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PMC Biophysics's policy for protecting your personal information

Privacy is an important concern for internet users, and is something that PMC Biophysics takes very seriously. What follows is an explanation of PMC Biophysics's policy for protecting users' personal information.

What personal information does PMC Biophysics ask users to supply, and why?

Registration on PMC Biophysics is optional and voluntary. Browsing and viewing articles on PMC Biophysics does not require any personal information to be submitted from users. Nor do these functions require the user's browser to be set to accept cookies.

Some other aspects of PMC Biophysics's service do require the use of cookies, and the supply of information such as name, email etc. This is necessary for security reasons and also for BioMed Central to be able to assure standards of scientific integrity. Users may submit further personal information (e.g. details of research areas of interest) in order to take advantage of present and future personalization facilities on PMC Biophysics.

In accordance with European Union guidelines, registrants may decline to provide the information requested. They should be advised, however, that PMC Biophysics may be unable to deliver its services unless at least the information necessary for security and identification purposes is provided.

What further information does PMC Biophysics track, and why?

In order to offer the best possible service to users, PMC Biophysics tracks the patterns of usage of pages on the site. This enables us to identify the most popular articles and services. Where users have provided details of their research areas of interest, this information can be correlated, helping PMC Biophysics to provide a useful service for scientists, offering them the most relevant information based on their areas of interest.

What is PMC Biophysics's policy on sharing email addresses with third parties?

User information will only be shared with third parties with the explicit consent of the user. If the user has explicitly opted to receive special offer and product information emails from PMC Biophysics partners, then PMC Biophysics may from time to time email the user on behalf of these partner companies. However, these companies will not be given the user's details without that user's explicit consent.

What is PMC Biophysics's policy on emailing its registered members?

PMC Biophysics may contact members from time to time to draw the member's attention to information that may be of interest. Members may opt out from receiving such email when registering as a member, or at any time thereafter by responding to such an email or contacting customer services.

What is PMC Biophysics's policy on using demographic information about users for online advertising purposes?

Support from advertisers is important to PMC Biophysics's model of free access to research articles. Statistical demographic information about the PMC Biophysics membership may be supplied to advertisers. PMC Biophysics may target online advertising to specific users on the basis of this demographic information, or on the basis of their past behavior on the site, but information about an individual user will not be passed on to an advertiser without the users' express consent.

Access for journalists

Articles on PMC Biophysics will be published electronically immediately upon acceptance. So, the issue of having an 'embargo' on controversial or publicity sensitive material in the temporal gap between acceptance and publication is not an issue for PMC Biophysics. Journalists, like everyone else, will have access to published material immediately upon acceptance.

How does this privacy policy relate to authors of research articles published through PMC Biophysics

Publishing a scientific manuscript is inherently a public (as opposed to anonymous) process. The name and email address of all authors of a BioMed Central manuscript will be available to users of PMC Biophysics. These details are made available in this way purely to facilitate scientific communication. Collecting these email addresses for commercial use is not permitted, nor will PMC Biophysics itself send unsolicited email to authors, unless it directly concerns the paper they have published on PMC Biophysics.

Use of cookies

PMC Biophysics uses cookies to track usage. For auto login a cookie is sent from our server and is stored on your computer's hard drive.

Session cookies are also sent from our server to your computer and used for session management. However these cookies do not remain on your hard drive on completion of your session.

Cookies are used by PMC Biophysics to:

1. Enable us to identify you without having to ask you for username and password.
2. Measure usage.
3. Track movement within PMC Biophysics.

If you do not wish to accept any of these cookies or wish to be notified when a cookie is sent you can modify your browser preferences. If you refuse to accept the permanent cookie that is saved on your computer's hard drive then you will not be able to use the Auto login facility. If you choose not to accept session cookies then you may not be able to use all of the facilities offered on PMC Biophysics.

More information about cookies

Legal responsibilities

PMC Biophysics reserves the right to disclose members' personal information if required to do so by law, or in the good faith and belief that such action is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process, respond to claims, or protect the rights, property or safety of PMC Biophysics, employees or members.

Who should I contact if I have any questions or concerns about my privacy?

If you have any questions or concerns about your privacy and PMC Biophysics please contact our customer services team.

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