Privacy Policy

Progressive Media Group is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. It is very important to us that you should be able to use and enjoy our web sites without having to compromise your privacy in any way. This policy will help you understand how your personal information will be treated. This policy may change from time to time so please check back regularly.

The Progressive Media Group includes companies which are members of the Direct Marketing Association, the Directory & Database Publishers' Association, the Audit Bureau of Circulations and BPA International. Where you see the symbols of these organisations on any of our web sites you have the further assurance of our commitment to the standards set by the relevant body.

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example on message boards, through email, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords. Progressive Media Group staff will NEVER compromise your security by asking for your password online. Please be careful and responsible when you are online.

Please note, your rights under the Data Protection Act 1998 are provided for on the registration page.

What personally identifiable information does Progressive Media Group collect from me?

Progressive Media Group collects information in several ways from different parts of our network of web sites.

Some personal information is gathered when you register for our web sites, publications or events. During registration, Progressive Media Group asks for your name, email address, birth date, gender, address and post code and personal and professional interests and responsibilities. The more accurate the information you volunteer, the better we are able to customise your experience of our web sites. Once you register you are no longer anonymous to Progressive Media Group - you are given a password and are able to take full advantage of our services (subject to payment for certain services).

In addition to registration we may ask you for personal information at other times, for example when you enter a competition or promotion run or sponsored by Progressive Media Group and when you report a problem with one of our sites or services. If you contact Progressive Media Group we may keep a record of that correspondence. Progressive Media Group also occasionally asks users to complete surveys that we use for research purposes. Whenever Progressive Media Group collects personal information we try to include a link to this Privacy Policy on the page in question.

Your responses help us to sell appropriate advertising space and so minimise the cost of our services to you - or even provide some of them at no charge at all. They also enable us to personalise services to our readers.

Progressive Media Group uses cookies as a means of offering and providing customisable and personalised services. However, your browser has settings that will allow you to accept all cookies, be informed as cookies arrive or reject all cookies. The downside of rejecting all cookies is that we are then unable to match the site content we offer you to what we know about your preferences from your previous visits.

In addition, advertising networks that serve ads onto Progressive Media Group sites may use their own cookies.

Progressive Media Group collects IP addresses for system administration, for independent audit and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. By this we can see how our sites are being used, for example, what services and facilities are popular, and how long users spend on particular pages. This is data about our users' browsing actions and patterns and it does not identify anyone individually.

When you telephone a Progressive Media Group company, or someone who is dealing with calls on our behalf, we may record the conversation to ensure the security of any transaction discussed, to help us to review our quality of service and to assist in the training and development of the employees who take such calls.

How does Progressive Media Group use my information?

Progressive Media Group's primary goal in collecting personal information concerning subscribers is to provide them with a customised experience of our site. By knowing a little about you, Progressive Media Group is able to deliver more relevant advertisements and content to you, and by demonstrating the quality of our users we are able to secure advertising funding which keeps down the costs to the users.

When delivering targeted advertisements, Progressive Media Group acts merely as the middleman. Advertisers give us an advertisement and tell us the type of audience they want to reach (for example, design specialists, or pump buyers in process industries). We take the advertisement and display it to users meeting the relevant criteria.

When you join one of our email newsletter services the emails you receive may include advertising material and links to advertisers' web sites. This does not mean that your details have been passed to the advertiser in question. Furthermore, at the end of each newsletter you will find either a hyperlink or a description of a route to have yourself removed from further editions of that newsletter.

Progressive Media Group undertakes research on our users' demographics, interests and behaviour based on the information provided to us upon registration, during a promotion, from our server log files or from surveys. We do this to better understand and serve you, the user. This research is compiled and analysed on an aggregated basis. Progressive Media Group may share this aggregated data with advertisers or business partners. We will use our best endeavours to ensure, where reasonable, that our business partners and advertising customers have effective on-line privacy policies and are registered under the Data Protection Act (as all of our relevant businesses are).

Collection of data

When you are on a Progressive Media Group site and are asked for personal information, you may not be sharing that information with Progressive Media Group alone. Some services are offered jointly with a partner company. In order to provide this co-branded service to you, it is necessary for us to share your personal information with those partner companies.

Promotions and competitions that run on Progressive Media Group's sites may be sponsored by companies outside the Progressive Media Group or may be co-sponsored by us and another company. Some or all data collected during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor.

Please be aware that Progressive Media Group advertisers or web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. The information practices of those web sites linked to Progressive Media Group are not covered by this privacy statement.

With whom does Progressive Media Group share my information?

Progressive Media Group plc and its associated companies are prohibited by virtue of the Data Protection Act 1998 from disclosing any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or under the circumstances described below. The following describes some of the ways that your information may be disclosed.

Business Partners and Sponsors

We may disclose your personal information to business partners or sponsors, but this is drawn to your attention prior to data collection. Some or all data collected during any Progressive Media Group promotions may be shared with a sponsor. If personally identifying data about you will be shared, we will tell you when we collect the data.

Online Purchases

If you make a purchase from a site hosted by Progressive Media Group, the information obtained during the purchasing transaction, and the information you give such as your credit card number and contact information, is provided to the merchant concerned. This is to enable transactions to take place. You agree that Progressive Media Group plc and its associated companies have no responsibility or liability for any such independent store privacy policies.

From time to time, you may be offered the opportunity to receive materials or special offers from selected third parties. If you opt-in to receive information from these third parties you are giving us permission to share your name and email and/or physical address details with them.

Third Party Data & Data in the Aggregate

Under confidentiality agreements, Progressive Media Group may match user information with third party data. Also, Progressive Media Group companies may disclose aggregated user statistics (for example, 58% of users are executives in SME's) in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.

Finally, Progressive Media Group may also disclose account information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating Progressive Media Group's Terms, Database Rights or Copyright or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Progressive Media Group's rights or property, other Progressive Media Group users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.

Collection, use and distribution of information

Progressive Media Group or its sponsors or business partners may, from time to time, contact you regarding their products and services.

On some types of Progressive Media Group promotions, we will ask for your email address in order to update you on your score, entries and status. When you participate in these types of promotions, you automatically receive promotion-related email. Sometimes these promotion-related email messages may include targeted advertisements.

From time to time Progressive Media Group does rent or sell user information to other reputable organisations as permitted under the Data Protection Act 1998. If you do not wish to allow your data to be shared, you can choose not to use a particular service, not to participate in certain promotions or contests, or you can select to opt out of your information being shared on the registration page.

No data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed entirely secure. While we strive to protect your personal information, Progressive Media Group can neither ensure nor warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Corporate information

Progressive Media Group plc is registered in England and has its Head Office at 2 Maidstone Road, Sidcup, Kent DA14 5HZ