CharityWeb's Overall Privacy Statement

CharityWeb is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program.  This statement discloses the privacy practices for CharityWeb's Web Site.  When you visit a Web site displaying the TRUSTe trustmark, you can expect to be notified of: What personally identifiable information of yours is collected; What organization is collecting the information; How the information is used; With whom the information may be shared; What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and distribution of the information; What kind of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under CharityWeb's control; and How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

Questions regarding this statement should be directed to the Webmaster by emailing system@charityweb.net.  If the Web site has not responded to your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, please contact TRUSTe (http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php).

List of historical changes to our privacy policy.

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Privacy Statement (Version 2: Last Updated on 03/28/05)

CharityWeb is dedicated to helping charities utilize the Internet to achieve their missions effectively and efficiently.  CharityWeb is an application service provider to charities. We value the Internet as a tool for donors and charities to build relationships.  We strictly maintain the privacy of your personal  information and want you to know how it is being used.

Information Collection

Visitors to a Charity's Site
When you visit a charity's site we gather your information from the donation, purchase or event registration form.  The form requires you to provide personal information (name, phone, fax, email address, address) and financial information (account or credit card number and expiration date).  Each charity, according to its own policies,  decides which fields are "required" or "optional" in completing the transaction.  The "required" fields are clearly marked on each donation, purchase or registration page so you will know when information is necessary to complete a transaction and when it is not.  Some sites allow you to donate as a gift for someone else.  In order to send the person notification of your gift, their name and mailing address are required by the charity.

Visitors to CharityWeb's Site
If you contact CharityWeb directly though email we collect contact information (name, email address and phone number) provided in the email.  If other personal information is inadvertently included (such as your address or membership number), we will not gather it.  If you add content to our site (like a URL entry), we will capture your contact information and only use it if we have a question about the information you have provided.

Information Use

Visitors to a Charity's Site
We use the information you provide to: process your donation, purchase, or event registration; complete your credit card transaction; and generate a receipt.  We will never share your personal information or the information you provide about someone else (including name, email, address, phone number, address, cause affiliation or other personal identifiable information) while completing a transaction with anyone except for the charity your transaction is with unless you direct us to.  If requested by a charity, we will forward your information to a "rewards" program so you can receive credit for the transaction.  We will never sell, rent or trade your personal information or information you provide about another person to a third party.  Financial information that is collected is used to bill you for donations or products and services.  The financial and contact information needed to complete a transaction is retained for eight months on our secure server in case a credit card company asks us to prove that a transaction actually occurred.  Information we maintain indefinitely for billing purposes includes: charity name, date, visitor's state, and the amount of the transaction.  We may temporarily "share" your contact and other information with third parties that authorize credit cards, such as VeriSign Payment Services.

Visitors to CharityWeb's Site
We will use your information to respond to an inquiry.   We will not contact you unless you contact us first.  We will never share your name, email address, phone number, address, cause affiliation or other personal identifiable information with anyone.  We will never sell, rent or trade your personal information to a third party.

Both
We use aggregate information to analyze our site and improve it for future donors or users.  We will never sell, rent or trade the aggregate non-personal information to third parties.  Aggregate information generated from a charity's site may be shared with that charity only in order to better improve the donation, purchase or registration process.

Information Shared with Charities
We will give the information you provide on the donation form, purchase page or event registration form only to the charity you donate to, purchase from or register for an event with. Many charities accept anonymous donations; if you give anonymously to a charity, the charity may send you a thank you note but will not otherwise contact you, put you on any mailing list, or on any donor list. In addition, you will often be asked if you want to be added to the charity's mailing list.  The charity's use of your information falls under their privacy statement which we encourage you to read. Both CharityWeb and the charity own the data you provide, and the use of your data is covered under our respective privacy policies.

Security

CharityWeb Security
CharityWeb maintains strict security measures to ensure protection against loss, misuse and alteration of your information. We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to encrypt and send your financial information.  We also have a secure server dedicated to financial transactions to make sure your financial and personal information is strictly guarded.  In addition, we work with financial processing partners who maintain secure environments.

Links to Other Sites
Please note that our site contains links to other sites, including shopping malls for partner charities, which have their own privacy policies that we encourage you to review.

Cookies
We utilize cookies to keep track of items in your shopping cart or gift basket.  We set them up so they can only be read by you and by CharityWeb's servers. If you disable cookies from your browser's configuration menu, you will only be able to add one item to our clients' shopping carts or gift baskets. Cookies are not used to secretly obtain other data, and we do not look at other cookies on your computer. The only information stored in a cookie we set is a temporary ID number that identifies your computer to our software. We link this ID number to the personally identifiable information you submit, but the ID number is deleted from your computer when you close your browser and from our records within 1 week.

Log Files
Like most standard Web site servers we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Only IP addresses and referring pages are linked to personally identifiable information. IP addresses are tied to personally identifiable information only to fix problems that arise.

Release of Information to Legal Authorities
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with an appropriate law enforcement investigation, current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our Web site, or as required by law.

Altering Your Information
If at any time you would like your information removed from our database or decide you no longer want to receive communications, please send an email to system@charityweb.net.  Likewise, if you want to change or modify information previously provided please contact  system@charityweb.net.

Notification of Changes
If at some point in the future, there is a change to our information usage practices that affect your Personally Identifiable Information, we will post a notice on the front page of our website noting that there have been changes to our privacy policy for 90 days after the policy becomes effective. We will also maintain a "changes" file that lists the changes in our privacy policy. You will be able to opt-out of this information usage by sending a message to the following email: system@charityweb.net. You should also check this posted privacy statement for changes. As noted above, please be aware that this pertains only to PII that we actively maintain; it does not refer to PII passed or held by our clients. Please refer to our clients' privacy policies for more information.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this site, you can contact: