Information Collected About You
Personal Information
If you choose to register or update an existing member profile with HealthandMedicineFoundation.org or access certain functionality on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites, you may be required to submit Personal Information. “Personal Information” means information that we can use to identify or contact you, such as your name, address, telephone number or email address. Some of our interactive tools and services may request you to submit health information, which would also be considered Personal Information. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personal Information that you submit to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org. Inaccurate information will affect your experience when using the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites and tools and our ability to contact you as described in this Privacy Policy.
Registration
Access to some HealthandMedicineFoundation.org services may be limited to users who have registered. Apps like HealthandMedicineFoundation.org store your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. See also the Section below on Mobile Device Applications. You may also be asked to provide authorization for uses of personal information in addition to what is in this Privacy Policy when you use certain tools, such as providing personal information to a sponsor of the tool. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org will not make any use of your personal information in addition to this Privacy Policy unless you provide such additional consent in connection with the specific tool at the time you submit Personal Information in order to use the tool. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager, which allows you a secure place to gather, store, manage and share your Personal Information and provides tools and services to better manage your health and the health of your family, requires additional registration. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager has the ability to use Personal Information that you provide to send you personalized emails or secure electronic messages. However, HealthandMedicineFoundation.org does not allow any third parties to place beacons or cookies or to gather any data about you in connection with your use of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager. Furthermore, HealthandMedicineFoundation.org does not use any information that you submit in connection with that tool to deliver any advertisements to you on or off of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites.
If you download the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Magazine App from the Apple App Store News Stand and agree to provide your information to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, your information will be treated like that of a registered user under this Privacy Policy.
Newsletters & Emails to You
At registration and at various times as you use the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Site you will be given the option of providing us with Personal Information in order to receive recurring informational/promotional newsletters – such as a newsletter relating to a specific health condition – via email from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org and/or directly from third parties. From time to time HealthandMedicineFoundation.org makes subscriptions to our newsletters available on third party websites. If you sign up for one of our newsletters on a third party site the site will provide us with your Personal Information such as your email address and we may use that information as described in this Privacy Policy as though you had provided it directly to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org. In the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Community, you can also click the “Watch This Discussion” link in any Health Community posting, and HealthandMedicineFoundation.org will send you an email summary of each day’s postings in that Community.
When you sign up for our email newsletters on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or at any time, you can choose to opt out of receiving additional promotional newsletters from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org or our Sponsors.
You can unsubscribe from a newsletter by:
Following the directions included at the bottom of the newsletter.
Logging in to the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites and unchecking the newsletters you no longer wish to receive under the “My Profile” section.
Email a Friend
If you use our Email a Friend service to tell a friend about a feature on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or a newsletter, we will ask you for your name, your email address and your friend’s email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site using your name and email address as the “from” email address. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org does not use your friend’s email information for any other purpose. We will only use the information you provide to send the requested email to your friend.
Market Research
From time to time, HealthandMedicineFoundation.org may conduct online research surveys through email invitations, pop-up surveys and online focus groups. When participating in a survey, we may ask you to enter Personal Information. The Personal Information you submit in a survey may be used by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org for research and measurement purposes, as described below, including to measure the effectiveness of content, advertising or programs. When our market research surveys collect Personal Information we will not knowingly accept participants who are under the age of 13. Market research surveys conducted by or on behalf of HealthandMedicineFoundation.org will contain a link to this Privacy Policy.
Community, Health Communities, Blogs and Other Public Forums
HealthandMedicineFoundation.org features several community areas and other public forums where users with similar interests or medical conditions can share information and support one another or where users can post questions for experts to answer. We also offer online discussions moderated by healthcare experts. Our communities are open to the public and should not be considered private.
Any information (including Personal Information) you share in any online community area including a chat room, Health Community, Ask Our Expert posting or online discussion is by design open to the public and is not private. You should think carefully before posting any Personal Information in any public forum. What you post can be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties and may be used by others in ways we cannot control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. As with any public forum on any site, the information you post may also show up in third-party search engines.
If you mistakenly post Personal Information in our Community areas and would like it removed, you can send us an email to request that we remove it by using the Contact Us link on every page of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your Personal Information.
Emails You Send to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org
This Privacy Policy does not apply to information, content, business information, ideas, concepts or inventions that you send to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org by email. If you want to keep content or business information, ideas, concepts or inventions private or proprietary, do not send them in an email to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org.
Non-Personal Information
Even if you do not register with or provide any Personal Information to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, we collect Non-Personal Information about your use of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. “Non-Personal Information” means information that we cannot use to identify or contact you. We may also acquire Non-Personal Information about our users from external sources. While you may use some of the functionality of HealthandMedicineFoundation.org without registration, many of the specific tools and services on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites require that you register with HealthandMedicineFoundation.org.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We collect Non-Personal Information about your use of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites and your use of other web sites through the use of Cookies and Web Beacons. “Cookies” are small data files that are stored on the hard drive of the computer you use to view a web site. Every computer that accesses the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites is assigned a different cookie by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org. “Web Beacons” are graphic image files imbedded in a web page typically used to monitor activity on a web page and send back to its home server (which can belong to the host site, a network advertiser or some other third party) information from your browser, such as the IP address, the URL of the page on which the beacon is located, the type of browser that is accessing the site and the ID number of any Cookies on your computer previously placed by that server.
Third parties under contract with HealthandMedicineFoundation.org may use Cookies or Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your usage of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites, including which health topics you have viewed. These third party advertising service providers may use this information, on our behalf, to help HealthandMedicineFoundation.org deliver advertising on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites as well as on other sites on the Internet based on your browsing activity on our sites. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org may further tailor the advertising on HealthandMedicineFoundation.org and these third party sites based on additional Non-Personal Information to the extent known by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org or these third parties. One of the third parties that HealthandMedicineFoundation.org works with is Facebook. While Facebook does not provide any personal information to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, Facebook may use information that it has about you as described in its privacy policy.
Mobile Device Applications (“Apps”) and Mobile Optimized Sites
Non-Personal Information Collected by Third Parties Not Acting on HealthandMedicineFoundation.org’s Behalf
We work with third parties to display advertising that reflects the interests and preferences of our user community. Sponsors or advertisers on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites may use their own Cookies, Web Beacons or other online tracking technologies in the banner advertisements served on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites and in emails, special promotions or newsletters we send you. Their advertisements may be displayed on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or on other sites that you visit after you visit the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. Some advertisers use companies other than HealthandMedicineFoundation.org to serve their ads and to monitor users’ responses to ads, and these companies (“Ad Servers”) may also collect Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies or Web Beacons on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites.
We do not control how third parties use Cookies or Web Beacons or how they manage the Non-Personal Information they gather through the use of these technologies on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. However, our Advertising Policy prohibits sponsors, advertisers and Ad Servers who collect cookie or web beacon information through the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites from collecting any Personal Information from the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites without your consent. Our Advertising Policy also prohibits advertisers from linking any Non-Personal Information collected by them on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites to Personal Information they or others collect in other ways or from other sites except as may be described in connection with a particular program. To see how Google may use information collected through your use of Google’s search services on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites visit http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners.
What Choices Do I Have?
Updating/Removing Your Personal Information
If you do not want your Personal Information used by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org as provided in this Privacy Policy, you should not register as a member or for any specific tool or application that collects Personal Information. You can correct, update or review Personal Information you have previously submitted by going back to the specific tool or application, logging-in and making the desired change. You can also update any Personal Information you have submitted by contacting us using the contact information listed below.
If you have registered and desire to delete any of your Personal Information you have provided to us from our systems please contact us using the contact information listed below. Upon your request, we will delete your Personal Information from our active databases and where feasible from our back-up media. You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites from our servers.
If you decide that you would prefer not to receive personalized email or secure electronic messages from the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager tool, you may “Opt-out” of the service by clicking on the settings tab on your Health Manager home page and changing your email preference or following the unsubscribe instructions included in each promotional email. Emails that HealthandMedicineFoundation.org sends with opportunities from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org or with offers or informational materials from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org on behalf of our sponsors will contain an opportunity to unsubscribe from getting additional emails of that type in the future from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org unless you resubscribe.
Cookies
Most browser software can be set to reject Cookies. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject Cookies in the “Help” section of the toolbar. If you reject our Cookies, certain of the functions and conveniences of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites may not work properly but you do not have to accept our Cookies in order to productively use the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. It is important to note that in order to use the opt-out services described below, such as the Network Advertising Initiative and the TRUSTed Ads Program, you must not reject all Cookies because these opt-out procedures work by placing Cookies on your browser that enable these opt-out procedures to function. The “opt-out Cookies” are placed, for example, in order to help prevent the placement of Cookies used for the targeting of advertising.
Certain Ad Servers allow you to prevent them from collecting data through the use of Cookies. In order to do so, you must Opt-out of such data collection with each individual site. Currently, you can opt out of Cookies for several Ad Servers by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative gateway opt-out site or TRUSTe’s Preference Manager at http://preferences.truste.com/. This website will also allow you to review the Ad Server’s privacy policies. You can find additional information and resources about how to opt out of advertising and related Cookies by visiting the World Privacy Forum’s Site. Information about your opt-out options on Facebook is available at www.facebook.com/about/privacy.
We work with third party ad networks to display advertising on our Sites. Our ad network vendors use technologies to collect non-personally identifiable information about your activities on our web sites to provide you cookie-based targeted advertising based upon your browsing activity and your interests. To read about how to opt out of targeted advertising on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org sites see the section of this policy named TRUSTed Ads Program Ad Choices below. The HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites do not respond to web browser “do not track” signals.
TRUSTed Ads Program Ad Choices
In order to give you more control over your privacy choices we have implemented the TRUSTed Ads™ program from TRUSTe. At the bottom of every page of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites you will see an Ad Choices logo, (which looks like this: Ad Choices Logo). By clicking on that logo you will be presented with a window (the “TRUSTe Window”) that will identify all of the companies that HealthandMedicineFoundation.org uses to direct tailored advertisements to you, both on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites as well as on third-party sites. If you would like to stop this tailored advertising from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, you can manage these advertisements through the choices in that window. By clicking the + symbol next to the name of a vendor in that window you will get information about how and where that vendor assists us with the delivery of advertisements. The HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites do not respond to web browser “do not track” signals. The TRUSTed Ads Program is not available on our Mobile Device Apps. Please see the Section entitled “Mobile Device Applications (“Apps”) and Mobile Optimized Sites.”
How Information Collected About You Is Used
Information collected by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org about you is used by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org to:
administer your account,
provide you with access to particular tools and services,
respond to your inquiries you send to us and to send you administrative communications about the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or services,
obtain your feedback about the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or our offerings,
statistically analyze user behavior and activity including how frequently areas of the site are visited and how many emails are received and opened,
provide you and people with similar demographic characteristics and interests with more relevant content or advertising both on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites or on other web sites that you visit after you leave the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites; and
conduct research and measurement activities, including those described below.
Send you personalized emails or secure electronic messages pertaining to your health interests, including news, announcements, reminders and opportunities from HealthandMedicineFoundation.org; or
Send you relevant offers and informational materials on behalf of our sponsors pertaining to your health interests.
HealthandMedicineFoundation.org may combine Personal and Non-Personal Information collected by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org about you, and may combine this information with information from external sources.
In addition to the emails described above that are made available to all registered HealthandMedicineFoundation.org visitors, users of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager tool can receive personalized emails or secure electronic messages based on Personal Information entered into the tool. The HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager email service requires an “opt-in” authorization from you.
We also use Cookies in order to enable us to conduct surveys for our own use and on behalf of our advertisers. These Cookies are used to determine whether you have seen certain content or advertising so that we may request your opinions. We may also use Cookies to authenticate respondents or to help you pick up where you left off in a survey. If you have Cookies disabled you may not be able to participate in some surveys.
Research and Measurement Activities
Information that HealthandMedicineFoundation.org collects about you may be combined by HealthandMedicineFoundation.org with other information available to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org through third parties for research and measurement purposes, including measuring the effectiveness of content, advertising or programs. This information from other sources may include age, gender, demographic, geographic, personal interests, product purchase activity or other information. We may report aggregate information, which is not able to be identified back to an individual user of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites, to our current or prospective advertisers and other business partners. We do not sell or share any Personal Information with any third parties, except contractors performing services on our behalf who agree not to use this information received from us for any purpose other than performing services on our behalf.
With Whom Do We Share Your Information?
Except as described in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, HealthandMedicineFoundation.org will not disclose any Personal Information it gathers from you through the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. We may only release Personal Information to third parties: (1) to comply with legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as in response to a physical threat to you or others, to protect property or defend or assert legal rights. In addition, we may disclose Personal Information as described below. We may share Non-Personal Information that we have about you, including about your browsing activity on HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, with third party advertising service providers who may use this information, on our behalf, to help HealthandMedicineFoundation.org deliver advertising on the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites as well as on other sites on the Internet.
In the event of a corporate change in control resulting from, for example, a sale to, or merger with, another entity, or in the event of a sale of assets or a bankruptcy, HealthandMedicineFoundation.org reserves the right to transfer your Personal Information to the new party in control or the party acquiring assets. In the event of such a change, your Personal Information will continue to be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy unless any changes to the Privacy Policy are made in accordance with the section below that discusses “Changes to This Privacy Policy.”
Disclosures to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Contractors
HealthandMedicineFoundation.org contractors sometimes have limited access to your Personal and Non-Personal Information in the course of providing products or services to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org. These contractors include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services, data analysis, research, advertising and marketing assistance and/or content in connection with our operation and maintenance of the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites. We contractually require that our contractors: 1) protect the privacy of your Personal and Non-Personal Information consistent with this Privacy Policy and 2) not use or disclose your Personal or Non-Personal Information for any purpose other than providing the limited service or function for HealthandMedicineFoundation.org.
Disclosures to Third Party Web Sites
Certain content, services and advertisements offered to you through the HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites are served on, or contain links to, web sites hosted and operated by a company other than HealthandMedicineFoundation.org (“Third Party Web Sites”). HealthandMedicineFoundation.org does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Web Sites without your consent, but you should be aware that any information you disclose to the other web sites once you access these other web sites is not subject to this Privacy Policy. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Web Sites. You should review the privacy policy posted on the other web site to understand how that Third Party Web Site collects and uses your Personal Information. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org makes an effort to make it obvious to you when you leave our website and enter a Third Party Web Site, either by requiring you to click on a link or by notifying you on the site before you visit the third party site. In addition, if you see a phrase such as “Powered by” or “in association with” followed by the name of a company other than HealthandMedicineFoundation.org, then you are on a web site hosted by a company other than HealthandMedicineFoundation.org.
How Do We Secure and Retain Your Information?
We take reasonable security measures to protect the security of your Personal Information. Despite HealthandMedicineFoundation.org’s efforts to protect your Personal Information, there is always some risk that an unauthorized third party may find a way around our security systems or that transmissions of your information over the Internet may be intercepted.
The security of your Personal Information is important to us. When you enter Personal Information (including personal health information in various tools on our website), we encrypt the transmission of that information or use SSL connections (Secure Socket Layer) technology.
We will retain your Personal Information as long as your account is active or needed to provide you services. At any time you can remove your Personal Information or instruct us to remove it, but you should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to HealthandMedicineFoundation.org from our servers. HealthandMedicineFoundation.org tools that collect and store Personal Information allow you to correct, update or review information you have submitted by going back to the specific tool, logging-in and making the desired changes. We will also retain your Personal Information as necessary to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.
Children
We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. The HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites are not designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. The HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Web Sites do not collect Personal Information from any person we actually know is under the age of 13. A parent or guardian, however, may use HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager to establish a personal health record and a HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager home page for a minor. The parent or guardian is solely responsible for providing supervision of the minor’s use of HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager. The parent or guardian assumes full responsibility for ensuring that the registration information is kept secure and that the information submitted is accurate. The parent or guardian also assumes full responsibility for the interpretation and use of any information or suggestions provided through HealthandMedicineFoundation.org Health Manager for the minor.
Contacting HealthandMedicineFoundation.org About Your Personal Information or Privacy
Please send us an email by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page of our site if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the Personal Information we maintain about you.