IMC Institute is an independent community site. This page says, in plain words, what is kept about you, why, and how to take it with you or delete it. It is not legal advice; if something here is unclear, write to us through the contact page.
Reading without an account
- No account is needed to read, use Find your stack, browse the directory or compare. Your answers (your brief), your compare list and your milestones stay in your own browser and are not sent to us.
- Language and theme choices are kept in a cookie or in your browser so the site remembers them.
- Abuse controls. To stop floods of sign-ups, messages and contributions, the server counts recent requests per network address in memory for a short while. The address is hashed first and never written to storage.
- Analytics. If the site's operator turns on an analytics or tag tool, it receives the pages you visit and standard browser information under that tool's own terms. It never runs on account pages.
Contributing without an account
Edits, corrections and evidence can be sent without an account. We keep what you write, the optional name and email you give (used only to follow up, never shown) and, if you take one, a pseudonymous handle whose private key stays in your browser; we keep only a hash of it.
Your account
- What we keep: your email address; your password, only as a one-way hash; your display name and public handle; your account status; the profile answers you choose to give (role, company size, regions, languages, disciplines, objectives, industries, company, title, country, bio, website); your preferences; when you accepted the terms and this notice; your points and badges and how you earned them; your sign-in sessions; and failed sign-in counts, used to lock an account for a while after repeated wrong passwords.
- Why: to run your account, to tailor Find your stack, the directory and Learn to your answers, to credit your contributions, and to keep the community safe.
- Who sees it: moderators, to approve accounts, answer you and keep the rules. Other members see only your public profile, and only if you turn it on. Your email address is never shown to other members.
Account emails, replies, the notifications you allow and the newsletter, if you subscribe, are sent through an email delivery service with the operator's own account. Every newsletter email has a one-click unsubscribe link. If email is not set up, nothing is sent and the site still works.
Messages, the chat widget and the help board
Conversations through the contact form or the chat widget are kept so they can continue; ask us to delete one, or delete your account to anonymise your messages. A help conversation between two members is private to them; moderators read it only if one of them reports a problem. IMC Institute never handles payments.
Your choices
- Download your data from Settings, as a JSON file.
- Delete your account from Settings. Contributions that help others stay, shown as "Former member".
- Correct your profile at any time; a new email address is confirmed before it replaces the old one.
How long things are kept
Sign-in sessions end after 30 days without use, and 90 days after sign-in at the latest. Email links expire: 48 hours to confirm an address, 24 hours to confirm a new one, one hour to reset a password. Accounts are kept until you delete them or ask us to.