Privacy Statement

The Cloud Accountability Project is committed to protecting your privacy and developing technology that gives you the most powerful and safe online experience. This Statement of Privacy applies to the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project and governs data collection and usage. The Web Portal falls under the responsibility of the Cloud Accountability Project (A4Cloud) Consortium and is concerned with the dissemination and exchange of information about the A4Cloud research project. By using the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

Collection of your Personal Information

The Cloud Accountability Project collects personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address, to allow you joining the activities of the project. There is also information about your computer hardware and software that is automatically collected. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring Web site addresses. This information is used by the Cloud Accountability Project to provide general statistics regarding the use of the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project. Such statistsics are generated through the use of the AWStats tool, which has been installed and is operated on the Web Server of the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project.

The Cloud Accountability Project encourages you to review the privacy statements of Web sites you choose to link to from the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project, so that you can understand how those Web sites collect, use and share your information. The Cloud Accountability Project is not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on Web sites outside of the a4cloud.eu domain.

Use of your Personal Information

The Cloud Accountability Project uses your personally identifiable information to inform you about the latest achievements of the project. It may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion on current practices with respect to the accountability in the cloud and other Internet services. The information about your used hardware and/or software is only used for statistical purposes and no other processing is performed.

The Cloud Accountability Project does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. If the Cloud Accountability Project might contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you, your unique personally identifiable information (i.e. e-mail address) is not transferred to the third party.

The Cloud Accountability Project does not use or disclose sensitive personal information.

Use of Cookies

The Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project uses "cookies" to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a Web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize the Web Portal pages, or register with the Cloud Accountability Project, a cookie helps the Cloud Accountability Project recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Web Portal features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Web Portal of the Cloud Accountability Project you visit.

Security of your Personal Information

The Cloud Accountability Project secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. The Cloud Accountability Project secures the personally identifiable information you provide on computer servers in a controlled, secure environment, protected from unauthorized access, use or disclosure.

Changes to this Statement

The Cloud Accountability Project will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. The Cloud Accountability Project encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how the Cloud Accountability Project is protecting your information.