All use of the SOM.com website is subject to the terms and conditions set forth below.
All materials contained on SOM.com, including all text and images, are copyrighted © 2021 Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, and protected worldwide by applicable copyright laws and treaty provisions. They may not be published, reproduced, copied, modified, uploaded, transmitted, posted, or distributed in any way, without the prior written consent of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (“SOM”). The materials on SOM.com are provided for informational purposes only.
Illustrations, photographs, computer drawings, etc. may be the property of SOM, or illustrators and photographers hired by SOM, its clients and/or suppliers, and are used on SOM.com in accordance with individual agreements. SOM does not grant any express or implied right to you under any license, copyrights, patents, trademarks or trade secret information. Use of any image (photograph, illustration, computer rendering, etc.) from SOM.com requires written permission from SOM and/or any other party, as appropriate.
SOM.com may contain links to third-party websites. We do not author, edit, or monitor these other sites. SOM has no responsibility for the protection of personal information on other sites, for the accuracy or availability of information provided on other sites, that SOM does not control or endorse the content, products, advertising, or other materials presented on these other sites, and you release SOM from any claims arising out of or in any way connected with any dispute you may have with another site.
Under no circumstances shall SOM, its subsidiaries, or its respective officers, directors, agents, employees and partners be responsible or liable for any direct, undirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, punitive or other damages arising out of or relating in any way to the SOM.com website, the Services available on SOM.com or information contained within SOM.com, even if it has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
If you violate any of these Terms of Use or if you misuse this website, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless SOM, its officers, directors, partners, employees, agents and licensees from any and all liability including costs, expenses and attorneys’ fees that arise out of or are related to your violation or misuse. These Terms of Use are governed by the laws of New York.
The information contained in any communication from a user at SOM.com may be confidential, is intended only for the use of the recipient(s), and may be legally privileged. If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication, or any of its contents, is strictly prohibited and may be unlawful. If you have received a communication in error, please notify the sender immediately and delete the original message as well as any copy from your computer system.
For comments or inquiries, please contact: [email protected]
Marketing Privacy Policy
I. Introduction
The website som.com is operated by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (“we” or “us”) on behalf of the relevant SOM family of companies. This means that, on behalf of the relevant SOM family of companies, we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.
This privacy policy relates to your use of our website and any online platforms such as social media, as well as electronic (email or telephone) and in-person communications. Please note that our website may link to third party sites (e.g. to Workday – see the ‘Sharing Your Information’ section below). Please familiarize yourself with the privacy policies that govern your use of such sites to ensure that you understand how your personal data is processed on such sites.
We take your privacy very seriously and we ask that you read this policy carefully as it contains important information on:
- the personal information we collect about you;
- what we, and the SOM family of companies, do with your information; and
- who your information might be shared with.
II. Information which we may collect about you
We collect personal information about you when you contact us via our website.
We may collect the following personal information:
- full name;
- associated organization or institution;
- email address;
- machine identifiers (such as IP addresses);
- behavioral data (see ‘Cookies and Tracking’ section below); and
- any other contact information you voluntarily provide (for example in your correspondence with us through our ‘Contact Us’ page).
III. Our approach to information security
The SOM family of companies have policies and procedures in place to make sure that only authorized personnel can access the information, that information is handled and stored in a secure and sensible manner and all systems that can access the information have the necessary security measures in place. To accomplish this, all employees, contractors and sub-contractors have roles and responsibilities defined in those policies and procedures.
To make sure all of our employees understand these responsibilities they are provided with the necessary training and resources. In addition to these operational measures, we also use a range of technologies and security systems to reinforce the policies. Audits to identify areas of non-compliance are routinely scheduled. Additionally, all areas of the organization are regularly monitored and measured to identify problems and issues before they arise.
The security of your personal information is important to us, but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. It is possible that we might be forced to disclose your personally identifiable information in response to legal process or when we believe in good faith such disclosure is required by law, such as in response to a court order, a law enforcement agency request, in response to a subpoena, or in response to an administrative agency’s request.
IV. How we use your information
We will collect your personal information for the following purposes:
- to identify you and manage any of your inquiries submitted by you via our contact form;
- to conduct research, statistical analysis and behavioral analysis;
- to detect and prevent fraud;
- to customize our website and its content to your particular preferences;
The personal data that you provide is collected by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP and may be transferred to a related Skidmore, Owings & Merrill entity located inside or outside the European Economic Area (EEA) for marketing, press requests, academic requests, recruiting and other business inquiries. The personal information that you provide and we transfer between the SOM family of companies is legally collected for the aforementioned internal purposes and we will ensure that the transfer of your personal information will comply with applicable laws and regulations that will appropriately safeguard your privacy rights.
V. Your rights
i. For EU Residents
For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (Europe) LLP are the “controller”. If you live in the EU, you have the following rights with respect to how we collect and use your data. In order to process any of the requests listed below, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases your response will be necessary for you to exercise this right.
The right to access information we hold about you
At any point you can contact us to request that the information we hold about you as well as why we have that information, who has access to the information and where we got the information. Once we have received your request we will respond within 30 days.
The right to correct and update the information we hold about you
If the data we hold about you is out of date, incomplete or incorrect, you can inform us and we will ensure that it is updated.
The right to have your information erased
If you feel that we should no longer be using your data or that we are illegally using your data, you can request that we erase the data we hold. When we receive your request, we will confirm whether the data has been deleted or tell you the reason why it cannot be deleted.
The right to object to processing of your data
You have the right to request that the SOM family of companies stops processing your data. Upon receiving the request, we will contact you to tell you if we are able to comply or if we have legitimate grounds to continue. If data is no longer processed, we may continue to hold your data to comply with your other rights.
The right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing
You have the right to request that we stop contacting you with direct marketing. In order to process your request we may need to verify your identity for your security.
The right to data portability
You have the right to request that we transfer your data to another controller. Once we have received your request, we will comply where it is feasible to do so.
Consent
In those cases where we need your consent to hold your information, we will ask you to check a box on any form requiring consent. By checking these boxes you are stating that you have been informed as to why the SOM family of companies is collecting the information, how it will be used, for how long it will be kept, who else will have access to it and what your rights are as a data subject.
If you have any queries about this policy, need further information on the SOM family, how long we keep your personal information, on our information security policy, wish to lodge a complaint, or for other inquiries please contact [email protected]. You can make a complaint to us by contacting us at [email protected] or to the data protection supervisory authority – in the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office, at https://ico.org.uk/.
ii. For California Residents
The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) provides California residents (referred to as “Consumers”) with certain rights discussed below. Consumers may contact SOM regarding any of these rights by email at [email protected]; by mail at SOM, One Maritime Plaza, San Francisco, California, Attention: Robert DeMillo, Chief Technology Officer; or by telephone at 833-386-0261. An online portal for Consumers to submit a request to exercise a right is under development. SOM will respond within a reasonable time following receipt of a verified Consumer request, in any event, within the time period specified by law.
Consumers exercising their rights will be required to complete a questionnaire and submit a proof of identity and residency in California. Verification of identity will require, at a minimum, two (2) forms of government issued identification (such as a passport and driver’s license) and (1) form of proof of residency (such as a utility bill) showing residency in California at the time the request is made. SOM may request additional information it deems necessary or desirable to verify the identity of a person making a request under the CCPA for specific personal information. All information requested during the verification process shall be used solely for verification of identity and residency.
Consumers have the right to designate an agent to act on their behalf. Consumers wishing to do this and agents acting on behalf of Consumers should contact SOM as provided above.
SOM does not sell personal information as defined under the CCPA.
Consumers have the right to:
- Request to Know. You have the right to obtain a copy of the personal information and the categories of personal information we hold about you by contacting us as directed above.
- Request to Delete. You have the right to request that we delete your personal information by contacting us as directed above.
- You have the right to receive SOM’s services on equal terms regardless of whether you exercise your rights under the CCPA.
VI. Marketing
This section sets out how we process your personal data for marketing purposes.
We may periodically send promotional emails about our services or other information which we think you may find interesting using the name and email address that you provided via the website inquiry form, or that you have otherwise provided to a member of the SOM family of companies. In this context, from time to time, we may use your information to contact you for marketing purposes by email. If you are a European resident, you can opt out of receipt of these emails at any time by contacting [email protected]. Please note that we will keep a record of your request to unsubscribe from our marketing material to ensure we do not market to you in the future.
The SOM family of companies may pass your details to third parties where this is necessary for the administration of our marketing – for example see references to MailChimp and Constant Contact in the ‘Sharing Your Information’ section below.
Sharing your information
The SOM family of companies may pass the personal data collected to third parties where this is necessary for the functioning of our website or for marketing purposes. These third parties include:
- Logiforms
We use Logiforms to administer certain functions on our website, for example entries submitted on our ‘Contact Us’ page. All of your personal information will be stored in a secure central database in the cloud and transmitted securely across networks. This information will be accessible only to those who are authorized to view it. For any one user, this will include administrators working for the SOM family of companies, and who has been pre-authorized to access the data for the purposes of marketing, press requests, academic requests, recruiting and other business inquiries. This means that users who have the permissions will be able to see the information you have provided us via our website.
- Google Analytics / Facebook Pixel
We work with Google and Facebook to automatically collect information including, but not limited to: IP address; MAC (Media Access Control) address; unique identifier or other persistent or non-persistent device identifier; device software platform and firmware, mobile phone carrier and geo location data to help us understand your use of our website such as how often you return, what parts of the website you visit, how you use the website and how long you spend on the website. These third-party providers are prohibited from using our data for any other purposes. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html to read Google Analytics Privacy Policy and https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation to read Facebook’s Privacy Policy. We use the data we collect about your use of our website to analyze trends across the data set of all customers worldwide, and to enable us to offer a better service to you.
- Workday
We use Workday to administer applications submitted via our careers page. Please note that when accessing this page, you will be redirected to a Workday website and your use of such will be subject to separate policies. Please contact us at [email protected] for further information in relation to how we link from our website to Workday for job applicants.
- Mailchimp and Constant Contact
For marketing purposes and to stay in touch with you, we may sometimes use third party automated email distribution providers such as MailChimp and Constant Contact. We will only add you to a marketing distribution list if we have the legal basis to send you marketing material (see ‘Marketing’ section above). All personal data uploaded to these platforms is protected and will not be shared with further parties.
VII. Cookies and Tracking
Use of cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer (or other electronic device) when you access our website. We use cookies on this website to:
- recognize you whenever you visit this website;
- obtain information about your preferences, online movements and use of the internet;
- carry out research and statistical analysis to help improve our content, products and services and to help us better understand our customer requirements and interests;
- target our marketing and advertising campaigns more effectively by providing interest-based advertisements that are personalized to your interests; and
- make your online experience more efficient and enjoyable.
We will need you to enable cookie usage on your website browser in order for us to use the cookies on our website provided by Logiforms, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixels (see the ‘Sharing your information’ section above).
Consent
If you visit our website when your browser is set to accept cookies, we will interpret this as an indication that you consent to our use of cookies and other similar technologies as described in this website cookie policy. If you change your mind in the future about letting us use cookies, you can modify the settings of your browser to reject cookies or disable cookies completely.
How to turn off cookies
If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of this website. For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to the Information Commissioner’s webpage on cookies: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/.
Changes to this policy
We may change this policy from time to time. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure that you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access the website. This privacy policy was last modified on September 14, 2021.