Privacy statement

Terms and Conditions on Data Protection

Potential Buddha refers to the service provided subject to these General Terms and Conditions and/or Potential Buddha.

The protection of your personal data is of utmost concern to Potential Buddha.

In these terms and conditions on data protection Potential Buddha would like to inform you about how Potential Buddha treats your personal data and how you can exchange this data with other users of Potential Buddha.

These terms and conditions supplement the Potential Buddha General Terms and Conditions for using Potential Buddha.

1. Basic Principles of Potential Buddha for handling your Personal Data

Potential Buddha strictly adheres to the following basic principles in the protection of your Personal Data:

• Potential Buddha shall collect, process and use your Personal Data in accordance with the laws and statutes on data protection of the Netherlands and those of the European Union.

• Potential Buddha shall use your Personal Data solely to provide you the Potential Buddha Services on the Internet for which you have registered. Potential Buddha will never pass your Personal Data on to any third party, neither for advertising, nor for marketing for any other purposes.

• With the exception of some general information, you alone decide which of the Personal Data you have made available to Potential Buddha may be displayed by Potential Buddha to other members of Potential Buddha (cf. Section 3 of these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection).

• Persons not registered with Potential Buddha may only view your Personal Data to the extent that you enable and allow them to do so (cf. Section 4).

2. Definitions

The following terms used in these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection shall have the following meanings:

• "Personal Data" shall mean all data and/or information about your profession or your person.

• "Potential Buddha Websites" shall mean all websites on which Potential Buddha provides the Potential Buddha Services.

• "Potential Buddha Members" shall mean all registered users of Potential Buddha on the Potential Buddha Websites.

• "Potential Buddha Services" shall mean all registration based services provided by Potential Buddha on the Potential Buddha Websites.

• "Registration Data" shall mean the Personal Data you are obliged to make available to Potential Buddha in the registration process for the Potential Buddha Services (mandatory fields).

• "Profile" shall mean the Potential Buddha Website page where the Personal Data you have made available to Potential Buddha is displayed in accordance with your specifications and your consent.

3. What does Potential Buddha know about you, what do you give Potential Buddha and Potential Buddha Members permission to do, and what happens with your Personal Data?

3.1 Registration Data

In order for the Potential Buddha Services to function, Potential Buddha needs to collect and process certain elements of your Personal Data in the course of the registration process. First of all, this consists of the following data:

* User name
* Password

Your password and/or your user name are never visible to any Potential Buddha Member at any time. Potential Buddha shall never disclose or pass your password and/or your user name on to any third party.

Furthermore, you will need to fill out the following Personal Data in the course of the registration process (mandatory fields):

* Valid email account
* First name, surname
* Your message to the Sangha (community)
* Birth date
* Country, state and city of your company

The following Personal Data from these mandatory fields is accessible to other Potential Buddha Members without any restrictions:

* First name, surname
* Country in which you live

With respect to the following mandatory Personal Data, you may choose in each individual case whether the data shall be displayed to a specific other Potential Buddha-Member or not:

* Email account
* Telephone number
* Birth date

3.2 Voluntary Data

If you wish, you may provide additional information about yourself apart from the mandatory data on a voluntary basis (hereinafter referred to as "Voluntary Data"), to allow other Potential Buddha Members to get to know you better and possibly encourage them to choose you as an appropriate contact. At the moment, you are able to choose from the following Voluntary Data, for example: your interests, tips, your education, vision, what you have to offer to other Potential Buddha Members, what you are looking for from other Potential Buddha Members, etc. You may also upload photographs, if you wish.

The Voluntary Data you choose to provide to Potential Buddha is accessible to all other Potential Buddha Members, unless the data is particularly identified. With regard to such particularly identified data you may choose in each individual case if the data shall be displayed to a specific other Potential Buddha-Member.

3.3 Your Profile, Contact Management

The following sections of the Personal Data you have made available to Potential Buddha is visible to all other Potential Buddha Members:

* First name, surname
* Country you live in

All other Potential Buddha Members may access your Profile and view the information displayed on the Profile, including such Voluntary Data you have specified to be made available to all other Potential Buddha Members. Certain Potential Buddha Members may be able to access further of your Voluntary Data in accordance with your specifications (chosen settings) for the respective Potential Buddha-Member in each individual case.

If you send Potential Buddha Members a request for personal contact, these Potential Buddha Members are then saved in your Profile on a contact list. Should a Potential Buddha-Member confirm your request for contact, this Potential Buddha-Member shall be listed as a so called "confirmed contact". Confirmed and unconfirmed contacts shall be registered separate from one another. Other Potential Buddha Members may only ever view your list of confirmed contacts.

Potential Buddha has preset your privacy settings under "Privacy" per default so that the list of your confirmed contacts is displayed to all Potential Buddha Members. However, you may change this setting at any time by yourself to the effect that your list of confirmed contacts is not visible to anybody at all or only to certain of your contacts, for example to the direct contacts of your contacts (i.e. second degree contacts) or only to third degree or fourth degree contacts.

The following of your personal statistics are visible to all Potential Buddha Members at all times:

* Number of your confirmed contacts
* Number of hits on your Profile
* Month and year of your membership

On your Profile you will find a so-called activity meter. This meter indicates whether you use the Potential Buddha Services regularly, however, it does not show any details about the way or the times you use the Potential Buddha Services. The activity meter is intended as an indication for other Potential Buddha Members to determine how often you use the Potential Buddha Services so that the other Potential Buddha Members can evaluate whether you will presumably react quickly to a request via the Potential Buddha Services. You may choose to hide the activity meter at any time in your privacy settings under "Privacy" so that the activity meter is not visible to other Potential Buddha Members.

Potential Buddha has provided a guest book on your Profile to invite other Potential Buddha Members to leave a comment,, if they wish to do so. Entries in the guest book are visible to all other Potential Buddha Members. Potential Buddha has preset your privacy settings under "Privacy" per default to the effect that a guest book is available and displayed to all Potential Buddha Members on your Profile. You may change this setting at any time in your privacy settings under "Privacy", if you prefer not to have a guest book on your Profile.

As you can see, Potential Buddha gives you complete control over your own privacy at all times!

4. Visibility of your Profile to Non-Members of Potential Buddha

Under "Privacy" you can set the level of your privacy at any time. This means that you decide whether to increase your level of privacy or opt in favor of more visibility online, enabling more exposure of your profile for potential business partners. When you register, your default privacy settings rather promote the spirit of networking. The data contained in your profile is visible to non-members of Potential Buddha and traceable by search engines on the Internet. This, however, does not include personal contact details such as email addresses or phone numbers.

If your profile shall be visible to non-members of Potential Buddha or traceable by search engines on the Internet, such voluntary data that you have specified in the settings under "Privacy" to be visible to other Potential Buddha members will also automatically be visible to non-members of Potential Buddha. Finally, a maximum of four (4) of your confirmed contacts will automatically be visible, chosen at random. You may prevent the display of these four (4) confirmed contacts at any time by changing the setting for the display of confirmed contacts under "Privacy" to any other setting than "all members".

5. Groups

On the Potential Buddha Websites, Potential Buddha offers certain groups, Super Sangha’s, forums and similar services..

Each group has one (1) or more moderator(s). The moderator decides for each group whether the group is public or whether it is only accessible to a specific group of people, as well as who has read and/or write access for each relevant group. This information will be displayed on the Potential Buddha Websites for the relevant group. It is visible to Potential Buddha Members and it may also be visible to non-members of Potential Buddha, depending on the settings chosen by the moderator.

Please note: where a group is specified as "public" on the Potential Buddha Website and in the event that the moderator has not restricted the access rights to the group, all contributions of Potential Buddha Members to such a group can be read by all other Potential Buddha Members, and these contributions are then also accessible to non-members of Potential Buddha on the Internet without any restrictions. You may deactivate the traceability of your contributions to a group by Internet search engines or by so called RSS-readers in your privacy settings under "Privacy". However, any contributions you posted on the group prior to deactivation will remain visible after the deactivation as well. RSS-readers are programs which trace updates of an Internet website, providing the Internet website technically supports the so called RSS-standard. Where Internet group support the RSS-standard the RSS-reader may track if, when and which new articles have been published.

6. Appointments, Activities, Event Management

On the Potential Buddha Websites, Potential Buddha offers you the possibility to enter your links, activities and events as well as similar services (collectively hereinafter referred to as "events"). With this function you may manage and coordinate your events with other Potential Buddha Members and/or with non-members of Potential Buddha, and you may also invite other Potential Buddha Members and/or non-members to specific events.

Each event has one (1) or more hosts (organizers). The host decides for each event if and which information about the event is visible to other Potential Buddha Members and/or for non-members of Potential Buddha. Among other things, this information may include whether the event is reserved to Potential Buddha Members or whether it is a public event and as such accessible to non-members, whether the number of participants is limited, whether the guest list is visible without any restrictions or if and which restrictions should apply to the visibility of the guest list. The above information shall be displayed on the Potential Buddha Websites for the relevant event. It is visible to Potential Buddha Members, and it may also be visible to non-members, depending on the settings chosen by the host.

7. Invitations

As a Potential Buddha Member you may invite others to join Potential Buddha. Potential Buddha shall process personal data collected in the course of the invitation solely for the invitation and shall not use it for any other purposes.

Please note that the following sections of your Personal Data are displayed to the recipient of the invitation:

* Your photograph
* Number of your confirmed contacts
* Number of hits on your Profile
* Month and year of your membership
* (If relevant) Type of your membership

8. Search Functions

The Potential Buddha Services offer various possibilities to search for particular Potential Buddha Members and Topics. These search functions may assist you, for example, in finding other Potential Buddha Members with similar interests. The search functions can also help you to initiate contact with other Potential Buddha Members who offer exactly what you are looking for. Thus, you can find the contacts you need - and systematically expand your personal network.

9. Newsletter, weekly Status-Emails

Potential Buddha regularly sends out newsletters or weekly status emails (collectively hereinafter referred to as the "newsletter(s)") to all Potential Buddha Members. In these newsletters Potential Buddha may inform you, among other things, about new features on Potential Buddha, about your events in the upcoming week, and Potential Buddha may also provide you with specific personal statistics from the respective past calendar week (i.e. the number of hits on your Profile, whether you have new contacts to be confirmed and/or new private messages, etc.).

Furthermore, Potential Buddha may present three (3) new members of Potential Buddha to you in each newsletter. It may also be the case that Potential Buddha presents you as a possible contact to other Potential Buddha Members in a newsletter. If you do not wish to be presented as a possible contact to other Potential Buddha Members in a newsletter, you can change the settings under "Privacy" at any time so that this shall not happen.

You may choose to unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time by sending an email to the link provided at the end of each newsletter.

10. Cookies

After you have logged in to the Potential Buddha Services with your user name and password, Potential Buddha uses cookies in order to identify you during the course of your session. A cookie will be stored on your computer. Upon the termination of your session the cookie will be automatically deleted. You can save this cookie on your computer to enable automatic login for subsequent sessions by activating the function: "Login automatically on this computer". The cookie will then store part of your login data in encrypted form. If you select automatic login, please be aware that this will then only be possible on the same computer on which the cookie was first saved, i.e. an automatic login on two (2) different computers is not possible.

11. Log Files

Each time you access a website from the Potential Buddha Websites, Potential Buddha will save the following data in a log file (the so called "server log"):

* Your IP address (by which your computer can be clearly identified),
* The name and IP address of the computer requesting the respective page from the Potential Buddha Websites (the so called "remote host computer"),
* The time, status, and amount of the transferred data, as well as the Internet website from which you have reached the requested page of the Potential Buddha Websites (the so called "referrer")
* The product and release information from your Internet browser (the so called "user agent").

This log file will be stored by Potential Buddha in the standardized "combined" log file format for the host Web server. Potential Buddha uses the data from this log file in anonymous form without reference to your person for statistical purposes. In doing so, Potential Buddha may analyze on which days and at which time the Potential Buddha Services are particularly frequented and how much data volume is created on the Potential Buddha Websites. Furthermore, by using the log file, Potential Buddha can identify defects on the Potential Buddha Websites, such as defective hyperlinks or program defects, and thus continually improve the quality of the Potential Buddha Websites. Potential Buddha does not attribute the website demands stored in the log file to specific individual users. However, Potential Buddha reserves the right to review the log files from the last known IP address of a Potential Buddha-Member where Potential Buddha has reasonable cause to believe that the member is using Potential Buddha Services in breach of contractual agreements or the applicable legislation. In doing this, Potential Buddha is protecting other Potential Buddha Members, the safety of Potential Buddha Members’ data, as well as Potential Buddha Websites and the Potential Buddha Services.

12. Changes to these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection

Potential Buddha reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection, in the event that this becomes necessary due to gaps in these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection identified after their release, or in the event that it becomes necessary with respect to additional or amended services provided by Potential Buddha. Potential Buddha will notify you of any amendments to these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection by email to the email account you provided to Potential Buddha in the course of your registration.

13. Accessibility of these Terms and Conditions on Data Protection

These Terms and Conditions on Data Protection are accessible from any website of the Potential Buddha Websites under the link Terms and Conditions?

Version: 9 March 2008