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Foresite, Inc. Privacy Statement
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Commitment
to Your Privacy
This site is owned and operated by Foresite, Inc. Your privacy
on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Foresite,
Inc., we want to make your experience online is satisfying and
safe.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users,
we feel you should fully understand the terms and conditions surrounding
the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses
what information we gather and how we use it.
Definition of the Information Foresite, Inc. gathers and keeps track
of.
Foresite, Inc. gathers two types of information about users:
-
Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions.
These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to
participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from
participation in polls and surveys:
-
Information Foresite, Inc. gathers through aggregated tracking
information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites.
This information
allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to
help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of
our audience.
Under no circumstances does Foresite, Inc. divulge
any information about an individual user to a third party.
Foresite, Inc. Gathers User Information
In The Following Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We may offer the following free services, which require some type
of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
- Electronic newsletters (Dispatches)
We will offer a free electronic newsletter to users. Foresite, Inc. gathers
the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove
themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every
newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users
can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.
- Message boards/forums
Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must register separately
for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages,
although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the
user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.
- "E-mail
this to a friend" Service
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page,
or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend".
The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient.
This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of
course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is
not used for any other purpose.
- Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share
their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important
issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not
identifiable to any particular user. Foresite, Inc. may use a system
to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once
on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about
individual users.
- Surveys
Foresite, Inc. may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our
content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information
in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share
any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.
CHILDREN
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection
Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable
information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental
consent.
USAGE TRACKING
Foresite, Inc. tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites.
However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual
users. Foresite, Inc. does break down overall usage statistics according
to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information
from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
Foresite, Inc. sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users
enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with
individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of
our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We
do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
COOKIES
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files
of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information
although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information
that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal
information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie
can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other
sites. Foresite, Inc. uses cookies to track user traffic patterns
(as described above). Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie
to better track ad impressions and click rates.
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If
you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive
the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned
on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively
in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.
USE OF INFORMATION
Foresite, Inc. uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance
their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive
or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content
based on the interests of our users.
As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide
in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate
in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to
subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally
send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly
interested in something we are doing. Foresite, Inc. never shares
newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers,
sponsors or partners.
When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our
sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not
track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs
overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track
search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what
interests our users. But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.
Foresite, Inc. creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic
patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers
to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements
that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns
of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific
user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual
user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect
the personal safety of our users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
Foresite, Inc. uses the above-described information to tailor our content to
suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics.
This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information
about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable
law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or
the public.
SECURITY
Foresite, Inc. operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall
and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically
reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access
to the information provided by our customers.
OPT-OUT POLICY
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:
- Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
- Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates
the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users
YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information
by Foresite, Inc. 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. |
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