Policies

This site, www.svtrees.org is owned and operated by the Shenandoah Valley Trees (SVT). Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. We want to make your online experience satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

Gathering and Tracking Information

SVT gathers two types of information about users:

  • Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. This information is collected when, for example, users sign up to receive our electronic newsletters, email a friend, participate in interactive features (e.g. polls, surveys, social sharing, BBS), make a donation, apply for a seasonal job, or become a member.

  • Information the AMC gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers’ needs and to better understand the demographics of our audience. Under no circumstances does SVT divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.

SVT Gathers User Information In The Following Processes:

Optional Voluntary Information

We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:

  1. Electronic newsletters policy: We offer free electronic newsletters to users. SVT gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe and its members. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page.

  2. Polling: We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. SVT may use a system to “tag” users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.

  3. Surveys: SVT may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.

Children

Consistent with the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without obtaining parental consent.

Usage Tracking

SVT tracks user traffic patterns throughout our site. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. SVT does break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser).

SVT may track and catalog the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies and Web Beacons

We may place a text file called a “cookie” in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. SVT uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you’ve set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in our polling and surveys.

Third parties may use cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect or receive information from our website and elsewhere on the internet and use that information to provide measurement services and target ads. You can opt-out from the collection of web viewing data for interest-based advertising and other applicable uses, by some or all of the participating companies, at www.aboutads.info/choices.

Use of Information

SVT uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.

It is our intention to send only e-mail communications that will be useful to you and that you want to receive. When you provide your email address, we may contact you via e-mail to provide information about conservation issues and update you on SVT activities and events that may be of interest to you. If you subscribed to our newsletter, we may e-mail you regarding other opportunities.

As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls and surveys. We send out newsletters to subscribers as newsworthy organizational and local happenings and events warrant, and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. SVT never shares e-newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners. except in very limited circumstances as explained in Sharing of Information below where a third party service is only permitted to use information to provide a service to SVT or a service or product to a site user.

We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We may track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don’t track which terms a particular user enters.

SVT creates aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don’t track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked on their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.

Social Sharing

Facebook Share
We use a Facebook Share widget on our website to allow you to share our webpages on Facebook. This widget may collect your IP address, your web browser User Agent, store and retrieve cookies on your browser, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with the widget, including correlating your Facebook account with the sharing of our webpages, if you are logged in to Facebook. For more information about how this data may be used, please see Facebook’s data privacy policy: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/update

Twitter Tweet

We use a Twitter Tweet widget on our website to allow you to share our webpages on Twitter. As a result, our website makes requests to Twitter’s servers for you to be able to tweet our webpages using your Twitter account. These requests make your IP address visible to Twitter, who may use it in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://twitter.com/en/privacy#update

Linkedin Share
We use a LinkedIn Share widget on our website to allow you to share our webpages on LinkedIn. These requests may track your IP address in accordance with their data privacy policy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

Sharing of the Information

SVT uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and better understand our audience’s demographics.

SVT does not sell or exchange email addresses. In some instances, we use third-party companies to help us provide products and services to you, like a service that sends out our emails and e-newsletters or an order fulfillment house. In those instances we need to share your email address with them. We require that those companies use the information only to deliver the specific product or service they are contracted to provide.

In some cases, we use a third-party email service provider to send emails. The service provider is prohibited from using your email address for any purpose other than to send SVT-related email. Every time you receive an email newsletter, you will be provided the choice to opt-out of future emails by following the instructions provided in the email.

We do not share, rent, or sell your personal contact information or any tracking information we collect to improve online services with third parties. We use third-party companies to help us provide products and services to you. In those instances we need to share your personal information with them. We require that those companies use the information only to deliver the specific product or service they are contracted to provide.

We may release personal information if required by law, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena.

Security

SVT makes every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry accepted data collection and encryption methodologies. For example, when entering personal address, phone number, and credit card information, we use Secure Socket Layer encryption to ensure unauthorized individuals cannot intercept and read this data over a network connection. You will know you are in secure mode when the padlock or key icon in the lower right-hand or left-hand corner of the computer screen appears in the locked position. In addition, when accessing a secure server, the first characters of the site address will change from “http” to “https.” Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

Opt-Out Policy

We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include.

  • Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.

  • Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users

Your Consent

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by SVT. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.

Questions: Any questions on this privacy policy may be sent to: info@svtrees.org.

Volunteer and Donor Policy

SVT does not under and circumstances share, sell, rent, or otherwise provide our volunteer or donor information to third parties except to benefit those individuals (eg. e-mail communications from SVT) or to satisfy legal and regulatory disclosures required of us by local, state, and federal governments. 

Contacting Us

Effective management of our email list to honor the interests of our volunteers and donors is an important aspect of email communications program. Whether you would like to be removed from a specific campaign or an e-newsletter, all of our communications include an ‘Remove me from this mailing ‘ link at the very bottom of the email.

To be removed from all SVT emails, please email info@svtrees.org with ‘unsubscribe’ in the subject line.

If you want something else, please specify and we will find the best option to meet your needs.

If users have questions or concerns regarding this statement, they should contact us by email at info@svtrees.org, or by postal mail at: Shenandoah Valley Trees, PO Box 595, Winchester, VA 22604.

Thank you for supporting Shenandoah Valley Trees!