Privacy Policy
LAST UPDATED OCTOBER 31, 2007
TheSecondRoad.org knows how important trust is within the recovery community. Our goal is to provide a forum for our members to communicate with each other and to share their stories and thoughts to the extent each member feels is appropriate in order to create a supportive, respectful community. At the same time, we try to protect our members' safety, security, privacy, and to provide anonymity to the level they have chosen on the site. While we take great care to protect members' privacy and chosen level of anonymity, it is important to keep in mind that NO site is completely safe from malicious attacks or from the misuse of members or visitors. Accordingly, please review this privacy policy carefully, as well as our Terms of Use and Code of Conduct, to understand how we collect and use the personal information you decide to share and to help you make informed decisions about how to use TheSecondRoad.org website and the services it offers (collectively, "TSR").
By visiting TSR and using the services available via TSR, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy.
For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, we use the term ‘post' to mean the following: uploading, displaying, performing or otherwise placing content of any form or format on the TSR home page "Sharing Wall" or on a Member's personal page, whether private or public in nature; commenting on posts, articles or journals, or other content supplied by TSR or by other Members or visitors to TSR.; sending a message internally within TSR; or writing or uploading materials to any other place or page within TSR.
The term "Member" means a visitor to TSR who has completed the registration process and set up a TSR account. Members may make full use of TSR by establishing their own personal page, communicating with other Members, viewing content that other Members choose to make available, and posting other material to TSR. The term "visitor" refers to an individual who simply accesses the TSR and has the ability to view the public areas of TSR, but has not registered for TSR and therefore has not been granted access to the Member-only areas of TSR.
To report any violations of the Privacy Policy or to pose any questions or express any concerns, please contact us at privacy@thesecondroad.org.
THE INFORMATION THAT WE COLLECT
When you visit TSR you provide us with two types of information: web site usage information that is collected by us as you interact with TSR and personal information that you knowingly choose to disclose as part of your use of TSR.
Cookies and Web Logs. When you enter TSR as a Member or as an unregistered visitor, we collect your browser type and IP address. In addition, we store certain information from your browser using "cookies." A cookie is a data file containing a string of characters that uniquely identifies your browser and is stored on your computer. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences, personalization features and other information about the user. By default, we use a persistent cookie that stores your login ID (but not your password) to make it easier for you to login when you come back to TSR. You can remove or block this cookie using the settings in your browser if you want to disable this convenience feature. In addition, our web logs automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These web server logs may include information such as the URL the web page you have requested, your IP address, your browser type, your browser language, the date and time of your request to be served certain page and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We may also record information about the URL from which you came to TSR if the associated web site contained a direct link to TSR.
Registration Information. When you register with TSR to become a Member, you provide certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your age, your gender, and any other personal or preference information required by the registration process.
Member Content. After you have become a Member, you may set up your personal profile, form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries, form or join groups, and transmit information through various channels within TSR. We collect the information that you provide through these activities so that we can operate the service and offer personalized features. In most cases, we retain this information so that you can access it as part of your use of TSR: for instance, so that you can view prior messages that you have sent, view entries in your personal journal, and review and modify the information in your profile. When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable reversion to the prior version of that information.
Please understand that you post Member Content (as defined in the TSR Terms of Use) on TSR at your own risk. We enable you to set privacy options that limit access to your profile and Member pages by other Members and visitors; however, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable and it is important for you to take care in how you use TSR and the settings we make available to you. For instance, we set the default for all of your posts to the personal journal area of your Member pages to be private (e.g., available only to your account), unless you affirmatively select the option to make a particular post or the entire contents of your personal journal available to other Members. Further, your Member profile and the content contained on your Member pages are available only to other Members, and not to visitors to TSR who do not register to become Members. The exception is when you affirmatively choose to permit a post or other information about you to be displayed on the "Sharing Wall" or other areas of the TSR home page, which is available to the general public. We also enable you to identify, at any point in time, what content on your Member pages is available to other Members or to the public and what content is private. This feature provides you the ability to change the designations at any time (please note, however, that while you can request to have TSR remove from the home page or from any public blog any content that you previously permitted to be posted, comments made by other Members or visitors regarding such content may remain posted).
However, we cannot control the actions of other Members with whom you may choose to share your pages and information or of visitors to TSR with respect to the Member Content that you have chosen to make available on the public areas of TSR. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that Member Content that you post on TSR will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on TSR. You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of Member Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Members or visitors have copied or stored your Member Content.
By using TSR, you are consenting to have your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States.
Donations. If you choose to make a donation to TSR, we collect contact information, such as name(s), phone/fax number(s), and address for contact and billing purposes. Credit card transactions are transmitted to our third party processor, Groundspring.org, which collects and uses this credit card and other financial information necessary to consummate the transaction. They endeavor to protect the security of your payment information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology; however, you should review the terms and conditions of Groundspring.org's privacy policy located at http://www.groundspring.org/privacypolicy.cfm in order to understand fully how they collect, use and disclose your information.
SEARCH ENGINES AND OTHER SITES
Search engines and other sites not affiliated with TSR - including archive.org, google.com, and groups.yahoo.com - archive or otherwise may crawl the TSR site and make available to the public publicly-available postings from TSR (such as content displayed on the TSR home page, in community blogs, and on sponsor pages).
CHILDREN UNDER AGE 13
TSR does not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register. If you are under 13, please do not attempt to register for TSR or send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 may provide any personal information to or on TSR. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under age 13, please contact us at privacy@secondroad.org.
INDIVIDUALS BETWEEN AGES 13 AND 18
TSR urges children between ages 13 and 18 who wish to become Members of TSR to discuss the matter with and obtain the consent of a parent or guardian prior to disclosing any information about themselves via TSR. TSR may send periodic e-mail reminders to Members who are between ages 13 and 18 requesting that they review any personal information they have posted on TSR and determine whether they wish to modify or remove any of this information.
USE OF INFORMATION OBTAINED BY TSR
When you register with TSR you have the option to create your own Member profile and privacy settings. Information in your Member profile that you choose to include on your Member pages (as well as photos, "my story" and other content), are displayed to people in the TSR community specified in your privacy settings to enable you to connect with those individuals or groups of individuals that you choose (please note that the default setting for all content on your Member pages other than the personal journal is to be available to other Members). We may occasionally use your name and email address to send you notifications regarding new services offered by TSR or other updates regarding the TSR site.
Profile information is used by TSR primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to permit others to view that information in accordance with your privacy settings.
TSR may send you service-related announcements from time to time through the general operation of the TSR site. For instance, if another Member sends you a new message, or someone posts on your blog, you may receive an email alerting you to that fact. While you can opt out of certain types of e-mails, TSR reserves the right to send you notices about your account and administrative matters even if you opt out of all voluntary email notifications.
TSR may use information about you or your movement or activities within TSR in an anonymous, aggregate manner that does not disclose your identity or any personally identifiable information for purposes of determining how the TSR site is being used, improving the TSR content and/or performance and indicating to third party sponsors what types of content or activities Members and visitors are viewing and/or engaging in.
DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
TSR shares your information with third parties only in limited circumstances where TSR believes that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to provide the service, legally required or permitted by you.
TSR may provide information to service providers to help us operate the TSR site and to provide the services to you that are offered through the TSR site. This type of sharing may include disclosures to third parties who host the TSR site, help deliver e-mail updates, help remove redundant information from Member lists, and process payments for donations or other products or services offered through TSR.
TSR may be required to disclose Member information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We do not reveal information unless we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards.
Additionally, we may share account or other information when we believe it is necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through TSR, or to prevent imminent harm to any person or group of people. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies.
If ownership of all or substantially all of the TSR business were to change, your member information may be transferred to the new owner so that the TSR site can continue to operate. In any such transfer of information, your Member information would remain subject to the promises made in any pre-existing privacy policy.
LINKS
TSR may contain links to other websites. TSR is not responsible for the privacy practices of other web sites. TSR encourages its Members to be aware when they leave the TSR site and to read the privacy statements of each website they visit.
WHAT CHOICES AND ACCESS DO I HAVE?
As discussed above, you can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to take advantage of certain TSR features.
You can review the personal information you provide and make changes to that information, or to the settings for your account, at any time, by logging in to your account and editing the information on your profile page and/or your Member pages.
You can change or edit your entries or comments on the TSR site by clicking the edit link and saving changes to your entries and content or simply using the delete button.
You can close your account by going to your profile page, clicking edit your account and following the instructions for removing your account. After you close your account, we will no longer display the information you provided.
If you do not want to receive e-mail from us (subject to the exceptions discussed above), you can adjust your communication preferences by clicking the "edit your account" link from your profile page then clicking the share more information link and de-selecting the email preferences at the bottom of the page.
The help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether, though if you disable the use of cookies completely, you will miss out on many of our offerings and ease of use of the site.
The Federal Trade Commission provides useful information about online privacy on its own Web site, Site Seeing on the Internet http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/online/sitesee.shtm.
TERMS OF USE, NOTICE AND REVISIONS
Your use of TSR, and any disputes arising from it, is subject to this Privacy Policy as well as our Terms of Use and all of its dispute resolution provisions including arbitration, limitation on damages and choice of law. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. Non-material changes and clarifications will take effect immediately, and material changes will take effect within 30 days of their posting on this site. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy's new effective date. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or through notice on our home page. We encourage you to refer to this policy on an ongoing basis so that you understand our current privacy policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about you and your account.
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you may contact TSR at privacy@thesecondroad.org or by writing to us at Privacy Matters, c/o The Second Road, P.O. Box 1506, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902. When we receive formal written complaints at this address, it is TSR's policy to contact the complaining Member or visitor regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between TSR and an individual.