Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 23, 2021

Table of Contents

I. Website Privacy
    General
    What Information We Collect About You and How We Use It
        Information You Provide to Us
        Inquiries and Forms
        Social Networking Activities
        Account Creation
        Financial Transactions
        Surveys, Contests and Other Promotions
        Applications
            Interactive Forums
    Use and Retention of Information You Provide
    Automatically Collected Information
        URLs and IP Addresses
        Cookies
        The types of cookies we may use on our Website include:
        The specific cookies that may be used on yogaalliance.org are:
        The specific cookies that may be used on yastandards.com are:
    How Personal Information May Be Shared
    Publicly Displayed Information
        Registered Yoga Teachers
        Registered Yoga Schools
        Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers
    Opting Out of Communications
    Security
    Links to Other Websites
    Children's Privacy
    Your California Privacy Rights
    Your European Privacy Rights
    Access to Your Personal Information
    Access from Outside North America
    Governing Law
    Contact
II. Other Privacy

I. Website Privacy

BY USING OR ACCESSING OUR WEBSITE OR BY PROVIDING PERSONAL INFORMATION TO US ON OR THROUGH THIS WEBSITE, YOU CONSENT TO THE COLLECTION, USE AND DISCLOSURE OF THAT INFORMATION IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY.

General

YAplus d/b/a Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance Registry d/b/a Yoga Alliance Foundation (collectively referred to herein as “Yoga Alliance,” “we” or “us”) respect the privacy of those who visit our website, yogaalliance.org, yastandards.com, or any other website linked to this Privacy Policy (the “Website”). This Privacy Policy describes the information, including Personal Information about you that we collect through the Website, and how that information is used, maintained and, in some cases, shared. In order to fully understand your rights we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy.

“Personal Information”, is any information that enables us to identify you, directly or indirectly, such as your email address, name, shipping and billing address, telephone number, company name, credit card information, any form of identification number or one or more factors specific to your physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity.

By using or accessing the Website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, do not use or access the Website. We may, from time to time, revise or update this Privacy Policy. This may include making changes to the way we collect, maintain and store information. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy, we will post notice of the modifications to the Privacy Policy on www.yogaalliance.org. Please check the “Last Updated” legend at the top of this page to see when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Changes will become effective immediately. If you disagree with any of the terms of this Privacy Policy in its current form, or in the future, in any of its modified forms, your sole remedy is to discontinue your use of the Website.

For the purposes of the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (the “GDPR”), the data controller is Yoga Alliance, whose registered office is at 4201 Wilson Blvd, Suite 605, Arlington, VA 22203.

Please email personal data access requests to info@yogaalliance.org.

What Information We Collect About You and How We Use It

Information You Provide to Us

You can browse our Website without providing any personal information to us. Yoga Alliance gathers and retains personal information about you when you voluntarily submit it to us and automatically collects statistical information about visitors’ use of the Website. Information that you submit may be linked with statistical information about your access to and use of the Website.

Inquiries and Forms

If you choose to complete and submit a form or otherwise provide information through our Website when you make an inquiry, including but not limited to the “Contact Us” page, by phone or email, we may collect and retain the Personal Information you provide, including your name, postal or email address, contact information and any other data you submit.

Social Networking Activities

The Website includes the ability for you and other users to link to social networking websites. As a result, we receive information about you when you choose to post or otherwise share information about our Website on these social networking websites. We may also receive Personal Information about you from your social networking account depending on your privacy setting for that account; this may include name, profile picture, age range, gender, language, country and other public information. You can control this by adjusting your privacy setting on your social network account.

Account Creation

Before you can utilize some portions of the Website, we will require that you create an account and provide us with your first name, last name, email address, phone number, date of birth, and create a password. You may also need to verify your account post creation by email verification. Yoga Teachers and Yoga Schools may also create accounts on the Website and submit additional information including name, registry name, address and payment billing information. Some information may be posted on the Yoga Alliance Registry at the election of the registrant.

Financial Transactions

When you engage in any financial transaction through the Website, you will be asked to provide certain of your financial information, such as your debit card, credit card or PayPal account and billing or shipping address.

Surveys, Contests and Other Promotions

If you choose to participate in a survey, contest or other promotion on our Website Yoga Alliance may request personally identifiable information from you such as your name, contact information, age, demographic information, and other information you submit in connection with the survey, contest or other promotion. Participation is completely voluntary and you therefore can choose whether to disclose personally identifiable information. We may use third parties to administer our surveys, contests or other promotions or to sponsor them and information you provide may be shared with them in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you participate in a contest you are subject to its Official Rules which will be posted on the Website; winners may be required to provide additional information, for instance for verification, shipping or tax purposes.

Applications

Yoga Alliance may permit you to submit applications for employment, membership, working groups, or other opportunities through our Website. This process may be operated by an authorized service provider. Information collected through an online application may include name, address, telephone and fax numbers, email address, education history, employment history, or other information ("Application Information"). Application Information provided through this process is submitted directly to the third party vendor, and subject to its privacy policy which you should review before providing information. Application Information that we receive will be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Interactive Forums

Yoga Alliance may host online communities, message boards, chat rooms, blogs, and other interactive forums or services (each, a “Forum”), where users may post content, comment, and otherwise communicate with others. If you choose to participate in a Forum, you may have the opportunity to submit demographic information, such as your social links, bio, languages, professional associations, areas of expertise, teaching specialties, and profile photo. Demographics are pieces of information that help the user either identify themselves or others, and can power “Networks” which users can used to find others by common interests. We may also send you targeted communications based on your engagement and the information you submit. Participation is completely voluntary and you therefore can choose whether to disclose personally identifiable information.

Use and Retention of Information You Provide

We may use the information we collect from you for our legitimate operational and development interests, for example:

• to respond to your requests or inquiries,
• to process transactions you have requested,
• to manage or facilitate the operation and security of the Website,
• to enhance your experience with Yoga Alliance,
• to communicate with you about membership, applications, transactions or registration, and about products, services, events and other opportunities related to yoga or Yoga Alliance,
• to identify you or authenticate your identity,
• to communicate with you regarding your account with us,
• to monitor and improve the use and satisfaction of Website users,
• to display advertisements relevant to your interests,
• to notify contest winners and award prizes,
• to conduct research and analysis and
• to expand our services and outreach.

We use your Personal Information according to the terms of the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of our use. We will process your Personal Information where (1) you have provided your consent which can be withdrawn at any time, (2) where the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party (for example, we will share your Personal Information with other members with whom you have entered into a transaction), (3) where we are required by law, (4) where processing is required to protect your vital interests or those of another person, or (5) where the processing is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate commercial interests, except where such interest are overridden by your rights and interests. We will only keep financial transaction information as long as necessary to complete the transaction or series of recurring transactions authorized by you. We may keep all other information indefinitely.

When users of the Website wish to contact a registered user they may do so using information that the registered user has agreed to post on the Yoga Alliance Registry. Registry information can be limited by visiting the Account Management pages. We may facilitate the transmission of email messages from site visitors who use the “email me” button on the Registry so that the registrant’s email address is kept private. We retain the communications using this feature.

Automatically Collected Information

URLs and IP Addresses

Like many other websites, we collect information about users’ utilization and navigation of the Website. This information helps us to design the Website to better suit our users’ needs. Information collected from Website visitors includes: domain name used to access the internet, browser used, pages visited, referring site URLs and Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. We use this information as provided in this Privacy Policy, including, for example, to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer the Website, to help identify you, to gather broad demographic information and to provide relevant advertising to you. We track the keywords that are entered into our search engine and the terms selected to browse and filter information in order to measure interest in specific topics, and we may monitor which terms a particular user enters. We may also record information about individual behavior or use of the Website.

Cookies

Like most websites, we may employ cookies on certain pages of the Website. Cookies make using the Website easier by, among other things, saving your preferences for you. We may also use cookies to deliver content tailored to your interests. Our cookies may enable us to relate your use of the Website to personally identifying information that you previously submitted. The information that we collect with cookies allows us to improve our membership benefits and information, to statistically analyze usage of the Website, and to improve and customize our content and other offerings. We may link cookies to other information about you that we have collected. However, we only disclose information collected with cookies to third parties on an aggregated basis without the use of any information that personally identifies you.

The types of cookies we may use on our Website include:

Session cookies: These temporary cookies expire and are automatically erased whenever you close your browser window. We may use session cookies to grant you access to content and to enable actions you must be logged in to do.

Persistent cookies: These usually have an expiration date in the distant future and remain in your browser until they expire or you manually delete them. We may use persistent cookies to better understand your use patterns so we can improve the Website. For example, we may use a persistent cookie to associate you with your user account or to remember that your choices on the Website, but this only works when cookies on our site are enabled.

Third party cookies: We may permit limited third parties to place cookies through the Website to provide us with better insights into the use of the Site or user demographics or to provide relevant advertising to you. These third parties may collect information about a user’s online activities over time and across different websites when he or she uses our website. For example, we may utilize Google Analytics to analyze usage patterns of the Website. Google Analytics generates a cookie to capture information about your use of the Website which Google uses to compile reports on website activity for us and to provide other related services. Google may use all or a portion of your IP address to identify their cookie, but this will not be associated with any other data held by Google. To learn more about the privacy policy of Google Analytics, click here. To block the Google Analytics cookie, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. We may also permit third party service providers to place cookies through our Website, as indicated above, to perform analytic or marketing functions where you are notified of them and you have consented to the usage. We do not control the use of such third party cookies or the resulting information and we are not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties.

The specific cookies that may be used on yogaalliance.org are:

The specific cookies that may be used on yastandards.com are:

Your use of our Website will be deemed to be your consent to the placement of cookies on your computer or other devices. If you prefer not to receive cookies through our Website, you can set your browser to either reject all cookies, to allow only “trusted” websites to set them, or to accept only those cookies from those sites you are currently on. Unless you have adjusted the setting of your browser so that it will refuse cookies, our system may issue cookies when you log on to our Website. If your browser is set to reject cookies, or if your browser notifies you that you are about to receive a cookie and you reject it, then your use of the Website may not be as efficient as it would be if the cookie were enabled, and some parts of the Website may not work at all.

We do not use technology that recognizes a “do-not-track” signal from your web browser, because we do not track users other than for aggregate statistical purposes.

How Personal Information May Be Shared

We will not share, rent, sell or otherwise disclose any of the Personal Information that we collect about you through the Website except as permitted by law or as described in this Privacy Policy.

• YAplus d/b/a Yoga Alliance and Yoga Alliance Registry d/b/a Yoga Alliance Foundation may share information that we collect about you with each other and with our affiliates.
• We may disclose information that we collect about you to our third-party contractors and payment processors who perform services for us in connection with the Website, or to complete or confirm a transaction or series of transactions that you conduct with us.
• We may also disclose information to service providers or suppliers if the disclosure will enable that party to perform business, professional or technical support for us, including, for example, survey and contest administration, processing of application information, marketing partners, analytics services and research services who provide sufficient guarantees of security of your information; these providers are permitted to use the information in order to provide the services to us but are contractually not permitted to use the information for their own unrelated purposes.
• We may disclose information that we collect about you to verified Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers or others whom Yoga Alliance recognizes as providing relevant continuing education courses; these providers are permitted to use the information in order to provide the courses offered but are not permitted to use the information for their own unrelated purposes.
• As part of Yoga Alliance’s Affinity and Sponsorship Program, we may provide your information to our partners and sponsors, so as to provide you with access to benefits and to allow them to communicate important information about them. We may also provide such information to other select third parties approved by Yoga Alliance as offering products or services relevant and useful to you.
• We may disclose information about you as part of a merger, acquisition or other sale or transfer of the assets or business of Yoga Alliance.
• We may be legally obligated to disclose information about you to the government or to third parties under certain circumstances, such as in connection with illegal activity on the Website, or to respond to a subpoena, court order or other legal process. We reserve the right to release information that we collect to law enforcement or other government officials, as we, in our sole and absolute discretion, deem necessary or appropriate.
• We may share aggregated or anonymous information that does not identify you with third parties. For example, we may disclose the number of visitors to the Website or the number of people who have downloaded a particular document.

Publicly Displayed Information

Yoga Alliance has an online directory accessible to the public at www.yogaalliance.org. If you are a credential holder, the directory allows interested parties - including potential clients and employers - to find you. However, you choose how much or how little information you want displayed, as described below.

Registered Yoga Teachers

Yoga Alliance collects personal information about Registered Yoga Teachers (“RYTs”) during and after the registration process. RYTs control whether they appear publicly in the directory by managing the online profile in their personal account. For directions about how to manage online accounts, view our Website, or email info@yogaalliance.org.

Registered Yoga Schools

Yoga Alliance collects personal information about Registered Yoga Schools (“RYSs”) and their trainees during the registration process and after. Some of that information is automatically included in the online directory for each RYS, specifically: name of school and school locations, city, state and zip code of school locations, designation, school teachers, and types of yoga. RYSs may post additional information on their public profile by making selections in online account settings.

Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers

Yoga Alliance verifies certain providers of continuing education courses for credential holders to complete as part of their requirements to maintain the RYT designation. Courses may be offered by Experienced Registered Yoga Teachers (“E-RYTs”) or by individuals who have relevant knowledge and a desire to provide a course that meets our standards in one or more verified educational categories. Information about Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers may be found on the Website including, for example, their names, affiliations and other information they choose to share. For directions on how to include information please email info@yogaalliance.org. Information provided by Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Providers will be used and disclosed as provided in this Privacy Policy.

Opting Out of Communications

If you do not want Yoga Alliance to share your information with any of its approved partners, sponsors, or other relevant third parties, please contact us at the email or phone number listed below under Contact, and state your request along with your first and last name, email and postal address and phone number. We will make every effort to process all such requests within 30 days.

If you no longer want to receive promotional emails from Yoga Alliance on a going-forward basis, you may opt out of receiving emails by clicking the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of those email you receive or, if you have an online account, you may log in to your account and make changes to your communication preferences. If you are having difficulty unsubscribing using the above methods, please contact us directly at the email or phone number listed below under Contact. Please allow ample time for us to process your request. However, please note that even if you opt out from receiving promotional emails, we will continue to send you service-related communications and may need to keep information we have collected about you for record-keeping, research and other purposes.

Security

To help protect the privacy of data you transmit through the Website, where Personal Information is requested, we use technology designed to encrypt the information that you input before it is sent to us. In addition, we take reasonable administrative, technical and physical steps to protect the user data we collect against unauthorized access. However, you should keep in mind that the Website is run on software, hardware and networks, any component of which may, from time to time, require maintenance or experience problems or breaches of security beyond our control. Please also be aware that despite our best intentions and the guidelines outlined in this Privacy Policy, no data transmission over the Internet or encryption method can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

As a registered user of the Website, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your user name and password. Please keep this information confidential.

Links to Other Websites

We do not endorse and are not responsible for the information practices or privacy policies of websites operated by others that may be linked to our Website, including the websites of our program partners and sponsors. If you decide to access a third party’s website that may be linked to this Website, you should consult that website’s privacy policy. This Privacy Policy governs only information that we directly collect, and not websites, services or applications that do not link to this Privacy Policy or that are maintained or controlled by other companies or organizations, including third party websites linked to from the Website. The inclusion of a link or reference on the Website does not imply endorsement of the linked website by us.

Children’s Privacy

This Website is not intended for children under the age of 13. If you are under 13 years of age, please do not use or access this Website at any time or in any manner. By using this Website, you affirm that you are over the age of 13. Yoga Alliance does not seek through this Website to gather personal information from or about persons under the age of 13.

Your California Privacy Rights

For California Residents Only. Under California law, a California resident with whom we have an established relationship has the right to request certain information with respect to the types of personal information we have shared with third parties for their direct marketing purposes, and the identities of those third parties, within the immediately preceding calendar year, subject to certain exceptions. All requests for such information must be emailed to info@yogaalliance.org.

Your European Privacy Rights

For Individuals Within The EEA Only. Under the GDPR, in certain circumstances, you have the right to: (a) request access to any Personal Information we hold about you and related information, (b) obtain without undue delay the rectification of any inaccurate Personal Information, (c) request that your Personal Information is deleted provided the Personal Information is not required by Yoga Alliance for compliance with a legal obligation under European or Member State law or for the establishment, exercise or defense of a legal claim, (d) prevent or restrict processing of your Personal Information, except to the extent processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims; and (e) request transfer of your Personal Information directly to a third party where this is technically feasible.

In addition, where you believe that Yoga Alliance has not complied with its obligation under this Privacy Policy or European law, you have the right to make a complaint to an EU Data Protection Authority, such as the UK Information Commissioner’s Office.

Please email personal data access requests to info@yogaalliance.org.

Access to Your Personal Information

You are required to provide us with accurate and up to date Personal Information. Yoga Alliance gives you the ability to amend your Personal Information at any time by accessing your account on our Website and modifying the Personal Information on your account page. If you are a resident of the European Economic Area, please see the section titled Your European Privacy Rights. For residents outside of the EEA, we may process your request to the extent reasonable. Before sending you any Personal Information we will ask you to provide proof of your identity. If you are not able to do so, we reserve the right to refuse to send you any Personal Information.

Access from Outside North America

The Personal Information we may receive may be held on our computers and systems in the United States and Canada and may be accessed by or given to our staff working in North America. Your Personal Information may be processed by us in the United States where laws regarding data protection may be less stringent than those in other countries.

If you access the Website from outside of North America, information that we collect about you will be transferred to servers inside North America and maintained indefinitely, which may involve the transfer of information out of countries located in the European Economic Area. By allowing us to collect information about you, all users, including without limitation users in Canada and the European Union, fully understand and unambiguously consent to the collection, transfer and processing of your data as described in this Privacy Policy.

Governing Law

By choosing to visit our Website or provide information to us, you agree that any dispute over privacy or the terms contained in this Privacy Policy will be governed by the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia. You also agree to abide by any limitation on damages contained in our Terms of Use, available at www.yogaalliance.org/terms, or other agreement that we have with you.

Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or about how we use the Personal Information you may provide us, or for technical questions about the operation of the Website, please contact us at info@yogaalliance.org or by mail at 4201 Wilson Blvd, Suite 605, Arlington, VA 22203.

II. Other Privacy

You may provide personal information to us other than on or through the Website. Aside from through the Website, other ways we collect personal information include via email, telephone, facsimile, postal mail, or in person. If we use any information on or through the Website that we collected other than on or through the Website, the Website Privacy terms, above, will apply in their entirety to the use of such information. If personal information you have provided is not used on or through the Website, then the only sections of the Website Privacy terms above that will apply to the use of such information are: “Use and Retention of Information You Provide,” “How Personal Information May Be Shared,” “Governing Law,” and “Contact.”