Children’s Lyme Disease Network Privacy Policy

At Children’s Lyme Disease Network (CLDN) we respect the privacy of our users and the importance of the information they entrust to us. This privacy policy explains when and how personal information is collected, used, disclosed and protected with respect to our web site located at www.childrenslymenetwork.org (the “Site”). By using www.childrenslymenetwork.org, you consent to the collection and use of your personal information as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

What is Personal Information?

Personal information is information that specifically identifies an individual such as a name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and information about that individual’s activities such as information about his or her use of the Site. Personal information also includes demographic information such as date of birth, gender, geographic area and preferences. Personal information does not include “aggregate” information. Aggregate data helps us understand trends and our users’ needs so that we can better consider new features or otherwise tailor our Site. Whenever you enter our website, our web server automatically collects and aggregates information in respect or your visit. This information includes URLs or domains of referring websites, browser type, operating system, the pages that you access and the date and time of your visit. Aggregate information will not include any information that identifies any individual.

The Information We Collect

We collect information that can identify you (“personal information”) when you: (1) register and set up an account; (2) sign up for any of our e-mail newsletters; (3) comment; (4) donate; (5) contact us by e-mail for any reason or (6) Make a transaction through our site. When you visit our web site, some information is also automatically collected, such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, your computer’s operating system, the browser type, the address of a referring web site, and the time and date of your visit and purchases. We treat this information as personal information if we combine it with or link it to any of the identifying information mentioned above. Otherwise, it is used in the aggregate only.

How We Use Personal Information

Children’s Lyme Disease Network may use information to:

How We Use Personal Information

We use personal information that you provide to us in several ways. First, we use it to confirm your Membership, to understand better who is visiting our Site and using our Service, and to enable us to present content, including advertising, which might suit your interests.

Second, we may use the personal information you give us to send you information about Children’s Lyme Disease Network, as well as material on behalf of some of our third parties with whom we have a business relationship. By third parties, we mean, for example, entities such as health associations and advertisers that link to our Site or that make use of our Service. The information we send you may, on occasion, contain advertising or requests either from us or from a third party on whose behalf we would send the information. For example, we may contact you to see whether you are interested in being considered for an upcoming clinical trial that is being sponsored by a pharmaceutical company.

Third, when you confirm your registration, your profile becomes visible to users of CLDN and your profile may be found by users of CLDN using the search features. You can control how your profile and the data it contains are shared using the privacy settings available to you in the account section of the Site.

Fourth, we may share personal information with entities that are not part of the Children’s Lyme Disease Network family on an aggregate or other basis that does not disclose your identity or contain individually identifiable personal information.

Fifth, Children’s Lyme Disease Network may disclose personal information to appropriate persons in circumstances where we have a good faith belief that a user is likely to cause bodily harm to him or herself or others.

Sixth, Children’s Lyme Disease Network may share your email address and profile information with the organizations (for example, non-profit organizations) that sponsor CLDN groups that you join. Otherwise, we do not share, sell, or otherwise disclose personal information that is individually identifiable (including your e-mail address or your personal information) to any other company that we do not control without your prior consent, except as required by law (see Legal Process, below). For example, we do not rent our Member list to other companies. We may, however, provide other companies with aggregated data about our Members that does not contain contact or other individually identifiable personal information. Thus, for example, we may inform a health association of the number of Members we have on this Service, or the number of Members registered for our Service in a particular geographical region.

It is possible that by posting a message on CLDN or communicating with other Members, you will disclose your own personal information.

Finally, we reserve the right to transfer your personal information in the event of a transfer of ownership of Children’s Lyme Disease Network, such as an acquisition by or merger with another company. In such an event, Children’s Lyme Disease Network will notify you before information about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Your Choices

You are not required to provide any personal information in order to view information that appears on this Site. However, in order to post content or see profiles of Members or communicate with Members, you must register. When you register, you must provide the personal information designated as “required” on the registration page. After you have registered, you will have the opportunity to provide additional personal information and to create an extended personal profile, including the posting of a photograph. Whether you provide this additional personal information is entirely your option.

We do not disclose individually identifiable information about you to third parties without your prior consent. For example, we might contact you to advise you that a pharmaceutical company is planning a clinical trial and to see if you would be interested in learning more information. If you consent, we would arrange for the company to contact you; however, if you did not consent, we would not provide information about you to that company.

If you do not wish us to use or disclose personal information that you provide through this Site as disclosed in this Privacy Statement, you can delete your account in your account settings.

Public Forums

This Site may make available chat rooms, blogs, and message boards. Please remember that any personal or other information that you disclose in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

Access

You may access and change personal information on your profile at any time by accessing your password-protected registered user information.

Security

Children’s Lyme Disease Network has implemented processes designed to protect user information and maintain security. Each registered user is assigned a unique user name and password which is required to access their user information. It is the user’s responsibility to protect the security of their login information. Children’s Lyme Disease Network’s servers are located in secure server environments. Firewalls and other advanced security technologies are employed to prevent interference or access from outside intruders. These safeguards help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of data.

IP Addresses

An IP address is a number assigned to the computer, which is requesting a web page from our site. Usually it is not your personal computer, but a computer used by your internet service provider or company network. Children’s Lyme Disease Network uses IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our Web site, and to report aggregate information. The information we collect includes:

Cookies

Children’s Lyme Disease Network uses cookies to assist in delivering CLDN and to provide a positive and personalized user experience. Cookies are files sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Our persistent and session ID cookies are used to identify unique visitors to our sites and to provide you with easy access to your files.

Use of Web Site by Children

We encourage parents to take an active interest in their children’s use of the Internet. We do not intend to collect information from children who are under 13 years of age. If you are under 13 you should not provide information on our web site, but rather have your parents provide that information.

Third Party Advertising and Content

In addition to partnerships with other companies, Children’s Lyme Disease Network may contain links to advertiser and content web sites. If you choose to visit and/or use CLDNs provided by those sites, you may be asked by those sites to provide certain personally identifiable information. Please be aware that Children’s Lyme Disease Network is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other Web sites, even if our name or logo may appear on those sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and read the Privacy Statements of each and every Web site that you visit, as the privacy policy of those sites may differ from ours. Our privacy policy applies solely to Children’s Lyme Disease Network.com.

Communicating with Other Users

You may not harvest personal data from the site, and specifically you may not use private messaging to ask users to join or contribute to your services. Spamming Children’s Lyme Disease Network users is not allowed.

Your Consent

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Children’s Lyme Disease Network. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

Contacting Children’s Lyme Disease Network

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact us: [email protected]