Privacy Policy

American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) Privacy Statement

The Internet contains a wealth of information; unfortunately, it may also contain personal details about you that you don't want everyone to know. For example, your real name (lots of people on the Internet use aliases, alter egos or nicknames), street address, phone number, or e-mail address. When you go online, sites you visit may be gathering information about you without your knowledge. At American Quarter Horse Association, we strive to help our members, subscribers and customers protect their privacy while enjoying our services.

We collect information from our members or subscribers during the registration process and, occasionally, at other times. This information, which ranges from limited personal data such as age and address to facts about members or subscribers' computers, professions, leisure and equestrian habits, is then securely stored on separate servers. American Quarter Horse Association's policy is to respect and protect the privacy of our users.

AQHA Privacy Policy

AQHA and its subsidiaries and related organizations, including the American Quarter Horse Foundation (AQHF), take your right to privacy and the protection of your personal data seriously. For decades, we have successfully protected data related to the registration, ownership and membership records of millions of American Quarter Horses and hundreds of thousands of AQHA members.

In conjunction with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that went into effect on May 25, 2018, we wanted to update you on the AQHA Privacy Policy to help you understand what information we collect, why we collect it, and how you can update, manage and control your information.

Information AQHA Collects

AQHA is committed to serving the global horse community. As such, people have the opportunity to engage with AQHA in a number of different ways, and the personal information we collect differs depending on the way in which you are engaging with AQHA. To keep things simple, we will describe the AQHA audience as two separate groups: Association members and community members.

As an Association member, we collect contact information such as address, telephone number and email address. In the near future, you will also be able to choose to add additional personal information to your member account at AQHA.com, including payment information, birthday and relationships to other Association members.

If you are the owner of a registered American Quarter Horse, we also connect your Association member ID to the registration records of your horses. We collect and store data related to the competition record, achievements and produce/offspring of the horses you own, breed or compete with.

Whether you are an Association member or a community member, you can create an online account at AQHA.com. When you create an account, you provide us with personal information that includes your name and a password. Through our new website, AQHA will collect information to provide better services to all our users — from figuring out basic information like the language you speak to more complex things like the ads, articles and AQHA website content you’ll find most useful.

When you’re not signed in to AQHA Member Services, we store the information we collect with unique identifiers tied to the browser, application, or device you’re using. This helps us do things like maintain your language and content preferences across browsing sessions.

When you’re signed in to member services, we also collect information that we store with your member account, which we treat as personal information.

Even if you don’t have a member account, you might choose to provide us with information — such as an email address to receive updates and information from AQHA, our corporate partners or our publications. Some of our email communications are provided by third party service providers. When you subscribe to our email newsletter, we collect information related to your IP address, device, browser, screen size and any links you click.

In some cases, AQHA contracts with third party service providers to help make business practices more efficient. These third party service providers may collect your personal information on AQHA’s behalf. Third party service providers enter into contracts with AQHA, and these contracts include confidentiality requirements and the measures the third party service provider takes to ensure that your data is protected.

Why AQHA Collects Data

AQHA uses the information we collect from the various ways you engage with us for the following purposes:

To preserve the integrity of the American Quarter Horse breed registry through properly recording registration and ownership information.
To serve our Association members by communicating effectively with them through a variety of methods, including postal mail, phone, email, facsimile and other types of correspondence.
To customize the member experience through the use of third-party marketing tools.
To provide our Association and community members with helpful information from AQHA, our corporate partners and our publications.
To improve our services by learning about and communicating with the people our services impact the most: you, our Association and community members around the world.
To enable AQHA to process, validate and verify memberships or subscriptions.
To provide advertisers or corporate partners with aggregate – never individual – information about our membership or subscriber base and usage patterns.
To give AQHA marketing and development staff information that is useful for developing new services that meet member and subscriber needs through the use of third-party marketing tools.

It is important for you to know that AQHA does not release member or subscriber names to any outside organization except certain AQHA corporate partners who agree not to sell the list or make it available to any other organization. We do not sell our membership or subscriber lists to any other organization.

In addition, we take extra measures to protect the data related to our youth (ages 18 and under) Association and community members.Unless otherwise disclosed during collection, AQHA does not provide any personally identifying information, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever from our members or subscribers under 18 years of age.

Although members, subscribers or other guests under 18 years of age are allowed to participate in some contests and promotions, publication of contest winners’ names, ages or images for individuals under 18 requires parental or guardian consent.

How AQHA Keeps Your Personal Information Secure

The importance of security for all personally identifiable information associated with our Association and community members is of utmost concern to us. We exercise reasonable care in providing secure transmission of your information from your PC to our servers. Access to customer data via the AQHA website is encrypted via industry standard security tools. While we strive to protect your personal information, AQHA cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. When credit card information is transmitted we use industry standard, SSL encryption.

Your AQHA member account is password protected so that only you can access it and view the member information relevant to your account. We recommend that you do not divulge your password to anyone. AQHA will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited phone call or email. Ultimately, you are responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and any account information.

How You Can Manage and Control Your Personal Information

By using the AQHA website, newsletters and/or Association services, you signify your assent to AQHA's Privacy Policy. Your continued use of AQHA sites following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

While use of our services signifies your consent to the AQHA Privacy Policy, you have options regarding how to manage and control your personal data. Currently, you can update your personal information by contacting AQHA via phone, email, mail or other communication methods. In the near future, you will be able to update your personal information by logging into your member account at AQHA.com.

At any time, you can opt out of (unsubscribe from) email newsletters AQHA sends you regarding AQHA, our corporate partners or our publications. However, if you are an Association member, you cannot opt out of communication required to conduct normal business with AQHA.

The GDPR affords you the right to have your personal information deleted by AQHA upon request at any time. However, because of the historical importance of accurate registration and ownership records related to the integrity of the studbook, your Association member information will not be removed from records related to registered American Quarter Horses. Additionally, AQHF must retain historic data related to charitable giving records.

How You Can Control Cookies

You have the right to decide whether to accept or reject cookies.

Browser Controls: You can set or amend your web browser controls to accept or refuse cookies. If you choose to reject cookies, you may still use www.aqha.com, though your access to some functionality and areas of www.aqha.com may be restricted. As the means by which you can refuse cookies through your web browser controls vary from browser-to-browser, you should visit your browser’s help menu for more information.

Questions?

Please reach out to AQHA at privacy@aqha.org if you have questions about our privacy policy or the ways in which we protect your personal information.

Email and Texting Scams

Unfortunately, the Internet can be used to spread false information about our Association or the horse industry. If you receive a questionable or inappropriate email or text that claims to be part of or affiliated with AQHA, a sponsored program or a marketing program, please be aware of the signs of an email or texting scam.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, phishing is “the act of sending an email falsely claiming to be an established legitimate business in an attempt to dupe the unsuspecting recipient into divulging personal, sensitive information such as passwords, credit card numbers, and bank account information after directing the user to visit a specified website. The website, however, is not genuine and was set up only as an attempt to steal the user's information.”

Common signs that an email message could be part of a scam or phishing campaign:

Incorrect sender address. AQHA’s emails are sent only from @aqha.org, @list.aqha.net or @aqha.com. AQHA will never send email from Yahoo!, AOL, Hotmail, etc.)
Spelling and grammatical errors
Improper use of company trademarks
Improper use of AQHA corporate partner names/products
Requests for personal information and the promise of quick financial gain
Inappropriate topics, such as lotteries or sweepstakes you did not enter.

Overall, if an email or text looks suspicious or appears too good to be true, it probably is. Do not reply to these emails or texts with any information.

If you believe you may have received and/or fallen victim to this type of scam, hit the “spam” button in your email provider, and file a complaint with the Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center or the APWG.

Please also alert AQHA to any suspicious email or text activity by using the online Contact form. We will look into these issues with utmost seriousness and let you know if they are, indeed, fraudulent.

Important Facts

We do not release member or subscriber names to any outside organization except certain AQHA Corporate Partners who agree not to sell the list or make it available to any other organization. We do not sell our membership or subscriber lists to any other organization. We may send members or subscribers e-mail notifications of new features, services and topic-based news alerts. Only those members or subscribers who sign up for these announcements will receive them. Members or subscribers may edit registration information or cancel a membership or subscription at any time. We reserve the right to contact any member or subscriber at any time regarding membership and subscription renewals or other AQHA or Journal-related problems or questions as well as any changes.

Research

We may contract with a market-research firm to conduct occasional online, telephone or intercept surveys. When you're within AQHA Online, you may see a pop-up window offering you the optional opportunity of participating in a survey. If you do not wish to participate, simply click the "No, Thank You" link and you will not see this window again. If you choose to participate, you'll be prompted to answer a series of online questions. Your responses are confidential and will be used for statistical analysis, product development purposes or membership service enhancements only; no information on an individual's preferences will be shared with any outside organization. You will be prompted to enter your e-mail address for validation purposes but no other personal information (name, address, etc.) will be collected as part of the surveys. However, in some cases you might be offered a free gift for your participation. We will need your name and address, which will be used exclusively to fulfill your gift request.

Youth (Ages 18 & Under)

American Quarter Horse Association encourages parents and guardians to spend time online with their children and to participate in the activities offered within this site. The American Quarter Horse Youth Association offers a wide array of activities for youth and their parents to enjoy together. No information should be submitted to or posted at AQHA by guests under 18 years of age without the consent of their parent or guardian. Unless otherwise disclosed during collection, AQHA does not provide any personally identifying information, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever from our members or subscribers under 18 years of age.

No information collected from members or subscribers under 18 years of age is used for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever, either inside or outside AQHA unless it is directed to the parents or guardians of that particular youth. Any exception to this will be explicitly stated during registration for any contests or promotions (and in those cases, the information collected will be used only for the specific contest or promotion).

Although members, subscribers or other guests under 18 years of age may be allowed to participate in some contests and promotions, if such a guest wins, notification and prizes are sent to the parents or guardians identified by the youth. Publication of contest winners names, ages, or images for individuals under 18 requires parental or guardian consent.

We only allow members, subscribers or guests under 18 years of age to receive direct marketing communications from AQHA or to be sent our third-party offers (i.e. Corporate Partners) when they are directed to the parents or guardians. Additionally, only those youth under 18 whose parents or guardians sign specific consent forms will be allowed to be listed on AQHA's website.

Links To The Other Sites

Users should be aware that when you are on AQHA online, you could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. There are links to other sites from AQHA's pages that take you outside our service. For example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement or an AQHA search result, the "click" takes you off AQHA's site. This includes links from advertisers, Corporate Partners and partners that may use AQHA's logo as part of a co-branding agreement. These other sites may send their own cookies to users, collect data or solicit personal information. Please keep in mind that whenever you give out personal information online --- for example, via message boards or chat --- that information can be collected and used by people you don't know. While AQHA strives to protect its user's personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose online and you do so at your own risk.

AQHA's policy does not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, and therefore AQHA's control and is not to be applied in any manner contrary to applicable law or governmental regulation.

Linking to AQHA

AQHA encourages appropriate persons, firms and organizations (hereinafter referred to as "you") to place a link from their site on the Internet to AQHA.com or another AQHA website. By linking to an AQHA site, you agree that: (1) You have no rights in or to AQHA trademarks or service marks by virtue of such link; (2) Such link does not confer to you any rights to distribute, publish or otherwise use copyrighted material of AQHA; (3) You have no rights in or to the trademarks or service marks of any third party displayed on an AQHA site; and (4) You will not use such link for any illegal, immoral, or improper purpose, nor will you have any material detrimental to AQHA on your site. You further agree that, upon e-mail or other notice to you from AQHA, you will immediately remove all links from your site to AQHA.

Security

The importance of security for all personally identifiable information associated with our members, subscribers or other guests is of utmost concern to us. We exercise reasonable care in providing secure transmission of your information from your PC to our servers. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, AQHA cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk.

Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. When credit card information is transmitted we use industry standard, SSL (secure socket layer 128 bit and 40 bit) encryption.

Remember to sign out of your AQHA account and close your browser window when you have finished your work. This is to ensure that others cannot access your personal information and correspondence if your computer is accessible to others or if you share a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place like a library or Internet café.

Your Acceptance Of These Terms

By using this site, you signify your assent to AQHA's Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our sites. Your continued use of AQHA sites following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

Some AQHA Safety Tips

Keep your passwords private, even from your best friend! Your online service will never ask for them, so neither should anyone else.
Use only your member name and/or e-mail address when chatting or sending e-mail. Never give out personal information like your name, address, or phone number.
Always delete unknown e-mail attachments before opening them. They can contain destructive viruses.
Remember that nothing you write on the Web is completely private – including e-mail. So be careful and think about what you type and who you tell.
Not everyone is as nice, cute and funny as they may sound online. Never make plans to meet an online "friend" in person.

Equal Opportunity Employer

The American Quarter Horse Association is an Equal Opportunity Employer and does not discriminate in hiring or employment practices for reasons of race, color, national origin, citizenship status, sex, age, religious creed, or handicap.