Healia is completely committed to protecting your privacy. We realize that ensuring your privacy is particularly important for a consumer health company. We respect that your health is very personal and private, and we appreciate your willingness to use our site. Our policy is intended to protect your privacy while maximizing the potential benefit of your participation on our site to other users. In this privacy policy, we describe what information we collect on our site and how it is used. This policy only applies to our site, www.healia.com. When you leave Healia by clicking on a link on a search result or content page, on an external link submitted by another member, on an advertisement, or a sponsored message on our site, our privacy policy no longer applies. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of all Web sites before you use them. We have no control over the content or the privacy practices of other Web sites.
PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLIES ONLY TO OUR ONLINE COLLECTION AND USE OF INFORMATION AND DOES NOT APPLY TO ANY INFORMATION THAT YOU MAY PROVIDE TO US BY OTHER MEANS, SUCH AS VIA MAIL OR TELEPHONE.
Our site collects information about visitors and how visitors use our site to better understand their needs and to improve our technology. We do not collect "personally identifiable information" about you unless you provide us that information voluntarily. Personally identifiable information is information that can be used to identify you as an individual, such as your name, mailing address, some email addresses (when your real name is part of the address), Social Security number, or telephone number. You do not have to provide any personally identifiable information to use this Web site.
All of the content and features on our site are free for anyone to use. However, some features, such as asking a question on Healia Communities, require you to register first before they can be used.
Healia cares about protecting the privacy of children. We won't knowingly allow anyone under 13 to provide us any personally identifying information. Children should always get permission from their parents before sending any information about themselves over the Internet, to us or to anyone else. We encourage you to become involved in your child's online experience. If you are under 13, please do not register with any of our sites or provide us with any personally identifying information (such as your name, your email address or your phone number).
Information about you and how you use a Web site may be collected when you visit any Web site. In order to help us improve our Web site, our Web server collects and stores the following information about each visit:
Besides the information above, some features of our site, such as Healia Communities, collect additional information about you and you have options about what information you choose to share. When you register to use Healia Communities, you are presented with a registration form with various optional information fields, including age group, gender, ethnic/racial group, educational level, occupation, smoking status, health interests, geographic location, and other information. The above fields are completely optional and are collected in order to better match you with others who may share similar characteristics and interests. You may choose to fill out these optional fields but hide them from others on the site. The Healia Communities site also provides an option for users to upload a photo onto their profile or select a default photo. If you choose to upload a photo, it is suggested that you select a photo that does not reveal your identity.
The ONLY required information you need to provide in order to use the Healia Communities features is a valid email address, user name, and password.
Certain features of our site may involve submitting an email address, such as when you send someone a search results link, invite a friend to join Healia Communities, or join an email newsletter list. Submitted email addresses will only be used for the purposes for which they are collected. We may send you service-related emails, such as welcome emails when you register and when you forget a password.
Emails that you send directly to us, such as when you provide feedback or have a question about the Web site, are handled by staff members or company representatives who are trained to help you. You need not include any personally identifiable or personal health information in your communications to us.
Our site enables you to post and share content and questions with other visitors in various ways. Examples include journals, user profiles, ratings, favorite resources, and questions. By default, all content submitted by you to the site is associated with your username and profile. When posting any content on our site, please be aware that your post can be seen by visitors to the site unless you indicate otherwise (as explained below). The post may also appear in the search results of search engines. Generally, content on our site is made public so that the entire community around our site may benefit from it. Therefore, we strongly recommend that you do not submit any content that contains any personally identifiable information about yourself or others.
We recognize, however, that there may be times when you may want more privacy when submitting content or asking a question about a sensitive health topic. In these situations, you may elect to use the anonymous posting feature, which will not associate your username and profile with the post or question. Communications between you and your “Connections” are not made public.
Cookies are small bits of software code placed on your computer's hard drive by a Web site. Cookies help your Internet browser remember certain information so that the Web site can efficiently communicate with your browser. Our site can only read the cookies placed on your computer by us. We cannot access any information on your hard drive placed there by you or any other source. Our cookies cannot read your computer's files or harm your computer. Cookies are not traceable to an individual visitor.
We may use cookies to track site usage. For example, cookies may allow us to determine what features visitors use when visiting our site and how long they stay there. We may use cookies for the following purposes: 1) to improve our search results and site navigation for visitors, 2) to track visitor sessions when they log in, 3) to provide visitors with more relevant ads or messages from our sponsors, and 4) to otherwise monitor how visitors use our Web site. This site usage information is used to improve our site and may be shared with sponsors.
If you turn off cookies on your Internet browser, you can still use our site but you may have to reject a cookie each time you access our site.
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number that is associated with your computer each time you access the Internet. This is determined by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and the address may or may not change each time. IP addresses are not associated with personally identifiable information. Like other Internet sites, we use IP addresses to collect summary information about visitors and site usage. This information is recorded by our Web servers. We may use the IP address to identify individuals who attempt to illegally compromise our site or disrupt service to our users.
We may share anonymous, summary information about visitors with sponsors, advertisers, or other third parties. Such summary information cannot be used to identify an individual or to link an individual with a specific health condition. We may use summary data for statistical purposes.
The personally identifying information we collect is stored within a database that we control. We use standard, industry-wide procedures such as firewalls and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption to protect your information. However, as effective as encryption technology is, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won't be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet. And, of course, any information you include in a message you post to any message board, discussion group, or other public posting area on our sites is available to anyone with Internet access. If you don't want people to know your name or email address, for example, make sure not to include it in any message you post publicly.
Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 - also known as the "Shine the Light" law - California residents have a right to request certain information from each business they patronize regarding that business's disclosures of personal information to third parties for the third parties' direct marketing purposes. Generally, if a business has disclosed personal information regarding its California customers to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year, the business is required to provide, upon request and free of charge, a list of the names and addresses of all such third parties, together with a list of the categories of personal information that was disclosed.
The "Shine The Light" law creates an exception for businesses that adopt and disclose to the public (in their privacy policies) a policy of not sharing personal information for direct marketing purposes without offering their customers choices to prevent such disclosures. These businesses are not obligated to provide the lists described above and may respond to requests from California customers by notifying them of their rights to prevent disclosures of personal information for direct marketing purposes and providing a cost-free means of exercising those rights.
Healia qualifies for this latter exception. As explained herein, we offer our customers (visitors) choices to prevent the disclosure of their personal information to third parties for the third parties' direct marketing purposes. To prevent such disclosures of your information, please follow the instructions in our "Shine the Light" Customer Notice, which is included below for your convenience. You can also request a copy of this Notice by emailing us at support@healia.com. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request for each California customer during the course of any calendar year and we reserve the right not to respond to requests made by means other than through this email address.
The following options are available to any customers who wish to prevent the disclosure of their personal information to third parties for direct marketing purposes:
Disclosures of Name and Postal Address Information
If you provide us with your name and postal address, we may share this information with other reputable companies that offer products and services that we believe may be of interest to you. To remove your name and postal address from any marketing lists that we sell or rent to third parties, email your name and address to support@healia.com. If you prefer to contact us by regular mail, send a postcard or letter including your name and postal address to: Privacy Office, Healia/Meredith Corp., 1716 Locust Street, Des Moines, IA 50309.
Disclosures of Website Registration Information
When you register to become a member of our Web site and when you use our site, you may be invited to sign up to receive special offers from reputable third-party advertisers that we think may be of interest to you. If you choose to register for these offers, we may share your registration information with the advertisers that sponsor the offers you elect to receive. To prevent the disclosure of your registration information to these advertisers, please do not register to receive third-party offers when you sign up for membership and/or use our site.
Disclosures of Sweepstakes and Contest Registration Information
From time to time, we may offer co-sponsored sweepstakes, contests and other promotions with third-party advertisers and other partners. We may share your registration information with third-parties involved in a co-sponsored promotion, who will always be identified in the promotion materials (for example, in the official rules). If you do not want your registration information to be disclosed to these third-parties, please do not register for any of our co-sponsored promotions.
We may periodically update our Privacy Policy. If we make a major change in this Policy, we will alert our users by sending a message to the email address registered in your account.
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, please email us at support@healia.com.
Revision Date: April 21, 2009.
