Childrens Privacy

PROTECTING CHILDREN'S PRIVACY.

Message to Kids and Teens - Be careful on the web

This internet web site (the "Site") is a gateway. That means that when you click on a link, you will be leaving our Site. You may click to a site that will ask you for personal information, like your name, address, telephone number, or email address. Before you provide any information, show your parent or some other responsible adult what you are doing. Be safety smart!

Message to Parents and Guardians

This Site is a gateway that will take your children to other sites. We do link to commercial and non-government sites. Although many of the sites we link to must adhere to federal rules established to protect children’s privacy, please understand that not all sites have to comply with these rules. While we have selected sites that we feel offer good, reliable information, we are not responsible for the content provided on these sites. Nor are we responsible for their adherence to federal rules to protect children’s privacy. It is important that you monitor your children’s communication on-line to insure that they do not provide personally identifiable information to websites that you feel are unacceptable. Tell your children to ask you or another adult to look at what they are doing first if they wish to provide their name, address, telephone number, or email address to a website.

Kids’ Privacy on our site

This Site does not ask for or collect personal, individually-identifiable information from kids. We do use computer log files so we can see how many visitors we have, but we can’t tell personal information from them. If any visitor to the Site chooses to provide us with personal information, as in an email inquiry, that information is not required; it will be required only if you want a response to your message. The information will not be used for any purpose other than to respond to the inquiry. We do not create individual profiles from the information provided or distribute the information to other organizations.

For Kids under 13

On April 21, 2000, a new law put you and your parents in charge of your personal identifying information -- if you’re under 13. Websites that ask for certain information about kids under 13 have to get their parents permission to get the information. This means that you and your parents can talk about the information the website collects and decide together if it’s information you want to give.

Why is this law important? Because it can stop website operators who might misuse information they collect from kids like you. This law protects you by asking your parents to give websites their permission to collect information from you. Now you and your parents will know what information is being collected and how it will be used.

Here are some important things to know about surfing, privacy and your personal information:

• Never give out your last or family name, your home address or your phone number in chat rooms, on bulletin boards, or to online pen-pals.
• Don’t tell other kids your screen name, user ID or password.
• Look at a website’s Privacy Policy to see how the site uses the information you give them.
• Surf the Internet with your parents. If they aren’t available, talk to them about the sites you’re visiting.
• Talk about the site’s Privacy Policy with your parents so that you and your parents will know what information the site collects about you and what it does with the information.
• Websites must get your parent’s permission before they collect many kinds of information from you.
• If a website has information about you that you and your parents don’t want it to have, your parents can ask to see the information - and they can ask the website to delete or erase the information.
• Sites are not supposed to collect more information than they need about you for the activity you want to participate in. You should be able to participate in many activities online without having to give any information about yourself.
• If a site makes you uncomfortable or asks for more information than you want to share, leave the site.

TITLE XIII-CHILDREN’S ONLINE PRIVACY PROTECTION on the Federal Trade Commission website.