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RETN.org and Regional Educational Technology Network respect your privacy, and we want you to understand the ways in which we do and don't use the information that you transmit when you visit our Web site. This statement discloses the privacy practices for all aspects of the retn.org web site. This statement does not pertain to our practices at live events or the practices of any partner organizations at live events.
General Privacy Notice
What Information We Collect
The information gathered by retn.org falls into two categories: (1) personally identifiable information voluntarily supplied by visitors to our web site through optional registration or other methods and (2) non-personally identifiable information routinely gathered as visitors navigate through our sites.
Personally Identifiable Information
There is lots of content and other useful material on RETN's web site that does not require submission of personally identifiable information. However, we offer certain personalized features that our visitors can take advantage of on our web site (such as user information that will allow forms to automatically fill in your information) through registration. In order to register on our site, we may ask for your name, email address, gender, date of birth, and mailing address, and we might request information on your interest in science, history, animals, nature, Vermont, sports, books, television programs and the like. The information you supply will help us to offer you more personalized features, to tailor our site to your interests, to inform you of upcoming programs or events of interest, and to make retn.org more useful to you.
The more you tell us about yourself, the more we can offer you specific information related to your interests. Supplying such information is entirely voluntary. But if you don't supply the information we need, we may be unable to provide you with services we make available to other visitors to our site. For example, we can't offer you online program requests or purchases if we can't contact you, nor can we offer personalized program reminders for RETN Channel 16 or the RETN Webcast if you don't tell us which programs and topics you're interested in. We can't send you email alerting you to any new service we're offering or breaking news that may interest you if you don't tell us your preferences and give us your email address. Similarly, we can't notify you that you've been lucky enough to win a prize in a promotional contest if we don't know how to contact you.
Of course, even if you want to remain anonymous, you're still free to take advantage of the wealth of content available on our site without registration.
From time to time RETN may offer contests or other promotions on our site to people over the age of thirteen or eighteen. If you enter a contest on our site, you'll have to provide information about yourself such as your name, address, and/or email address so that we can contact you if you win. We may share this information with any co-sponsor of the contest (as identified in the rules).
Non-Personally Identifiable Information
Cookies
To help make our site more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we invoke a standard feature found in browser software, called a "cookie", to assign each visitor a unique, random number, a sort of anonymous user ID that resides on your computer. The cookie doesn't actually identify the visitor, just the computer that a visitor uses to access our site. Unless you voluntarily identify yourself (through registration, for example), we won't know who you are, even if we assign a cookie to your computer. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply. A cookie can't read data off your hard drive. Web sites linked to retn.org may also assign their own cookies to your browser, a process that we don't control.
We use cookies to help us tailor our site to your needs, to deliver a better, more personalized service. In addition, we may use cookies to track the pages on our site visited by our users. We can build a better site if we know which pages our users are visiting and how often. Of course, you can set your browser not to accept cookies, but if you do, you may not be able to take advantage of the personalized features enjoyed by other visitors to our sites.
IP Addresses
Our web servers automatically collect limited information about your computer's connection to the Internet, including your IP address, when you visit our sites. (Your IP address is a number that lets computers attached to the Internet know where to send you data - such as the Web pages you view.) Your IP address does not identify you personally. We use this information to deliver our web pages to you upon request, to tailor our sites to the interests of our users and to measure traffic within our sites.
How Information Collected On Our Sites Is Used and Shared
From time to time, we may share personally identifiable information with third parties who help us maintain our web site. We also offer contests, news and other promotions from time to time, sometimes in conjunction with a partner organization. In these circumstances, the third parties and/or partner organization may have access to the personally identifiable information that you submit in your entry.
RETN will not share your information with any third party marketers. Because those parties that help us administer our site will have access to users' personally identifiable information, if you do not wish for our administrators to have access to your information, please do not register or submit any personal information to us. And, if you do not wish for us to share your personally identifiable information with RETN partner organizations, please do not enter any contests on our site. Of course, you are always free not to input the information we request and use our site anonymously.
When we present information to our partner organizations - to help them understand our audience and work with us toward our community mission - it is usually in the form of aggregated statistics on traffic to various pages within our site.
You should note that our site include links to other Web sites whose privacy practices we don't control. Once you leave our servers (you can tell where you are by checking the URL in the location bar on your browser), use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the operator of the site you're visiting. If you provide information in the course of obtaining products or services through a site linked to retn.org, use of any information you provide is governed by the privacy policy of the provider of those products or services. These parties may have privacy policies and practices that differ from ours. If you can't find the privacy policy of any of these sites via a link from the site's homepage, you should contact the site directly for more information. We encourage everyone to be proactive in understanding how his or her information is collected and used online.
In the unlikely event that all or substantially all of RETN's assets relating to our web site are sold or transferred to another party, your personally identifiable information may be transferred to this acquiring entity. Finally, we may disclose your personally identifiable information to third parties in order to comply with law, law enforcement agencies, to protect our rights in or the safety of our Web site, or to protect the safety or rights of other users of our Web sites.
Purchasing Products from RETN
RETN.org knows that the confidentiality of purchase-related information is of special concern to visitors who purchase items through retn.org. RETN is committed to safeguarding this information. We will not share any personally identifiable information (such as your name, address or telephone number) that you provide us when you make a purchase through retn.org with any other company, except where necessary for the RETN to fulfill the order. However, to help provide you with the best possible shopping experience, we may provide our strategic partners, vendors and others with aggregated information (information that doesn't identify anyone personally) about those who have purchased items through retn.org. We may also use the information you provide us when you make a purchase through retn.org to tell you about new programs, products, services and special offers that we believe might be of interest to you.
Accessing Your Information And Changing Your Elections
If you want to change your election on how we share your information, or you wish to review, update or delete the information you have provided us, just return to the registration form, enter the changes you want to make and resubmit the form. You may also contact us with privacy questions or concerns.
Encryption and Security
All information gathered on the retn.org web site is encrypted or protected for storage within a retn.org-controlled database. RETN seeks to safeguard the information you provide. As effective as encryption technology is, however, no security system is completely impenetrable, so we cannot guarantee the absolute security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet. And, of course, any information you include in a message you post to any chat room, forum or other public-posting area is available to anyone with Internet access. If you don't want people to know your email address, for example, don't include it in any message you post publicly.
If you ever want to contact us, you may do so with the following information.
RETN - Regional Educational Technology Network
P.O. Box 2386
South Burlington, VT 05407-2386
Phone: (802) 654-7980
E-mail: webmaster@retn.org
A Final Note: The Web is an evolving medium. If we need to change our privacy policy at some point in the future, we'll post the changes here. Of course, our use of information gathered while the current policy is in effect will always be consistent with the current policy, even if we change that policy later. Thanks for making the retn.org web site a part of your learning community online!
Kids Privacy Notice
A Note to Kids
RETN encourages you to get permission from your parents before sending any personal information about yourself (such as your name or your email address) over the Internet, to us or to anyone else.
A Note To Parents
PLEASE READ. This section of the privacy policy explains our information collection and use practices online for children under the age of thirteen, including what we do with information that we collect and with whom we share that information. We ask that you take the time to review our policy so that you can know exactly how we collect and use information from kids, and so that you will know how you can review or request that we delete your child's information. If you ever have any questions or concerns about this policy, please contact us.
What Information We Collect From Children Under Thirteen
On retn.org, RETN generally limits its collection of information from kids to information such as a fictional screen name that does not personally identify the child, nor link to information that will. This information is collected so that kids can participate in the activities offered on our sites without having to provide personally identifiable information.
However, from time to time we may request limited personally identifiable information from kids in order to offer promotions or other activities such as newsletters. If the offered activity involves only a one-time contact with your child, we will request only that the child provide his or her e-mail address. However, if the activity might involve more than one contact with your child we will also request that your child provide your e-mail address. RETN.org will use your e-mail address to send you an e-mail letting you know about your child's contact and entry, and giving you an opportunity to opt your child out of participation. Our e-mail will include details on how you may request that RETN delete your and your child's information, and prohibit RETN from any further contact with your child. Please note: If we do not receive a response from you requesting that we delete your child's information, your consent to your child's requested activity will be presumed.
Some parts of the retn.org web site requires that personally identifiable information (other than an e-mail address) be submitted in order to participate. For example, retn.org has a registration option where users are invited to become registered users of retn.org. These activities will have an age-screening mechanism to prevent children under the age of thirteen from registering. We won't knowingly allow anyone under the age of thirteen to register with retn.org, or to access those features that require registration except as explicitly disclosed herein.
If we become aware that we have inadvertently received personally identifiable information from a user under the age of thirteen, other than in a legally permissible situation, we will delete the information from our records as soon as we discover it.
As a parent or guardian, you may exercise your right to have your and your child's information deleted at any time. Additionally, you may review your child's personally identifiable information at any time. See Parent's Rights, below.
We will not condition participation in any online activity on disclosure by kids of more information than is reasonably necessary to participate.
How We Use Information We Collect From Children Under Thirteen
When we collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen, we will only use that information for the express purpose for which it was collected. For example, if your child enters a contest, we will only use your child's email address to enter him or her into the contest, to notify you of your child's entry, and to identify and notify your child if he or she is a potential winner. The information will not be used for any purpose and the information will not be used after the promotion is complete.
We do not share information collected from children under the age of thirteen with any third parties except those parties that help us administer our Web site and/or contests. These third parties may not use the information for any other purpose, and have agreed to maintain the confidentiality, security and integrity of the information.
If your child is selected as a potential winner of one of our contests, we will notify you, via the email address that your child submitted. We will only collect full name, mailing address, and other personally identifiable information from you, the parent, and not from your child.
Additionally, in the unlikely event that all or substantially all of our assets relating to the retn.org web site is sold or transferred to another party, all personally identifiable information collected and saved by us may be transferred to this acquiring party. Finally, we may disclose your child's personally identifiable information to third parties in order to comply with law, law enforcement agencies, to protect our rights in or the safety of our web site, or to protect the safety or rights of other users of our web sites.
Cookies and Non-Personally Identifiable Information
To help make our sites more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we invoke a standard feature found in browser software, called a "cookie", to assign each visitor a unique, random number, a sort of anonymous user ID that resides on your computer. The cookie doesn't actually identify the visitor, just the computer that a visitor uses to access our site. A cookie can't read data off your hard drive. We do not link cookie data with personally identifiable information, nor do we store kid's personal information in our cookies. You can disable cookies at any time by changing the preferences in your browser, but retn.org will work best with cookies enabled. Also, please note that web sites linked to the retn.org web site may assign their own cookies to your browser, a process that we don't control.
Finally, RETN keeps records of certain non-personally identifiable information such as the number of hits a Web page receives, IP address, and other aggregate data. We do not link this aggregate data with any personal information. Third parties that help us administer our Web sites may have access to this non-personally identifiable, aggregate data. However, these third parties are bound to keep this information confidential.
Parent's Rights
We want you to be comfortable with what your child is doing on the RETN web site. Therefore, you may contact RETN at any time regarding privacy questions or concerns, or to request to review what personally identifiable information we have collected from your child. You may also contact us at any time to request that we delete your child's, and your, personally identifiable information, and/or refuse to permit further collection or use of your child's information. We will take steps to ensure that any person contacting us for a child's information is that child's parent or guardian.
RETN - Regional Educational Technology Network
P.O. Box 2386
South Burlington, VT 05407-2386
Phone: (802) 654-7980
E-mail: webmaster@retn.org
A Final Note: The Web is an evolving medium. If we need to change our privacy policy at some point in the future, we'll post the changes here. Of course, our use of information gathered while the current policy is in effect will always be consistent with the current policy, even if we change that policy later. Thanks for making the retn.org web site a part of your learning community online!
Last updated: June 15, 2006 | 
