Dear Parents and Teachers:
The sitesALIVE! website (produced by Ocean Challenge, Inc.) is an online series of interactive education programs that links your children to students conducting cultural, historical, geographical, and scientific research in the field. By following one or more programs, your children will learn about real-world places, events and experiences through the eyes of those in far-away places.

Under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA, U.S. Federal Trade Commission), websites must obtain verifiable consent from parents (and in some cases teachers) if their children (or students) are under 13 and if personal information is requested of them on the website. At the present time, the personally identifiable information we collect from children is their email addresses and names. These are used to respond to their email questions and to enhance the value of the Message Boards.

sitesALIVE! Editorial and WebSafety Policy:
All materials that are received by sitesALIVE! must go through a review and editing process prior to being put up online. These materials include (but are not limited to) essays and other information from the field sites, photographs, audio clips, questions submitted by children, and all messages submitted to our Message Board. In brief, nothing goes onto the sitesALIVE! website until it is deemed appropriate for children by our staff.

Privacy Policy

1. What information does sitesALIVE! collect?
2. What does sitesALIVE! do with the information?
3. Does sitesALIVE! use cookies?
4. Does sitesALIVE! share visitor information?
5. Does sitesALIVE! have a chat room or message board?
6. What rights do parents have regarding their child’s personal information?
7. How can I approve my child’s use of the sitesALIVE! website?*
8. What security precautions are in place at sitesALIVE! to safeguard any personal information?
9. Financial confidentiality and other website links.
10. How can I contact sitesALIVE! if I have questions?
* Only necessary if your child is under 13 years old.

 

1. What information does sitesALIVE! collect?
   The sitesALIVE! website passively logs IP addresses (a number provided by your Internet Service Provider [e.g., AOL, MSN, Earthlink, Comcast, etc.] that represents you on the Internet), but we do not link your IP addresses to anything that is personally identifiable. This means that user sessions are anonymous.

sitesALIVE! gathers a variety of information about its visitors that is input by the visitor. This information may include: email address, first and/or last name, sitesALIVE! username and password, country of origin, and credit card information. We do not link IP addresses to any information that is collected. This means that user sessions are anonymous. <top>

2. What does sitesALIVE! do with the information?
   As a company policy, we do not share any personal information submitted by website visitors with ANY third parties.

IP Addresses
This information will be used only to track and catalog website traffic and to improve the value of the materials on the website.

Online Order Forms
The information that we require on our order form is only used to process your order quickly and accurately. Your contact information will only be used to provide you with the product that you purchase. Your credit card number is not kept on file or stored by sitesALIVE.

Email Addresses
Email addresses are requested in a few locations on the sitesALIVE! website, including order forms and the Ask-A-Question interactive feature. Your email address may be used by sitesALIVE! for its internal sales and marketing (e.g., promoting new sitesALIVE! programs). It will never be shared with ANY third parties.

Submission of your email address in the Message Center (bulletin boards) will make your address available to others using the sitesALIVE! website. <top>

3. Does sitesALIVE! use cookies?
   No, sitesALIVE! does not use cookies. <top>

4. Does sitesALIVE! share visitor information?
   sitesALIVE! does not share any visitor information with third parties, with the exception of what is noted in #2 above. <top>

5. Does sitesALIVE! have a chat room or message board?
   sitesALIVE! does not have a chat room. It does contain a Message Board. All information submitted to the Message Board is voluntary. Please be aware that information you submit can be collected by others. <top>

6. What rights do parents have regarding their child’s personal information?
   At a parent’s request (once the parent’s identification is confirmed), sitesALIVE! must provide the following information: the general kinds of information collected from children and specific personal information collected from their child. Parents are also permitted to prohibit further use or collection of their child’s personal information and to direct sitesALIVE! to delete the information collected. <top>

7. How can I approve my child’s use of the sitesALIVE! website?
   If and when sitesALIVE! is contacted by a child under 13 who does not have parental (or teacher) consent to submit personal information and who submits personal information, sitesALIVE! will make reasonable effort to obtain this consent. If consent cannot be established, the personal information will be deleted from the sitesALIVE! files. <top>

8. What security precautions are in place at sitesALIVE! to safeguard any personal information?
   Information submitted to sitesALIVE! is protected in two ways. The data is stored on password-protected computers, and only select personnel access this information. In addition, sitesALIVE! uses a router with password access on its Internet connection, minimizing the possibility of anyone accessing personal information from outside the company network. <top>

9. Financial confidentiality and other website links.

Financial Security
When you place an order online, Thawte (http://www.thawte.com) SSL 128-bit encryption technology encrypts your personal information and credit card information before being sent over the Internet. Credit card information is not stored on the sitesALIVE! server.

Links
The sitesALIVE! website may contain links to other websites. While we are careful to link only to reputable sites, please be aware that our Privacy Statement does not apply to these linked sites. We encourage you to read the Privacy Statements of the sites linked on our site. <top>

10. How can I contact sitesALIVE! if I have questions?
    To contact sitesALIVE!, simply email us at info@sitesalive.com. <top>

Revised March 8, 2004