This Privacy Policy explains the collection, use, and disclosure of “personal information” by Creative Commons, a Massachusetts Corporation, with its principal place of business at 171 Second St, Suite 300, San Francisco, 94150, USA, through the websites that Creative Commons operates at http:///creativecommons.org and http://sciencecommons.org (“Websites”). Any “personal information” that Creative Commons collects via our ccMixter site (http://ccmixter.org) is handled in accordance with our ccMixter Privacy Policy (http://ccmixter.org/privacy). As used in this policy, “personal information’ means information that would allow a party to identify you, such as, for example, your name, address, telephone number or email address.
Personal information we collect: We collect personal information at four places on our Websites: (1) in connection with your selection of one of our licenses, your selection of a Public Domain Dedication or your application for Founder’s Copyright; (2) when you provide us with your personal information such as by sending an email to us or signing up to receive a newsletter; (3) when you subscribe to one of our email discussion lists (http://creativecommons.org/discuss); and, (4) when you donate money to us or purchase merchandise via our support page (http://creativecommons.org/support/).
What we do with the personal information we collect: We use the personal information you provide to us as part of your selection of one of our licenses to provide you the RDF, html, and the Uniform Resource Locator that corresponds to the license you selected. Your email address is expunged from our logs after this email has been successfully sent. If you choose a Public Domain Dedication, we use your personal information to provide you with the dedication information and your email address and other information is expunged from our logs after this email has been successfully sent. If you apply for a Founder’s Copyright, we use and retain your personal information to provide you with the relevant agreement, to process your application and manage your Founder’s Copyright.
We use the personal information you provide to us when you send us emails or sign up to receive our newsletter in order to respond to your request, for example, to reply to your email or to send you communications about news and events related to Creative Commons.
When you subscribe to our newsletter or to one of our email discussion lists, your name and email address is sent to and stored by ibiblio (http://www.ibiblio.org/), a collaboration between the Center for the Public Domain (http://www.centerforthepublicdomain.org/) and the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (http://www.unc.edu/). Personal information submitted as part of our email discussion lists is used for the purpose managing the discussion lists. Your name and email address will typically be visible to other list participants when you correspond on the list and to the general public in the discussion archives.
When you donate money to us or purchase merchandise via our support page, your personal information will be handled in one of three ways, depending on which option you choose.
If you purchase a t-shirt or other merchandise via the Café Press Creative Commons store, your personal information will be sent to, handled and stored by Café Press (http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/) in accordance with its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
If you purchase a t-shirt or other merchandise directly from Creative Commons, we will use your personal information for the purpose of sending you the items you purchased.
You may donate money to Creative Commons either via PayPal (in which case your personal information is sent to, handled by and stored by PayPal (https://www.paypal.com/) in accordance with its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy), via the Amazon Honor System (in which case your personal information is sent to, handled by and stored by Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com) in accordance with its Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy) or directly to Creative Commons. When you donate money to Creative Commons directly, we use your personal information to process your donation.
Regardless of the method by which you donate to Creative Commons or purchase a t-shirt or other merchandise, we additionally use the personal information you provide for the purpose of contacting you about upcoming news and events relevant to Creative Commons. When we contact you for the first time after your donation, we will give you the option to choose not to be contacted in this manner again. When you donate money as part of one of Creative Commons fundraising campaigns, your name will be published on our “supporters page” unless you request otherwise.
Non-personal browsing and site usage information that we collect: When you use the Websites, our servers (which may be hosted by a third party service provider) may collect information indirectly and automatically (through, for example, the use of your “IP address”) about your activities while visiting the Websites, including the web pages you view and the times you view them and information about the browser you are using. We do not link browsing information to the personal information you submit to us; we use this browsing information for internal purposes such as to help understand how the Websites are being used and to improve it, and for systems administration purposes. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer when you use the Internet. In some cases your IP address stays the same from browser session to browser session; but if you use a consumer Internet access provider, your IP address probably varies from session to session.
The disclosures we may make of personal information: In general, it is not Creative Commons’ practice to disclose personal information to third parties. We may share personal information in two instances.
Firstly, Creative Commons may share personal information with our contractors and service providers in order to maintain, enhance, or add to the functionality of the Websites. Secondly, we may share personal information with third parties such as the government or other entities when required to by law or as required by court order.
The security of personal information collected via the Websites: Creative Commons has implemented reasonable measures to protect against unauthorized access to and unlawful interception or processing of personal information that Creative Commons stores and controls. However, no website can fully eliminate security risks. Third parties may circumvent our security measures to unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications. We will post a reasonably prominent notice to the Websites if any such security breach occurs.
Questions? If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at info@creativecommons.org.
We hope this policy clarifies our procedures regarding your personal information. Creative Commons may revise this policy at any time by updating this posting.
Effective Date: October 4, 2005 (previous Privacy Policy)