This website is operated by Community Servings. We refer to this organization as “Community Servings,” “we” or “our.” Community Servings understands the importance of our donors’ and volunteers’ privacy. Our Privacy Policy tells you what information we collect when you visit our website, in person at an event, or through the mail, how we use, share and protect it, what choices you have about how the information is used, and how you can access and update that information. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use this website. This Privacy Policy applies to personally identifiable information collected offline or on the website where this Privacy Policy is posted, with the exception of the sections of this website that are intended for visits from children under the age of 13.
For purposes of this Privacy Policy, “personally identifiable information” means information that identifies a particular individual, such as name, postal address, email address, and phone number. When other information, such as product purchases, or consumer product preferences, is directly associated with personally identifiable information, this other information also becomes personally identifiable information.
PROTECTING THE PRIVACY OF OUR DONORS
We will not sell, share or trade our donors’ names or personal information with any other entity, nor send mailings to our donors on behalf of other organizations. This policy applies to all information received by Community Servings, both online and offline, as well as any electronic, written, or oral communications. To the extent any donations are processed through a third-party service provider, our donors’ information will only be used for purposes necessary to process the donation.
Information Collection
Personally Identifiable Information We Collect
There are many features on this website for which no registration is required. However, if you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from Community Servings, or participating in certain activities on this website (such as making an online purchase, subscribing to one of our newsletters, becoming a member of Community Servings, making an online donation to Community Servings, or participating in contests, surveys, or certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with information about yourself.
For example, if you order a product from us, we ask for your name, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number and your credit card number. If you are ordering a product as a gift for another person, we will ask you for that person’s name, postal address and phone number in order to enable us to deliver the gift to the recipient. If you participate in an activity such as a survey, we may also ask you to provide other types of information such as gender and personal interests, which we may associate with personally identifiable information. In addition, we may combine personally identifiable information that you have provided to us with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources.
Other Information Collected Through Technology
In addition to information you choose to provide to us, we also collect non-personally identifiable information through technology to make our site more interesting and useful to you. For instance, when you come to our site, we collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the Internet, like your ISP (Internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we also use IP addresses to collect information regarding the frequency with which our visitors visit various parts of our sites. We may combine this information with personally identifiable information that you have provided to us and/or with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources in order to make our Web site and communications more targeted to your interests.
Our website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow web sites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our website. We use transient (also called “session ID”) cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. We also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow our online store and other parts of our website to recognize your browser when you return after your first visit to that part of our website. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as checking out from our online store. You can choose to remove persistent cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our site will be limited, such as our shopping cart feature.
Finally, our website uses a variety of technical methods for tracking purposes, including clear gifs (also known as Web beacons). Clear gifs are small pieces of data that are embedded in images on the pages of Web sites. We use these technical methods to tell us what parts of our Web site you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our site. These technical methods may involve the transmission of information directly to us or to a service provider authorized by us to collect information on our behalf. We also use these technical methods in HTML emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails. The information from use of these technical methods may be combined with information that is personally identifiable so that we can make our website, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.
Information Use
Community Servings may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, provide you with informational and/or promotional materials that you might find interesting, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy. These uses may generally be categorized as relationship maintenance uses and promotional uses. We describe these uses in more detail below.
Relationship Maintenance Uses
Community Servings uses your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage your account, deliver services that you have requested, and generally enhance your experience on our website. Collectively, we refer to these types of uses as “Relationship Maintenance Uses,” and they include all of the ways in which we use your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage our relationship with you that do not involve sending promotional materials. Examples of Relationship Maintenance Uses include, but are not limited to:
- Processing and tracking your product orders
- Processing and tracking your online donations to Community Servings
- Providing the services you request
- Contacting you about the status of an order
- Sending you other administrative communications
- Sending you surveys
- Sending you updates to our privacy policy
- Making changes to Web-based features
- Promotional Uses
Community Servings may also use your personally identifiable information to provide you with promotional information about activities, services and products offered by us, including promotional material that you have requested. (However, you may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, email, or telephone, as explained below and in the section entitled “Your Choices.” And, we will not share your email address with third parties for promotional purposes unless you consent to such sharing by affirmatively agreeing to it).
Examples of promotional uses include, but are not limited to:
- Providing you with information about educational opportunities
- Providing you with promotional materials about
- Community Servings products and services
- Providing you with email newsletters
Community Servings may provide you with promotional materials by postal mail, email, telephone or other means. You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, email and/or telephone as provided in the “Your Choices” section below, and in the case of email, you can always opt out of receiving subsequent promotional emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link that we provide in such email messages. Please keep in mind, however, that when you purchase or request products or services from Community Servings or our licensees, promotional materials may accompany delivery of that product or service. Any opt-outs that you may make will therefore not apply to these materials because they accompany products or services that you have requested.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
We take very seriously our responsibility to maintain your privacy with respect to your personally identifiable information. We will therefore share that information only with the following entities, and only in the manner described below.
Service Providers
Community Servings contracts with other companies to provide certain services on our behalf, including credit card processing, shipping, email distribution, and promotions management. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services, and they are permitted to use the information only for that specific purpose or as required by law, unless any additional use or sharing of the information is separately permitted under another provision of this Privacy Policy.
Legal Purposes; Business Transactions
Community Servings may disclose any user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, when we believe that doing so is required by law; may be necessary to protect the property, rights, or safety of ourselves, visitors to our Web sites, or other persons; or will help to enforce any terms of use or contest, sweepstakes, promotions, games or other rules. It may also be necessary to disclose our customers’ personally identifiable information to third parties, such as credit card companies, to help resolve disputes that arise in the ordinary course of business. Community Servings may also transfer user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale.
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)
Community Servings may share with third parties aggregated information about you and other visitors to our website. When we do this, however, we make any personally identifiable information non-personally identifiable by combining it with information about other individuals or by removing characteristics that make the information personally identifiable to you. We share this information in order to improve our Web site and develop content and services that we hope will be of interest to you.
Your Choices
We understand the importance of protecting our customers’ privacy, and we therefore provide you with the opportunity to opt-out of having your personally identifiable information used or disclosed for certain purposes. Receiving promotional communications from Community Servings, including our Affiliates and our licensees, is optional. If you do not wish to receive promotional communications from Community Servings, including our Affiliates and our licensees, please call or write to us.
You may also use this address and phone number to request us to update or change any of your personally identifiable information, or to request additional information regarding our disclosure of your personally identifiable information to certain third parties for promotional purposes.
Call us at 617.522.7777
Write to us at: Community Servings, 179 Amory St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
Because we plan our communications in advance, it may take several weeks for your request to become effective. If, due to human error, you continue to receive our communications, please contact us again and we will make every effort to correct the situation.
Links to Other Sites
We may provide links on our website to other sites we think you will enjoy. These sites operate independently of Community Servings and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read these policies at any site you visit.
Information Security
The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to safeguard any personally identifiable information or credit card information that you provide to us. We use data encryption technology to help protect against loss, misuse or alteration of your credit card information. Secure Socket Layers (SSLs) encrypt the credit card information sent between your computer and our database. However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.
Personally Identifiable Information Contained in User Content
Some sections of our website may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. Community Servings does not monitor such transmissions, and therefore cannot be responsible for any personally identifiable information or other information that may be contained in such transmissions.
Changes in this Privacy Policy
We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personally identifiable information, we will notify you by sending you an email at the last email address that you provided us and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the Web sites covered by this Privacy Policy. In any event, changes to this Privacy Policy may affect our use of personally identifiable information that you provided us prior to our notification to you of the changes.
