Civitas Initiative's Terms and Conditions of Service PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THIS SITE CAREFULLY. PRIVACY STATEMENT This confirms that Civitas is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices for www.civitas.org TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. Because this web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe. By displaying the TRUSTe trustmark, this web site has agreed to notify you of: What personal identifiable information of yours or third party personal identification is collected from you through the web site The organization collecting the information How the information is used With whom the information may be shared What choices are available to you regarding collection, use and distribution of the information The kind of security procedures that are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under Civitas control How you can correct any inaccuracies in the information. If you feel that this company is not abiding by its posted privacy policy, you should first email Civitas at contactus@civitas.org. If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve your concerns. Information Collection and Use Civitas is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. Civitas collects information from our users at several different points on our website. Order Form We request information from the user on our order form. Here a user must provide contact information (like name and shipping address) and financial information (like credit card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill customer's orders. If we have trouble processing an order, this contact information is used to get in touch with the user. Security of the Shopping Cart and Safe Shopping with Civitas Civitas takes every precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and off-line. Shopping online with CIVITAS is safe and easy. The security of your credit card information as well as all your personal information is our top priority and we guarantee that every transaction you make at CIVITAS will be 100% safe. Our secure server software (SSL) is the industry standard and among the best software available today for safe and secure commerce transactions. This technology encrypts all of your personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read as the information travels over the Internet. CIVITAS Security Guarantee protects you while you shop at CIVITAS, so that you never have to worry about the safety of your card. Entering your credit card number on our site is safer than using it at a retail store or restaurant. But if you still don't feel secure ordering online, you may either fax your order or call us toll free (see "order terms" for more information). We use verified signed secure server certificate from VeriSign one of the leaders in encryption signing. When our order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when you are just "surfing." To learn more about SSL, please see the Netscape home page. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. If you have any questions about the shopping security of our website, you can send an email to: contactus@civitas.org. Log Files We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. Sharing We will share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person. Occasionally we use an outside shipping company to ship orders, and a credit card processing company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. We partner with another party to provide specific services. When the user signs up for these services, we will share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services. These parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services. Links This web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that Civitas is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site. Civitas Matters If a user wishes to subscribe to Civitas Matters, our newsletter, we require that the user give their contact information (such as name and email address). This information is used to send the enduser the Civitas Matters newsletter, and to contact the user about the special offers or services on our site for which they have expressed interest. It is optional for the user to provide demographic information (such as number of children, profession, and how the user heard about the site) and unique information, but it is encouraged so we can provide a more personalized experience on our site. Civitas will automatically add the user's email address to their email mailing list database. The user may contact Civitas at contactus@civitas.org to request the removal of their information from their database. Surveys From time-to-time our site requests information from users via surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and email address), and demographic information (such as zip code, age). Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site. Email This Page/Email This Item If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask them for the friend's name and email address as well as the user's name and email address. Civitas will automatically send the friend an email inviting them to visit the site. Civitas will also automatically send the user an email. Civitas will automatically add the user's email address to their email mailing list database. The user may contact Civitas at www.civitas.org to request the removal of their information from their database. The friend can join Civitas' mailing list by subscribing to Civitas Matters or by contacting Civitas at contactus@civitas.org. Security Civitas takes every precaution to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and off-line. When our order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when you are just "surfing." To learn more about SSL, please see the Netscape home page. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. If you have any questions about the security at our website, you can send an email to: webmaster@civitas.org Supplementation of Information In order for this website to properly fulfill its obligation to our customers, it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from 3rd party sources. In order for this website to enhance its ability to tailor the site to an individual's preference, we combine information about the purchasing habits of users with similar information from our partners, Vlite/Vid-Direct, to create a personalized user profile. When a user makes a purchase from either of these two companies, the companies collect and share that purchase information with us so we can tailor the site to our users' preferences. Special Offers Users who have subscribed to Civitas Matters or emailed a page to a friend will occasionally receive information on products, services, special deals, and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see our choice and opt-out below. Site and Service Updates We also send the user site and service announcement updates. Members are not able to un-subscribe from service announcements, which contain important information about the service. We communicate with the user to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account via email or phone. Correction/Updating Personal Information: If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as your zip code), or if a user no longer desires our service, we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove that user's personal data provided to us. This can usually be done at the member information page or by emailing our Customer Support. Choice/Opt-out Our users are given the opportunity to 'opt-out' of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point where we ask for the information. For example, our Civitas Matters newsletter has an 'opt-out' mechanism so users who receive the email, but wish to be removed from our mailing list can keep their email address off of our lists by contacting us at contactus@civitas.org. Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter may opt-out of receiving these communications by emailing us at contactus@civitas.org. Users of our site are always notified when their information is being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with services that require an outside party, or not. Notification of Changes If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our Homepage so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected. Contacting the Web Site If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact Civitas Initiative 2210 W. North Avenue Chicago, IL 60647 Email webmaster@civitas.org TOP