Terms of Use

This site is published by the Center for Public Integrity, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization located at 910 17th Street NW, Washington, DC 20006. Contents of this site, including all site and section names, logos, other graphics, organized listings, presentation strategies, interface design, and other design elements, are covered by trademarks, copyrights, and other intellectual and trade property rights, held jointly or separately by the Center for Public Integrity. All rights are reserved. Contributing writers also may hold rights to some material. Material on this site may not be copied, mirrored, cataloged, displayed simultaneously with another site in part or in whole, nor may any of its sub-programs be accessed from any page without the express written consent of the appropriate rights holder. Use of this site contractually obliges each user to these terms. News media may use portions of the content of this site and refer to its contents with appropriate credit given to the Center for Public Integrity. Republication rights inquiries may be made to the media relations manager, Steve Carpinelli.

Privacy Policy

The Center for Public Integrity is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. The Center for Public Integrity collects information from our users at several different points on our website.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about him or her. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. For instance, by setting a cookie on our site, the user need not log in a password more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If a user rejects the cookie, he or she may still use our site. The only drawback is that access for such a user will be limited in some areas of our site.

Log Files

We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user visits to our site, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Links

This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that the Center for Public Integrity is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage those leaving our site to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website. Links to other websites are provided as a convenience. By clicking on them, you will be leaving the Center for Public Integrity’s website. The Center does not approve or control these sites and does not guarantee the accuracy of their information.

Newsletter

If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for such contact information as e-mail address.

Tell-A-Friend

If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask for that friend’s e-mail address. The Center for Public Integrity will automatically send the friend a one-time e-mail inviting him or her to visit the site. The Center for Public Integrity stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time e-mail.

Security

Information we gather on our website is stored within databases we control (or databases hosted on our behalf) on servers maintained in protected environments.  Any credit card information you provide us is secured for transmission over the Internet using industry-standard secure sockets layer (SSL) encryption. Click here to learn more about the SSL protocol on webopedia.com.  However, no physical or electronic security system is impenetrable.  We cannot guarantee the security of our servers or databases, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet.  And, of course, any information you choose to post on our site, or elsewhere, for example, through a Facebook comment, is available to anyone with Internet access. {C}

Special Offers

Established members will occasionally receive information about products, services, special deals, or our newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, we present the option to not receive such communications. Please see our “Choice/Opt-out” section below.

Choice/Opt-out

Our users are given the opportunity to “opt-out” of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site at the point we ask for the information. For example, our donation form has an “opt-out” mechanism so users who contribute to us, but don’t want to receive marketing material, can keep their e-mail address off our lists. 

Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter may opt-out of receiving these communications by accessing their subscription management page or by selecting the “unsubscribe” or “remove” options printed at the bottom of each newsletter.

Advertising

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. Click here for more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies.

We may occasionally release information about our visitors when release is appropriate to comply with law, to enforce our Terms of Use, or to protect the rights, property or safety of visitors to our site, our funders, the public or the Center for Public Integrity or any of our personnel.  From time to time we may acquire or sell various assets. In the unlikely event that the Center for Public Integrity, one of its units, or substantially all of its assets is acquired by another organization, information on our visitors would be among the transferred assets. {C}

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Digital media are rapidly evolving. If we need to change our privacy policy at some point in the future, we'll post the changes on this website and update the reference to the effective date to reflect the date on which we post the revised privacy policy. By visiting this site after we post the revised privacy policy, you agree that your visit, and any dispute over privacy, is governed by this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use.

Questions

Questions about this policy may be directed to the Center’s media relations manager Steve Carpinelli at (202) 481-1225.