personal information. For example, our Sites use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google LLC (“Google”), to collect and view reports about the traffic on our Sites. More information about the use of Google Analytics for these analytical and non‑advertising purposes can be obtained by visiting Google’s privacy policy here and Google’s currently available opt-out options are available here.

To manage cookies, an individual may change their browser settings to: (i) notify them when they receive a cookie, so the individual can choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) automatically reject cookies. Please note that doing so may negatively impact an individual’s experience using our Services, as some features and offerings may not work properly or at all. Depending on an individual’s device and operating system, the individual may not be able to delete or block all cookies. In addition, if an individual wants to reject cookies across all browsers and devices, the individual will need to do so on each browser on each device they actively use. An individual may also set their email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether they have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.

For more information on our and third-party relationships’ data collection and online advertising practices, please see the Third Party Data Collection and Online Advertising section of this Privacy Notice.

Personal Information from Third Parties

We also obtain personal information from third parties; which we often combine with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from an individual.

We may receive the same categories of personal information as described above from the following third parties:

  • Club Affiliates: If you are affiliated with a club, the club may provide us with your contact information and certain other information you choose to share with your club.
  • Event Information Providers: Generally, we obtain information about events and event results from the individuals, organizations or clubs that run the events, such as superintendents or club secretaries.
  • Other Customers or Individuals who Interact with our Services: We may receive your information from other AKC customers or other individuals who interact with our Services. For example, if someone judges with a provisional judge, they may provide the provisional judge’s information in the Tracking Judge Evaluation Form.
  • Your Employer / Company: If you interact with our Services through your employer or company, we may receive your information from your employer or company, including another representative of your employer or company.
  • Business Relationships: We may receive your information from our business relationships, such as companies that offer their products and/or services on our Services.
  • Social Media: When an individual interacts with our Services through various social media networks, such as when someone logs in through a social network, “Likes” us on Facebook or follows us or shares our content on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, we may receive some information about individuals that they permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon an individual’s privacy settings with the social network, and may include your profile information, profile picture, gender, username, user ID associated with your social media account, age range, language, country, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. Individuals should always review and, if necessary, adjust their privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information and/or linking or connecting them to other services.
  • Service Providers: Our service providers that perform services solely on our behalf, such as survey and marketing providers and payment processors, collect personal information and often share some or all of this information with us. To facilitate NFT purchases, resales and changes in ownership, cryptocurrency wallets may provide us with your blockchain or Ethereum address and certain other information you choose to share with cryptocurrency wallets.
  • Information Providers: We may from time to time obtain information from third-party information providers to correct or supplement personal information we collect. For example, we may obtain updated contact information from third-party information providers to reconnect with an individual.
  • Third Parties Related to Employment Applications: If you apply for a job with AKC, we may receive information from your current or past employers, recruiters, third-party social media platforms and other third parties we use to obtain information about job applicants.
  • Information from Other Sources: We may also collect personal information about individuals that we do not otherwise have from, for example, publicly available sources, third-party data providers, customers, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. Such information may include contact information, employment-related information, and interest-in-services information. We may combine this information with the information we collect from an individual directly. We use this information to contact individuals, to process employment applications and job applicant screening, to send advertising or promotional materials or to personalize our Services and to better understand the demographics of the individuals with whom we interact.

Our Use of Personal Information

We use personal information we collect to:

  • Fulfill or meet the reason the information was provided, such as to fulfill our contractual obligations, to deliver the Services you have requested and to process transactions, including facilitating your online shopping transactions, NFT purchases and resales, groomer, trainer and breeder applications, club memberships, registrations and evaluations;
  • Manage our organization and its day-to-day operations;
  • Communicate with individuals, including via email, text message, social media and/or telephone calls;
  • Request individuals to complete surveys about our organization, organizations we work with, and Services;
  • For marketing and advertising purposes, including to market to you or offer you through email, direct mail, phone or text message information and updates on products or services we think that you may be interested in;
  • Administer, improve and personalize our Services, including by recognizing an individual and remembering their information when they return to our Services;
  • Process payment for our Services;
  • Facilitate customer benefits and services, including customer support through our command center services;
  • Identify and analyze how individuals use our Services;
  • Conduct research and analytics on our customers and user base and our Services;
  • Improve and customize our Services to address the needs and interests of our customer base and other individuals we interact with;
  • Test, enhance, update and monitor the Services, or diagnose or fix technology problems;
  • Help maintain the safety, security and integrity of our property and Services, technology assets and business;
  • Evaluate your candidacy for employment, to communicate with you during the application process and to facilitate the onboarding process, if you are applying for employment.
  • To enforce our Terms of Use, to resolve disputes, to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests and the interests and rights of third parties;
  • Prevent, investigate or provide notice of fraud or unlawful or criminal activity;
  • Comply with contractual and legal obligations and requirements;
  • To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide personal information; and
  • For any other lawful purpose, or other purpose that you consent to.

Where you choose to contact us, we may need additional information to fulfill the request or respond to inquiries. We may provide you with additional privacy-related information where the scope of the inquiry/request and/or personal information we require fall outside the scope of this Privacy Notice. In that case, the additional privacy notice will govern how we may process the information provided at that time.

Our Disclosure of Personal Information

We disclose personal information in the following ways:

  • Affiliates. We may share personal information with other companies owned or controlled by AKC, and other companies owned by or under common ownership as AKC, which also includes our subsidiaries (i.e., any organization we own or control) or any AKC affiliate, particularly when we collaborate in providing the Services.
  • Club Affiliates: If you are affiliated with a club, we may share information with your club affiliates.
  • Online Marketplace and Community Members: If you participate in any of our online communities or purchase goods or services on our Services, we may disclose your public profile information to other online community members, as well as any other information you choose to provide or make public.
  • Contests, Sweepstakes, and Survey Providers: We share personal information with third parties who assist us in delivering our contests, sweepstakes, or survey offerings and processing the responses.
  • Marketing Providers: We coordinate and share personal information with our marketing providers in order to communicate with individuals about the Services we make available.
  • Customer Service and Communication Providers: We share personal information with third parties who assist us in providing our customer services and facilitating our communications with individuals that submit inquiries.
  • Other Service Providers: In addition to the third parties identified above, we engage other third-party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf, such as website hosting, infrastructure provisioning, IT services, analytics services, conducting cryptocurrency and blockchain transactions, employment application-related services, payment processing services and administrative services. We also may share your information with third parties who assist with NFT presales, purchases, resales and changes in ownership, such as Polygon.
  • Blockchain Participants: Please note that if you participate in our Services that involve the blockchain, by virtue of the public nature of the blockchain, including the Ethereum Blockchain, the holdings and transactions associated with your crypto wallet address will be publicly available and accessible to blockchain participants and other third parties, as well as any other information you choose to provide or make public.
  • Ad Networks and Advertising Relationships: We work with third-party ad networks and advertising organizations to deliver advertising and personalized content on our Services, on other websites and services, and across other devices. These parties may collect information directly from a browser or device when an individual visits our Services through cookies or other data collection technologies. This information is used to provide and inform targeted advertising, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics and market research. Please see the section Third Party Data Collection and Online Advertising for more information.
  • Business Relationships: We enter into certain select marketing relationships with advertisers, sponsors and other companies that provide products or services that we believe may be of interest to users of the Services. We will share personal information, or any information collected through the Services with those marketing organizations in order to help them send you information that we believe will be of interest to you.
  • Your Employer / Company: If you interact with our Services through your employer or company, we may disclose your information to your employer or company, including another representative of your employer or company.
  • Dog Owners or Prospective Dog Owners: We provide information regarding registration of a dog or litter principally in order for the current or prospective dog owner to confirm that the puppy they have acquired or are acquiring is eligible for registration.
  • Event Results Information: We publish event results information to the public on our Sites. This may include information such as name of the breeder, the registered owner of the dog, the event, the judge’s name, and the host of the event (e.g., a club or AKC) and where the win happened. Generally, we obtain this information from the individuals, organizations or clubs that run the events such as superintendents or club secretaries.
  • Business Transaction or Reorganization: We may take part in or be involved with a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets. We may disclose personal information to a third party during negotiation of, in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership.
  • Legal Obligations and Rights: We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement:
    • in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims;
    • to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process;
    • to protect our rights and property and the rights and property of others, including to enforce our agreements and policies;
    • to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud;
    • to protect the health and safety of us and others; or
    • as otherwise required by applicable law.
  • With Your Consent: We may disclose personal information about an individual to certain other third parties or publicly with their consent or direction. For example, with an individual’s consent or direction we may post their testimonial on our Sites or service-related publications.

Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising

We participate in interest-based advertising and use third party advertising companies to serve you targeted advertisements based on your browsing history. We permit third party online advertising networks, social media companies and other third-party services, to collect information about your use of our online services over time so that they may play or display ads on our Services, on other websites or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising is collected through tracking technologies, such as cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and similar technology, which recognize the device you are using and collect information, including click stream information, browser type, time and date you visited the Sites, AdID, precise geolocation and other information. We may share a common account identifier (such as a hashed email address or user ID) with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party relationships use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics and market research. We may also use services provided by third parties (such as social media platforms) to serve targeted ads to you and others on such platforms. We may do this by providing a hashed version of your email address or other information to the platform provider. Please see Online Ads of the Control Over Your Information section below, to learn how you can opt out of interest-based advertising.

Social Media Widgets and Advertising. Our Services may include social media features, such as the Facebook “Like” button, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or other widgets. These social media companies may recognize you and collect information about your visit to our Services, and they may set a cookie or employ other tracking technologies. Your interactions with those features are governed by the privacy policies of those companies.

We display targeted advertising to you through social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media forums. These companies have interest-based advertising programs that allow us to direct advertisements to users who have shown interest in our services while those users are on the social media platform, or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely commercial interests and demographics. We may share a unique identifier, such as a user ID or hashed email address, with these platform providers or they may collect information from our website visitors through a first-party pixel, in order to direct targeted advertising to you or to a custom audience on the social media platform. These advertisements are governed by the privacy policies of those social media companies that provide them. If you do not want to receive targeted ads on your social networks, you may be able to adjust your advertising preferences through your settings on those networks.

Third Party Relationships. We work with a variety of third-party organizations to provide advertising services. For example, we use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us. We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our advertisements and content to you. For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s website, “How Google uses data when you use our partners’ sites or apps” located at www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. You can learn about Google Analytics’ currently available opt-outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.

We also use Microsoft to allow us to analyze the activity and characteristics of the Website and users of the Website, including capturing data about user mouse movements and performance data about specific web pages. To provide us with Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft may collect personal data from individuals using the Website, or receive personal data from us, and offer opt-out choices as required by applicable data privacy laws. For more information, please visit https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-us/privacystatement.

We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics. These features enable us to use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Services. You may control your advertising preferences or opt-out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at https://google.com/ads/preferences, or by visiting NAI’s online resources at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices.

Control Over Your Information

You may control your information in the following ways:

  • Access to Your Device Information. You may control the Services’ access to your device information through your “Settings” app on your device. For instance, you can withdraw permission for the Services to access your network devices and geolocation and to integrate with your other applications.
  • Email Communications Preferences. You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link provided in such communications. You may not opt-out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Services, technical and security notices).
  • Push Notifications. You can stop receiving push notifications from us by changing your preferences in the iOS or Android notifications settings menu.
  • Modifying or Deleting Your Information. If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your information, you can contact us directly at privacyinfo@akc.org. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances, especially in relation to AKC’s NFT Program given the immutable nature of the information on the blockchain.
  • Cookies: For information about our and our third-party relationships’ use of cookies and related technologies to collect information automatically, and any choices you may have in relation to cookies, please see the Information We Collect Automatically section above.
  • Online Ads: To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt-out of some of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (DAA) resources and/or the Network Advertising Initiative’s (NAI) online resources, at www.aboutads.info/choices or http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ and you can opt-out of receiving some interest-based advertisements on mobile apps by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices. You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings menu on your mobile device by selecting “limit ad tracking” (iOS) or “opt-out of interest-based ads” (Android). You may also be able to opt-out of some — but not all — interest-based advertising served by mobile ad networks by visiting http://youradchoices.com/appchoices and downloading the mobile AppChoices app.

If you want to opt out of receiving online interest-based advertisements on mobile apps, please follow the instructions at http://www.aboutads.info/appchoices.

Please note that when you opt out of receiving interest-based advertisements, this does not mean you will no longer see advertisements from us or on our online services. It means that the online ads that you do see from DAA program participants should not be based on your interests. We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third-parties’ opt-out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs. In addition, third parties may still use cookies to collect information about your use of our online services, including for analytics and fraud prevention as well as any other purpose permitted under the DAA’s Principles.

Children’s Personal Information

Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not use our Services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information.

Links to Third-Party Websites or Services

Our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Except where we post, link to or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Notice, this Privacy Notice does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices.

State-Specific Disclosures

  • California – Your California Privacy Rights: If you are a California resident, California Civil Code Section 1798.83 – also known as California’s “Shine the Light” – permits you to request information regarding the disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes during the immediately preceding calendar year. To opt out of having your information shared in this manner, please email us at CAPrivacy@akc.org.
  • Nevada: If you are a resident of the State of Nevada, Chapter 603A of the Nevada Revised Statutes permits a Nevada resident to opt out of future sales of certain covered information that a website operator has collected or will collect about the resident. Although we do not currently sell covered information, please contact us at privacyinfo@akc.org to submit such a request.
  • Colorado: If you are a resident of the State of Colorado, Colorado Revised Statutes §§ 6-1-1301 (effective 7/1/2023) – also known as the Colorado Privacy Act – provides you the right to access, correct, and delete your personal data, and the right to opt out of the sale, collection and use of your personal data. To request access, correction, or deletion of your personal data, or to opt out of the sale, collection and use of your personal data, please contact use at privacyinfo@akc.org.

Updates to This Privacy Notice

We will update this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will change the date at the beginning of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will notify individuals by email to their registered email address, by prominent posting on our Services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Notice or other privacy-related matters, please send an email to privacyinfo@akc.org

Alternatively, inquiries may be addressed to:

The American Kennel Club, Inc.
Attn: Privacy Department
8051 Arco Corporate Drive
Raleigh, NC 27617