Last Revised: Sep 10, 2010

We take privacy very seriously, and if you are reading this, you probably do as well. First of all, you should know that except for the trusted services that we use for managing our newsletter, maintaining our website, processing payments, and our web host, no other outside party will have access to your personal information unless you happen to publish it yourself by adding it to a public comment on a message board, blog post, etc. We do not share personal information or email lists with third parties beyond those specifically named herein.

If you have objections to this Privacy Policy, you should not access or use this Site. On this page we will explain

• What personal information is collected (or not collected)
• How the information is used
• Who has access to the information
• Our email newsletter opt-in and opt-out policy
• Guidelines for children's privacy

Newsletter Subscriptions

Online visitors who choose to be on our mailing lists and/or receive periodic email announcements provide their name and email address. We use a confirmed opt-in subscription process, to prevent a person from subscribing someone without their permission. Anyone who wishes can choose to be removed from our mailing list at any time, by using the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the newsletter(s), or contacting us directly and asking to be removed.

We use the online service by aweber.com to manage our mail list and send out our newsletter. So, they would in theory have access to your name and email, but you can review the aweber.com privacy policy here in which they state very clearly that they do not share or sell this information.

Payment Processing

Online visitors who wish to make donations or purchase a product or membership from our web sites will be asked to provide their name, email address, mailing address, phone number, and credit card number and expiration date.

All credit card transactions occur over a secure connection protected through encryption such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. In some cases we use Google Checkout to process payments, and in other cases we may use PayPal.com. We do not store credit card information! We do keep a record of sales, including names and email addresses, to provide technical assistance or process refunds.

Information Used to Improve User Experience

In some cases, we may collect information from you to help improve your experience using our sites. This might include completing polls, rating pages or content that you like, submitting your comments (more on that below), filling out a registration form to create your login profile, submitting a search, or sending us feedback and suggestions via email or surveys.

Demographic information that you provide via surveys or through the creation of an online profile may be used for marketing and targeting purposes. This information might include age, number of children, marital status, profession, interests, and/or favorites. This information would be used to help us know how best to tailor our content to your interests. Demographic information may be shared with advertisers, but only on an aggregate basis. The information shared with advertisers cannot be used to identify you.

Occasionally we may run surveys or contests in which the user can optionally include their email address or other information. This allows us to contact them if needed to notify them of the results of the contest or response to a question asked in a survey. Otherwise, all information collected via surveys would only be shared or published on an aggregate basis (like 70% of our users prefer X).

We do not collect sensitive personal information such as race, religion, or political affiliations. And we definitely do NOT collect sensitive information such as birthdates and social security numbers.

It is unlikely to happen, but we may have to share personal customer information with law enforcement officials in the investigation of alleged unlawful activities related to the use of our sites. We will have no legal liability for these types of disclosures.

Cookies

Our sites may use cookies to manage your session on our sites. They may be used to let you save your username or password to make it easier for you log in and to recall your information for subsequent visits. A cookie is a small piece of information stored on your computer, but is not stored on our websites. You can remove cookies from your computer via your browser (typically accessed via your browser's settings or tools menu).

Site Usage Statistics

This section is pretty much the same as every other website out there, so continue to read if you must, but know that this is very standard.

Our server keeps a log of site usage statistics which involves keeping track of numbers of hits on various pages, IP addresses, browser types, access times, and the sites from which a visitor is referred. For example, if you find our site through a search engine, our logs will show that a visitor clicked through to our site from that search engine. Such information is used to verify the effectiveness of marketing efforts. It may also be used to help interested parties determine the number of visitors who find our site through their sites. In other cases, site statistics are provided to potential advertisers and link partners. These statistics cannot be used to identify an individual, since they do not include any personal information.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here.

• Google, as a third party vendor, uses cookies to serve ads on our website.
• Google's use of the DART cookie enables it to serve ads on this site based on your visit to our site and other sites on the Internet.
• You may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Public Comments

Our sites may allow comments to be added by users. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these comments becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

Email You Send Us

Email messages sent to us are considered public statements. Unless you state in your email that you do not wish the email to be published, we may publish the message (including the author's name unless you tell us not to) in whole or in part. We will not publish the author's email address or other personal information that may be included in the email. We would normally ask your permission before publishing any email that you might send us, but we are not obligated to. We would never knowingly publish a child's name.

Children's Guidelines

Children's privacy is a major concern to us.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If we learn that we have personal information on a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information from our systems. We encourage parents to go online with their kids. Here are a few tips to help make a child's online experience safer:

• Teach kids never to give personal information, unless supervised by a parent or responsible adult. This includes name, address, phone, school, etc.
• Know the sites your kids are visiting and which sites are appropriate.
• Look for Web site privacy policies.
• Know how your child's information is treated.

Check out the FTC's site for more tips on protecting children's privacy online.

External Links

We link to many other websites, but we are not responsible for the privacy policies on other websites.

Privacy Policy Revisions

We may occasionally revise this policy by updating this page. We encourage you to visit this page periodically to see how we are protecting your privacy.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions or comments about our privacy policy, we can be reached via email.