Privacy Policy

This privacy statement covers all websites owned and/or operated by Alliance Defending Freedom as well as all donor information. Because Alliance Defending Freedom wants to demonstrate its commitment to our users’ and donors' privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices, including:

• What personally identifiable information Alliance Defending Freedom collects.
• What personally identifiable information third parties collect through the website.
• What organization collects the information.
• How Alliance Defending Freedom uses the information.
• With whom Alliance Defending Freedom may share user information.
• What choices are available to users regarding collection, use, and distribution of the information.
• What types of security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of information under Alliance Defending Freedom control.
• How users can correct any inaccuracies in the information.

If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, they should first call 1-800-835-5233.

Information Collection and Use

Information Collection

Alliance Defending Freedom is the sole owner of the information collected on www.ADFlegal.org and www.ADFInternational.org. Alliance Defending Freedom collects information from our users at several different points on our website.

Registration

In order to use portions of this website, a user must first complete the registration form. During registration a user is required to give contact information (such as name and email address). We use this information to contact the user about services on our site for which he has expressed interest, or with respect to the Alliance Defending Freedom community website, about information pertinent to the community.

Donations

We request information from the user on our donation form. A user must provide contact information (such as name, email, and shipping address) and financial information (such as credit card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to process the donation. If we have trouble processing a donation, the information is used to contact the user.

Information Use

Profile

We do not sell or otherwise share your data with non-Alliance Defending Freedom affiliated/contract organizations. It is not authorized for use by any outside third party for any form of fundraising or solicitation.

We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, clear gifs, and/or third parties to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual users that details their viewing preferences. Consequently, collected information is tied to the user's personally identifiable information to provide offers and improve the content of the site for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user’s visit to our website and to direct pertinent information to them. Your profile may be shared in aggregate form only.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following internet browser help file directions.

By setting a cookie on our site, users would not have to re-type a username more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If users reject the cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user will be limited in some areas of our site. Persistent cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. See the “Profile” section.

Log Files

Like most standard website servers, we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)

We employ (or our third party affiliated contractors employ) a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs), that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies, and are used to track the online movements of web users. The main difference between the two is that clear gifs are invisible on the page and are much smaller, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

Clear Gifs can "work with" existing cookies on a computer if they are both from the same website or organization. That means, for example, that if a person visited “www.companyX.com”, which uses an advertising company's clear gif, the website (or advertising company) would match the clear gif's identifier and the advertising company's cookie ID number, to show the past online behavior for that computer. This collected information would then be given to the advertising company (or website).

In addition, we use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by the recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. If you would like to opt-out of these emails, please see the Opt-out section.

Donor Information

Alliance Defending Freedom will not share or sell a donor’s personal information with anyone else, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations.

Communications from the Site

Special Offers and Updates

We may send all new members a welcoming email to verify password and username. Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services, urgent issues, and our newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, you may opt to not receive these types of communications. Please see the Choice/Opt-out Section.

Newsletter

If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter or other information sources, we ask for contact information, such as name and email address. Out of respect for our users’ privacy, you may opt out of these communications. Please see the Choice/Opt-out Section.

Service Announcements

It may become necessary to send out a strictly service-related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt out of these communications, although they can deactivate their account.

Customer Service

We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services. In regards to issues relating to their account, we reply via email or phone in accordance with the user's wishes.

Sharing

Legal Disclaimer

Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process.

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)

We may share aggregated demographic information with others. This is not linked to any personally identifiable information.

These are the instances in which we will share users’ personal information:

We may share personal information as follows:

Third Party Intermediaries

We may use an outside shipping company to ship orders, and a credit card processing company to bill users for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store, or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

Service Providers

We may partner with other third parties to provide specific services. When the user signs up for these particular services, we may share names or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services. These third parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.

Business Transitions

In the event Alliance Defending Freedom goes through a business transition, such as a merger, being acquired by another company, or selling a portion of its assets, users’ personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred.

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 where we ask for information. Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter and informational communications may opt out of receiving these communications. Users of our site are generally notified when their information is being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether or not they should proceed with services that require an outside party.

Links

This website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that Alliance Defending Freedom is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and 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. See Terms & Conditions.

Surveys

From time to time, our site may request information from users via surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary, and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name and shipping address), and demographic information (such as job title or zip code). Survey information generally will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this sites and other services we may provide to users.

Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and Public Forums

Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online – for example on message boards, through email, or in chat areas – that information can be collected and used by others. In short, by posting personal information online that is publicly accessible, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.

Security

This website takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, we take great effort to ensure their information is protected both online and offline. When our registration/donor form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software we are aware of in the industry – SSL.

While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also aggressively protect user-information offline. Only ministry employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative, or for the community website, employees who work with Areté Delegates, Blackstone Fellows, or Allied Attorneys) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment.

Supplementation of Information

In order for this website to properly fulfill its obligation to users it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from third-party sources.

ID Verification

We may use software to verify a user’s address to avoid session hijacking, hacking attempts, or other attacks.

Enhancement of Marketing Profile

We may purchase third-party marketing data and add it to our existing user database to better target our advertising and provide pertinent information that we think our users would be interested in. We use this information to enhance or overlay the “profile” of individual users. This aggregate marketing data is therefore tied to the users’ personally identifiable information. (See also the “Profile” section.)

Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information

If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as zip code, phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, the user should call 1-800-835-5233 to update or delete/deactivate the personally identifiable information.

For Alliance Defending Freedom community users, a user may update their profile within the site using “Edit Profile” functionality or call 1-800-835-5233.

Notification of Changes

If we change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and/or other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.