Last Updated: May 25, 2006  

Care2 takes seriously the issue of safeguarding your privacy online. Please read the following to understand our views and practices regarding this matter, and how they pertain to you as you use our many offerings.

The TRUSTe Trustmark
Care2 is a TRUSTe program member in compliance with TRUSTe privacy principles. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting principles of disclosure and informed consent. Because Care2 wants to demonstrate our commitment to your privacy, we have agreed to disclose our information practices and have our privacy practices reviewed and audited for compliance by TRUSTe.

The TRUSTe program covers information that is collected through this Web site (care2.com). The TRUSTe program does not cover information that may be collected through software downloaded from the site.

When visiting a website displaying the TRUSTe Trustmark, you will be notified of what personally identifiable information of yours is collected:

• 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 the company's control;
• And how you can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

Privacy Questions

• Does Care2 ask for personal information?
• Does Care2 ask for credit card information? When?
• How does Care2 use my personal information?
• Should I post personal information in group forums?
• Will Care2 disclose any of my personal information?
• How do I change my personal information?
• What is heightened security?
• Will Care2 use my information for direct e-mailings?
• Does Care2 use cookies?
• What tracking technologies does Care2 use?
• Does Care2 sell e-mail addresses to advertisers?
• How does Care2 secure its data storage?
• What are the privacy standards for Care2's marketplace partners and affiliates?
• What else should I know about my privacy?
• What happens if changes are made to the privacy policy?
• For more information...

Answers

Does Care2 ask for personal information?

Yes. Care2 asks for your name and other personal information when you sign up for our services.

Does Care2 ask for credit card information? When?

Care2 allows you to use your credit card to become a Care2 Charter Member. We do not provide your credit card number to any outside parties. Your transaction is conducted on a secure server using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input. We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.

How Does Care2 use my personal information?

1. Personal and Demographic Information: Care2 asks for personal information, such as your name, email address, street address and zip code. Your personal information is used to set up your Care2 account and to allow you to use many Care2 member services. Members may also supply additional information for special site services such as My Care2 and Biorhythms. Care2 may also ask for demographic information, such as your education level, occupation and industry. Care2 does not knowingly collect information from children under 13 and if Care2 later learns that a child under 13 is registered, steps will be taken to remove the child's information from the data base.

   When you register to become a Care2 Charter Member, we require personal information (such as name, mailing address, credit card number). We use this information to ship products to you and confirm the validity of your credit card. We do not sell this information to any third-party. We do provide your mailing address to a third-party provider of Care2 apparel (T-shirts, Sweatshirts, etc.) so that these items can be mailed to you. We do not provide your credit card number to any outside parties.

   Your ecommerce and Charter Member transactions are conducted on a secure server using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input. We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.

   We retain your address information to ensure that you receive merchandise provided for the appropriate charter membership level and in case we opt to send you additional gifts in the future. Without explicit permission, we will not use any addresses gathered through our Charter Member store except for order processing.

2. Advertising: Care2's goal in collecting personal and demographic information is to provide our members with the most personalized web experience possible and our advertisers with an efficient means to reach the right audience. By knowing about you, Care2 can deliver more relevant content and advertisements (e.g. banner ads), and hence better service, to you.

   In delivering targeted online advertisements, Care2 plays the middleman. Advertisers give us an ad and tell us the type of audience they want to reach (e.g. females over 35). Care2 or one of our ad server partners takes and displays the ad to users meeting those criteria. In this process, only Care2 -- not the advertiser can access individuals' account information.

   We use third-party advertising companies to serve some of the ads when you visit our web site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements on Care2.com, our third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information use by these companies, click here. Advertisers may also use "clear gifs" to track advertising page views, but this information is not connected to personal information collected by Care2.

   Advertising revenues help keep Care2 services free, and provide revenues for donations for wildlife conservation and other charities.

3. Biorhythm Generator: The biorhythm generator is a Care2 feature that plots graph results of an individual's intellectual, physical and emotional biorhythm cycles based on the individual's birth date. To use the feature, users enter their birth date and the date for which they wish to view results. This information is only used for the Biorhythm feature. The graph results are intended to inform and entertain. Care2 does not share or disclose the birth date or graph information with any other party and is used only for immediate display for the person entering his/her information.

4. PetitionSite: Care2 owns and maintains the nonpartisan PetitionSite.com. Petition and Public Comment signers are required to provide certain personal information such as name, email address and often street address. This information is required to validate the petition / public comment. Care2 uses cookies and a signature database to provide data integrity and ease of use.
   
   For petitions and surveys you've signed or completed, we treat your name, city, state, country and comments as public information—for example, we may provide compilations of petitions, with your comments, to the President and legislators, other targets, or to the press. Unless you have requested to be shown as 'anonymous,' this information will also be visible on the website. We will not make your street address publicly available, but we may transmit it to members of Congress, to other public officials, or to other targets as part of a petition to validate your signature. We may also make your comments, along with your first name, city, state and country, available to the press and public online.
   
   Care2 hosts two kinds of petitions: free petitions sponsored by individuals and petitions sponsored by nonprofits.
   
   For the free petitions, only the public information listed above is made available to the petition sponsors or targets.
   
   For many of the petitions sponsored by nonprofits, we provide an advocacy service allowing individuals to send individual e-mails to public officials, legislators, and other targets as well as public comments to government agencies, through our website. These messages are sent in your name, with your e-mail address as the return address and your full name and contact information is provided as part of the submission. These messages will only be sent out under your name as you approve them on an individual basis by signing an action. You are solely responsible for the specific message(s) you send using our email tool. Optional comments will be included in the body of the email message delivered to the petition target.
   
   During the signing process, you may opt to receive certain email newsletters and online memberships, in which case Care2 will send required contact information to those 3rd party providers. However, unless you specifically opt to receive such online offers or send your contact information to 3rd parties during the signing process, Care2 will keep your email address information confidential.

5. Care2 Café Discussions: To post messages to the Care2 Café discussion boards, users must be Care2 members and must log in. When posting a message, a member's Care2 name and/or user name will appear hyperlinked as the "author" of each message. Login is required to ensure that every user who posts a message has a unique user id. The name is hyperlinked to allow other Care2 users to e-mail you; our system is designed to allow members to contact you via e-mail without revealing your e-mail address. When posting a message, there is an e-mail notification check off box that is automatically checked off so that you will be notified via e-mail when another user responds to your posted message. If you do not want to receive these e-mail notifications, simply uncheck the e-mail notification box before posting your message. After posting a message, a link to your member profile will appear (if you have submitted a member profile). Because, your discussion postings and member profile will be publicly available, Do NOT include personal information.

6. E-Cards: When sending e-cards, Care2 requires your email address and the name and email address of the intended e-card recipient. Care2 has a no-SPAM policy and thus will not share or sell the e-mail addresses entered by card senders.

7. E-Mail: To provide Care2 members email service, Care2 sends its email service provider, MailCentro, Inc., your first and last name, user name, Care2 email address, and an encrypted password that serves as a proxy for your actual password (Care2 does not relinquish your actual password, except on rare occasion as required to provide customer support to an individual). MailCentro does not use the user's information for any other purpose than to set up and maintain the email account.

8. Newsletters Care2 offers a variety of Care2 and 3rd party newsletters. If you opt to receive one or more newsletters via a check box, submit button or by clicking on a specially marked subscribe link, Care2 will send any required contact information to those 3rd party providers.

9. Care2 Connect: Care2 Connect (C2C) is an optional part of Care2 that facilitates new connections between members. C2C is accessible only among Care2 members who have personal profiles. Your personal contact information such as your email address and street address will be kept hidden from the public, and made visible only to you and individuals you have indicated are your friends. The C2C directory helps members locate their friends, and potential friends, by displaying first name, last name, city and other information on search results - but it does not include contact information per the aforementioned limitations. Contact can be initiated for "non-friends" by using an anonymous messaging system that will not reveal either party's address.
   
   When submitting a profile, you have the option of including information such as: your name, city, state, and country of residence, birthdate, gender, hobbies, interests, expertises, occupation, business, homepage url, email address, marital status, marital status, personal quote, photos, etc. Remember: Because, much of this information will be publicly available, do NOT include confidential information. Your personal friends network will be populated based on known relationships you have with other C2C members, as established through use of communications services on the Care2 system and as you specifically indicate while using C2C. Your friends network will be visible to other C2C users, and the privacy of each person is protected as described herein.
   
   Tell-a-Friend service: Care2 Connect members can elect to invite friends to join using an invitation template provided by Care2. Through the template, one e-mail invitation containing a unique url link is sent to each person whose email is entered by the sender. Care2 has a no-SPAM policy and thus will not collect or sell the e-mail addresses entered by Care2 members.
   
   Members can remove themselves from the C2C system at any time by adjusting their account settings via their My Account Page. Some changes may take up to 24 hours to appear on the site.

10. Race for the Rain Forest , Race for the Big Cats , Race for the Primates , Race for the Pets in Need , Race for the Oceans and End Breast Cancer : Members and visitors may participate in the click-to-donate Races without entering personal information. However, to track visits and see how one compares to other Race participants, members must be logged in while visiting the Race. Care2 members are automatically registered for each race the first time they click on the free donation button while logged-in. New visitors can become Race participants after registering for a Care2 account.

    When Race participants login to a Race, Care2 tracks the participant's site visits. Race participants can elect to invite friends to join the Races using an invitation template provided by Care2. Through the template, one e-mail invitation containing a unique url link to the Race is sent to each person whose email is entered by the sender. Care2 has a no-SPAM policy and thus will not collect or sell the e-mail addresses entered by Race participants. All Race participants will also receive periodic Race updates via e-mail. These updates can be disabled using the "account settings" page on the Race web site. If a friend joins a Race using an invitation url, Care2 records the friend relationship and gives credit to the friend's "upline" for each click. Sending the url in personal e-mails or posting it in text or image-link format is entirely the member's option, although Care2 specifically asks members to avoid sending the unique url to anyone they do not know. Players' participation data is aggregated daily and the participation statistics of the top 100 Racers are posted more frequently on each race.

11. Distributed Services: Care2 provides 3rd party affiliates access via service modules to certain content and services on the Care2 site. These modules may include discussion boards, user submitted content and other services. The modules may be embedded to appear as if they are part of the 3rd party websites, though the modules themselves are hosted on Care2 servers. All feeds and service modules are subject to our Affiliate Terms of Service. The goal for these distribution services is to expand Care2's network reach to engage more like-minded individuals.
12. RSS Feeds: Care2 makes some content on our site available as RSS feeds. Content available for syndication is usually denoted with an XML or RSS button. All content syndicated is subject to our Terms of Service. No modifications may be made to any of the materials syndicated. No individual, organization or company may license, sell or otherwise assign use of Care2 RSS content. RSS distribution services help Care2 and its members reach and engage more like-minded individuals.

Should I post personal information in group forums?

Users should always be aware that any personally identifiable information submitted to Care2.com can be read, collected, and used by other users of the Care2 site, and could be used to send unsolicited messages to the submitter. Care2 is not responsible for personally identifiable information which users choose to submit. Care2 specifically advises users not to provide information which they regard as sensitive, such as email addresses, phone numbers, mailing addresses, or financial information.

Will Care2 disclose any of my personal information?

Care2 will only disclose your personal information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, or to protect the rights or property of Care2, or as necessary to provide personalized Care2 member services. Care2 may also disclose your personal information, including name and contact information in some limited circumstances such as when you specifically opt to receive a 3rd party newsletter. We may also provide information to trusted partners who work on behalf of or with Care2 under confidentiality agreements. These companies may use your personal information to communicate with you about offers from Care2 and our marketing partners. However, these companies do not have any independent right to share this information. Under confidentiality agreements, Care2 may also match user information with third-party data. Also, Care2 does disclose aggregated user statistics (for example, X% of our users are female) in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers, and other third parties, and for other lawful purposes.

How do I change my personal information?

To make changes to your name, password, address, subscriptions and other account information, simply log in to your account and click on the " My Account " link. Select the appropriate function(s) to make your desired change(s). For other changes to your account, please send an email, using our Help Form detailing the changes you wish to make to your account.

What is "Heightened Security"?

For your convenience, we provide a way for you to recover a lost password or user name via a webpage. The " heightened security" option is an account management tool that disables that recovery feature. If you enable heightened security, no one (including yourself) can search for your login information and view it online.

Will Care2 use my information for direct e-mailings?

Care2 offers a variety of direct e-mail subscriptions describing our site progress, new features, healthy living tips, activist alerts and other news and announcements. If you do not want to receive these occasional mailings, simply opt out of them when registering to become a member. If you elect to receive a newsletter but later change your mind, go to your My Account page and change your preferences to unsubscribe from the newsletter. Each emailing will also contain unsubscription information in the email footer. Regardless of the above, Care2 may send occasional important updates regarding a member's account, critical service announcements, and other correspondence. to all registered members. To stop all such announcements, you must delete your account. You may do so by following this link to verify your identity. Care2 also offers opt-in mailings from our partner nonprofit organizations and newsletters from commercial entities. If you elect to receive any of these newsletters, some personal information including your name and contact information will be sent to the respective nonprofit or commercial entity delivering the newsletter. The user should beware that by opting-in to either the nonprofit or commercial newsletter offerings, Care2 will no longer be able to track and control the user information sent out.

Yes, cookies are used on Care2 in two ways.

(1) We use cookies to be reminded of whom you are and to access your account information (stored on our computers) to deliver a better and more personalized service to you.

(2) Advertising networks serving ads onto Care2 may also use cookies. Care2 has no control over information collected by advertising networks nor can we access this information.

Your browser cookie may expire when you end your session or may persist, depending on your login "remember me" settings. We may also, from time to time, log visitor activity across the web site on our web server system logs. If you elect to disable cookies on web browser you may be unable to use certain Care2 site features that require membership, such as accessing your email account, viewing member profiles, and changing your user preferences.

In addition to cookies (see above), Care2 tracks information via database records and "clear gifs" that allow Care2 to know if a web page has been viewed.

If you elect to disable cookies on your hard drive, this will also disable database tracking of personalized statistics such as click-to-donate race clicks, and you may be unable to use certain Care2 site features that require your user name, such as accessing your email account, viewing member profiles, and changing your user preferences.

Not without your direct permission. We respect your privacy and despise SPAM.

As mentioned above, in some cases you may opt to receive nonprofit partner newsletters or other commercial offers. When you opt to receive such an offer via Care2, we will send your email address and other necessary contact information to the newsletter publisher. Depending on the newsletter, this may result in a fee paid to Care2 in exchange for a new customer. Care2 will never offer newsletter subscriptions from, or reveal your address information to, organizations known to be spammers, casinos, or adult-content providers.

Why then do some people receive spam at an account they have only used on Care2? Either the spammer did "random combinations" of letters/numbers to guess the address, the member sent someone an email message that somehow got distributed, or perhaps someone entered their address by mistake somewhere else. Bottom line, if it came from a known spammer, we had nothing to do with it - spam is bad, we hate it, and we would never associate ourselves with spammers.

Also, Care2 uses reputable third parties to serve some of the advertisements that you see on the pages of Care2. These companies may use information about your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please click here.

What happens if changes are made to the privacy policy?

Care2 reserves the right to change the privacy policy but will notify users of such changes through email and/or by posting a notice on the site. If the change involves the use of a user's personally identifiable information then the notice to users will contain directions on how users can opt-out of the change.

For more information...

• Electronic Frontier Foundation - a civil liberties organization working to protect your rights on-line.
  
  
• Electronic Privacy Information Center - established to focus public attention on emerging civil liberties issues relating to the National Information Infrastructure.
  
  
• Care2 Customer Support Care2 attempts to respond to all inquiries within 48 hours.
  
  
• Report Spam Abuse