Privacy Policy

The Related Network of Sites (EmbeddedRelated.com, DSPRelated.com, FPGARelated.com, Electronics-Related.com and MLRelated.com), is an interactive online platform with the mission to help Electrical Engineers share information, network, and otherwise help each other through the use of forums and blogs.

By their nature, the sites require the collection of personal (PII) and non-personal identification information in order to function to their full potential.

By using the Related Sites Network, you acknowledge that we will use your information in Canada and the United States as well as any other country where we operate. This privacy policy has been updated to comply with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and this policy describes how we protect personal information that is transferred outside of the EU.

Why do we collect personal data?

- To prevent spammers and robots to abuse the platform, some features and content require 'real' users to enter & confirm their email addresses in order to be accessed. Although some spammers/robots are motivated/sophisticated enough to go through these steps to abuse the platform, a vast majority of them won't go through the extra trouble.

- To prevent 'low quality' content from getting posted, some features like participating to the forums or posting blogs require the user to register (email address & password) and provide some extra information like Job Title and name of Employer. This information allows us to make a judgment on the new user's likelihood of being qualified for participation.

- To send a periodic newsletter to users of the sites who want to stay informed on the latest developments, newest discussion threads, newest blogs posts, etc. We make it very easy and quick to opt out of our distribution list through a link located at the bottom of each newsletter.

- To gather traffic analytics data that help us compile stats that are useful to understand and improve the sites' performance. Traffic data is also useful when talking to potential advertisers/sponsors (pageviews per month, demographic profile of the user base, etc).

- To occasionally run contests/sweepstakes/surveys. For contests/sweepstakes, the names of the winners are shared with the community only after asking and being granted permission by the winners.

How do we collect the data?

In the course of providing you access to the Related websites, we collect and receive personal information in a few ways. Often, you can choose what information to provide, but sometimes we require personal information from you to carry out certain activities such as account verification. This section details the ways in which we collect information from you and how that information is received.

Account Registration

Although the Related Sites provide for anonymous and pseudonymous participation, in some instances in order to use certain services and to prevent abuse from spammers and robots, we require account registration. This requires a name associated with your account, an email address at which we can contact you, and in some cases, additional information including, a contact address and a password to help secure your personal information.

Profile Information

When completing a public “profile”, we may require you to share certain personally identifying information or sensitive information in required and optional profile fields. The username associated with your account, as well as your profile picture (if you submitted one) and short professional biography (if you entered one) are publicly displayed and connected to your activity on the Related Sites platform.

Information Collected Automatically

The Related Network receives and records information from your browser or mobile device when you visit the Network, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address or unique device identifier. Cookies and data about which pages you visit on our Network allow us to operate and optimize the services we provide to you. This information is stored in secure logs and is collected automatically. We may combine this browser information with other information we collect about you. This information is used to analyze and understand how our services are used, optimize such usage, provide advertising across the Network as well as certain services to personalize your experience, and to help connect you with potential job opportunities.

Location Information

When you use the Related Sites, we collect location information about you including your IP address, your location, browser information, and how you came to the Related Network. This is the case for individuals who have registered for an account, and non-members who engage with the Network by visiting our websites but who have not completed an account registration. This information is collected for various purposes, including advertising and analytics as well as to provide you with localized content, recommendations, and marketing. You may revoke our permission to collect some of this data, including your location and browser information through your account settings, but this may limit functionality in some cases. Certain location information we collect is required for security and site functionality. We share this information with certain third-parties (advertising providers) in order to provide you with our
services.

Advertising and Marketing Partners

When you register for an account, and when you interact with The Related Sites, we and authorized third parties place cookies on you and your account activity as described in more detail within our Cookies Policy. We use this information to serve you certain advertising content. Similarly, we market our products and services to you and communicate important information and product opportunities to you. If you do not wish to receive direct marketing communications from us, you can tell us and remove yourself from our marketing communications via the unsubscribe and opt out options in our email communications and your account settings. If you do not wish to receive advertising promotions, you may restrict such activities in your account settings.

Analytics Information

When someone visits The Related Sites we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website.

How do we use your data

To run and operate the Related Sites
To personalize the user's experience
To understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on the Related Sites
To improve our sites
To run a promotion, contest, survey or other sites' feature
To send periodic emails (newsletters, forum updates, etc). You can always very easily get your email address out of the distribution list through the un-subscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter.

Marketing and Product Communications

We may transfer to our sponsors your name, email address, country, state and other information collected when you sign up on our website. The sponsors in question may contact you with marketing communications that they believe could be of interest to you. The sponsors will be under the obligation to provide a clear and easy way to opt-out from further marketing communications if you choose to.

We may transfer your personally identifiable information to trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses

In short, while we want to communicate some key commercial communications with you and have determined it to be a legitimate interest for us to be able to do so, you have the final say in whether or not you would like to receive such commercial communications from us. You can review or change your permissions in your Email Settings.

Browser Cookies

The Related sites use "cookies" to enhance the user experience by temporarily storing session information on the user computer. This is especially true for registered members as cookies are used to keep them logged in as they navigate the site. Users may choose to set their web browser to refuse cookies, or to be alerted when cookies are being sent. If they do so, note that some parts of the sites may not function properly. Please see our Cookies Policy for additional information on how we use cookies and what third party cookies we permit.

Children's Privacy

Our Service is not intended for children and is not targeted to children under the age of thirteen (13). If you are a child under the age of thirteen (13), you are not permitted to use the Service and should not send any information about yourself to us through the Service.

We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 13 and, if we learn that we have received information from a user under the age of 13, we will delete this information in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”). If you are a parent or guardian and you believe that your child under the age of thirteen (13) has provided us with personal information without COPPA-required consent, please contact us.

How do we secure the information we collect?

We take reasonable measures to help protect information about you from loss, theft, misuse and unauthorized access. All supplied sensitive information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then stored on servers maintained with the assistance of a third party data storage provider. To help protect the privacy of data and personal information we collect and hold, our data storage provider assures us that they are continually pursuing improvements and testing state of the art tools and processes for data integrity, confidentiality, and encryption techniques.

Your personal information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems, and are required to keep the information confidential.