CaringBridge, Inc. (“CaringBridge”) operates the CaringBridge.org web site (this “Site”) as a free online service to bring together a global community of care powered by the love of family and friends in an easy, accessible and private way. CaringBridge respects your privacy and maintains high standards to protect the information you, your family, and friends share with us and with each other through this Site.

This Privacy Policy describes the information we collect when you use this Site; for example, to create or visit a CaringBridge site. It also describes how we use the personal information you share with us and some of the steps we take to protect your privacy. Finally, it describes the ways in which authors may limit who may visit their CaringBridge site.

Your Consent

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Please take a few minutes to review this Privacy Policy. By using this Site, you are consenting to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy May Change

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This Privacy Policy describes CaringBridge’s current policies and practices with regard to the personal information we collect through the CaringBridge.org web site.

We are continually improving and adding to the functionality and features of this Site and improving and adding to the services we offer. As a result of these changes (or changes in the law), we may need to update or revise this Privacy Policy. Accordingly, we reserve the right to update or modify this Privacy Policy at any time, without prior notice, by posting the revised version of this Privacy Policy on this Site. Your use of this Site following any such change constitutes your agreement that personal information collected from or about you through this Site after the revised Privacy Policy is posted will be subject to the terms of the revised Privacy Policy. For this reason, we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy regularly.

For your convenience, whenever this Privacy Policy is changed, we will alert you by posting a notice on our home page for 60 days. If more than 60 days goes by between your visits to this Site, be sure you review this Privacy Policy to see if it has been revised since your last visit.

You may access the current version of this Privacy Policy by clicking the link titled “Privacy Policy” at the bottom of each page of this Site.

This Privacy Policy was last revised on March 28, 2009.

Definition of Personal Information

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“Personal information” means information about an identified or identifiable individual. Your personal information may include your name, your address, and your e–mail address.

What Personal Information Is Collected Through This Web Site?

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CaringBridge collects the personal information you and others knowingly and voluntarily provide when you use this Site, for example, the personal information you provide when you create, update or visit a CaringBridge site, complete a survey, make a donation, use our referral service, or provide feedback. The information you provide when you use this Site may be your own personal information or may be information about another person. For example, you may create a CaringBridge site to communicate with friends and family about medical treatment your spouse is receiving and, in the process, may provide us with the name of your spouse and name of the hospital providing the treatment. Similarly, others may provide us with personal information about you. If you have a friend or family member who has created a CaringBridge site, that individual may give us your e–mail address and ask us to send you a one–time e–mail inviting you to visit his or her CaringBridge site. Please read further to learn how we use this type of personal information.

How does CaringBridge use the Personal Information collected through this Website?

Generally, CaringBridge uses the personal information you share with us to provide the services you requested or for any other purposes identified below at the time you provided the information. Please read further to see how we use specific types of information.

How Does CaringBridge Use Contact Information?

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CaringBridge uses your contact information to communicate with you. For example, we use your contact information to respond to your questions or to communicate with you about your account.

From time to time, we may send you service related announcements. For example, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we may send all users an e–mail. These communications relate directly to your use of our service. You may not “opt-out” of receiving these communications, but you may deactivate your account or cease using our service at any time and, when you do, you will no longer receive service related e–mail.

In addition, from time to time, we may send you news and information about CaringBridge, our sponsors and partners, or our services. We may also send you information about our fund–raising activities or requesting a donation. If you do not wish to receive these updates or requests, you may “opt–out” at any time by following the directions printed at the bottom of the e–mail.

How Does CaringBridge Use Registration Information?

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CaringBridge uses the information you provide when you register as an author to confirm you are at least 18 years old and to create or update a CaringBridge site and personalize this Site for you and your visitors.

CaringBridge uses the information you provide when you register as a visitor to confirm you are at least 13 years old, setup your account, and determine which CaringBridge sites you are associated with and have rights to access.

We also use this information you provide to compile statistics about our users and their use of our site. These statistics do not identify you personally. These statistics help us understand the needs and preferences of the groups we serve and improve the content and functionality of this Site.

How Does CaringBridge Use Survey Information?

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From time to time, we may post a survey on this Site or, if we have your contact information, we may send you a questionnaire or survey. Your participation in any survey is always voluntary. We compile statistical information from the responses to our surveys. These statistics do not identify you personally. These statistics help us understand the needs and preferences of the groups we serve and improve the content and functionality of this Site.

How Does CaringBridge Use Feedback?

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We welcome your feedback about this Site. We use your feedback to improve this Site. For this reason, we ask that you not send us any comments, feedback, ideas, questions, designs, artwork, software or any other information or materials relating to the design, functionality, or operation of this Site or service (collectively, “Feedback”) that you consider to be confidential or proprietary or that you do not wish to assign to us. By submitting Feedback to us, you assign to CaringBridge free of charge, all worldwide rights, title and interest in all copyrights and other intellectual property rights in the information and/or materials you submit. CaringBridge will be entitled to use any Feedback you submit through this Site, and any ideas, concepts, know–how or techniques contained in any such Feedback, to improve this Site, our service or for any other purpose whatsoever. However, CaringBridge will not use any Feedback you submit through this Site in a way that violates applicable privacy laws.

How Does CaringBridge Use Journal Entries, Guestbook Entries and Photographs?

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CaringBridge sites, by their very nature, contain a great deal of personal information about the author of the CaringBridge site, visitors to the CaringBridge site, and other individuals. CaringBridge sites, including journal entries, guestbook entries, and photographs, may be viewed by anyone who has access to the CaringBridge site. For this reason, we offer password protection and let the author of the CaringBridge site control the level of privacy that will apply to his or her CaringBridge site.

In general, CaringBridge does not use the personal information contained in journal entries, guestbook entries, or photographs, except to provide this online service to you, your friends and your family. We do not have the resources to monitor every CaringBridge site and do not have the obligation to do so. We do, however, reserve the right to review the content of any CaringBridge site, for example, if we receive a complaint about misuse of this Site or as part of a random spot check. We reserve the right to delete any journal entry, guestbook entry or photograph and to take legal action against anyone who violates our Terms of Service.

We reserve the right to disclose the content of any CaringBridge site in response to a subpoena or as required by applicable law. Finally we reserve the right to disclose journal and guestbook entries, photographs, and other information posted on this Site with law enforcement authorities if, in our sole judgment, the content of any posting violates any applicable law.

What Security steps does CaringBridge take to protect your personal information?

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CaringBridge takes your security seriously and takes reasonable steps to protect your personal information. The following is a summary of the measures that CaringBridge takes to protect your information.

• Firewall protection
• Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption (for author profile, site creation and donation processing)
• Restricted data center access
• Restricted database access
• Secure server dedicated to online donations to ensure financial and personal information is strictly guarded

Although we use security measures to help protect your personal information against unauthorized disclosure, misuse or alteration, as is the case with all computer networks linked to the Internet, we cannot guarantee the security of information provided over the Internet and will not be responsible for breaches of security beyond our reasonable control.

Does CaringBridge Share Personal Information With Others?

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Third-Party Vendors. CaringBridge shares personal information collected through this Site with third party vendors who act for or on behalf of CaringBridge. For example, when you make an online donation to CaringBridge, a third party processes your donation on our behalf. These third party vendors may need information about you in order to perform their functions. These companies are not authorized to use your personal information for any other purpose.

Sponsors. CaringBridge sponsors include organizations, such as hospitals and other treatment facilities, who have paid a fee to provide this service. If you have been served by one of our sponsors, you may identify that organization as your sponsor when you create a CaringBridge site. If you identify a sponsor when you create a CaringBridge site, we may share the date you created the CaringBridge site and information about activity levels on your CaringBridge site with that sponsor. If you do not wish us to share this information with a sponsor, simply do not identify a sponsor when you create your CaringBridge site.

Other Circumstances. There may be some other, limited circumstances in which we may share or transfer the information in our databases or the content of a CaringBridge site to an unrelated third party, for example, to comply with a legal requirement, to enforce our Terms of Service, in response to a subpoena, to protect the security of this Site and the integrity of our databases, if we transfer the ownership or operation of this Site to another organization, if we merge with another organization, or in some similar event. Where appropriate, before disclosing personal information to a third party, CaringBridge will contractually require the third party to take adequate precautions to protect that information against unauthorized use or disclosure.

Statistics. CaringBridge shares statistical information about the use of our site with our donors, sponsors and partners. This information does not identify any individual personally.

Technical Information Collected Through CaringBridge.org

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When you access this Site, we use standard web server technology to collect technical information, such as the name of your Internet service provider, its IP address, the name of your operating system (such as Windows® or MacIntosh®), your browser type (such as Firefox® or Internet Explorer®), the length of time you spend on our site during a visit, the pages you visit, and so on. This information does not identify you personally, and we do not attempt to tie this technical information to any of the personal information you provide. We use this information to improve this Site and make it more compatible with the technology used by our visitors.

Privacy Settings

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Our goal is to balance our users’ need to find each other and communicate information and support against our users’ desire for a measure of privacy.

We have found that

• some of our authors prefer a completely open CaringBridge site that contains no restrictions regarding who may access the site,
• some wish to simply have all visitors identify themselves,
• some wish their CaringBridge site to be open to most people, but, for any number of reasons, wish to exclude certain specific individuals (“Blocked Visitors”), and
• some wish to limit access to their CaringBridge site to family and close friends (“Approved Visitors”).

Because our authors have different preferences and needs, we let each author choose from a menu of privacy settings.

On June 1, 2005, we upgraded this Site. CaringBridge sites created on or after June 1, 2005 have different privacy settings than the CaringBridge sites created before June 1, 2005.

Privacy settings for CaringBridge sites created on or after June 1, 2005

The author of a CaringBridge site created on or after June 1, 2005 may choose from the following menu of privacy settings:

Low:

• Visitors must know the web address (“URL”) of the CaringBridge site to visit the site. In addition, if the author chooses to create a Visitor Password, visitors must know the Visitor Password to visit the CaringBridge site.
• Visitors will not be required to register before viewing the CaringBridge site.
• Visitors will, however, be required to register before they may post guestbook entries or tribute entries to the CaringBridge site.

Medium:

• Visitors must know the web address (“URL”) of the CaringBridge site to visit the site. In addition, if the author chooses to create a Visitor Password, visitors must know the Visitor Password to visit the CaringBridge site.
• Visitors will be required to register before viewing or posting entries to the CaringBridge site.
• You may create a “Blocked Visitor List” so that Visitors who are registered and on the Blocked Visitor List will not have access to the CaringBridge site.

High:

• Visitors must know the web address (“URL”) of the CaringBridge site to visit the site. In addition, if the author chooses to create a CaringBridge site Password, visitors must know the CaringBridge site Password to visit the CaringBridge site.
• Visitors will be required to register before viewing or posting entries to the CaringBridge site.
• You may create an “Approved Visitor List” so that only those Visitors who are registered and on the Approved Visitor List may view or post entries to the CaringBridge site.

Privacy for CaringBridge sites created before June 1, 2005

The author of a CaringBridge site created before June 1, 2005 may choose from the following menu of privacy settings:

• Level I. Visitors must know the web address (the (“URL”) of the CaringBridge site to view and post to the CaringBridge site. Registration is not required.
• Level II. Visitors must know the web address (the (“URL”) of the CaringBridge site and the Visitor Username/Password to view and post to the CaringBridge site. The author of the CaringBridge site chooses the Visitor Username/Password. Registration is not required.

The privacy level and settings for a CaringBridge may be changed at any time by the author. Because of the private nature of a CaringBridge site, CaringBridge does not post a directory of CaringBridge sites.

Protect the Privacy of Your CaringBridge site and the CaringBridge sites You Visit

Every member of a caring community, including the author, family and all visitors, is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of the web site address (“URL”), the author’s unique username/password, and any visitor password. Our system provides a measure of privacy only if the web site address, the author's username/password, and the visitor password are not shared with others without the author’s permission.

CaringBridge has no way of knowing and will not be responsible or liable if the individual accessing a CaringBridge site obtained the web site address or the other settings through improper means.

In addition, individuals using this Site must understand that the Internet is inherently insecure and no web site operator can guarantee that a web site is secure. CaringBridge does not warrant that this Site or any CaringBridge site is secure or “hackerproof” you use this Site solely at your own risk.

Take Special Care to Protect Children Under the Age of Thirteen

Caring communities may include friends and family of all ages. Special care must be taken to protect children under the age of 13. For this reason, CaringBridge does not permit children to create or maintain their own CaringBridge sites—a parent or guardian must register as the author and take responsibility for the CaringBridge site. We require that our authors and their visitors take similar precautions before giving a child under the age of 13 access to a CaringBridge site. Neither authors nor visitors may provide the web site address or password for a CaringBridge site to a child under the age of 13 without the express consent of the child’s parent or guardian.

We recommend that parents and guardians instruct their children on the safe use of a CaringBridge site and supervise their children as necessary. An excellent resource for teaching children to use the Internet safely is available at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/kidzprivacy/index.html.

Links to Other Web Sites

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This Privacy Policy applies only to CaringBridge.org. CaringBridge.org contains links to web sites that are not operated by CaringBridge. The authors of CaringBridge sites frequently post links to third party sites on their CaringBridge sites. These links are provided as a service and do not imply any endorsement of the activities of these third-party web sites nor any association with their operators. CaringBridge does not control these web sites and is not responsible for their data practices. We urge you to review the Privacy Policy posted on any web site you visit before using the web site or providing any personal information about yourself.

Questions About Our Privacy Policy

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If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or concerns about the way CaringBridge processes your personal information, please contact us by writing:

• CaringBridge
• Attn: Privacy Concerns
• 1715 Yankee Doodle Road, Suite 301
• Eagan, MN 55121

Terms of Use

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Please see our Terms of Use agreement for additional terms and conditions governing your use of this Site.

Effective March 28, 2009.