Legal

Earth Charter US
PRIVACY POLICY

Thank you for visiting a member of the Earth Charter US (ECUS) family of websites. ECUS and any affiliated company (referred to herein as “ECUS,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) maintain these sites (each a “ECUS Site” and collectively “ECUS Sites”}. This Privacy Policy applies to the ECUS sites that incorporate this policy. Please note that this policy does not apply to other sites affiliated with ECUS, our members, or other organizations’ websites to which we link, third party sites that link to us, or to our off-line activities.

THIS PRIVACY POLICY DISCLOSES HOW WE COLLECT, USE, SHARE, AND PROTECT INFORMATION GATHERED FROM PARTICIPATING ECUS SITES. BY USING THESE WEBSITES, YOU ARE AGREEING TO THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, AS POSTED IN THIS AREA IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ANY TERMS OR PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE OUR WEBSITES. THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We may collect and store any information you enter on our websites or give to us in any other way. The type and amount of information ECUS collects about you varies according to how you use ECUS Sites.

Collection of Persona/Information
Many of the features on our websites are offered without collecting any Personal Information from you. “Personal Information” means personally identifiable information, such as your name, position, company, street address, telephone number, fax number, date of birth, e~mail address and other identifiers that permit physical or online identification of a specific individual. You can browse most of our websites and view much of our content on our websites anonymously. There are certain ECUS Site(s) and features that require you to provide (voluntarily and at your option) certain Personal Information before you may participate in the website. For example, we collect Personal Information when you send us e-mail or otherwise contact us, enter a sweepstakes, register for off-line and online events, subscribe to a newsletter, or enroll or participate in chats and other online services. When you make a purchase, or sign up for a paid service, we will also collect your credit card information as additional Personal Information. We will use credit card information only to complete the transactions you have requested. Providing us with Personal Information is entirely optional and voluntary; however, if you do not provide the Personal Information requested, we may elect to not make the related service available for your use. Collection of Non-Persona/Information We may also collect and store non-personally identifiable information about your visit whenever you interact with our websites. For example, we may automatically collect your domain name; IP address; means of entry to the site; the type of browser and operating system used to access the site; the date, time and duration of each visit; and the pages you visit.

USE OF COOKIES
Our websites may use “cookies” to enhance your experience. A cookie is a small file sent to your browser by a website’s computer. Your Web browser places the “cookie” on your hard drive for record-keeping purposes and sometimes to track information about you. We use cookies to track site usage and to improve content and offerings. For example, we may use cookies to enable use of shopping carts or forms on our sites. Depending on the software browser you use, you may opt-out of the cookies delivered by our websites by changing the setting. Be aware that this will disable all cookies delivered to your browser, not just the ones that may be delivered by our websites.

How We Use Collected Information
We use information you provide about yourself collected through ECUS Sites to fulfill your request for our products, programs, or services; to respond to your comments and inquiries; and to offer you other products, programs, or services that we believe may be of interest to you. For example, Personal Information may be used to communicate with you, such as to notify you when you have won one of our contests, to answer an inquiry, to fulfill a subscription request or product order, to register you for our convention or one of our conferences, or to contact you about a user account with us.

Information from Other Sources
Personal Information you have provided may be used in combination with other information obtained through other means. For example, we may use your name, company, and e-mail address provided to us online in conjunction with our membership records in order to provide you with a user name and password to access a ECUS Site, forum, or specialized area. In other instances, an online inquiry about a purchase from us may prompt a review of an order placed by you over the telephone.

Information from Online Forums
The information collected in connection with our online forums is used to provide an interactive experience. This information is to facilitate participation in these online forums and communities and, from time to time, to offer you products, programs, or services. Note that online forums may be publicly accessible and other users may view information you post on them.

Use of Non-Personally Identifiable Information
Non-personally identifiable information, including information automatically gathered by our Web servers, is used to determine overall site traffic, popularity of areas of the site, what our users are looking for, and from where our users are linking to us. This information may also be used for aggregate statistical reporting, to improve the design and content of our sites, and to enable us to personalize your Internet experience.

WHO MAY USE COLLECTED INFORMATION
Information collected, whether personal or non- personal, may be shared within ECUS and affiliated companies, and externally with third parties, such as members and business partners. ECUS also reserves the right to sell or license the use of information collected from our websites. However, it is our policy to not disclose externally with third parties personal information collected on our site, except in the following instances: • The Personal Information provided to us may be transferred, disclosed, sold, licensed or shared with third parties to fulfill a request for our products, programs, or services and to those who may be engaged by us specifically to handle and deliver certain activities {e.g., sweepstakes) and perform other technical and processing functions, such as sending e-mail, fulfilling orders, or otherwise operating our sites. They have access to Personal Information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes. • Information provided to us through correspondence may be shared (as appropriate) with other interested parties, including our members. • We may also disclose Personal Information to third parties (and our members) (1) when required by law or when the information is pertinent to judicial or government investigations or proceedings; (2) to protect and defend our rights and property; or (3) when necessary to protect our interests, our website(s), the safety of its users, or the public. Other than as set forth above, we currently do not intend to share your Personal Information with third parties for other purposes. However, in the future we may disclose Personal Information you have provided to third parties for additional purposes. In the event we do, we will provide notices of such use to our users.

CHILDREN’S ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION ACT (COPPA)
We do not solicit or knowingly collect information from minors under the age of 13, in compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). For more information about COPPA, please visit: http://www.coppa.org/· For more information about children’s privacy visit: http://www.coppa.org/comply.htm

COLLECTION OF INFORMATION BY THIRD PARTIES, THIRD- ARTY SITES AND SPONSORS
Some of our sites may contain links to other sites. Other sites have their own information practices that may be different than ours. If you choose to use any of these links, you will be leaving our website and going to a third party (external) website. We encourage you to read the privacy policies at these external sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices at these external sites or their use of any information they may collect from you. In addition, you may have linked to our website through another site. For example, in certain cases you may have linked to a sweepstakes or game site through banner or pop-up advertising on another site. In such cases the site you linked from may collect information from users who click on the banner or link. You may want to refer to the privacy policies on those sites to see how they collect and use this information. ECUS Sites sometimes may offer content, contests, sweepstakes, programs, registrations or promotions that are sponsored by or co-sponsored with third parties. By virtue of their sponsorship, these third parties may obtain personally identifiable information that visitors voluntarily submit to participate in the contest, sweepstakes, registration, program or promotion. ECUS has no control over the third-party sponsors’ use of this information.

Information CORRECTION OR CHANGES
You have the ability to correct or change certain information in our records, such as your address and contact information. Generally, you may change this information at any time and as often as necessary. If you need assistance or have questions about correcting information, you can contact us via e-mail at [email protected].

E-Mails
If you have provided us with your e-mail address to subscribe to one of our services or to receive notifications or updates about one of the offerings at our sites and you wish to change your address or no longer wish to receive these communications, simply follow the unsubscribe instructions that appear in these e-mail communications. Please note that any information that we have collected may remain in back-up storage, archival, and/or our log files, for some period of time after a deletion request. This may be the case even though no information about your account remains actively used as described in this Privacy Policy.

Security
For certain Services, it may be necessary to collect payment to conclude the transaction. In such circumstances we use industry-standard secure socket layer (SSL) encryption. We do not sell or rent your personal financial information.

CONSENT TO TRANSFER

In the event that ECUS is acquired by or merged with another company, or in connection with the potential sale or transfer of some or all of the business assets of our websites, ECUS reserves the right to sell, license or transfer to a third party entity your information.

International Users
Regardless of where you live or do business, by using ECUS Sites, you agree that we may collect, use, and transfer your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Notification of Changes
Periodically we may make changes to this policy. You are responsible for periodically checking our website for changes to this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the site after these changes are posted constitutes your agreement to the changes with regard to any information collected.  CONTACT INFORMATION We welcome your feedback regarding this Privacy Policy. If you have any comments, questions or concerns about this privacy policy you may contact us at [email protected].