|
Privacy Policy
Whitsend.org is an educational and entertaining site for parents and children based on the popular Adventures in Odyssey series from Focus on the Family. Our pages are designed primarily for our radio audience of children ages 8 and up, while many activities are designed with our younger audience of children ages 6 and up in mind. Our intention is to provide a safe, fun environment where children may explore "behind-the-scenes" information about the characters, places and lessons of the series they hear and love on the radio. Our other purpose is to provide information for parents & teachers to enable them to use the stories of Adventures in Odyssey to teach children. We care about your privacy, and we take great care to safeguard your personal information. We do not require our users to supply us with any personal information. We never condition a child's participation in an activity on the child's disclosing more personal information than is reasonably necessary to participate in that activity. All personally identifiable information we do collect can only be accessed by authorized whitsend.org staff, including programmers and writers, and only those people who require access may see this information. We preserve the confidentiality, security, and integrity of that information. We will notify you of the use of all personal information, and we will not share this information with any third parties. As we continue to offer our visitors new and different types of content and services, we may modify our practices from time to time. However, we will treat all personal information we collect in accordance with the privacy notice in effect at the time the information is collected. You will be notified and your consent requested should there be any material changes in the collection, use or disclosure practices to which you have previously agreed. Whitsend.org is designed to comply with the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) guidelines for web sites gathering identifiable information from children. Personal information may be requested when using the following features. FORUM QUESTIONS & POLLS Whitsend.org may post a question on the site that allows children to respond by email. Information gathered from polls or surveys are only for the internal use of whitsend.org. If sample answers to polls or surveys are posted on the web site, then no identifiable information is ever included. E-CARDS Whitsend.org contains a feature whereby children may email an online greeting card to another email address. The child's email address is required to send the card so that the recipient notice may arrive in the recipient's email box as if it came directly from the sender. This is the only place the child's address is shown, and it is discarded when the card has been sent. No outside vendor has access to this address and the card is stored on whitsend.org. COOKIES Whitsend.org uses a software technology called "cookies" that helps us track non-personal, aggregate data about who visits our site. This helps us keep track of the number of visitors to our site and allows us to gauge the areas that are of the most interest to our members. The cookies do not contain any personally identifiable information and are not linked to any personally identifiable information. THIRD PARTY DISCLOSURE Whitsend.org does not disclose any personal information we collect from our users to third parties. We do use this aggregate information, which is not personally identifiable, to give us demographic information about the entire whitsend.org audience in order to improve our service through our entire series of stories and products. LINKS TO OTHER SITES Whitsend.org may provide links to other sites but only those approved by Focus on the Family. We take very seriously the responsibility of introducing our audience to other sites on the internet in the course of a visit to whitsend.org. In some cases, visits to sites such as RealAudio.com and Macromedia.com are necessary in order to download a "plug-in" that allow users to play audio clips and particular games. We cannot control the content and advertisements contained in these sites. Users who agree to download these plug-ins must leave whitsend.org, and will be alerted to this fact before leaving. We encourage children to ask their parents' permission before they download or give out any information. At times, particular sites may ask your child if they wish to be put on a list to receive updates to the plug-in. These are usually completely voluntary and denying the offer does not prevent the download. Once children have obtained the special plug-in, they may continue to play games on whitsend.org without being required to re-visit these sites. We encourage parents to become actively involved in the sites their children visit, advising you to monitor their time there, and check their privacy policies as well. ADVERTISEMENTS ON WHITSEND.ORG Whitsend.org advertises Adventures in Odyssey product throughout the site. In each case, the purpose of these advertisements is to build excitement for the new products in the series, which may be acquired by donation to Focus on the Family in the "Odyssey Store." Children will be asked if they wish to enter before they proceed to the store, which is hosted on the Focus on the Family server, and equipped with all the appropriate security and privacy measures. At no time will a child's participation in any activity depend on donations made in this area. No other advertisers or products outside of Focus on the Family will appear on whitsend.org. CONTACT INFORMATION Should you have any more questions or concerns regarding children's online privacy protection on whitsend.org, please contact: Nathan Hoobler |