Privacy Statement for the Entomological Society of America:

The Entomological Society of America (ESA) maintains a database of all current Society members. Additionally, the same database might contain past members, prospective members, and non-member customers, including advertisers, vendors, subscribers, exhibitors, and others with whom ESA has or has had a business relationship. The database includes such data as contact information (i.e., name, postal address, e-mail address, phone, fax), Section, Branch, records of all payments (e.g. dues, BCE fees, Annual Meeting registration), and volunteer activities (e.g., committee membership). This type of database is similar to that used by most professional societies and associations. For the purposes of this document, all individuals maintained in the ESA database will be referred to as customers. 

We value our customers' right to privacy and will do what we can to protect and preserve it. We do not intentionally "spam" customers by fax, e-mail, mail, or telephone. ESA does not hire telemarketing firms nor do we hire fax broadcasters. That being said, we will on occasion contact our customers with information that we feel is of importance or urgency. Examples of this include impending meeting deadlines, election announcements, and dues renewal notices. While some of this might be done online through our “Ent-Chat” forums, others might be e-mailed or mailed directly to the customers.

The primary modes of communication will be through the mail and via e-mail. The Federal Government, as defined by the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003” (CAN-SPAM), identifies three types of e-mails, only one of which is subject to the restrictive provisions of the Act (those identified as “commercial messages”). Relationship, or transactional messages are excluded from the Act. The vast majority of communication between the Society and a member is considered to be transactional in nature. Despite this fact, ESA filters messages in-house and only sends notices to members that we deem to be significantly important. Current members have the right to control the receipt of e-mail from the Society by editing their record in the membership preferences portion of the website.

Additionally, in rare circumstances and as a means of ensuring the accuracy of our data, we would consider hiring a marketing services company to contact customers to either implement a customer satisfaction survey, update membership profiles, or similar membership-related activities.

ESA, whenever possible, will seek to maintain multiple means of contact for all customers to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge about the entomological sciences and any commercial transactions that are undertaken between ESA and our customers. We have the ability to contact our customers via their preferred means of contact and encourage our customers to provide us with their preferred means of contact. Though ESA does rent its membership mailing list, it does not and will not provide non-postal means of contact for our customers. ESA members have the right to ask that their name be excluded from these mailings by updating their membership preferences.

ESA is working hard to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the National Do Not Call Registry, CAN-SPAM, and all other federal guidelines. ESA will only send faxes to those for whom we have received permission to do so.

If you have any comments or questions regarding this policy, please direct them to Ann Kenworthy, CAE, ESA Interim Executive Director.