What types of information is the Central Minnesota Legal Services Website (the “Site”) collecting, and how is the Site collecting it? The majority of great products, information and services on our Site are offered without our collecting any personally identifiable information from you. You can surf the Web site and view much of our terrific content anonymously.
Information You Provide
There are some activities on our Site where the collection of personally identifiable information is necessary. Those activities include things like becoming a member, creating a profile, signing up for an event, making a donation, or contacting us. When personally identifiable information is collected, you will know because you will have to fill out a form. For most activities, we collect only your name, e-mail address, birth date, gender, and zip code. When you make a donation, sign up for an event or become a member or create a profile, we may also collect your street and billing addresses, your phone number, and credit card information. Depending on what you do, we may also need to collect other personal information.
Information Collected from You with Technology
This Site collects some information about you using technology, so it may not be readily apparent to you that it is being collected. For instance, when you come to our site your IP address is collected so that we know where to send information you are requesting. An IP address is often associated with the place from which you enter the Internet like your ISP (Internet service provider), your company, or your university. This information is not personally identifiable. Central Minnesota Legal Services uses information collected through technology to make the Site more interesting and useful to you. We normally don’t combine this type of information with personally identifiable information. However, we will combine this information with personally identifiable information to identify a visitor in order to enforce compliance with our house rules or terms of service or to protect our service, site, Guests, or others.
What Are Cookies, and How Does CentralMNlegal.org Use Them?
Cookies are pieces of information that a Web site sends to your computer while you are viewing the Web site. These pieces of information allow the Web site to remember important information that will make your use of that site more useful. CentralMNLegal.org and other Internet companies use cookies for a variety of purposes. You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser (like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies. If you turn cookies off, you won’t have access to many CentralMNLegal.org features that make your Web experience more efficient and some of our services will not function properly.
How does CentralMNLegal.org use the personally identifiable information that has been collected?
CentralMNLegal.org uses personally identifiable information in a limited number of ways. We use the information to complete transactions. For instance, if you make a donation, we use your information to process your donation, or if you contact us for help we will use the information to contact you. We use information collected to notify you if you’ve won a game or contest. Information we collect is used to send you e-mail updates and newsletters about our Site. We also use the information you provide to send you CentralMNLegal.org e-mail promotions and special offers from our third-party sponsors. We use compiled information to determine the demographics of our site users.
Does CentralMNLegal.org share information with companies or other organizations that are not part of the Site?
One of the most valuable assets of our business is you. We aren’t in the business of selling information about our Guests. However, if there is a value for our Guests, we will share your information or send you messages on behalf of another company as described below. We will also share information for security reasons.
Companies That Are “Standing in the Shoes” of CentralMNLegal.org
Sometimes we hire companies to help us deliver products or services, like a shipping company that delivers a package. In those instances, we need to share your information with them. These companies are basically “standing in the shoes” of CentralMNLegal.org, and they are allowed to use the information only to deliver the product or service.
Companies Offering Promotions, Products, or Services
On occasion, we offer promotions — like sweepstakes or free subscriptions — in conjunction with a sponsor. We will share your information with the sponsors if they need it to send you a product, such as a magazine subscription. We may share your information with those sponsors so that they can send you other special promotions they offer, but only if you give us your permission to do so, and we will share it only with that specific sponsor. In addition, CentralMNLegal.org occasionally sends e-mail promotions out to our Guests on behalf of third-party sponsors. In this instance, we don’t share your name with the third party — we do the mailing for them. Again, we only send these promotions to you if you’ve given your permission.
Content Partners
On some of our sites, we provide content that is created by a third-party partner Web site. In some instances the third-party sites will collect information in order to facilitate the transaction or to make the use of their content more productive and efficient. In these circumstances the information collected is shared between CentralMNLegal.org and our third-party sponsors.
Third-Party Advertisers and Network Advertisers
To help increase privacy protections for our Guests, CentralMNLegal.org tries to only allow advertising on our Site from those companies that have their own privacy policy. Once you’ve clicked on an advertisement and have left the CentralMNLegal.org site, our privacy policy no longer applies. You must read the privacy policy of the advertiser to see how your personal information will be handled on their site. In addition, many business advertisements are managed and placed on our site by third-party companies. These companies are called “network advertisers.” Network advertisers collect non-personally identifiable information when you click on or scan one of their banner advertisements. The information is collected using technology, so you may not realize it’s being collected. The network advertisers collect this information so that they can show you ads that are more relevant and interesting to you.
Organizations That Help Protect the Security and Safety of Our Guests and Our Sites
We will give out personal information as required by law, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena; to enforce our Terms of Service, or site or game rules; or to protect the safety and security of Guests and our sites.
What choices do I have about CentralMNLegal.org collecting, using, and sharing my information?
It is possible for you to use much of our site without giving us any personally identifiable information. When you do register with us or give us personally identifiable information, you will have an opportunity at the time we collect your information — to limit e-mail communications from CentralMNLegal.org and from our third-party partners. You can request at any time that CentralMNLegal.org not send future e-mail to you either by unsubscribing from the communication. Also, as mentioned above, there are ways to limit the information collected through technology — though some of our features won’t work if you decide to do this.
What type of security does CentralMNLegal.org provide?
The importance of security for all personally identifiable information associated with our Guests is of utmost concern to us. CentralMNLegal.org takes technical, contractual, administrative, and physical security steps to protect all visitors’ information. When you provide credit card information, we use secure socket layer (SSL) encryption to protect it. There are some things that you can do to help protect the security of your information as well. For instance, never give out your Password, since this is what is used to access all of your account information. Also remember to sign out of your account and close your browser window when you finish surfing the Web, so that other people using the same computer won’t have access to your information.
Whom do I contact with questions or concerns?
If you need further assistance, please contact us using the contact form on the website or write us at: Central Minnesota Legal Services 430 First Avenue North, Suite 359 Minneapolis, MN 55401-3402