Web Privacy Policy
Summary: We do not collect data on users of our Web pages, except for the standard server log entries listed below. We do not put tracking cookies or anything else on your machine as we send you the Web page your browser requested. We do not use email addresses unless you provide them to the Federation to receive the newsletter or other alerts. The Federation does not share email addresses with any other organization.
Web Server Log Info
When you access one of our pages we do not ask your browser for your name, your organization, your email address, the brand of computer you are using or the name of your dog. We don't use cookies, either. We don't need that information to provide our pages for your use. We don't sell anything here, so we don't need secure e-commerce pages or any info on you. The server of course needs your machine's Internet address to send the page you want back to you, and all servers record that in their logs. Your address looks like 123.321.11.03 or some other combination of four numbers with periods in between. There is a machine name associated with many addresses, but we do not capture that. So we don't know your name and don't need to, but our server records the numerical Internet address of your machine. Since most people access the Internet through a temporary (dynamic) address, the number your Internet Service Provider assigns to you for an address changes whenever your connection is broken for any reason, and you get assigned a new one when you dial in or connect up again.
Our Web server keeps a standard server log of the pages we are requested to send in the universal Web server log format. That standard format includes the numeric IP address of the machine requesting the page, the page that referred you to us, the filename of the page requested, the browser doing the request, your operating system, the result of the request and the time. Every Web server on the Internet records that same info in its log, and some record more. We do not attempt to make use of any of that info.
What We Do With Log Information
We analyze our log files to see how many hits we have had and what pages are the most popular. The log also includes any error messages we have had to send back, letting us locate and fix a bad link or other problem with our pages.
We also check our log to see how many people are using what browsers. That lets us continue to configure our pages so that you never get a nasty message that says you can't see this page because your browser is out of date or the wrong brand.
Web Standard: P3P
The WWW Consortium has launched a privacy project it calls P3P for Platform for Privacy Preferences Project. It has standards for exchanging information between browser and server indicating information about the browser that the server wants and how much info the browser is willing to supply. We approve of the initiative, but we don't do any of that info exchanging, because we don't need that info from you. So if you get a funny message from your browser saying we are not responding to your "proposal" or something similar, it's because we are not sending a request to your browser with our info demands. We don't have any. For more info on the W3C privacy project, check out the P3P page. In their terms, we use our minimal log data for Research and Development, defined as "The use of information to enhance, evaluate, or otherwise review the site, service, product, or market."
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act
From the above it should be clear that we comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA.) Under this rule, commercial Web sites must obtain written parental consent before collecting, using or distributing personal information about children aged 13 and under. Since we don't do that for any of our site users, children are treated the same as everyone else, and we don't actually know your age or need to.
Information Requested by Email
If you ask us a question or send us a comment we of course have your email address to reply. You can also provide your email address to the Federation to receive newsletters or other email alerts.
Privacy Practice
Within the above context, email addresses may be used for the conduct of all official Civic Federation business. Such uses may include, but are not limited to, delivery of an electronic version of the newsletter, organization of committee work, and emergency communication on topics of concern to the membership.
If you have comments on this page or our privacy policy, please email us.
This page was last revised on: March 10, 2008.
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Arlington County Civic Federation
