MICPA Privacy Policy

Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants
Introduction

This privacy policy describes Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants’ (“MICPA”, “us”, “we” or “our”) current policies and practices with regard to personal data collected by MICPA through its websites, micpa.org, leadersedge.micpa.org, and businessedge.micpa.org as well as the MICPA Mobile and MICPA Connect mobile applications (hereinafter referred to collectively as “MICPA’s websites”). This privacy policy is independent from MICPA’s offline personal data collection practices. The term “personal data” or “personal information” refers to personally identifiable information about you, such as your name, birth date, email address or mailing address and any other information that is identified with you personally. Please read this privacy policy carefully.  By continuing to interact with MICPA’s websites, you are consenting to the practices described in this privacy policy.

Notification of Changes to This Policy

The MICPA is continually improving and adding new functionality and features to its websites and improving and adding to our existing products, services and programs. Because of these ongoing changes, changes in the law, and the changing nature of technology, MICPA’s data practices will change from time to time. If our data practices change, MICPA will post the changes on our web sites to notify you of the changes. We encourage you to check this page frequently. The date at the top of this privacy policy indicates the date of the most recent update.

Personal Data Collected Through MICPA’s Websites

Like many website operators, we use cookies, pixels and other technologies to monitor how individuals interact with our website, perform analytics, and to advertise our products and services. However, other than these common technologies, the only personal data MICPA currently collects through its websites is the information you voluntarily give us when you use our sites.

Cookies, pixels and other online technologies

What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard drive by a web page server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.  There are several types of cookies:

• Session cookies provide information about how a website is used during a single browser session while a user is visiting a website. Session cookies usually expire after the browser is closed.
• Persistent cookies remain on your device between different browser sessions for a set amount of time in order to enable the website to remember user preferences, settings, or actions across other sites. A persistent cookie will remain on a user’s device for a set period of time specified in the cookie.
• First-party cookies are cookies set by the operator of the website you are visiting.
• Third-party cookies are cookies set by third parties that are different from the operator website you are visiting.

Our collection of cookies

We, our marketing partners, affiliates, and analytics or service providers use cookies and other similar technologies. We group the cookies that we collect into the following categories based upon their function (note that all types of cookies, as described above, may be found in each category):

Category	Description
Essential Cookies	Essential cookies are sometimes called “strictly necessary” as without them we cannot operate and administer the Website.
Analytics or Performance Cookies	These cookies track information about visits to the Websites so that we can make improvements and report our performance. For example: analyze visitor and user behavior so as to provide more relevant content or suggest certain activities. They collect information about how visitors use MICPA’s websites, which site the user came from, the number of each user’s visits and how long a user stays on MICPA’s websites. We might also use analytics cookies to test new ads, pages, or features to see how users react to them.
Functional or Preference Cookies	During your visit to MICPA’s websites, cookies are used to remember information you have entered or choices you make (such as your username, language or your region) on MICPA’s websites. They also store your preferences when personalizing MICPA’s websites to optimize your use of the Website, for example, your preferred language. These preferences are remembered, through the use of the persistent cookies, and the next time you visit MICPA’s websites you will not have to set them again.
Targeting or Advertising Cookies	These cookies are placed by third party advertising platforms or networks in order to, deliver ads and track ad performance, enable advertising networks to deliver ads that may be relevant to you based upon your activities (this is sometimes called “behavioral” “tracking” or “targeted” advertising) on MICPA’s websites. They may subsequently use information about your visit to target you with advertising that you may be interested in, on the Websites and other websites. For example, these cookies remember which browsers have visited MICPA’s websites.

Third-party cookies

MICPA’s websites allow third-parties to place cookies on your Internet-connected device in order to deliver advertisements based upon your web-browsing habits and history. Further, in order to provide interoperability and plug-ins from various social media websites (like Facebook), MICPA’s websites allow these third-parties to place and collect cookies on your Internet-connected device. However, you can restrict the third-party collection of cookies through the instructions provided in the section How To Restrict Cookies below.

Analytics

We may use service providers, including Google Analytics, to provide site metrics and other analytics services. These service providers may use cookies (see above); web beacons (also called clear GIFs or pixels), which are small blocks of code that allow us to measure the actions of visitors using MICPA’s websites; and other technologies to collect information, such as your IP address, identifiers associated with your device, other applications on your device, the browsers you use to access our sites and services, webpages viewed, time spent on webpages, links clicked, and conversion information (e.g., transactions entered into). This information may be used by us and our service providers on our behalf to analyze and track usage of MICPA’s websites to determine the popularity of certain content and to better understand how you use our sites.

To provide visitors with better service, each site may use analytics software to track usage activity. If, at any time, you choose not to participate in the use of analytics software, please use your search engine’s (i.e., Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) available opt-outs for the web as described in the section How To Restrict Cookies.

Advertising

MICPA’s websites utilize remarketing technologies provided by third-party service providers like Google to serve advertisements on third-party websites as you browse the Internet.

We also have partnered with third-party advertising networks that collect information about your online web browsing habits to serve you with interest-based advertisements both on MICPA’s websites and third-party websites.

The information collected about you to serve these ads can include your IP address, unique online identifiers, your activity on our sites, and information about your operating system, browser, and platform, as well as other technology on the devices you use to access the sites.

You can opt-out of this advertising by:

• Visiting the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) website opt-out page: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices
• Visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) opt-out page here: http://www.aboutads.info/
• Downloading and installing the Google browser plug-in from the following link: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

For information about how to restrict cookies in general, please review the paragraph titled How to Restrict Cookies.

Session recorders

Session recordings are renderings of real actions taken by visitors as they browse a website. Recordings capture mouse movement, clicks, taps, and scrolling across multiple pages on desktop and mobile devices. We use Hotjar in order to better understand our users’ needs and to optimize this service and experience. Hotjar is a technology service that helps us better understand our users’ experience (e.g., how much time they spend on which pages, which links they choose to click, what users do and don’t like, etc.) and this enables us to build and maintain our service with user feedback.

Hotjar uses cookies and other technologies to collect data on our users’ behavior and their devices. This includes a device's IP address (processed during your session and stored in a de-identified form), device screen size, device type (unique device identifiers), browser information, geographic location (country only), and the preferred language used to display our website. Hotjar stores this information on our behalf in a pseudonymized user profile.   Hotjar is contractually forbidden to sell any of the data collected on our behalf. For further details, please see the ‘about Hotjar’ section of  Hotjar’s support site.

Web beacons, pixels, tags and scripts 

 

Third-Party/Embedded Content

These cookies are set by third parties whose content is embedded in MICPA’s websites (e.g., video). They may track your online activity in order to enhance your experience or assess the success of their application. We have no direct control over the information these cookies collect. Please review the third party’s privacy policy and privacy settings before clicking on embedded content in our site.

Social Media Widgets. 

These cookies allow us to integrate social media functions into MICPA’s websites and may also be used for advertising purposes. Please review the third party’s privacy policy and privacy settings before clicking on a widget.

Do Not Track

Do Not Track (“DNT”) is an optional browser setting that allows you to express your preferences regarding tracking across websites. Most modern web browsers give you the option to send a Do Not Track signal to the websites you visit, indicating that you do not wish to be tracked. However, there is no accepted standard for how a website should respond to this signal, so we do not take any action in response to this signal. MICPA does not have a mechanism in place to respond to DNT signals. Instead, in addition to publicly available external tools, we offer you the choices described in this Cookies Policy to manage the collection and use of information about you.

How to Restrict Cookies

Your browser may include information on how to adjust your settings. Alternatively, you may visit the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s website www.consumer.ftc.gov to obtain comprehensive general information about cookies and how to adjust the cookie settings on various browsers.  Additional general information about cookies, including how to be notified about the placement of new cookies and how to disable cookies, can be found at www.allaboutcookies.org.

You can control and delete these cookies through your browser settings through the following:

• Google Chrome

• Mozilla Firefox

• Safari

• Opera

• Microsoft Internet Explorer

• Microsoft Edge

• Safari for iOS (iPhone and iPad)

• Chrome for Android

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact the functionality of the Website. For example, refusing cookies will not allow MICPA to present the Website in your preferred language or remember your log-in information. 

Information That You Voluntarily Provide To Us

The MICPA’s websites allow you to submit information about yourself:

• When you apply for a membership with MICPA, you can provide your name, phone and email contact information, company or school name, username and password, and payment card information.

• You can submit professional information regarding your CPA license and continuing education courses and credits.

• You may use this site to contact MICPA with questions and comments. When you fill out a form on MICPA’s websites, you may provide your name and other contact information, including your company’s name, your email address and your mailing address or the mailing address of your company or other personal information.

• When you submit information, purchase products or register for events through MICPA’s websites, you will receive a confirmation email to the address we have on file. 

Use of Personal Data Collected Through MICPA’s Websites

The MICPA uses the personal information you provide to:

• administer and operate MICPA’s websites; 

• facilitate and administer your membership with us;

• process payments;

• provide you with requested information, programs and services;

• answer your question or resolve your problems; and 

• general administration of our organization.

The MICPA may use this information to contact you in the future to tell you about products or services we believe will be of interest to you. If we do so, each communication we send you will contain instructions permitting you to “opt-out” of receiving future communications. Similarly, we may provide “subscription” email services, which enable you to receive current news impacting the CPA profession or the latest course offerings. For all such services, we will provide an opportunity to “opt-out” of, or cancel, the subscription. We do not sell your contact information and we do not use your contact information or opt-in and out information for anything other than communicating with you. We only disclose this information to our trusted e-mail, phone and mailing messaging vendors as is necessary to facilitate our communications with you, and those third parties cannot use your information for any other purpose.

The MICPA uses online browsing information to help us improve the content and functionality of our websites, to better understand our customers and markets and, where appropriate our affiliates, advertise our products and services, and to improve our products and services. 

Disclosure of Your Personal Data

The MICPA may share some or all the personal data collected through this website with other entities. We may disclose your personal information:

• To our organizational service providers.  We may utilize a variety of service providers to facilitate the provision of MICPA’s websites or in the performance of our services. These service providers include our data analytics providers, public relation firms, website hosting providers, payment processors, e-mail, phone and mailing messaging vendors, online presentation or webinar providers 

• To our database hosting vendors.  Like many organizations, we utilize cloud databases to host our data, including your personal information, so that we can effectively and safely operate MICPA’s websites and perform our services.

• To our auditors.  We may be subject to audits from a number of entities as well as due to our own internal auditing policies. In order to accomplish an effective audit, we must provide information, which may include your personal information, to external auditors. We always ensure that your information is safely disclosed and stored and that auditors can only use your information for the purposes of completing an audit.

• To individuals or entities you authorize.  We may disclose your personal information to individuals or entities at your direction.

• To our affiliates.  We may share your personal information with our affiliates for the purposes of administering our organization and providing our services.

• To entities who operate plug-ins on MICPA’s websites.  If you click a link or plug-in on MICPA’s websites (like the Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn or X (Twitter) plugin), you will be re-directed to that third-party website. That third-party website may receive your online identifier and device information along with that referral. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third-parties.

• In entity transactions.  We may share all or part of your personal information with other entities in connection with the sale, assignment, merger or other transfer of all or a portion of our organization or assets to such entities (including due to a sale in connection with a bankruptcy). 

• For legal purposes.  We may disclose all or part of your personal information to courts, litigants, regulators, arbitrators, administrative bodies or law enforcement when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to resolve actual or suspected claims. We may also disclose your personal information in order to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating any agreement with us, or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or property, other users of MICPA’s websites, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. We may disclose information in response to a subpoena, search warrant, in connection with judicial proceedings, or pursuant to court orders, legal process or other law enforcement measures.

Links to Other Sites

The MICPA’s websites contain hyperlinks to other sites that are not operated by MICPA. These hyperlinks are provided for your reference and convenience only and do not imply any endorsement of the activities of these third-party web sites or any association with their operators. The MICPA does not control these websites and is not responsible for their data practices. We urge you to review the privacy policy posted on any site you visit before using the site or providing any personal data about yourself.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Compliance and Related Information

The Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA) regulates online collection of information from persons under the age of 13.  It is our policy to refrain from knowingly collecting or maintaining personal information relating to any person under the age of 13.  If you are under the age of 13, please do not supply any personal information through MICPA’s websites.  If you are under the age of 13 and have already provided personal information through MICPA’s websites, please have your parent or guardian contact us immediately using the information provided at the end of this privacy policy so that we can remove such information from our files.

Questions About Our Privacy Policy

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or concerns about the way MICPA processes your personal data, please contact the MICPA at 248.267.3700 or toll-free in Michigan at 1.888.877.4273.