The focus of the Hepatitis C Association is to educate the public, both patients and medical providers, about hepatitis C virus.
The focus of the Hepatitis C Association is to educate the public, both patients and medical providers, about hepatitis C virus.
Your privacy on the Internet is of utmost importance to Hepatitis C Association. This privacy statement describes Hepatitis C Association’s policy concerning the gathering and sharing of visitors’ information through the Hepatitis C Association web site.
WHAT INFORMATION DOES Hepatitis C Association COLLECT?
Normal web site usage
In general, you can browse the Hepatitis C Association site without telling us at the Hepatitis C Association who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. The only information we gather during general browsing is from standard server logs. These include your IP (Internet Protocol) address, domain name, browser type, operating system, and information such as the web site that referred you to us, the files you download, the pages you visit, and the dates and times of those visits.
Collection of personally identifiable information
If you order a greeting card, make a donation, request information, provide feedback, or join our forum, you will be asked to provide personal information such as your name, postal address, and email address. This information is collected only with your knowledge and permission, and is kept in various Hepatitis C Association databases and mailing lists. If you are purchasing something using the site, you may be asked to provide your credit card or PayPal details. These details are transferred to a secure, online payment service, hosted outside Hepatitis C Association. Credit card and PayPal information is not retained by Hepatitis C Association.
Supplying personal information sets a cookie*. By setting this cookie, Hepatitis C Association site will remember your details the next time you visit, so you don’t have to re-enter the information. This helps us to provide you with a better service.
Joining electronic discussion groups (i.e.; the message board) may mean that other participants of the discussion group (including non-Hepatitis C Association employees) will see personal information that you have volunteered. For open discussion groups, this information will be public. Neither the website nor the message board is designed for private or personal medical data. Users are discouraged from posting such information and Hepatitis C Association does not accept responsibility for other users of the site that may see that information. Hepatitis C Association undertakes to honor or exceed the legal requirements for information privacy in the United States of America.
WHAT DOES Hepatitis C Association DO WITH THE INFORMATION IT COLLECTS?
Normal web site usage
The information gathered during general browsing of the “Hepatitis C Association” domain is used to analyze trends and usage of the Hepatitis C Association site and to improve the usefulness of the site. It is not connected with any personal information.
Personally identifiable information
Hepatitis C Association may use the personal information you provide to:
WHAT IF I DON’T WANT TO PROVIDE PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Providing personal information on the Hepatitis C Association site is optional. If you choose not to provide personal information, you can still browse and use the Hepatitis C Association site, but you will not be able to carry out certain actions such as purchase items or join our forum.
OPTING OUT AND CHANGING YOUR INFORMATION AND USE OF THE FORUM (MESSAGE BOARD)
At any time, you can cancel or modify your information by returning to the web page where you first provided the information and contacting the focal point for that page, that is: the Hepatitis C Association department. Where contact details are not provided on the page, you can contact webmaster@hepcassoc.org for further information.
Users of the forums (message board) are not permitted to modify or delete the messages that they post. The platform is moderated no less frequently than daily. The moderators are not medical professionals. And, by default, all users are considered as non medical professionals. On the occasion that a health or medical professional gives medical information as a platform user, his status and qualifications as a medical professional must be identified. Such a posting in the absence of the user’s medical status and qualifications will be deleted by a moderator. Platform users and moderators must behave at all times with honesty and respect for all users. Failure to comply with the above stated policies will result in immediate deletion of offending posts and a Private Message (PM) warning from a Moderator to the user. Failure by the user to comply in the future will result in immediate banning from use of the platform.
SECURITY
We do not sell or share any personally identifiable information volunteered on the Hepatitis C Association site to any third party. Any information provided to Hepatitis C Association by users of the Hepatitis C Association site is held with the utmost care and security, and will not be used in ways other than as set forth in this privacy policy, or in any site-specific policies, or in ways to which you have not explicitly consented. Hepatitis C Association employs a range of technologies and security measures to protect the information maintained on our systems from loss, misuse, unauthorized access or disclosure, alteration, or destruction.
All employees of Hepatitis C Association who have access to, and are associated with the processing of personal data, are obliged to respect the confidentiality of official business matters, including personal data.
The Hepatitis C Association site contains links to sites external to the www.hepcassoc.org domain. Hepatitis C Association is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such sites.
NOTIFICATION OF CHANGES
Changes to this privacy policy will be posted on the Hepatitis C Association home page at www.hepcassoc.org.
ACCURACY AND AUTHORITY OF INFORMATION
All medical information presented on the web site will be attributed to an author and his/her training in the field will always be cited. This will be done on each page that contains medical information usually contained in the article as end or footnotes. Qualifications of the information provider (author, webmaster or editor) will be clearly stated (i.e. patient, Internet professional, medical or health professional). When the information provider is a medical doctor, his/her specialty will be mentioned. It will be clearly stated it the author is not a medical professional.
Users of the Forum (Message Board) must only information that is true and correct to their knowledge. Postings that are represented as personal experience means anything that the person has undergone him/herself. Users should provide references (i.g.; links) to health/medical information that they post that is not based on their own personal experience.
Commercial advertisements for healthy or medical services and/or products (links, banners, content, etc.) are not permitted on the message board and will not be posted anywhere on the site.
FUNDING
Funds to support this website are provided by direct public support from individuals and corporations in the form of grants and donations to the Hepatitis C Association. More details are publically available in the corporation’s IRS990 filings or at www.guidestar.com.
CONTACT
For questions or queries regarding this privacy policy, please contact us at info@hepcassoc.org.
*Cookies
A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent from a web server to your browser. It is normally used to assign a unique identification to your computer and securely store information such as user IDs, passwords, preferences, and online profiles. It is stored on the hard drive of your computer. You can choose not to have cookies delivered by Hepatitis C Association sites by changing your browser settings. Different web sites can send their own cookies to your computer. To protect your privacy, your browser only allows a web site to access the cookies it has already sent you, not the cookies sent by other sites.