National Scheduling Center Online

NSC ONLINE™ Privacy Policy

Messer LLC, Division of Linde North America, Inc., shares your concern about the protection of your personal information and is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. This is our policy regarding the privacy of information we collect on the NSC ONLINE™ site. Please read it carefully to understand how your personal information will be treated as you make full use of our many offerings.

We review our privacy practices from time to time. We ask that you bookmark and periodically review this page for updates to our Privacy Policy. To contact us about privacy issues relating to the NSC ONLINE™ site, to report a violation of our Privacy Policy, or to raise any other issue, please e-mail us at NSCOnline@linde.com.

The Information We Gather

We gather two types of information about users:

1. Tracking Information

Tracking information is information that is collected about every visitor to the site, both subscribers and nonsubscribers, and is automatically gathered using "cookies." A cookie is a small data file that is written to the user's hard drive by a Web server and used to track the pages the user has visited. Cookies do not include personal information about you, but they are unique to each user so that the NSC ONLINE™ computers can distinguish between users, and personalize your experience if you have provided information about yourself. Cookies used by us in connection with the NSC ONLINE™ site are encoded and contain a unique digital signature to prevent tampering. Cookies are only read by the NSC ONLINE™ computer that placed them, and cannot execute any code or virus.

2. Personal Information

Personal information is information that relates to an identifiable individual. When a user registers on the NSC ONLINE™ site, the user is required to provide personal information such as his or her name and email address, telephone number, and billing address.

Wherever we collect personal information, we will make an effort to include a link to this Privacy Policy on that page.

We provide Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) forums and feedback links for discussion of various topics. We do not control the acts of the users of the NSC ONLINE™ site. You should be aware that if you disclose personal information through the feedback link, or other forum, others may collect that information and use it to send you unsolicited e-mail from outside the NSC ONLINE™ site or for other purposes. We are not liable for the misuse by other people of any such information. In the event, however, that you encounter any NSC ONLINE™ user who is improperly collecting and using information about you or other users, please contact us at NSCOnline@linde.com.

Use of the Information

1. Tracking information

We use tracking information in aggregate form to build higher-quality, more useful services by performing statistical analyses of users� activities, and by measuring demographics and interest regarding specific areas of the NSC ONLINE™ site. We also provide statistical information based on the tracking information to our parents, subsidiaries, and affiliated companies (collectively, "Affiliates") None of the statistical information provided to Affiliates can be connected to the identities or other personal information of individual users.

2. Personal Information

This Privacy Policy itself is notice that such personal information is collected.

As a general rule, we will not disclose any personal information to any third parties, except when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, to protect other users of the NSC ONLINE™ services, or to respond to an emergency. We will also disclose your personal information if you have given permission, for example by making a purchase on the NSC ONLINE™ site, where the information required to process your purchase is provided to a third party provider of that service. Information may also be given to our contractors or other agents who we have employed to perform functions on our behalf (for example, for the purpose of processing credit card purchases and sending postal mail and e-mail), but only to the extent necessary for them to perform services on our behalf, and under reasonable confidentiality restrictions.

We reserve the right to provide any information that we have collected to our Affiliates and to transfer any such information to a third party in the event that we sell or otherwise transfer substantially all of our assets related to NSC ONLINE™ .

Third-party Use of Personal Information

The NSC ONLINE™ site contains links to other Internet websites, including co-branded or other affiliated sites. Unless otherwise explicitly stated, we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites, including such sites' use of any information.

Keep in mind that, while we encourage all third parties involved -- such as our partners and advertisers -- to adhere to our policies regarding our users' privacy and to otherwise handle personal information in a responsible manner, we cannot and do not assume any responsibility for any acts or omissions of third parties, including the manner in which they use information received either from us or independently. Nevertheless, in the event you encounter any third party associated with the NSC ONLINE™ site (or who claims association with the NSC ONLINE™ ) who you feel is improperly collecting or using information about you, please contact NSCOnline@linde.com; we will be happy to forward your message to the third party.

If and when we sponsor promotions, or third parties sponsor promotions in conjunction with the NSC ONLINE™ site, either we or the third party will post relevant privacy information in the official rules and/or registration area for the promotion. That privacy information, to the extent it conflicts with this Privacy Policy, will govern that particular promotion.

Changing Personal Information

We recognize that some of the information that we collect from you during registration will change from time to time. You can change information that you have previously provided to us at any time by accessing the registration and subscription pages. Any changes you submit will be made electronically and will be effective immediately upon submission.

Security

We use reasonable security methods to protect the data that resides on our servers. However, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our servers, nor can we guarantee that information that users supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet.

Questions regarding this policy should be directed to NSCOnline@linde.com. We reserve the right to modify this policy effective seven (7) days after the posting of the revised policy.