Privacy Effective Date: May 15, 2007 The Trustees of Reservations' Putnam Conservation Institute (TTOR/PCI) recognizes the importance of privacy to online visitors of our Web site at ConservationCommon.org. To further our commitment to protecting your privacy, we have adopted this Privacy Policy to guide how we collect, store, and use the information you provide us. Information Covered by this Privacy Policy This Privacy Policy applies to use and sharing of personal information collected on and after the date that this Privacy Policy is posted. This Privacy Policy applies only to personal information collected on our Web site at ConservationCommon.org and does not apply to any other information collected by TTOR/PCI offline or through any other means. The terms of this Privacy Policy are subject to all applicable laws. Gathering of Information We don't require personal information to access our Web site. However, if you prefer not to disclose personal information, you will not be able to enjoy certain features of our Web site. Personal information is information that identifies you and may be used to contact you.   Information You Provide to Us To offer our online visitors certain features on our website, we collect several types of personal information. Typically, this information includes: name, email address, telephone number, home, mailing and billing address, and credit card information. Additionally, we may also collect other types of non-personal information, such as your affiliation(s), town, voting district and topical interests.  Submission of such information is optional, but encouraged to help us better serve our online visitors.  Non-personal information may be associated with your personal information. Information Collected Through Technology We collect information through technology to make our Web site more interesting and useful to our online visitors. For example, our server automatically creates log files for each online visitor who accesses our Web site. These access logs do NOT record a visitor's name, address, phone number, credit card numbers, or any other personal information. Rather, they contain some or all of the following information: The Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) of the machine which accessed our Web site, The date of the visit, The time of the visit, The path taken through our Web site, The browser being used, A list of files downloaded or viewed, The amount of time spent of specific pages, and Any errors encountered. We may combine this information with personally identifiable information. Cookies    We also use 'cookies' to collect information. A cookie is a string of characters that can be written to a file on the user's hard drive when the user visits a Web site. Only the Web site that set the cookie can read it, and it can only be used as a record keeping device to store information that the site already has. It cannot, for example, be used to read other information from the user's hard drive.  We use cookies to track users' activity through the Web site in order to improve the Web site's architecture, to offer the user interactive features that would not be possible without them, and to recall specific information to save the user time during subsequent visits to the Web site. For example, cookies allow us to remember your media player (e.g., Real Audio or Windows Media) preference.  If you wish to prevent certain or all cookies from being set to your hard drive you may disable them in your browser's preferences, although your browser might then be unable to accommodate certain functionalities on our Web site. Use of Information We don't share, sell, or rent your personal information to third parties without your consent. We don't require personal information to access our Web site. However, if you prefer not to disclose personal information, you will not be able to enjoy certain features of our website. We collect personal information from our online visitors to: register for our Web site, sign up to attend an event sponsored by TTOR/PCI, purchase a product at our online store, subscribe to our newsletter or receive other information about new resources, funding opportunities, advocacy issues, or upcoming training/networking events, participate in polls, surveys, and questionnaires, use tell-a-friend features, receive technical support, and publish contributions to our Web site. Whatever the purpose may be, we will only collect information to the extent reasonably necessary to fulfill your requests and our legitimate business objectives. Tools and Updates Information collected from those who voluntarily submit it to us is used to provide services like updates on special events, news, and email announcements of interest to our users.   If you register for access to our community forums or message boards, we will use your personal information to enable you to view and post messages. You should understand that community forums ands and message boards are tools that allow you to communicate with members of the online community. As such, whenever you give out personal information in public areas, that information can be collected and used by people you don't know. For  example, any information that you provide for the Individual and Organizational Directories is visible to all registrants of the Web site. Further, any Information that you post to "Events" is visible to anyone with access to the Internet. Be it good or bad, this may result in you receiving unsolicited e-mail or other communications from third parties. Operational Uses We may also use your personal information for other purposes such as operational uses. For example, we may use your information to send you administrative communications either about your account with us or about features of our Web site. We occasionally use other companies, agents or contractors to perform services necessary to our operations. For example, we may partner with other companies to process credit card transactions, analyze interaction with our Web site, and process surveys. We also provide postal addresses to the U.S. Post Office for delivery purposes. In the course of providing such services, these companies may have contact with your personally identifying information. These entities have agreed to securely store and maintain the personal information received from us. Aggregate Information We may take your personally identifiable information and make it non-personally identifiable, either by combining it with information about other individuals (aggregating your information with information about other individuals), or by removing characteristics (such as your name) that make the information personally identifiable to you (de-personalizing your information). Given the nature of this information, no restrictions apply under this Privacy Policy on our right to aggregate or de-personalize your personal information, and we may use and share in any way with third parties the resulting non-personally identifiable information. Business Information For practical reasons, we treat personal information submitted to us in a business capacity different from information we receive in a non-business capacity. Personal information submitted to us in a business capacity (e.g. event sponsorship) may be shared with third parties, depending on the nature of the inquiry. Transfer of Businesses or Assets From time to time, we may sell or otherwise transfer one or more of our businesses or assets related to a business and your personally identifiable information may be transferred as a part of the transfer.  If we conduct such a transfer, we will include provisions in the selling contract requiring the purchaser to treat your personally identifiable information in the same manner required by this Privacy Policy (including any amendments to this Privacy Policy). Disclosures Required By Law and Disclosures to Help Protect the Security and Safety of Our Web site and Others We will disclose personal information when we believe in good faith that such disclosures (a) are required by law, including, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena, or (b) will help to: enforce our Terms of Use; protect your safety or security, including the safety and security of property that belongs to you; and/or, protect the safety and security of our Web site or third parties Children We don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. We take steps to ensure that those who wish to register personal information on our Web site meet certain age requirements before they can do so. We take children's privacy seriously, and encourage parents to play an active role in their children's online experience at all times. Security The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us. We have implemented physical, electronic, and managerial procedures intended to safeguard and secure the personal information we collect online from unauthorized access and improper use. Credit card information provided to our Web site is protected against unauthorized use by 128-bit encryption and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) security features, which scramble your personal information so that only your web browser and our Web  site's server can decipher it.   From time to time, we review our security procedures to consider appropriate new technology and methods. However, please understand that, despite our best efforts, no security measure is perfect or impenetrable. Acceptance of Privacy Policy TTOR/PCI reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, or share your personal information, we will post notice of the changes to this page, so please check this page periodically. Use of our Web site constitutes consent to any Privacy Policy then in effect. Please make sure that you read TTOR/PCI's Terms of Use to understand additional terms and conditions which apply to the use of our Web site. Updating Your Personal Information You can access and update the contact information you gave us during registration (that is, your e-mail address or any other information that would directly enable us to contact you), by emailing us at pci@ttor.org.   Removing Your Personal Information If at any time you decide to remove your personal information from our database, you may do so by emailing us at pci@ttor.org. Questions and Comments If you have any questions or comments concerning our Privacy Policy, please contact us via e-mail (pci@ttor.org) or send a letter to: The Trustees of Reservations Putnam Conservation Institute 464 Abbott Ave. Leominster, MA 01453 Links to other Sites It is important to note that the ConservationCommon.org contains links to other sites that may not follow the same privacy policies as our Web site. These sites may use cookies, collect data, and use the data in ways that TTOR/PCI would not. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or any information or materials on these other sites. Please visit these sites if you wish to review their privacy policies.