Privacy Policy

Your privacy is important to the Catskill Center. This statement discloses the information practices for members and donors, our volunteers, our website, and customers of our publication products, including what type of information is gathered and tracked, how the information is used, and with whom the information is shared. 

Information gathered

In general all the information gathered on our website is anonymous and we will not obtain personally-identifying information about you when you visit our website, unless you choose to provide us with such information when you purchase items from our store, fill out workshop or volunteer forms and/or sign up for more information.  

If you are not a registered user, you cannot post anything that is visible on the website and hence remain completely anonymous except that our server collects the usual anonymous data about what URL you came from, your IP address, your domain, etc. We run Google Analytics which records a lot of information about the transitions from one page to the next as you browse, but not identified by user.

If you use the search box, information about what search terms are used is recorded. Only lists of words and counts are recorded without any tracking as to who did the query.

Information use

The anonymous statistical information gathered by the server, hit counters and search mechanism is only used to improve the site by noticing which areas are actually used heavily and might warrant improvement.

If you contact us by postal mail, telephone, or electronically, via an on-line form, the material you submit may be seen by various staff or office volunteers. We may enter the information you send into our electronic database. In limited circumstances, including requests from courts or private individuals, we may be required by law to disclose information you submit. (Freedom of Information Act)

Information sharing

The Catskill Center makes heavy use of email to keep postage costs down and get timely information out quickly. We strive to keep the frequency down and relevance high by focusing on selective groups. We urge you to sign up or stay on as many email lists as you find useful. 

E-mail addresses and phone numbers will not be released to any organization outside the Catskill Center and in general will only be used for communication with you or others that you explicitly permit, e.g. general news mailings to members.

We may occasionally exchange member postal mailing lists with a select number of like-minded organizations. This ensures we can continue the vital work we do to protect and conserve the Catskills. We do not exchange lists of donors for any reason.

Information security

E-mail is not necessarily secure against interception. If your communication is very sensitive, or includes personal information like your bank account, charge card, or social security number, you might want to communicate it by telephone or postal mail instead.

Online store connections are via SSL and hence secure.

Other issues

External links

If you use our site to reach other sites via links on our pages, which generally open in a new window, they may collect more or less information and you should consult their privacy policy. If you use the Barnes and Noble or Amazon links or other affiliates to browse or order from them, on which we earn a small commission, we may have access to other information about what was ordered and when but not by who. This information will be used only for accounting purposes and improving our affiliate links.

Cookies

Cookies are required to logon and purchase from The Catskill Center Store.  A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system and retrieve it when you return to the website at some later time. This cookie contains only information you supplied to our server and is not available to other websites (except possibly via bugs in your browser). We do not store the cookie on the server. You can set most browsers to either accept, reject or prompt for attempts to store a cookie on your system. See links below for more information.

Web beacons, etc.

Our bulk email programs use web bugs to tell if you have opened the email. We may use that information in considering future communications.

Children's data

While few pages of this site are directed towards children, we are committed to comply with applicable laws and requirements, such as the United States' Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Specifically:

You may Contact operator of the website for resolution of problems.

No information is requested from children under 13, nor is any attempt made to ascertain the age of such respondents. Such requests may be made incidentally and children may fill out forms that reveal private information. Children are encouraged to read the information on the website and to respond via forms or email if appropriate. They should not give out any private information about themselves other than that necessary to respond to them.

Any private information collected will be kept internally or discarded and not given to third parties. It will only be used to respond to requests. 

Parents may request that we delete any information submitted by their children.