NHPBS Online Privacy Policy

Nothing is more important to us than protecting the private information of our visitors. The NHPBS web site adheres to a strict policy for ensuring the privacy of your -and your children's- personally identifiable information (such as full name, address, e-mail address, telephone number and/or other identifiable information) and preserving the integrity of this online medium.

Gathering and Use of Information

1. We will not collect personally identifiable information from you, other than what you supply to us on a voluntary basis.

The information gathered by NHPBS falls into two categories:
i. information voluntarily supplied by visitors to NHPBS online and
ii. tracking information routinely gathered as visitors navigate through our site.

2. In order to participate in some activities, you might be asked to provide some personally identifiable information. This could be in connection with the following:

• contest or sweepstakes registration
• subscription registration for sites or services which require subscription (such as e-mail newsletters)
• online membership (new, renewal or additional gift)
• transactions in the NHPBS store
• content submissions, community postings (i.e., forums or bulletin boards), comments and suggestions, or voting

3. NHPBS takes seriously the need for credit card account information security. Our Web financial transaction forms are stored and served from a secure server. This means that each transaction page you view, and any information you submit from these secure pages, is encrypted on its way between computers (yours and ours). Even in the highly unlikely event that your transmission is intercepted, it will not be usable. Your peace of mind and the safeguarding of your credit card information is a top priority for NHPBS. Your credit card information is used only for your intended purpose - that is, for the purchase or contribution you wish to make.

4. We will always explain the extent of the use of your personal information at the time you are asked to provide it. If you do not want this information to be collected or used by us for these purposes, you can simply "opt out." Under certain circumstances, opting out may prevent your participation in activities for which personal information is needed, as in contests.

5. NHPBS's Web server automatically collects and logs limited information about your computer's connection to the Internet when you visit our site. The information collected in these
log files allows us to make our site more useful to our visitors. The access logs do NOT record your name, address, phone number, e-mail address, credit card number, or any other personally-identifying information. To help make our sites more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we invoke a standard feature found in browser software, called a "cookie," to assign each visitor a unique, random number, a sort of anonymous user ID that resides on your computer. The cookie doesn't actually identify the visitor, just the computer that a visitor uses to access our site. Unless you voluntarily identify yourself (through registration, for example), we won't know who you are, even if we assign a cookie to your computer. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply. A cookie can't read data off your hard drive, and our cookie can't read the cookie files created by other sites. We use cookies to help us tailor our site to your needs, to deliver a better, more personalized service. We may use cookies to track the pages on our site visited by our users. We can build a better site if we know which pages our users are visiting and how often. You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. However, some features of our site will not work properly if you refuse cookies.

6. All submissions to NHPBS-hosted message boards and chat rooms become property of NHPBS and may be published in whole or in part at our sole discretion.

7. Like many nonprofits, we occasionally exchange some of our donors' names and postal addresses with carefully selected nonprofit educational, cultural, health, and social service organizations. When you make an online contribution, your name and postal address will be included as eligible for an exchange. Our exchange program provides other nonprofits with only your name and postal address.

For Parents and Caregivers

You have trusted us for many years to provide responsible and quality content for children. As we move into the cyberspace world, this trust becomes even more important to you, and to us. We believe the following promises will improve the safety, value, and enjoyment of your child's visits to our site and our affiliated sites.

• We will not collect personally identifiable information from your child.
• If your child sends us an e-mail with a question or comment, or enters one of our contests, we will respond using his or her e-mail address, but will not store it for future communications.
• If we know that your child is under the age of thirteen, we will seek your permission offline (by postal mail, fax or phone) before we mail any prizes or share your child's personal information with anyone else.
• You can give consent and still say no to giving your child's information to a third party. You may revoke your consent at any time and have your child's information deleted.
• We will let you know about the need for a new consent form when our information-practices change in a material way by sending a new notice and request for permission.
• If your child submits stories, artwork, comments or anything else to us which is posted at our site, he or she will be identified only by first name, age and state, unless there has been an express grant of the right to provide additional identifying information.
• We will not post your child's email address in conjunction with any of their submissions.

We also promise to help children, their families and communities find the information they need to use the Internet safely and responsibly. Parents and caregivers can review personal information collected from their children. We will verify their identity in response to the request.

Since we cannot be assured that links to outside sites follow our safety or privacy guidelines, we encourage adults and children to discuss these choices together. We are not responsible for the content or safety and privacy practices at any sites linked from our pages.

We want to make this site a place where families can surf together, and where parents and caregivers are happy to have their children interact, learn and play. If you have any comments or questions, we're happy to hear them. If you have any questions or concerns regarding this policy, you can contact us by e-mail at themailbox@nhpbs.org, by telephone at 603-868-1100, or by writing to us at NHPBS, 268 Mast Road, Durham, NH 03824.

By using this site, you signify your agreement to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to these terms and conditions, please do not use this site. You and your child's use of this site are conditioned on your having accepted these terms. You should check back to review this policy frequently, since it is subject to change from time to time, and your continued use of the site is conditioned upon your acceptance of any modifications hereto.