Scope of the Privacy Policy.

This Web site is operated by the Foundation for Latin American Anthropological Research, which also is known as FLAAR. FLAAR 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. 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, e-mail address, and phone number. When other information, such as e-mail newsletter choices, publication 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 FLAAR, or in participating in certain activities on this Web site (such as making an online purchase, subscribing to one of our services, becoming a member of FLAAR, making an online donation to FLAAR, 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, e-mail 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. All web sites use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our Web site. Sites use transient (also called "session ID") cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. Web sites 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. Please realize that cookies are inherent in web site development and server software: we don’t ourselves have time to develop special cookies that would be malicious.

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 e-mails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive e-mail from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those e-mails and/or clicked on links in those e-mails. 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 e-mails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.

Information Use.

FLAAR may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, provide you with informational and/or promotional materials that you might find interesting, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy. These uses may generally be categorized as relationship maintenance uses and promotional uses. We describe these uses in more detail below.

Relationship Maintenance Uses.

FLAAR uses your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage your account, deliver services that you have requested, and generally enhance your experience on our Web site. Collectively, we refer to these types of uses as "Relationship Maintenance Uses," and they include all of the ways in which we use your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage our relationship with you that do not involve sending promotional materials. Examples of Relationship Maintenance Uses include, but are not limited to: Processing and tracking your membership and publication or service subscriptions

  • Processing and tracking your product orders
  • Processing and tracking your online donations to FLAAR
  • Providing the services you request
  • Contacting you about the status of an order
  • Sending you publication or service renewal notifications
  • Sending you other administrative communications
  • Sending you surveys
  • Sending you updates to our privacy policy
  • Making changes to Web-based features

Promotional Uses.

FLAAR may also use your personally identifiable information to provide you with promotional information about activities, services and products offered by us or selected third parties, including promotional material that you have requested. We strive to select trustworthy, reputable companies who offer high quality products or services of interest to you. (However, you may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, e-mail, or telephone, as explained below and in the section entitled "Your Choices." And, we will not share your e-mail address with third parties for promotional purposes unless you consent to such sharing). Examples of promotional uses include, but are not limited to: Providing you with information about educational opportunities

  • Providing you with promotional materials about FLAAR products and services
  • Providing you with e-mail newsletters planned for the future
  • Doing follow-up surveys together with partner companies.

FLAAR may provide you with promotional materials by postal mail, e-mail, telephone or other means. You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, e-mail and/or telephone as provided in the "Your Choices" section below, and in the case of e-mail, you can always opt out of receiving subsequent promotional e-mails by clicking on the unsubscribe link that we provide in every such promotional e-mail message. Please keep in mind, however, that when you purchase or request products or services from FLAAR, promotional materials may accompany delivery of that product or service. Any opt-outs that you may make will therefore not apply to these materials because they accompany products or services that you have requested.

Also, sorry, but since we are not a commercial company, we don’t have a slick way to keep track of everything. We don’t even really have a centralized data base yet. But if you wish to opt out, we will do our best but since there is no one data base being opted out can be overwritten if we reload information from an old back-up DVD.

Information Sharing and Disclosure.

We take very seriously our responsibility to maintain your privacy with respect to your personally identifiable information. We will therefore share that information only with the following entities, and only in the manner described below.

Service Providers

FLAAR contracts with other companies to provide certain services on our behalf, including credit card processing, shipping, e-mail distribution, and promotions management. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services, and they are permitted to use the information only for that specific purpose or as required by law, unless any additional use or sharing of the information is separately permitted under another provision of this Privacy Policy.

Co-Branded Partners

FLAAR may share your information with our partners when you engage in certain activities on our sites that they co-sponsor, such as purchasing products or services offered by our partners, electing to receive information or communications from our partners, or electing to participate in surveys, contests, sweepstakes, games or other programs sponsored in whole or in part by our partners. FLAAR may also share your personally identifiable information when you respond to promotional materials from FLAAR that authorize our partners to use your personally identifiable information for purposes such as sending you additional promotional materials, providing you a product or service, or doing a follow-up contest, sweepstakes or game. We refer to all these activities and requests as "Co-Branded Activities." When you participate in Co-Branded Activities, you will either be required or asked to agree that the sponsor or partner may use your personally identifiable information in accordance with the sponsor or partner's privacy practices. But to opt out of a follow-up survey, all you have to do is not answer. That’s pretty simple. Though we do our best to prepare informative new digital imaging hardware and software reports to send to you as a thank-you when you answer a follow-up survey.

Other Third Parties for Promotional Purposes

FLAAR may share your personally identifiable information with other selected third parties so that they may send you promotional materials about goods and services that they offer. When we share your information for promotional purposes, we attempt to select only reputable companies that offer high-quality products and services. When possible we have visited this company ourselves or otherwise feel that they are a reliable partner. You have the opportunity to opt out of our sharing your personally identifiable information with these selected third parties for promotional purposes, as described below in the section entitled "Your Choices." And we will not share your e-mail address with third parties for promotional purposes unless you specifically opt out of such sharing.

Legal Purposes; Business Transactions

FLAAR may disclose any user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, when we believe that doing so is required by law; may be necessary to protect the property, rights, or safety of ourselves, visitors to our Web sites, or other persons; or will help to enforce any terms of use or contest, sweepstakes, promotions, games or other rules. It may also be necessary to disclose our customers' personally identifiable information to third parties, such as credit card companies, to help resolve disputes that arise in the ordinary course of business. FLAAR may also transfer user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale.

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)

FLAAR may share with third parties aggregated information about you and other visitors to our Web site. When we do this, however, we make any personally identifiable information non-personally identifiable by combining it with information about other individuals or by removing characteristics that make the information personally identifiable to you. We share this information as raw statistics in order to improve our Web site and develop content and services that we hope will be of interest to you.

Your Choices.

We understand the importance of protecting our customers' privacy, and we therefore provide you with the opportunity to opt-out of having your personally identifiable information used or disclosed for certain purposes. Receiving promotional communications from FLAAR, including our partners, is optional. If you do not wish to receive promotional communications from FLAAR, including our partners, please call or write to us at the address below.

As described elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, it is also optional to allow us to share your personally identifiable information with selected reputable third parties so that they can provide you with promotional communications. If you do not wish us to do so, please call or write to us at the address below.

You may also use this address and phone number to request us to update or change any of your personally identifiable information, or to request additional information regarding our disclosure of your personally identifiable information to certain third parties for promotional purposes. Write to us at: [email protected] and include your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and a note of instructions.

Because we plan our communications in advance, it may take several weeks for your request to become effective. If, due to human error, you continue to receive our communications, please contact us again and we will make every effort to correct the situation.

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 FLAAR 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. FLAAR 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.

Children's Privacy.

Other than certain sections of this Web site that may be intended for visits from children under the age of 13, our Web site is a general audience site, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 make known to us his or her personally identifiable information, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personally identifiable information.

Changes in this Privacy 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 e-mail at the last e-mail 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.

 

Most recently updated 22 June 2007.
Previous updates: April 12, 2004, July 11, 2002, Oct. 20, 2001.