Privacy Policy

We at Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette (PPCW) want this site to be a safe and private place for users. PPCW will do its part by not requiring you to register or provide any information at all to use most features of this Web site. In turn, you can do your part by reading this policy and taking the steps outlined below.

There are certain actions and areas of the site that will require you to provide personal information, such as:

• Becoming a member of our activist network;


• Sending an e-mail question; or


• Making a donation.

Any time you provide personal information, you should be mindful of the terms of this privacy policy, as it will govern our use of the information you have provided. You should be aware that for certain actions, we may deliver a copy of our HIPAA Privacy Policy and that privacy policy will govern our use of the information you have provided.

We will update this privacy policy as we deem necessary, so be sure to re-read it from time to time. By submitting information to us, you agree that PPCW may use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

In order to gain access to certain areas of our site, you may choose to provide information. If you do submit information to us, we will use that information for the purposes for which it was submitted. We may also use your information in other ways, such as to contact you about other Planned Parenthood activities and/or fundraising campaigns or as otherwise disclosed to you at the point of collection, and we may share your information with other Planned Parenthood entities for similar purposes. For example,

a. If you join our e-mail list, we will have a record of your e-mail address and all other information you choose to provide. We may contact you by e-mail about a broad range of Planned Parenthood activities.




b. If you make and online donation to PPFA, your information will be added to Planned Parenthood's donor list and database and you will be contacted about other Planned Parenthood activities, news, and/or fundraising campaigns.




c. If you join or opt-in to our activist network, you will receive informational updates and action alerts on reproductive rights issues. You will also be added to Planned Parenthood's donor list and database and will receive fundraising campaign communications and news from Planned Parenthood. Our activist network is an electronic network and therefore we need an e-mail address to contact you. We also need your full postal address in order for our systems to match you to the correct state and federal districts, thereby ensuring that you are primarily sending messages to your designated elected officials.




d. We will receive any other information you choose to provide, such as optional information or "personal stories" you submit. By submitting the story to us, you give us permission to edit it, post it on the Web site, and use it in appropriate settings designed to illustrate the importance of reproductive health freedoms. To protect your privacy, please do not include any identifying information in your "personal story".

You should be aware that we use third-party vendors to provide services on this site and in our offline business operations. The information that you submit on this site may be provided to those vendors on a confidential basis so that those vendors can provide services (such as maintaining our database, sending e-mail messages to activists, conducting fundraising campaigns, or processing credit card transactions) on our behalf.

Other than as described in this privacy policy, or as may be necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of our organization, our clients, or others, or as may be necessary to comply with applicable law, PPCW will not give or sell the personal information you provide online to any non-Planned Parenthood organizations or entities.

If you choose to make an online donation to PPFA, you will have to provide your credit card billing information. As this information is collected and transferred over the Internet to our secure server, it is encrypted using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology, the industry standard security technology that is designed to protect sensitive information. Our donation pages display the Verisign Secure Site Seal to assure you that our Web site is authentic and that all transactions are secured by SSL encryption. If you are making a donation, the credit card information that you provide at the time of donation is stored only for the duration of the transaction. Your credit card information is used only to process donations and will not be used or stored for any other purposes.

Any Web site you enter, including www.plannedparenthood.org, automatically collects and stores some information about your computer and your visit: your computer's Internet Protocol (IP) address (this is not your e-mail address); the domain from which you access the Internet (e.g., "AOL.com" or "Princeton.edu"); the name, version, and specifications of your computer and your computer's operating system; the Internet address of the Web site, if any, from which you came to our site; the date and time you arrived at our site and how long you spent on the site; and which pages you visited.

If you just browse through our site, read pages, or download information, the above information is all that we collect. We use this information to formulate statistics (possibly with the help of outside experts) that show the number of visitors to the different sections of our site and to help us make our site more useful to visitors. For example, we use the browser information to help us design our Web site so that as many people as possible will be able to view the pages correctly. These statistics do not reveal personal information.

If you choose to provide personal information, such as by joining our e-mail list, or registering with our activist network, or making an online donation to PPFA, we may place a small text file, known as a "cookie," on your hard drive so that you will be recognized as you move around the Web pages. Unless you opt-in to use a "persistent cookie", the information is only be captured for the duration of your browser session through the use of a "session cookie". For example, if you join our activist network and then navigate through different pages of the Web site, the cookie will maintain the information you entered when you filled out the activist registration page. As you move through the site, any fields requiring information about you that has already been captured will automatically appear. However, once you close your browser window, the session cookie times out. If you open a new browser window and return to our Web site, your personal information fields will not be filled automatically.

In certain circumstances, you may be given the option to turn on a "persistent" or "permanent cookie" on your computer (e.g., "Would you like us to remember your password?" messages). A persistent cookie will remember your user name and password and will not time out at the end of your browser session.

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. The security measures used on this site include, but are not limited to, industry-standard Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology, Versign certificates, firewalls, and internal policies to maintain the security of stored data.

When you donate to PPFA through this Web site, you will have a personal subscription management page, where you will be able to edit your personal information, as well as review your messaging and advocacy records. Access to your personal subscription management page is controlled to protect the privacy of your data - our Web site requires that you log on with your e-mail address and personal password to access your personal subscription management page. The log-on process may be automated if you choose to accept the placement of a persistent cookie on your PC. See "Use of Cookies" and "Your Help Is Needed" for more information on persistent cookies.

Remember, many breaches of security occur when users are not vigilant in protecting their own information. The next section of our privacy policy suggests some actions you can take to help control the security of your personal information.

Although PPCW does its best to protect your privacy on our site, we need your help.

a. You have control over your own privacy. Think carefully before providing any personal information.




b. Although this site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control, no email is completely secure against interception. If you are worried because your communication is very sensitive, do not send it via e-mail. Click here for additional ways to contact us.




c. Remember that we cannot protect your privacy once you leave our site, such as by "hyperlink." So when you visit other Web sites, including Web pages within www.plannedparenthood.org that belong to other Planned Parenthood organizations, check each one's privacy policy yourself, and be careful about the information you offer up.




d. You should be aware that in certain areas of this site we utilize personalization measures designed to make your site experience more enjoyable (i.e., personalized links in e-mail that allow data fields to be automatically populated with certain personal information). We need your help to protect the information embedded in these links. You should always keep your e-mail account information secure and not allow others to access your e-mail account.




e. In addition, you should only forward our e-mail messages to others through the "Tell A Friend" buttons or links provided within the e-mail. When you use your e-mail system's forwarding capabilities (i.e., not "Tell a Friend"), others may be able to take actions in your name and/or access your personal information.




f. You may be given the option to turn on a persistent cookie on your computer (see Use of Cookies above). Remember that once you have set a persistent cookie, anyone can access your personal information by using your computer.

If you do not want to receive any e-mail from us in the future, visit your personal subscription management page to deactivate your account or click here to learn other ways to contact us. Note that your donation and/or activist records will remain in Planned Parenthood's databases, but your log-in and e-mail address will be deactivated.

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