Consumers Union Privacy Policy
Consumers Union does not sell or rent any information provided
by you via this web site with any third party. No such information
is shared with any third party except in limited circumstances
to provide products and service to you or in response to a
request from law enforcement (see here
for more details).
INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE COLLECT IT
Much of the information on our site can be accessed without
our collecting any personally identifiable information
from you.
You can surf ConsumerUnion.org and related advocacy sites
and view much of our content anonymously. For instance,
you can access
information on policy issues affecting consumers without
giving out any personally identifiable information.
The information we gather on our site falls into two categories:
(1) personal information you supply when you "take
action" on
a policy issue or register to receive email updates, etc.,
and (2) tracking information collected as you navigate
through our
site.
Personally identifiable information
To use certain features on our site, we ask you to subscribe
or register. When you do this, we will collect personally
identifiable information about you such as your name,
mailing address, e-mail
address, and telephone number. In addition, we may ask
you for the same type of information when you transmit
letters to decision-makers
or corporations on a policy issue, or complete a survey.
We use this information to complete the transaction you
requested,
to
provide you information relevant to your interests or
to help improve our site.
Aggregate information
When you use our site, we may collect tracking information
such as your browser type, the type of operating
system you use, the
domain name of your Internet service provider, and
pages visited on the site. None of this information identifies
you personally;
we collect it for aggregate reporting on site activity.
For example, we may want to know how long the average
user spends
on our site,
or which pages or features get the most attention.
We
use this information to make the site more useful
to you.
We use "cookies" to store and sometimes to track
user information. Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us e-mail
address
or other personally identifiable information unless
you choose to provide this information to us by, for example,
taking action
on one of our advocacy campaigns and agreeing to
be part of our advocacy network or subscribing to our site.
A cookie is a small
amount of data that is sent to your browser from
a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. A cookie
contains a
unique number that allows our site to recognize
your computer. For example, cookies allow us to keep track
of your user name
and password (if you are a subscriber) so you don't
have to re-enter that information each time you visit our site.
The "help" function
on most browsers contains information on how to
set your browser to notify you before accepting cookies or
to disable
cookies
entirely. However, if you don't accept cookies,
you won't be able to take advantage of various features on
our site
that
are available to other visitors
HOW YOUR INFORMATION WILL BE USED
ConsumerUnion.org and related advocacy web sites
use personally identifiable information in
a limited number
of ways. We
use the information to provide you with news
and action alerts based
on the interests you have expressed by taking
action on an advocacy campaign through our web site or
through an
online
form that
you have filled out. We also use the information
you provide to send you e-mail on Consumers
Union advocacy
issues,
programs or services that we believe may be
of interest to you.
Sharing your personally identifiable information
In some instances, we use third party companies
to help us provide our products and services
to you,
like an
e-mail delivery service
that sends out our e-mails and e-newsletters.
In those instances
we need to share your information with
them. We require that those companies use the information
only to
deliver the product
or service.
We may occasionally release personal information
as required by law, for example, to comply
with a court
order or
subpoena.
HOW YOU CAN CORRECT YOUR INFORMATION
Consumers Union believes in providing
you with the ability to access and
edit the
personal information that you
have provided
to us. To update your information
you have provided if you took action on
one of our
advocacy
campaigns
through
our
web site,
follow the links at the bottom of
our newsletter ConsumerLine, or access
your profile and
update your
contact information
and user preferences by following
the instructions at http://cu.convio.net/site/UserLogin.
OUR E-MAIL POLICIES
Account and services related e-mail: If you have taken action
on a policy issue, we will send you e-mails relating to your
account. For example, these include confirmations that the
email you sent through our web site has been delivered.
E-mail newsletters and action alerts: You may request updates
or news about Consumers Union's activities, which will be
sent to the email account you identified. To unsubscribe,
follow
the instructions included in every email we send you. If
you have taken an action on a policy issue, we may send
you e-mail
about other policy issues that may be of interest to you.
You can choose not to receive additional types of messages
in the
future by following the 'unsubscribe' instructions located
near the bottom of each e-mail.
HTML verification: When receiving
an e-mail from CU, we may place
a one-pixel
gif in
that e-mail
to understand
whether
or not you
can accept HTML images and,
if you can accept HTML, whether
or not you
viewed
the e-mail.
This process
does not leave
any information
on your computer, nor does
it collect information from your
computer.
Consumers Union does
not share or sell
this
information
with
others, and we only use it
to improve our e-mail communications
with
you.
DONATIONS
If you make a tax-deductible
donation to Consumer Reports
or Consumers
Union, your
name or any
information from
that donation
will not be sold or exchanged
with any other company or
organization. No additional
emails
will be sent
to you
based on this donation.
You will be contacted by
mail to
subscribe to our publications,
books or other
services which
includes
future donations.
If you do not wish to receive
mail solicitations from us,
please write:
Consumer Reports Development
Office
“ No Promotional Mail”
101 Truman Ave
Yonkers, NY 10703
HOW TO CONTACT US
If you have any questions or concerns about the ConsumerUnion.org
and related advocacy
sites Privacy Policy or its implementation, contact us
at wcrowebmaster@consumer.org or
at Consumers Union West Coast Regional Office, 1535
Mission St., San Francisco,
CA 94103.
If you are a subscriber
to Consumer Reports
or ConsumerReports.org,
contact us at
Consumers Union,
Customer Relations, 101 Truman
Avenue, Yonkers,
NY
10703.
If you feel that
we have not followed
our
privacy
policy
please let us
know. Additionally,
you
may contact your
state or local
consumer protection
office, The Direct
Marketing
Association's Committee
on Ethical Business
Practices at mgoldberger@the-dma.org,
the Better Business
Bureau, or
The Federal Trade
Commission by phone
at (202) FTC-HELP
(202/382-4357)
and online
at www.ftc.gov.
If you are a subscriber
to Consumer Reports
or any of
our other publications,
click
here to
review Consumer
Reports
privacy policy.
This policy was
last revised
May 2004.
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