The Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard Business School understands that the privacy of its users is important. To that end, we have adopted the following policy with regard to the collection, use, and dissemination of any personal information that we may request or require from users of the U.S. Cluster Mapping website. We are providing this policy below so that you may understand the terms and conditions associated with the provision of any personal information to us. Please note, however, that this policy has been developed with the recognition that Internet technologies continue to develop and evolve rapidly, and that such changes may require us to alter our Privacy Policy from time to time without advance notice. Any such alterations will not affect our commitment to the protection of our users' privacy, and will be posted on this page.

General Statement

The Institute will not sell, swap, rent, or otherwise disclose to any third party any personal information provided during the registration process or generated by your use of the U.S. Cluster Mapping website. However, the Institute reserves the right to disclose this information if required by special circumstances, such as in connection with legal proceedings or if, in the sole discretion of the Institute, disclosure is necessary to protect the Institute or President and Fellows of Harvard College or our users.

This website contains links to other web sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites. If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this site, you can contact cmp@hbs.edu. 

You may delete your account and all associated contributed content via a request to cmp@hbs.edu.

Information Gathering

Our web server software generates log files of the IP addresses of computers that access this web site and of what files they access. These web server logs are retained on a temporary basis and then deleted completely from our systems.

The registration process for the U.S. Cluster Mapping Project requires users to provide personal information such as email addresses, names, and organizations. We do not include any functionality on our site that would allow third parties to perform "reverse searches" to identify individuals from email addresses.

We will, on occasion, use the email address provided by you to announce significant changes to the website or to provide you with specific information about your user account. You may contact cmp@hbs.edu to opt out of certain communications from us.

The U.S. Cluster Mapping website uses cookies to maintain a user's identity between web sessions. A cookie is a tool used to deliver customizable and personalized services and information. The cookie consists of a small data file that is written to a user's hard drive that contains information, such as User ID, that allows us to track which pages a user has already visited. We use cookies to store Usernames and Passwords to simplify the log-in process. Cookies will also be used to track session information, such as pages visited or duration of visit, that will help us continue to improve our format and content. 

We also may collect statistics about the behavior of visitors to this website.  For this purpose, we may use third-party services to collect such information. We may display this statistical information in the aggregate publicly or provide it to others. However, we do not provide any personally identifiable information we gather or develop about our visitors to any third parties for any purpose except as stated above. We use your IP address and files you access to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website. We also use this information to tailor site content to user needs, and to generate aggregate statistical reports. At no time do we disclose site usage by individual visitors.

Security Precautions

This website has security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. Unfortunately, due to the nature of Internet communications, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. While the Institute remains committed to protecting the privacy of our users, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. We do so by using secure technology and privacy protection.

We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. The Institute will never ask a user for their password in an unsolicited communication. Also, remember to sign out of your session and close your browser window when you have finished using the site if you share a computer or have accessed the site from a public computer, such as in a library or Internet cafe. Otherwise, it may be possible for a user of that computer to see personally-identifiable information about you.