LEGAL POLICY

This website is intended to provide general information only and cannot provide guidance or legal advice as to one’s specific situation. Moreover, the law is constantly changing and what appears here is based upon the information known to us at the time the site was last updated. For guidance on your particular situation, you must consult a lawyer. You should not act independently on this information. The provision of this information is not meant to create an attorney-client relationship. If you have questions or need additional information or lawyer referrals, contact GLAD Answers weekdays between 1:30 and 4:30pm at: 800-455-GLAD (4523) or anytime at www.GLADAnswers.org.

PRIVACY POLICY

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) is committed to protecting the personal information that you provide to us when using the GLAD Site. This Online Privacy Statement describes how we treat all user data collected during your visit to the GLAD Site, both anonymous data and personally-identifying data. GLAD may occasionally update this Statement. We will post any changes on this Web page, so be sure to check back periodically. If we do make material changes, we will post a notice on our home page that the Online Privacy Statement has been modified and provide a link to the revised Online Privacy Statement. Any information that you submit after a change has been posted will be subject to the new provisions.

User Data We Collect

We collect two types of user data: (1) anonymous data that is automatically collected from all visitors to the GLAD Site; and (2) personally-identifiable data that you voluntarily submit to us (described below under “Personal Data”). Anonymous Data. We automatically collect Internet Protocol addresses and domain names (not individual email addresses) through our server, in order to track where visitors to our site our coming from. We also track the number and frequency of hits per page on an aggregate basis. Personal Data. We may collect Personal Data that you voluntarily provide, such as your name and postal address, phone number, e-mail address, and similar information, when you participate in certain activities on the GLAD Site, including (but not limited to) when you:

  • register for a GLAD event;
  • make a contribution to support GLAD;
  • sign up for our GLAD e-mail list;
  • participate in one of our online surveys; or
  • participate in any activity that requires your Personal Data.

If you make a donation to GLAD from a Web site link, we may also identify the source of that link, so that we can evaluate what content is persuading Web users to contribute to GLAD. If you forward information to others using a “forward to a friend” link on our website or in an email, we do not collect the email addresses you forward to. Cookies We may collect some data through the use of session cookies. Session cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are transferred temporarily to your computer’s Random Access Memory. We may use session cookies to run interactive applications on GLAD’s site, such as event registrations. Session cookies last only as long as your session on the GLAD Site. They expire when the session ends and are not written onto your computer’s hard drive. We may also use session cookies in emails containing HTML-formatting. If you select “text-only” format for the online newsletter, it will not contain any session cookies.

How We Use The Data We Collect

We use anonymous data to identify the source of user traffic (for example, mit.edu, or aol.com), but we are not able to use this data to identify individual users. We use data on which sections of the GLAD site are most visited, so that we can evaluate the popularity of our different Web pages and continue to improve the GLAD Site. We do not link any anonymous data with the Personal Data you provide to us. We use your Personal Data for various purposes:

  • To fulfill the request for which you specifically provided the data;
  • To send you our email newsletter or action alerts, if you have not opted out of receiving that information;
  • To offer you other ways to support GLAD, including, in some limited cases, solicitations for additional contributions;
  • To confirm your contribution to GLAD.

The GLAD Site is hosted by servers in the United States. Accordingly, if you are located outside of the United States, the Personal Data you provide to us will be transferred to the United States. By submitting your Personal Data, you consent to its transfer and storage in the United States and its use in accordance with the purposes for which it was originally collected (see below regarding third-party sharing of Personal Data from non-U.S. residents). If you are a U.S. resident, we may also from time to time combine your Personal Data with some publicly available data collected from third parties, to improve our services to you and for our own internal marketing, communications, and fundraising purposes.

Third-Party Sharing

We may share your Personal Data with third-party service providers who fulfill your orders, contact you on our behalf, or facilitate some other aspect of GLAD Site activities, services or products, including those third-party service providers we use to assist us in our own fundraising efforts. These service providers have access to your Personal Data solely for the purpose of providing these services to us on our behalf, and they are contractually prohibited from sharing your Personal Data with any other third parties. Please note that we do not share data from non-U.S. residents with any other third parties (except where required by law, see below), even if a non-U.S. resident has subsequently authorized such use, for example, by not checking an opt-in request. We may also share the Personal Data of donors who are U.S. residents with other non-profit organizations and publications (“Sharing Organizations”), but never to any partisan political groups or to groups whose programs are incompatible with GLAD policies. We never give your Personal Data directly to the Sharing Organizations; instead we send the list to a third-party service provider that prepares the mailing for the Sharing Organization (and that is contractually bound to use your Personal Data only for this purpose and not to share it with any other third parties). The Sharing Organizations never see our list and never know what names are on it unless you respond to the Sharing Organizations’ mailing. Exchanging lists enables GLAD to expand our membership base. However, if you have signed up as a donor on GLAD’s Site, you can choose to opt out of having your data shared. To learn more, read the section on “Your Ability to Choose” below. Finally, we may disclose and use Personal Data regardless of where you reside in special circumstances when it is necessary to enforce our User Agreement or this Online Privacy Statement, or when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires us to disclose your Personal Data to third parties. Except as described in this Online Privacy Statement, we will not share your Personal Data with any third party unless we first notify you and offer you an appropriate choice to consent to such further use, for example, through an opt-out or opt-in request.

Your Ability to Choose

When you provide us with your Personal Data on the GLAD Site, you can let us know that you do not wish to receive our online newsletter or any e-mailed alerts by choosing the un-subscribe option in the first or any email you receive from us, by emailing us at gladlaw@glad.org, or by contacting us via postal mail sent to GLAD Webmaster, 18 Tremont St., Suite 950, Boston, MA 02108. If you are signing up as a donor on the GLAD Site, you can opt out of having your Personal Data shared with Sharing Organizations on the online form you are filling out or thereafter by contacting the Membership Department via postal mail sent to Development Department, 18 Tremont St., Suite 950, Boston, MA 02108. Again, please remember that if you are a non-U.S. resident, we will not use your Personal Data beyond the purpose for which it was originally collected regardless of whether you check or un-check a box.

Children

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13.

Security

The Personal Data we collect about you is stored on a secure, password protected server. We use industry-standard encryption technologies with respect to the receipt and transfer of Personal Data you submit to us on the GLAD Site and only authorized personnel have access to your information. Nevertheless, despite our best efforts, no transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Updating Your Data

To update your Personal Data or to make corrections, you can do so by emailing us at gladlaw@glad.org, or by sending us the update via postal mail sent to Development Department, 18 Tremont St., Suite 950, Boston, MA 02108.

Comments and Questions

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this Online Privacy Statement or our data collection practices or to request that we delete your Personal Data, you can email us at gladlaw@glad.org or send us your questions or comments via postal mail sent to Webmaster, 18 Tremont St., Suite 950, Boston, MA 02108.