Privacy policy

This Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of WebMD LLC and its affiliates (referred to collectively as “WebMD,” “us,” “we” and “our”) in relation to your use of our websites, mobile applications and other resources intended for use by healthcare professionals and which we refer to as the “Myglowbio Network,” including the information and services made available to users of the Myglowbio Network, such as medical news, reference content, clinical tools, applications, sponsored programs, advertising, email communications, continuing medical education, market research opportunities and discussion forums (collectively, the “Services”).

This Privacy Policy does not apply to our properties and services that display a link to a different privacy policy. In the event that we expand the Myglowbio Network through our acquisition of another company and/or its properties, that company may operate under its own privacy policy accessible via a link on its properties until we integrate its privacy practices with ours, at which point a link to this Privacy Policy will be displayed on its properties.

We provide the Services as a professional resource intended to support healthcare professionals in their efforts to provide high quality medical care to patients. You can choose whether or not you want to use the Services. If you do choose to use the Services, you must agree to the Myglowbio Network Terms of Use which is a contract between us and users of the Services. By agreeing to the Myglowbio Network Terms of Use, you confirm that you have read and understand this Privacy Policy which explains how we collect, disclose, transfer, secure and use information about you in connection with your use of the Services and the rights and choices you have regarding these activities. If you do not want us to collect and use information about you as described in this Privacy Policy, then you should not use the Services. By using the Services, you acknowledge that we will store, use and otherwise process your information in the United States and any other country from where the applicable Myglowbio Network property is operated. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside. Unless otherwise specified herein or on the property from which you have accessed this Privacy Policy, WebMD LLC is the controller of the personal information that we collect about you as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information Collected

Information about your use of the Services is collected as follows:

  • Registration. In order to use the Services, you may be required to register an account and provide certain personal information such as your name, email address, zip/postal code, profession, occupation, specialty and depending on your country of practice, your medical license number or equivalent. You may choose to update or supplement the personal information that you provided at registration at any time through your account settings or by contacting Myglowbio Customer Service.
  • Services Information. We automatically collect and store information about your use of the Services, such as your engagement with particular content including editorial, advertisements, sponsored informational programs from our advertisers, which may include pharmaceutical companies (“Sponsored Programs”), whether you opened a particular email, clicked on a link, your search queries and how often and when you engage with the Services. We also collect information about your device when you access the Services including IP address, browser information (including referring URL), cookie information and advertising ID (which is a unique, user-resettable identification number for advertising associated with a mobile device). We use cookies and other tracking technologies, such as pixels, tags, web beacons and software development kits, to collect the information about your use of the Services and your device. For more information about our use of cookies and other tracking technologies in relation to your use of the Myglowbio Network, see our Cookie Policy.
  • Market Research. You may be invited to participate in market research surveys conducted by us or on our behalf for our own internal business purposes and also market research surveys conducted by or on behalf of third party sponsors that commissioned the survey. For some surveys, you may be asked to provide personal information for re-contact (e.g., by e-mail or phone) or payment fulfillment purposes.
  • Public Forums. When you post a comment on a discussion board or other public forum, by default your username, specialty and degree will be displayed within the forum along with your comment. You may choose to display additional information in your public forum profile, including a photo, by adjusting your discussion profile settings. Information that you post within a public forum is public information and may be used by us and third parties, as further described in the Myglowbio Network Terms of Use.
  • Information and Registration Forms. From time to time we may offer you the opportunity to receive additional information or services from us or from third parties, including our advertisers (e.g., sample request, sales rep visit, direct marketing, etc.), or to register to attend live events, either in-person or via livestream. If you wish to participate in such opportunities, you may be asked to provide personal information to fulfill the request. Unless otherwise specified in the request form, we may use such information as described in this Privacy Policy and the third party, if applicable, will be required to use such personal information as described at the point of collection.
  • Information from Third Party Sources. We may obtain additional information about you from third party sources to assist us in providing the Services. For example, we may use third party information to verify and update your registration information, for research purposes or to personalize the Services, including advertising.
  • Non-registered Users. You must register with the Myglowbio Network to access all of the Services, however, you may be able to access certain limited Services without registering. Even if you have not registered, we collect information about your use of the Services through the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The information we collect includes the referring website, if applicable, the type of browser you use, the material viewed, and the time and date that you accessed the Services.

How Your Information May be Used

Information about you may be used for the following purposes:

  • Provision of the Services. We may use the information collected about you to provide and improve the Services, and to develop new Services.
  • Member Profiles. We may associate information that we have collected about your use of the Services with your registration information and any other information we have about you, as described in this Privacy Policy, thereby creating a profile of you that we may update from time to time (“Member Profile”).
  • Communications. By registering as a member of the Myglowbio Network, you agree to the use of your registration information and other information collected about you as described in this Privacy Policy to communicate with you about the Services and other information that may be of interest to you. These communications may be conveyed through a variety of channels, subject to applicable law, including emails and may contain advertisements and other promotional materials from third party sponsors, including pharmaceutical companies.
  • Personalize the Services Including Advertising. We may personalize the Services, including the advertising you see within the Myglowbio Network, on third party websites and in our email communications, based on information included in your Member Profile. For example, a user who WebMD believes is a cardiologist or who has browsed cardiology content with the Myglowbio Network may be served an advertisement promoting a particular cardiac product within the Myglowbio Network, on third party websites and/or within an email that a user who WebMD believes is a neurologist or has not browsed cardiology content will not see. We partner with third parties to manage and conduct our advertising activities including advertising on our websites and on third party websites. These third parties may use cookies and other tracking technologies to deliver this advertising based on your activities and interests as inferred from your use of the Services and other information they have about you. Also, advertisers may use their own cookies and other tracking technologies in the advertisements served to you through the Services, some of which may enable the advertiser to obtain personal information that can be used to specifically identify you, including the fact that you saw the advertisement, to the extent that you have separately provided consent to the advertiser or to the third party providing the tracking technology. Some advertisers use companies other than WebMD to serve their advertisements on their behalf and to monitor users’ responses to these advertisements through the use of cookies and other tracking technologies. While WebMD generally permits the use of third party tracking technologies based on an understanding that they comply with the WebMD Advertising Policy, we do not have control over these third parties’ use of cookies and other tracking technologies or how they manage the information they gather through them and WebMD may be unable to verify compliance with the WebMD Advertising Policy.
  • Verification Purposes. We may use your information in conjunction with information from third parties to recognize you as a registered member when you visit one of our properties and to verify your identity and/or professional credentials. We may require you to provide proof of your identity, including that you are a healthcare professional, and if you are unable to do so to our reasonable satisfaction, we reserve the right to deny you access to the Services. While we take steps to verify that our members who identify as healthcare professionals are actually healthcare professionals, we make no guarantee as to their identity, professional credentials or licensure status.
  • Account Management. We may use your information to administer your account, respond to your inquiries, fulfill your requests and send you administrative communications about the Services.
  • Investigations. We may use your information to detect, investigate and defend against fraudulent or unlawful activity, violations of the Myglowbio Terms of Use and to otherwise establish, exercise and defend our legal rights.

Sharing Your Information with Third Parties

Information about your use of the Services may be shared as follows:

  • Service Providers. We work with third party service providers to help us provide the Services and to otherwise assist us in the operation of the Myglowbio Network, including in the areas of email management and deployment, analytics, marketing, advertising, market research, sweepstakes and contest administration, identity and professional credential validation, content distribution, customer service, payment fulfillment, event logistics, website maintenance and data storage and security. We may provide these service providers with personal information about users of our Services so that they can fulfill their responsibilities to us, however, we do require that they agree to limit their use of this personal information to the fulfillment of these responsibilities.
  • Advertising and Sponsored Programs. We may provide your personal information to third party sponsors of advertisements and Sponsored Programs, subject to applicable law. Specifically, when you are exposed to an advertisement through the Services, whether on one of our websites or apps, in an email or through some other means, or when you engage in a Sponsored Program, e.g., access a sponsored information resource, open one of our sponsored emails, WebMD may provide your personal information, such as your name and specialty (but not your email or postal address) to the applicable sponsor and/or its agents on the sponsor’s behalf. We may also provide such third parties with details about your engagement with the advertisement or Sponsored Program (e.g., whether you viewed or otherwise interacted with certain content), your answers to any questions contained in the Sponsored Program and information about you that we have received from third parties. Additionally, when you register as a member of the Myglowbio Network, we may provide your personal information (but not your email or postal address) to potential sponsors of advertisements and Sponsored Programs that may be offered or provided to you through the Services, subject to applicable law. Except as otherwise provided by applicable law, we are not responsible for how these third parties use your information. All advertisements and Sponsored Programs (including any links to Sponsored Programs) made available within the Myglowbio Network, including through emails, will be identified to you by the label Advertisement, Information from Industry, Sponsored, WebMD Professional or some similar designation indicating that the content, which may pertain to a particular medical condition, therapy, product or service, has been selected by a third-party sponsor.
  • Member Profiles. Subject to applicable law, WebMD may provide Member Profiles, and portions thereof, (excluding contact information and information about your participation in specific named CME and CE activities) to third parties, including our advertising customers, which these third parties may use for their business purposes including marketing.
  • Market Research. If you receive remuneration for participating in a market research program offered through our Services, we may provide your personal information to our payment fulfillment vendor so that it can process and deliver your payment to you and for its recordkeeping and regulatory compliance purposes, and also to the program sponsor (or the market research company acting on its behalf) for its recordkeeping and regulatory compliance purposes. If you choose to access a survey that is conducted by a third party market research company, we may identify you to this company. Sometimes market research companies send us lists of individuals they wish to reach with particular market research opportunities and we may inform these companies which of these individuals are members of the Myglowbio Network so that they can manage their recruitment needs accordingly. Also, certain market research opportunities require us or the market research company to contact you directly to conduct the survey, including by telephone. We will inform you in the research invitation if you will be required to provide additional contact information, e.g., phone number, to participate so that you can decide at that time if you wish to proceed with the opportunity. We do not disclose your survey responses to the sponsor in a manner that identifies you.
  • Continuing Medical Education. Myglowbio, LLC (“Myglowbio”) is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education, the American Nurses Credentialing Center and the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education to deliver continuing education for the healthcare team (collectively, “CME/CE”), which CME/CE activities are hosted by Myglowbio on Myglowbio Education (myglowbio.org), which is part of the Myglowbio Network. As an accredited entity, Myglowbio is required to periodically submit personal information about CME/CE participation to the relevant accrediting entities. Myglowbio and its affiliates that develop independent medical education content (“IME”), including WebMD Global LLC (“WebMD Global”), may provide your personal information to accredited providers that certify CME/CE and IME offered through the Services as required to process your credits, fulfill their reporting obligations to the relevant accreditation bodies, and for their internal recordkeeping and regulatory purposes. Commercial supporters of CME/CE and IME activities receive only aggregated data about the activities that they support including participation and outcomes measurement reports.
  • Logging in to Another Website Using Your Myglowbio Credentials. Certain third party websites permit you to log in using your Myglowbio Network username and password. If you choose to log in to one of these websites using your Myglowbio Network access credentials, we may give this website information included in your registration profile including personal information such as your name, specialty, occupation and email address, (but not your Myglowbio username and password), which the operator of the website has agreed to use in accordance with its website’s privacy policy. You should review the third party website’s privacy policy before logging in. If the privacy policy of the third party site permits, we may receive information about your use of this third party site, which we may use in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
  • Adverse Event Reporting. If you provide us information about an adverse event regarding a pharmaceutical product or medical device, we may be required to report such information along with your contact information to the manufacturer as required for it to fulfill its reporting obligations to the applicable regulatory authority. If you do not want this information reported to the applicable manufacturer and regulatory authority, then do not provide us with adverse event information.
  • Consent. We may disclose your personal information to a third party in a manner not addressed by this Privacy Policy subject to your consent at such time.
  • Aggregated Information. We may provide aggregated information about users of our Services to third parties as we deem appropriate in our sole discretion. For example, WebMD may tell a customer what percentage of registered users of the Myglowbio Network reside in a particular geographical area or specialize in a particular clinical area, or what percentage of participants in a market research survey selected a particular response to a survey question.
  • Social Widgets. We may include social widgets within our websites and apps which enable you to interact with the associated social media services, e.g., to share an article. These widgets may collect browsing data which may be received by the third party that provided the widget, and are controlled by these third parties. You may be able to manage your privacy preferences directly with the applicable social network platform.
  • Business Transfers and Affiliates. We may share your information with any member of our group of companies (meaning our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries) for their use for the purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy, including to market to you through a variety of channels as described herein, subject to applicable law. In connection with a corporate change in control resulting from, for example, a sale to, or merger with, another entity, or in the event of a sale of assets or a bankruptcy, we reserve the right to transfer your personal information to the new party in control or the party acquiring assets. In the event of such a change, your personal information will continue to be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy, as may be modified as described below.
  • Legal Requirements. We may release personal information when we believe release (i) is required to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order and to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; or (ii) is reasonable in response to a physical threat to you or others, to protect property or defend or assert legal rights of us or others.

Security of Information

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect the personal information that we have under our control from unauthorized access, use, disclosure and accidental loss. When you enter personal information, we encrypt the transmission of that information or use SSL connections (Secure Socket Layer) technology. You are solely responsible for maintaining the security and confidentiality of your account username and password. Unfortunately, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Choice and Control

  • Account Information. You may update your registration information at any time through the Account Management feature available on each of our properties. You may also contact Customer Support and request that your registration information be updated or deleted. Note that if we delete your account, we may maintain certain de-identified information about you for internal business purposes including research, analytics and reporting.
  • Cookies. Most browser software can be set to reject all cookies, including third party cookies, however, if you choose to reject our cookies, your ability to access and use the Services will be limited. Refer to our Cookie Policy for additional information about opting out of cookies.
  • Mobile Opt-out. You may control interest-based advertising on your mobile device by enabling the “Limit Ad Tracking” setting in your iOS device’s settings or “Opt out of Ads Personalization” in your Android device’s settings. This will not prevent you from seeing advertisements, but will limit the use of device advertising identifiers to personalize ads based on your interests. You also may disable the transmission of precise location information through your device settings.
  • Email Communications. If you no longer wish to receive a particular type of email communication from us, you may unsubscribe by clicking the “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of the email and following the instructions. Also, you may manage your newsletter subscriptions within the newsletter subscriptions area within your account settings. Note that certain email communications that we send to members are service-related and as long as you are a member of the Myglowbio Network, you may not unsubscribe from such emails. Also, if you have provided us more than one email address, we may continue to contact you using the other email address not associated with the emails from which you have unsubscribed, until you unsubscribe from emails sent to that other address.
  • Push Notifications. We may send you push notifications from time-to-time to notify you of upcoming events or promotions we think may be relevant to you. If you no longer wish to receive these types of notifications, you may turn them off at the device level.
  • California Residents. Section 1798.83 of the California Civil Code requires select businesses to disclose policies relating to the sharing of certain categories of your personal information with third parties. If you reside in California and have provided your personal information to us, you may request information about our disclosures of certain categories of personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. You can submit such request by sending an email to [email protected] or by writing to the WebMD Office of Privacy at the address provided at the end of this Privacy Policy.

Children’s Privacy

The Myglowbio Network and the Services are designed and intended for use by adults, and are not intended for nor designed to be used by children under the age of 18. We do not collect personal information from any person we know is under the age of 18.

Privacy Policy Changes

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time and any changes will be effective upon posting of the modified Privacy Policy unless we advise otherwise. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy we will notify you by email (sent to the email address included in your account profile) and/or by means of a notice on our websites before the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy for the latest information on our privacy practices. By continuing to use the Services after changes are made to this Privacy Policy, you agree to such changes.