Privacy and Acceptable Use Statement 

 

Your use of the SOS-USA web site constitutes your agreement to the terms and conditions of this statement.

Throughout this statement of policies and agreements, you will see the terms "SOS Children's Villages-USA," "we," "our," and "us" - these terms refer to SOS Children's Villages-USA, a Washington, DC based 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. You will also see the terms "you," "your," and "yours" - these terms refer to visitors and users of our Website.

SOS Children's Villages-USA's website has several features including descriptions of our programs and how we help orphaned and abandoned children in the United States and around the world. The website also gives you the opportunity provide direct support to SOS Children's Villages-USA via online donations, sponsorships and an opportunity to browse our job postings.

We encourage you to read this statement in its entirety as it sets forth our mutual understanding when you visit our website.

OUR WEB SITE

1. Do I have to submit any personal information in order to visit the SOS Children's Villages-USA website?

We do not ask you to submit personal information if you are just browsing our website. However, if you choose to make an online donation, become a sponsor, or subscribe to our email newsletter, you may be required to provide us with personal information including your name, email address and other identifying information.

YOUR PRIVACY

2. Does SOS Children's Villages-USA ever collect personal information, such as my name, address or credit card information, through its web site?

To make online contribution to SOS Children's Villages-USA, we may ask you to provide credit card or other billing information. This includes, but may not be limited to, your name, address, billing address, credit card type, number, and expiration date. In addition, to subscribe to our newsletter, you may be asked to submit personal information including name, address, and email address.

3. How is personal information used by SOS Children's Villages-USA, and can I control its use?

Personal information will be used only internally by SOS Children's Villages International to provide you updates on information you have requested. You do not have to disclose any personal information if you do not want to.  Simply do not use those web site services or features that require such information. Our interest is to offer you convenient online services that match your interests.

4. What are "cookies," and does the SOS Children's Villages-USA website use "cookies?"

A "cookie" is a small piece of data that is sent to your browser from SOS Children's Villages-USA's web server and is stored on your computer's hard drive. SOS Children's Villages-USA uses cookies. In addition, when you visit our site we may automatically capture and recognize domain names.  This information is not shared with any other party.

5. How does SOS Children's Villages-USA use "cookie" information and can I control its use?

Cookie information is used by SOS Children's Villages-USA to keep and sometimes track information about you in order to deliver better and more personalized services and better administration of our website. For example, we may use the information for tracking which areas of our website you have visited, and how frequently. In addition, cookies help us to diagnose problems with our server. We may use domain names and e-mail addresses to gather demographic information about our user community. We may also match information obtained from cookies with other data you, or third parties, provide in order develop statistics. This type of information helps SOS Children's Villages-USA provide services and site content that is interesting to our visitors.

Please check your computer or software manual for specifics on how cookies work on your particular computer. It is possible to block cookies from being loaded onto your computer. Please note, however, that blocking cookies can affect the performance of websites, including loading time, with your computer.

6. Does SOS Children's Villages-USA share information (personal or cookies) with other companies or organizations?

Our policy regarding personal information is simple: except as provided in this Privacy Policy, SOS Children's Villages-USA will not give, sell or rent any personal information to third parties without telling you in advance and giving you the opportunity to tell us not to share the information. We make an effort to include a link to this Privacy Policy and Acceptable Use Policy whenever we ask you for personal information.

SOS Children's Villages-USA hires third parties to provide certain administrative services - such as processing credit card transactions, preparing address labels, managing databases, and sending mailings - which requires SOS Children's Villages-USA to provide third parties with access to certain information. We make an effort to require all third party service-providers to hold personal information in strict confidence. While we believe these other companies are upstanding and will treat your personal information responsibly, we do not own or control them.

Further, if we are compelled by law, or some other regulatory authority, SOS Children's Villages-USA will disclose personal information. Also, if we have reason to believe that there has been some inappropriate interference with or use of the SOS Children's Villages-USA website, or if we have reason to believe that one of our web site users may have been injured or some other party harmed, we will disclose personal information as we deem appropriate or if asked by a legal or regulatory authority.

You are under no obligation to disclose any personal information if you do not want to. If you are not comfortable with the SOS Children's Villages-USA's uses of information, you can choose not to use those services or features that require such information.

7. What rules apply if I "click" over to another website?

In order to provide certain services and materials, SOS Children's Villages-USA contracts with other companies and individuals to support our website activities. These additional services and materials may include providing "links" to other websites from our website. Except as may be outlined in this statement, this Statement does not apply to any third-party sites. Anytime you leave the SOS Children's Villages-USA website, we have no control regarding what information may be collected about you, nor can we control what third-parties might do with the information. SOS Children's Villages-USA is not responsible for, and has no control over, the information collection or privacy practices of other websites. It is important that you review any privacy policies on third-party sites carefully, BEFORE you use any services or programs offered. If you cannot find or do not like a website's privacy policy, you may choose not to offer information to that site.

SECURITY

8. How does the SOS Children's Villages-USA website provide security and confidentiality of information?

SOS Children's Villages-USA works with our parent organization, SOS Kinderdorf International to host and manage our website. In addition, we have partnered with Blackbaud, Inc. to manage our online donations capabilities. All on-line transactions are done on a secure server located at the partners site.

OUR TERMS OF USE

9. Are there limitations on my use of the information and technology at the website?

When you use our website, you are agreeing to the terms and conditions contained in this Statement. These terms and conditions have been developed for your protection, as well as ours. SOS Children's Villages-USA owns the materials and technology, or has the right to use the materials and technology, included on the SOS Children's Villages-USA site. No one outside SOS Children's Villages-USA may use any of the material or technology for any purpose, including personal financial gain or other inappropriate activity. If you choose not to accept the terms and conditions of this Statement, you are free to leave our website.

It is improper, and may be a violation of law, for you to post or download and distribute any material that you do not own or for which you do not have permission to use. PLEASE BE AWARE: violation of someone's copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights may subject you to civil or criminal penalties.

Use of SOS Children's Villages-USA materials or technology for illegal, inappropriate, or obscene purposes, or in support of such activities is strictly prohibited. We define these terms as follows:

• "Illegal activities" are those that violate laws, regulations and/or private agreements, including federal or state laws governing charitable activities, copyright laws, trademark laws, license agreements or other intellectual property rights.
  
• "Inappropriate uses" are any uses other than for legitimate informational, educational or fundraising purposes.
  
• "Obscene activities" are those that violate generally accepted social standards for use of this type of material or technology.

You are entirely responsible for all of your activities on the SOS Children's Villages-USA website. PLEASE BE AWARE: SOS Children's Villages-USA may terminate your ability to interact at our website in the event we, in our sole discretion, determine that you have engaged in a prohibited activity. Listed below are some, but not all, prohibited activities that may result in termination:

• Posting, transmitting, or facilitating in the promotion of illegal content through our website.
  
• Use of our website to harass, threaten, embarrass, or do anything else to another visitor or third-party that is unwanted.
  
• Transmitting or facilitating distribution of content that is untrue, threatening, harassing, abusive, racially or ethnically offensive, vulgar, sexually explicit, obscene, defamatory, or objectionable.
  
• Disrupting the flow of any chat areas with vulgar language, abusiveness, or other conduct that may disrupt normal activities.
  
• Pretending to be anyone whom you are not. You may not impersonate SOS Children's Villages-USA staff, or anyone else.
  
• Attempting to get a password, other account information, or other private information from others, or harvest e-mail addresses or other information.
  
• Posting any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or any other forms of solicitation at our website.

CHANGE IN POLICIES

10. Does SOS Children's Villages-USA ever change its web site policies?

From time to time, SOS Children's Villages-USA may add features or services to our website. This may include collecting different types of information and/or changing the uses of the information. In these instances, we will endeavor to edit this policy in a timely fashion to explain the new practices. PLEASE check these policies occasionally to find out if there are any changes (there is a date of publication at top). If we make substantial changes in our web-site policies, we will try to include an announcement on our homepage so that you will know to look for the revised policy.

11. Who do I contact with questions or comments about the privacy policy or to update my personal information?

If you have any questions about our privacy policy or acceptable use policy, or if you would like to update or remove your personal information, please e-mail us at info@sos-usa.org or contact us at:

SOS Children's Villages-USA
1200 G Street NW. Suite 550
Washington, DC 2005
(202) 347-7920
(888) SOS-4-KIDS
E-Mail: info@sos-usa.org

Thank you for your interest and for taking the time to read our privacy and security policies and terms of use. We wish you an enjoyable time on our website.