Privacy notice

This website is operated by MI — The Global Methanol Alliance (the Methanol Institute), the global trade association for the methanol industry, with offices in Washington D.C., Brussels, Singapore, Beijing and New Delhi. For anything covered by this notice, MI is the controller of your personal data.

Write to [email protected] with any question about this notice, or to exercise any of the rights set out below. Our Brussels office is the point of contact for visitors in the European Union.

This notice covers this website. Our membership platform, Glue Up, has its own notice that applies once you sign in to the member area, and the events you register for through it are handled there.

We collect the details you choose to give us. If you use the contact form, that is your name, work email, organisation and your message. If you download one of our publications, it is your first and last name, work email, organisation and country. If you subscribe to our newsletter, it is your email address. If you are a member and sign in, your login is handled by Glue Up, our membership platform.

Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, including IP addresses, for security and to keep the site running. We do not use them to build a profile of you.

We do not ask for, and do not want, special categories of personal data such as health, political or religious information. We do not knowingly collect anything from children.

Answering your enquiry, and running the association day to day: our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact us (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Knowing who reads our publications: our legitimate interest in understanding which parts of the industry our work reaches (Article 6(1)(f)). The report downloads whether or not you tick the newsletter box, and we do not use these details for marketing unless you do.

Sending the newsletter: your consent, given when you subscribe (Article 6(1)(a)). You can withdraw it from the footer of any email, or by writing to us.

Remembering your recent searches: your consent, given through the cookie notice (Article 6(1)(a)). Withdraw it at any time from "Cookie settings" in the footer of any page.

Administering membership: performance of the membership agreement (Article 6(1)(b)), and our legitimate interest in running the association.

Keeping the site secure and available: our legitimate interest in protecting it from abuse (Article 6(1)(f)).

Giving us your details is always your choice. Without them we cannot answer an enquiry or send a newsletter, but you can read the whole site without providing anything.

Cookies and similar browser storage fall into familiar categories, and it is worth saying plainly which of them apply here. Strictly necessary: the small amount of storage the site cannot work without — your choice in the cookie notice, and the session that keeps you signed in to the member area once you choose to log in. Preferences: your recent searches, kept in this browser so the search box can offer them back to you, and set only if you allow it. Analytics: none — we do not measure who visits, which pages they read or how long they stay, and no analytics service runs on this site. Marketing: none — we set no advertising cookies, build no profiles, and share nothing with advertisers or data brokers.

Everything the site stores is listed in full below, with the basis for each.

Nothing marked "consent" is written or loaded until you accept it in the notice shown on your first visit. The notice lists what is stored under each heading and gives the one thing that asks for consent its own switch, so you can see what you are agreeing to before you agree to it; refusing leaves the site fully usable. You can change your mind at any time from "Cookie settings" at the foot of any page, and withdrawing also deletes what was stored under the earlier consent.

Some parts of the site are served from other companies. They set no cookies here, but any file your browser fetches from them tells them your IP address, your browser and the page you were on. We list them so that is not a surprise.

Our maps are drawn from data held on this site rather than a third-party tile service, so browsing them contacts no one else.

We do not sell your personal data and we do not share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf: Glue Up for membership and events, and our email and hosting providers. Each is bound by contract to use the data only on our instructions.

We may also disclose personal data where the law requires it, or to establish or defend a legal claim.

Some of our providers operate outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Where personal data moves out of the EEA or the United Kingdom, we rely on the safeguards those transfers require — an adequacy decision where one applies, and otherwise the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses together with the additional measures the circumstances call for. Write to [email protected] for a copy of the safeguards in place for a particular transfer.

Enquiries are kept for as long as needed to deal with them and for a reasonable period afterwards, normally two years. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe, which you can do from the footer of any email. Membership records are kept for the duration of membership and for as long as we are required to keep them afterwards. Server logs are kept for a short period for security.

If the GDPR applies to you, you have the right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you; to have it corrected; to have it deleted; to restrict how we use it; to object to processing we base on legitimate interests, including at any time and for any reason where the processing is for direct marketing; and to receive the data you gave us in a portable, machine-readable form and have it sent to someone else where that is technically feasible.

Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawing does not affect what we did with the data beforehand.

Write to [email protected] and we will respond within one month. There is no charge. If you are in the EEA or the UK and are unhappy with our response, you may complain to your national data protection authority; for our Brussels office that is the Belgian Data Protection Authority (autoriteitprotectiondonnees.be).

We do not make decisions about you by automated means, and we do not profile you.

If we change this notice we will publish the new version here and update the date below.