Privacy Policy
Introduction
We are committed to respecting the privacy of visitors to our site. This Privacy Policy explains some of the steps we have taken to protect your privacy.
Privacy of Personal Information
Collection of Personal Information. We collect personal information about you, including personal information that you provide when you share a story, submit a letter or sign up to receive email alerts from this site. "Personal information" means any information that may be used to identify an individual, such as a name or email address.
Use of Personal Information. Personal information collected through paper registration forms and through our Web site is used by us to, among other things, process and manage registrations, operate and improve our Web site, track site usage policies and statistics, or purposes pursuant to your consent. We also use your personal information to communicate with you in other ways. For instance, when you sign up for more information on this site, we may use your personal information to send you an email confirming your sign-up. We also use personal information to inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy.
From time to time, we might invite users to provide information via surveys or petitions. Participation in these surveys or petitions is completely voluntary, and the Web site user, therefore, has a choice whether to disclose requested information. In addition to the other uses set forth in this Privacy Policy, contact information collected in connection with surveys and petitions is used to notify you of survey or petition results and to monitor or improve the use of, and satisfaction with, the Web site.
Disclosure of Personal Information. We hire or are affiliated with other companies who provide services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and delivery of communications, hosting this Web site, delivery of content and services provided by this Web site, and performing statistical analysis. We may provide personal information to these companies to perform those services, but they will be permitted to obtain only the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of this information, and they are prohibited from using it for any other purpose.
We may access, use, or disclose your personal information for other reasons, including if we believe such action is necessary to comply with the law or legal process, protect and defend our rights or property, protect the personal safety of users of our Web site or members of the general public, enforce our Terms of Use or other agreements, investigate or take action with respect to illegal or suspected illegal activities, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, or otherwise pursuant to your consent.
We may disclose results of stories or letters, but personal information will not be posted or published by us, and except as specified in this Privacy Policy, it will not be provided to third-party providers without your consent. We will not sell, lease, or rent our e-mail user lists to third parties.
Access to Personal Information. If, after providing information on this Web site, you decide that you do not want your Personal Information used for any purpose, you may disenroll from the list for ECBT by contacting us at the following address: [email protected].
Children's Personal Information. We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. Our Web site is intended for general audiences and we do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 13. If or when our Web site collects age information, and users identify themselves as under age 13, the site will block those users from providing personal information or registering as users of the Web site.
Our Practices with Respect to Non-Personal Information
We may collect other, non-personal information about your visit, including the pages you view, the links you click, and other actions taken in connection with your use of our Web site. We may also collect certain standard information that your browser sends to every Web site you visit, such as your Internet address, browser type and language, access times, and referring Web site address.
Use of Cookies. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by our Web page server. Cookies contain information that can later be read by us. None of the information we gather in this way can be used to identify any individual who visits the site, nor can cookies be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. We use cookies to monitor the use of our Web site, to gather non-personal information about users, to store your preferences and other information on your computer in order to save you time by eliminating the need to repeatedly enter the same information, and to display your personalized content on your later visits to our Web site. This information is also used for statistical research to tailor content to usage patterns.
Aggregate Information. We may combine, in a non-identifiable format, the personal information you provide with the personal information of other users, to create aggregated data. We plan to analyze data of an aggregate nature, mainly to track group trends. We do not link aggregate user data with personal information, so aggregate data cannot be used to contact or identify you. We will use usernames instead of actual names to create aggregate data and to perform any analyses. Anonymous aggregated data may be provided to other companies we do business with, for statistical purposes and to track group trends.
Links to Other Sites. This Privacy Policy applies only to information collected by this Web site. This Web site may contain links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by us. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those other sites. When you leave our site you should read the privacy statements of each Web site that collects personal information.
Changes to This Privacy Statement. We reserve the right from time to time to change, modify, or supplement this Privacy Policy in whole or in part. We encourage you to periodically review our Privacy Policy to be informed of how we are protecting your personal information. The most current version of our Privacy Policy can be viewed by clicking on the "Privacy Policy" hypertext link located at the bottom of the home page on this Web site. In many instances in which we post changes to this Privacy Policy, we will revise the "updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy, but may not provide any other notice to you. If there are material changes to this statement, however, we will notify you either by prominently posting a notice of those changes prior to implementing the change or by directly sending you an email notification. Your continued accessing or use of this Web site constitutes acceptance by you of any changes.
California Rights Regarding Sharing Personal Information for Marketing Purposes. You may notice that we do not offer an "opt-out" of disclosure to third parties for marketing purposes. We do not offer an opt-out because we disclose your information only as described in this Privacy Policy. Companies who offer an "opt-out" may sell, rent, or lease your information to direct marketers, or otherwise provide your information, including personal health information, to third parties for marketing purposes, unless you follow the opt-out procedure. If you are a resident of California, you do not need to make an election to prevent your personal information from being shared with third parties for direct marketing purposes. We do not disclose your personal information, including personal health information, to third parties for direct marketing purposes within the meaning of California Civil Code 1798.83. In general, this statute applies to a business that in the immediately preceding calendar year, shared customer personal information with other companies for their direct marketing use. A business subject to California Civil Code 1798.83 is required to disclose to its customers, upon request, the identity of any third parties to whom the business has disclosed "personal information" regarding that customer within the immediately preceding calendar year. Individual users who reside in California and have provided their personal information to us may request information about our disclosures of certain categories of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. Such requests must be submitted to us at the following address: [email protected]. Within thirty days of receiving such a request, we will provide a list of the categories of personal information disclosed to third parties for third-party direct marketing purposes during the immediately preceding calendar year, along with the names and addresses of these third parties. This request may be made no more than once per calendar year. We reserve our right not to respond to requests submitted other than to the addresses specified in this paragraph.
Contact Us. If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at following address: .