Scope of the Privacy Policy

This web site is operated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology under the domain names: www.birds.cornell.edu, www.livingbird.org, www.birdsource.org, www.allaboutbirds.org, eBird.org, www.nestwatch.org, etc. We refer to these web sites as "Cornell Lab of Ornithology," "we" or "our." The Cornell Lab of Ornithology understands the importance of our customers' privacy. Our privacy policy tells you what information we collect when you visit our web site, how we use, share and protect it, what choices you have about how the information is used, and how you can access and update that information. If you do not agree to this privacy policy, please do not use this web site. This privacy policy applies to personally identifiable information collected on the web site where this privacy policy is posted, with the exception of the sections of this web site that are intended for visits from children under the age of 13 and certain online features specifically designed for kids. In recognition of the need to provide additional privacy protections for children, we have a separate privacy policy that applies to those sections. Certain aspects of this privacy policy also apply to the personally identifiable information we collect offline.

For purposes of this privacy policy, "personally identifiable information" means information that identifies a particular individual, such as name, postal address, email address, and phone number. When other information, such as email newsletter choices, magazine or product purchases, or consumer product preferences, is directly associated with personally identifiable information, this other information also becomes personally identifiable information.

Information Collection

Personally Identifiable Information We Collect

There are many features on this web site for which no registration is required. However, if you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, or in participating in certain activities on this web site (such as making an online purchase, subscribing to one of our magazines, becoming a member of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, making an online donation to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, or participating in sweepstakes, contests, surveys, or certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, if you order a product from us, we ask for your name, postal address, email address, telephone number and your credit card number. If you are ordering a product as a gift for another person, we will ask you for that person's name, postal address and phone number in order to enable us to deliver the gift to the recipient. If you participate in an activity such as a survey or sweepstakes, we may also ask you to provide other types of information such as gender and personal interests, which we may associate with personally identifiable information. In addition, we may combine personally identifiable information that you have provided to us with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources.

Other Information Collected Through Technology

In addition to information you choose to provide to us, we also collect non-personally identifiable information through technology to make our site more interesting and useful to you. For instance, when you come to our site, we collect your Internet Protocol ("IP") address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the Internet, like your ISP (Internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we also use IP addresses to collect information regarding the frequency with which our visitors visit various parts of our sites. We may combine this information with personally identifiable information that you have provided to us and/or with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources in order to make our web site and communications more targeted to your interests.

Our web site also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user's computer and allow web sites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our web site. We use transient (also called "session ID") cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. We also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow our online store and other parts of our web site to recognize your browser when you return after your first visit to that part of our web site. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as checking out from our online store. You can choose to remove persistent cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our site will be limited, such as our shopping cart feature or online games.

Finally, our web site uses a variety of technical methods for tracking purposes, including clear gifs (also known as web beacons). Clear gifs are small pieces of data that are embedded in images on the pages of web sites. We use these technical methods to tell us what parts of our web site you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our site. These technical methods may involve the transmission of information directly to us or to a service provider authorized by us to collect information on our behalf. We also use these technical methods in HTML emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails. The information from use of these technical methods may be combined with information that is personally identifiable so that we can make our web site, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.

Third-Party Advertisements

Advertisements that appear on this web site are delivered to you by our internal web technology staff. Information about your visits to this site, such as the number of times you have viewed an ad (but not your name, address or other personally identifiable information) is used to serve ads to you. In addition, we share web site usage information about visitors to our sites with our web advertising partners for the purpose of managing and targeting advertisements and for market research analysis on our site and other sites. None of this information is personally identifiable information. These partners and third-party advertisers who place advertisements on our web site may also use cookies and web beacons to collect non-personally identifiable information when you click on or move your cursor over one of their banner advertisements. Once you have clicked on an advertisement and left our web site, our privacy policy no longer applies and you should read the privacy policy of the advertiser to see how your personally identifiable information will be treated on its site.

Information Use

To support and grow its membership base, the Cornell Lab exchanges its member names and addresses with other non-profit organizations with missions related to conservation. We do not sell or make any profit from your name and address. The Cornell Lab’s policy is to never exchange or sell any email addresses or phone numbers. You may send a note to our membership group if you would like your record coded “Do Not Trade” and we will be happy not to include your name and address in our exchanges with other conservation organizations.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy.

Links to Other Sites

We may provide links on our web site to other sites we think you will enjoy. These sites operate independently of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read these policies at any site you visit.

Information Security

The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to safeguard any personally identifiable information or credit card information that you provide to us. We use data encryption technology to help protect against loss, misuse or alteration of your credit card information. Secure Socket Layers (SSLs) encrypt the credit card information sent between your computer and our database. However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.

Personally Identifiable Information Contained in User Content

Some sections of our web site may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology does not monitor such transmissions, and therefore cannot be responsible for any personally identifiable information or other information that may be contained in such transmissions.

Changes in this Policy

We may amend this privacy policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personally identifiable information, we will notify you by sending you an email at the last email address that you provided us and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the web sites covered by this privacy policy. In any event, changes to this privacy policy may affect our use of personally identifiable information that you provided us prior to our notification to you of the changes.

Contact Us

If you have questions or wish to send us comments about this privacy policy, please write us at:

Membership
Cornell Lab of Ornithology
159 Sapsucker Woods Rd
Ithaca, NY 14850
clomembership@cornell.edu