Last Updated: September 2, 2021

1. INTRODUCTION

Aries Systems Corporation (Aries Systems), is committed to respecting and protecting the privacy of each User of the Website. This Privacy Policy explains under what circumstances Aries Systems and/or the Publishers (Aries Systems and Publishers shall be referred to in this Privacy Policy, collectively, as we, us, or our) gather information relating to each User (referred to in this Privacy Policy as you or your), how we use such information, and who may access that information. This Privacy Policy is an integral part of the Terms of Use. All defined terms used in this Privacy Policy that are not otherwise defined herein shall have the meanings ascribed to them in the Terms of Use.

This Privacy Policy may be revised by us periodically. We advise that you review this Privacy Policy whenever you visit the Website so that you are aware of any changes.

For purposes of this Privacy Policy, Publisher shall mean any organization to which Aries Systems provides Web Services, and Publication shall mean any intellectual manifestation created or controlled by the Publisher.

Aries Systems Corporation complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union and Switzerland to the United States. Aries Systems Corporation has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Privacy Policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view Aries Systems Corporation’s certification, please visit http://www.privacyshield.gov/list.

2. COLLECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

There are two primary methods through which we may collect personal information from you. The first method is in connection with the establishment of your user account. The specific personally identifiable information that we collect in connection with the account registration process (“Registration Information”) may vary depending on the specific requirements of the Publisher or the Publication, but typically includes your name, e-mail address, and the name of the institution or association with which you are affiliated. During the registration process, we may also collect other information, such as your address and telephone number.

The second method is when you make personally identifiable information available while using the Website, the Software or the Services (“User Information”). You may make User Information available in connection with the submission, editing, and/or review of a Manuscript, and/or the uploading, submission, or transmission of other User Submissions. For example, if you are an Author and elect to submit a Manuscript, you have the option of providing additional information that you believe may be of interest to the Publisher or the Publication, such as your age, gender, race, life or professional experiences, and academic or professional qualifications. Alternatively, a Publisher or Publication may request that you provide certain information in connection with the submission of a Manuscript, including information such as your age, gender, race, protected status, life or professional experiences, and academic or professional qualifications.

While User Information may assist in the review and publication process, you are under no obligation to provide any User Information. Aries Systems does not monitor the nature of User Information that may be requested by the Publisher or the Publication or User Information that is submitted or provided by User, and does not represent or warrant that such User Information may be requested or provided under applicable law. As such, we encourage you to carefully consider whether to provide any User Information, and to raise any questions or concerns that you may have relating to a request for Personal Information directly with the Publisher or the Publication making such request.

3. OUR USE AND SHARING OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Aries Systems does not claim ownership of any of your Registration Information or User Information (collectively, “Personal Information”). Aries Systems collects and stores Personal Information on its servers and computer networks solely on behalf of the Publisher and/or the Publication. All Personal Information is owned by the Publisher and/or the Publication and may be accessed by the Publisher or the Publication at any time. At the request of the Publisher or the Publication, Aries Systems will disclose your Personal Information to the Publisher or the Publication.

THIS PRIVACY POLICY DOES NOT DESCRIBE OR GOVERN HOW THE PUBLISHER OR THE PUBLICATION MAY USE OR DISCLOSE ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION. HOW THE PUBLISHER OR THE PUBLICATION MAY USE OR DISCLOSE ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO THE PRIVACY POLICY OF THE PUBLISHER OR PUBLICATION. ARIES MAKES NO WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS WITH RESPECT TO SUCH PUBLISHER OR PUBLICATION PRIVACY POLICIES.

Although we reserve the right to review and monitor any of your Personal Information, we typically simply store your Personal Information on our servers and computer networks and will only use your Personal Information as is reasonably necessary in connection with the operation and maintenance of the Website, the Software and the Services, including providing support and maintenance services to you, other users of the Website, the Software and the Services, and the Publisher. We may also use your Personal Information to contact you with information relating to the Website, the Software, or the Services.

In addition to disclosing and making your Personal Information available to the Publisher and/or the Publication, we may disclose your Personal Information:

  • (a) to our business partners, service providers and agents, such as financial institutions, suppliers, delivery services, parties providing hosting services, and web and technical support providers, as is necessary or required in connection with the operation, maintenance and support of the Website, the Software, and/or the Services, in which case we will require that such third parties maintain the confidentiality of your Personal Information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy;
  • (b) to comply with any legal requirements or court orders, to defend any legal or administrative proceedings, or as we believe in good faith is necessary to comply with any laws or legal requirements;
  • (c) to protect any individual’s personal safety in an emergency situation;
  • (d) to protect or defend our rights or property (including enforcement of our rights under the Terms of Use); and
  • (e) in connection with the sale of the equity or any of the assets of Aries Systems, in which case we will require the buyer to maintain the confidentiality of your personal information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.

Except as described in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose your Personal Information outside of Aries Systems and its affiliates without your consent. We may share aggregated demographic and statistical information with our business partners. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person.

4. USE BY OTHER PARTIES OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

All Personal Information that you submit or otherwise make available while visiting the Website, or using the Software or the Services may be accessed and reviewed by any third party who has access to the Website and the Software, including third parties who may have been authorized by the Publisher or the Publication to perform certain tasks with respect to Manuscripts, such as Administrators, Associate Editors, Authors, members of the Board of Editors, Editors, Editors-in-Chief, and Reviewers. In particular, Administrators generally will have the ability to access all of your Personal Information. We are not responsible for the use or disclosure of your Personal Information by third parties who can access your Personal Information. We cannot control how third parties who can access your Personal Information may use your Personal Information and we have no means of tracking any use or disclosure of your Personal Information by any such third party. If you believe that a third party has unlawfully or improperly used or disclosed any of your Personal Information, you should contact the Publisher and the Publication directly. As described in this Section 4, a number of third parties may be able to access your Personal Information. Accordingly, you should exercise great care and prudence before submitting or making available any Personal Information at the Website or using the Software or the Services.

Aries Systems may disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

5. SECURITY

We have implemented reasonable physical measures and administrative procedures to safeguard against unauthorized access and help prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your Personal Information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. However, we cannot guarantee that the security measures we implement in connection with the operation of the Website, the Software and the Services will absolutely prevent others from accessing or acquiring any of your Personal Information.

We take reasonable steps to maintain the security of the personally identifiable information that we collect, including limiting the number of people who have physical access to our database servers, as well as installing electronic security systems that guard against unauthorized access. However, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. Accordingly, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information that you transmit to us, so you do so at your own risk.

We take reasonable steps to insure that the data is reliable for its intended use, accurate, complete and current. Further, we take reasonable steps to assure that we do not process personal information in a manner that is inconsistent with the purposes for which we collect the data.

6. E-MAIL COMMUNICATIONS

From time to time, we may e-mail you news bulletins, information on technical service issues, or information relating to the Website, the Software, and/or the Services. You may control the delivery of such communications by updating your user account preferences or by contacting us.

7. CLICKSTREAM DATA; AND COOKIES

In addition to the Personal Information that you supply to us, we may collect, store and use certain, anonymous information known as “Clickstream Data” as you access and navigate the Website. We store and use Clickstream Data to gain a better understanding of how people use the Website, to analyze data for trends and statistics, to help diagnose problems with our servers and computer networks, and to enhance the performance of the Website, the Software and the Services. We encourage you to periodically check this Privacy Policy so you will know when we have implemented technological measures enabling us to collect, store and use Clickstream Data. The Clickstream Data that we may collect, store and use includes the IP address of your computer (automatically assigned by your Internet Service Provider whenever you log onto the Internet), the Internet address of the site from which you linked to the Website (known as the referring URL), the date and time you access to the Website, what pages of the Website you visit and when, and the type of browser you use. Clickstream Data is not personally identifiable and we do not link this information to personally identifiable data, or any of your Personal Information.

The Service collects information through the use of “cookies” or similar technologies. Cookies are widely used in order to make websites and applications work, or work more efficiently, and help them remember certain information about you, either for the duration of your visit (using a “session” cookie) or for repeat visits (using a “persistent” cookie).

The cookies used on this website are as follows:

  • Strictly necessary cookies. These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website. For example, authentication and security cookies are used to identify and recognize registered users and to enable them to gain access to requested content or features. Without these cookies, services you have asked for cannot be provided.
  • Functionality cookies. These cookies allow our websites to remember the choices you make and your account preferences and to provide enhanced, more personal features. For example, these cookies will remember your log-in details.
  • Performance cookies. These are analytics and research cookies that allow us to collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. This helps us to improve the way the website works and allows us to test different ideas on the site.
  • Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to the website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make the website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

The table below explains performance and targeting cookies from our suppliers and their purpose. Please note that the cookies and other technologies may change over time.

  Service                                                          Purpose                        More Info
Adobe Analytics and Adobe Audience Manager These web analytics cookies, provided by Adobe Systems Inc., are used to differentiate requests from different browsers and to store helpful information that an application can use later. They may also be used to associate browsing information to customer records. In particular, Analytics uses cookies to anonymously define new visitors, help analyze clickstream data, and track historical activity on the website, such as response to particular campaigns or the length of the sales cycle.         See  Adobe Analytics Cookies Controls
CloudFlare CloudFlare cookies identify trusted web traffic.         See  CloudFlare Cookie Policy
New Relic New Relic cookies help us to monitor the performance of Editorial Manager         See  New Relic Cookie Policy
Pendo Pendo cookies allow us to recognize your browser or mobile device and tell us how and when you visit pages in our website.         See  Pendo Cookie Policy
        Pendo Privacy Policy
        Pendo Trust Policy
8. THIRD PARTY SITES

This Site may contain links to other websites that are run by third parties. Once you have clicked on a link or button activator connecting you to such third-party website, you will leave the Website and be taken to a website that we do not control. THIS PRIVACY POLICY DOES NOT APPLY TO ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION COLLECTED ON A THIRD PARTY SITE. We suggest you read the privacy statement of the third-party website before providing any personally identifiable data on that site. We are not responsible for any use by any person or entity of any information that you may provide while accessing or using any third-party website.

9. TRANSFER

This Web Site is operated in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us will be transferred to the United States.

10. ACCESS TO AND CHANGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

You have the right to contact us at any time to: (a) request the removal of any Personal Information that you provided to us from our servers and computer networks, which request must be approved by the Publisher or the Publication where required; and (b) update your Personal Information. If any Personal Information is removed from our servers or computer networks, third parties who had access to such Personal Information prior to its removal may have retained some all of such Personal Information. We are not responsible for the retention or use by third parties of any of your Personal Information at any time, including following it removal from our servers or computer networks.

11. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

The Website is designed and intended for use only by individuals who are at least eighteen (18) years old. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of  eighteen (18) years old.

12. DISPUTES

In compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles, Aries Systems commits to resolve complaints about our collection or use of your personal information, including the possibility, under certain conditions, for the individual to invoke binding arbitration as prescribed on Annex I of the Binding Arbitration Mechanism. EU and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding our Privacy Shield policy should first contact Aries Systems Corporation’s Privacy Officer at privacyofficer@staging.ariessys.com. Aries Systems Corporation has further committed to refer unresolved Privacy Shield complaints to the JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider located in the United States. If you do not receive timely acknowledgement of your complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your complaint to your satisfaction, please contact or visit https://www.jamsadr.com/ for more information or to file a complaint. The services of JAMS are provided at no cost to you.

Aries Systems Corporation is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Aries Systems requires that any third party who receives User Information from Aries Systems further comply with the Privacy Shield Frameworks, and Aries Systems abides by the Privacy Shield principles, including the principle of accountability for onward transfers.

13. CONTACTING ARIES SYSTEMS OR THE PUBLISHER

A “Contact Us” link is provided on many pages of the Website. Please click on this link to send an e-mail to Aries Systems and we will work to ensure your query is passed on to and answered by the appropriate person in a timely manner. Please be aware that e-mail you send us is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication pertains to sensitive information then you should contact us via regular mail or telephone. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the practices of Aries Systems, you can contact us as follows:

By mail:
Privacy Officer
Aries Systems Corporation
50 High Street, Suite 21
North Andover, MA 01845 USA

By e-mail:
privacyofficer@staging.ariessys.com

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy as it relates to the Publisher or Publication, please contact the Publisher or Publisher by clicking the “Journal Overview” or “Publication Overview” link at the top of this page.