Confidentiality Pledge and Standards

Vistage Community Member’s Confidentiality Pledge

All members of the Vistage community (including members, chairs, speakers, or staff) agree to abide by the duties and obligations in the following pledge:

I will abide by the “Confidentiality Standards” below; and

I will abide by the “Terms and Conditions” of Vistage’s web sites (the “Sites”).

Confidentiality Standards

The following confidentiality standards will be observed by all within the Vistage community.

Non-Disclosure

Confidential issues and information shared between members of the Vistage community are not to be discussed with or revealed to any other person or organization without the prior permission of all parties involved. This includes but is not limited to issues and information shared: in group meetings and one-to-ones; and via any Vistage Sites, web properties or Vistage community networking vehicles such as the My Vistage and the Vistage Directory.

Contacting Others

Issues raised within the Vistage community are often confidential and are not common knowledge within the community or within member’s companies. When contacting a Vistage member about such an issue, please use the utmost circumspection. In particular, use care when talking to Vistage members’ employees, sending faxes or e-mail to members that may be viewed by other parties and when leaving voicemail messages in general voicemail boxes.

Usernames and Passwords

Access to Vistage Sites and the information contained there in is to be protected at all times and users must take all necessary safeguards to secure their personal username and password information. Do not share your password with anyone else, if you believe your password may have been lost or stolen please contact the Vistage Support desk and we will change it for you.

Solicitation

All users of Vistage Sites agree that the directories and e-mail addresses contained within Vistage Sites will not be used for solicitation of business by any member of the Vistage community (including members, chairs,speakers, Vistage Associates or staff). This information may not be used to compile marketing or contact lists of any kind.

Competition and Hiring

All members of the Vistage community agree not to use any non-public information posted on the Sites or shared within the Vistage community to directly or indirectly, either individually or with others, compete with; solicit customers, employees or business away from;or otherwise cause economic loss to, any other member of the Vistage community.

Reminder

Despite best efforts to ensure confidentiality and security, no site can be guaranteed to be 100% secure 100% of the time. Use caution with all of your Internet transactions.

Although members agree to hold in full confidentiality anything discussed in their group meetings and during one-to-one conversations, this agreement is not binding on third parties or in a court of law. Members could be compelled to testify on matters discussed in meetings or on Vistage discussion boards and forums, and Vistage may be required to disclose information or materials pursuant to applicable laws, regulations, orders, subpoenas or other processes of law. Therefore, members should generally exercise caution when discussing anything in a Vistage meeting or on a Vistage discussion board or forum that a member would not want disclosed in any legal proceeding. Furthermore, members of publicly traded companies should seek the advice of their corporate counsel regarding disclosure of any material, non-public information in light of applicable securities laws and regulations.

In addition, because member issue recordings are not ‘privileged’ (i.e., not protected from disclosure under the law), a court could compel Vistage to release a copy of the issue recording or discussion thereof if a copy of an issue were to be uploaded to a Vistage web property or if members engaged in a discussion of such an issue in a Vistage forum or discussion area. Thus, our best practice recommendation is for members to receive their copy of any issue recorded at their meeting because of the possible sensitive nature of issues.  Similarly, we recommend that discussions of issues containing potentially confidential or sensitive information not take place on Vistage web properties if the participants wish to keep such discussions privileged.

You acknowledge that Vistage cannot control, monitor or be responsible for the conduct of members, Chairs or Speakers, and that disputes or claims arising out of violations of this Pledge shall remain between the disputing parties without liability to Vistage.