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Internet Privacy Policy

Commitment to Your Privacy

This site is owned and operated by the Rat & Mouse Club of America. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. The RMCA (rmca.org) wants to make your experience online satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

Information rmca.org Gathers and Tracks

rmca.org gathers two types of information about users:

Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic greeting cards, to participate in our message boards/forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys.

Information rmca.org gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs. Under no circumstances does rmca.org divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

rmca.org Gathers User Information In The Following Processes:

Optional Voluntary Information

We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

  1. Electronic Greeting Cards (Virtual Squeaks Greeting Cards)

    The service requires that you enter your name and email address, the name and email address of the recipient, and a personal message that may or may not include personally identifiable information.

    Your name and email address will be visible to the recipient of the greeting.

    rmca.org does not use the names or email addresses from this service for any marketing purposes.

  2. Forums

    Users of the RMCA Forums must register for these services (free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the "RMCA and Forums News" section of the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address. There is an option to keep this email address private if desired. The Forums administrators will take all reasonable measures to ensure that any information users provide confidentially is kept confidential. Users may change this information at any time by editing their profile.

  3. "Email this topic to a friend" Service

    Our forums users can choose to electronically contact someone else by clicking "Email this topic to a friend." The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.

  4. Polling

    We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. rmca.org may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

  5. Find-A-Rodent

    The service requires that you provide your name, phone number and email address.

    Your email address will be visible in your adoption posting.

    rmca.org does not use the names or email addresses from this service for any marketing purposes.

Children

Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.

Usage tracking

rmca.org tracks user traffic patterns throughout our entire site. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. rmca.org does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

rmca.org sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better site for our visitors.

Cookies

Our Forums may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites.

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in forums, polls and surveys.

IP Address

When you register and when you make a post - your IP address is stored on our server. This protects you as a member and us as an organization when identifying that the user who posted is indeed authentic. This information will only be used if you misuse any features on the board or in any dispute. The forum administrators are able to ban by IP address. IP addresses are also included in our "Add your favorite Rat or Mouse Doc!" form and "Viral Outbreak Tracking" form for verification purposes.

Use of Information

rmca.org uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience on our site, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic greeting cards and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys and forums. rmca.org never shares email addresses with any third parties.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better site for our visitors. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.

Security

Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our visitors. The authors of our forums software have taken all reasonable steps to ensure that there is sufficient security in place to stop external misuse of any and all information that you provide. The RMCA administrators cannot be held responsible for the content of posted messages on the forums.

Opt-Out Policy

Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas (our Forums, Vet Referrals, Find-a-Rodent, Outbreak Tracking and Virtual Squeaks Greeting Cards), completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users.

Your Consent

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by rmca.org. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.