Please review our Privacy Policy, which also governs your visit to our Site, to understand our practices. This Privacy Policy applies to the SMRG Site. It does not apply to any other services or dealings with users or customers and does not apply to third-party sites which may be linked to the SMRG site.

SMRG may collect non-personal information from Web visitors on a daily basis. We do not collect personal information other than what you choose to voluntarily submit through some of our Web Pages, such as the Rain Garden Registry, Contact Us form, or workshop registration forms. Any voluntary personal information will be treated as confidential; we will never sell or otherwise provide that information to a third party for any use other than what it is expressly intended for.

 

NON-PERSONAL INFORMATION WE RECORD

During your visit our Site's operating system will automatically record some general information about your visit:

  1. The Internet domain for your Internet service, such as "xcompany.com" or "xcompany.net" if you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu" if you connect from a college or university domain
  2. The type of browser (such as "Netscape version X" or "Internet Explorer version X") that you are using
  3. The type of operating system that you use
  4. The date and time you visited our site, and the Web pages that you visit on our site
  5. The address of the previous website you were visiting, if you linked to us from another website
  6. Analytics of your visit within our Site

We use this information for statistical analysis and to help us make our Site more useful to Visitors. This tracking system does not record information about individuals.

 

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Some of our Web pages offer interactive forms that let the public voluntarily submit personally identifiable information (hereafter referred to as "Personal Information") such as your name, profession, e-mail and postal addresses, telephone number, or other information specific to an activity or form within the Site. This generally occurs when someone is registering their rain garden or for various workshops or events offered by SMRG or its Partners. In these cases, any personally identifiable information submitted is used for the expressed purposes for which it is intended. However, if a comment is submitted to a Web discussion database and the name, email address, or other personal information is supplied, that information is posted along with the comment.

Any non-personal information associated with submittals may be separated for use in aggregate analysis, such as pulling zip codes from the Rain Garden Registry to track the quantity of rain gardens installed in any given municipality.

That Personal Information may be collected in several different ways:

  • In the event that we permit Visitors to request a "user i.d." and password which can be used on future visits to the Site. Visitors to the Site may be asked to supply their name, geographic location and some information about their business or occupation or other reason for interest in the Site; or when Visitors supply an e-mail address to sign up for SMRG newsletters or notices of upcoming events. The Site may include feedback or comment forms whereby Visitors can submit questions or comments.
  • In the event that portions of the Site may permit visitors to enter into transactions with SMRG or to take advantage of services provided by Partners within the Site. In such instances, visitors will be required to provide detailed information necessary to enable SMRG or its Partners to process the transaction and to provide the goods or services requested by the visitor; Visitors may be requested to provide financial information, including credit card or bank information, in connection with such transactions.
  • Portions of the Site may provide chat rooms or discussion forums where users may register and post messages or comments. Participation in such discussion areas is entirely voluntary. No information which a user posts in such an area is private, inasmuch as it will be accessible to other users of the same area. Thus, any Personal Information which a user chooses to post in such an area will not be subject to this Privacy Policy.
  • From time-to-time we may conduct contests or surveys which would request additional information from visitors. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose whatever additional information may be requested. Information requested through surveys and contests may include additional demographic information.

 

HOW IS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED THEN USED?

Personal Information will be used only for the purpose for which it was submitted. Information will be held on databases or other storage media. The information will also be used to administer our website services, for water quality analysis, and to review, develop and improve our services and outreach. We will not keep but destroy any financial information beyond the activity for which it was provided.

Any information collected will primarily be used by SMRG to:

  • enhance the usability and friendliness of our Site and to ensure that the Material provided are timely and relevant and meets the needs of our visitors;
  • provide notice of rain garden related training, events, or promotions available through our Partners;
  • process and complete transactions, such as workshop registrations
  • analyze trends and installation patterns of rain gardens and track their impact on water quality
  • diagnose problems or respond to feedback

 

COOKIES

On certain Web pages, we may use cookies to help you use our website interactively. A cookie is a small data file that a website transfers to your computer's hard disk, usually to keep track of you while you are connected to that site, or to help identify a return visitor each time he or she visits our Site.

The cookies on our Site do not collect information about you, but only about your browser session. The cookie makes it easier for you to use the dynamic features of these Web pages, without having to provide the same information again as you move from one page to another. Most browsers automatically accept cookies but you do not have to accept them. You can usually change your browser to prevent acceptance and you should still be able to enjoy most of the features on this website.

 

SITE SECURITY AND INTRUSION DETECTION

SMRG takes precautions to protect visitor’s Personal Information and to make sure this service remains available to all users. Our safeguards include policies and procedures for staff; and technical means for monitoring network traffic. These programs collect no personally identifiable information, but they do collect information that could help us identify someone attempting to tamper with this Site. In any event that our Site is hosted by a third party, these safeguards shall also apply.

When a registration or order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), we will use a third-party biller with the ability to secure and encrypt your information. We try to reduce the likelihood of accidental disclosures and unintended access and modification of account information, but it is impossible to eliminate this possibility completely. If as a registered user you receive a password, you should keep it confidential because it is the key to access to the information held by SMRG about you. If you leave your computer's internet browser running and someone else uses your computer, they will be able to access your account; thus, if your computer is not physically secure remember to shut down your browser before you leave it.

We attempt to protect all information you provide to us. However, we cannot guarantee the security of any data so disclosed and you accept the inherent security risks of on-line correspondence and purchases over the Internet. We shall not be liable for any breaches of security unless it is due to our willful or fraudulent actions or negligence. All products and services are supplied subject to the terms and conditions contained on this website.

You should be aware that any information collected by our Site may also be used by SMRG if deemed necessary to protect SMRG from a threat or other perceived security risk and such information may be shared with law enforcement authorities if appropriate. For security purposes, we use special software to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage to this Site.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we make no other attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits. We only use raw monitoring data logs for determining trends in usage patterns and for diagnosing system problems.