This document is one of the agreements between The Well Group, Inc. and the WELL's members. It concerns the legal privacy framework in which you participate in this community, what your rights and responsibilities are and what you can expect from The WELL.

Contents:

1. Privacy policy
2. Announcements and spam
3. Traffic data
4. Use of cookies at The WELL
5. Participants
6. WELL billing information
7. Surveys
8. Our commitment to children's privacy
9. Other disclosure of personal information
10. Cancellation and data removal policies
11. Other sites
12. For further information; contacts

Privacy policy

The WELL respects your right to the privacy of the personal information you provide us. We are a non-anonymous community site. We ask members to make their real names known to each other when logged in to our system and communicating with one another. We seek to provide this non-anonymous social environment while treating your privacy with respect and care.

To that end, unless you designate otherwise or we state otherwise in this policy or at the time information is collected, with the exception of using your real name as described, any personal information you provide to The WELL will be known only to two parties: you and the staffs of The WELL and the parent company, The Well Group, Inc. Your name will be available to other members for purposes of community participation. However, we will not disclose the fact of your membership by name to non-members without your permission, except in specific situations such as to law enforcement agencies as specified in this document.

The following policy is intended to explain how your personal information will be treated as you make use of our sites and their features. Personal information includes your street and off-WELL e-mail addresses, billing information, click-through and usage activity and any other personal information you may provide at the behest of The WELL. This policy may change from time to time, with announcement and discussion in The WELL forum area known as the Policy Conference (go there by typing: g policy). Please check there periodically.

Announcements and spam

At the time of registering for their memberships, WELL subscribers receive a short series of orientation emails from The WELL. From time to time, members may receive notification of new services, changes to policies or price adjustments. We will not send you other email at the address you provide, except for infrequent communications to resolve issues that may arise with your own WELL account. More routine announcements are made in The WELL Newsletter Conference (g news) rather than via email.

We will not sell, rent or give your email address to any third party. If you choose an account without a WELL email address, the email address you provide when you register with The WELL will be visible to other WELL members so that they may communicate privately with you. You are free at any time to substitute an alternate e-mail address if you wish to keep the one you initially registered private. We do not permit the use of WELL email accounts for sending unsolicited bulk commercial email.

Traffic data

Each time a visitor comes to The WELL's servers, including the shell host, mail machines or our Web sites, our servers — like most on the Web — collect some basic technical information, including, for example, the visitor's domain name (e.g., whether the user is logged on from aol.com or whitehouse.gov), referral data (e.g., we may record the address of the last URL a user visited prior to clicking through to a WELL Web site) and Web browser and platform type (e.g., a Netscape browser on a Macintosh platform).

We also count, track and aggregate each visitor's activity into our analysis of general traffic flows at our sites (e.g. tracking where traffic comes from, how traffic differs within conferences, etc.). To these ends, we may merge information about membership levels and activity into group data, which may then be shared on an aggregated basis with investors or the public; but we will not disclose your individual identity as a WELL member nor discuss your personally identifiable data without your permission. When we do present any form of aggregated information to outside parties, no one will be able to identify you or contact you. We do not release aggregated data for individual WELL Private Conferences.

Use of cookies at The WELL

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored in your computer's memory or written on your computer's hard drive. We use session cookies, non-peristant files which vanish when you shut down your browser, to allow the system to know you have already entered a password each time you click for more data in a conference login session. Our cookies do not contain any of the personal information you have provided to us. We use cookies for our Web conferencing interface, not for PicoSpan access to conferences.

We do not use cookies to track usage on our site, but the conferencing software itself tracks what you have seen in order to show you new material when you return. This information about when you were last present is available to other members of the system in the forums to which you have mutual access so that it is easier to tell who is up to date in a group conversation. We never provide this information on your activity to non-participants.

Participants

WELL members are expected to comply with our Member Agreement, but we cannot control third parties' use of information you may choose to provide via WELL forums or your user home page, nor can we vouch for the integrity of the participants you may communicate with, including but not limited to participants in Private Conference areas. Sharing information with other WELL members is a matter of individual choice and judgement. If you choose to take part in any WELL conference, whatever you may disclose in that discussion area is made known to others who may read the conference.

WELL Billing Information

In order to subscribe, members provide The WELL with personal information including a telephone number, billing street address and credit card information. The WELL goes to great lengths to keep all such information strictly confidential and does not reuse, resell or redistribute it in any way. This information is not available to other WELL subscribers unless you disclose it. The email address with which you register is not made available to others if you have a WELL email address, nor if you provide an alternate off-site email address for member contact by changing your settings after registration.

Surveys

The WELL will from time to time conduct voluntary surveys of visitors to the site to obtain aggregate preferences and demographic information about them. Such information will be compiled and may be shared in the aggregate to discuss business opportunities with third parties, but no personal details will be traceable or associated with specific individuals who participate in surveys.

Our commitment to children's privacy

Protecting the privacy of the very young is important to us. For that reason, we do not collect or maintain information at our sites from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our sites are structured to attract anyone under 13.

Other disclosure of personal information

The WELL will not otherwise use or disclose your personal information without your consent except (i) as described in this privacy policy, or (ii) as required by law. Any subscriber whose information is sought in accordance with this policy will be advised of the inquiry as soon as practical. Notification of such inquiries will be emailed to members before disclosures are made, unless notification is prohibited by law.

This privacy policy may not protect information you voluntarily disclose to others via a post to any online conference, email list, chat or send tool or any other communication environment within or from our service.

Cancellation and data removal policies

If you would like to end your membership and to delete any data we are not required to retain for accounting purposes, you can close your account and request data removal from helpdesk@well.com. If you wish to delete any of your own posts before ending your membership you may do so.

Other sites

The WELL contains many links to other Internet sites. We cannot control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of other Web sites, even if those sites are produced by WELL members or reside within our www.well.com/user area.

For further information; contacts

If you have any further questions or concerns about The WELL's privacy policies and use of personal information, please send them to helpdesk@well.com, or post them to The WELL Policy Conference (the shortcut is g policy).

September, 2001

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