PRIVACY POLICY

KidsHelpOut.Org Privacy Policy & Your Privacy Rights

Thank you for visiting www.kidshelpout.org , which is a special web site created by CartoonNetwork.com to help you find out how you can help out other kids worldwide.  

Because many visitors to this site are children, we have developed unique content tailored just for them. In addition, we employ special measures to help children protect their privacy while online.   For example, we do not ask children to disclose more personal information than is reasonably necessary for them to participate in a particular activity.

I. The Information We Collect
At this site, we do not collect personally identifiable information unless our visitors voluntarily provide it to us.   For some activities, such as online polls or surveys, we may ask visitors to provide information that is not personally identifiable. This might include first name only, city or state of residence, age, or gender.   For some other activities, such as entering sweepstakes, signing up for a newsletter, or where we enable visitors to submit fundraising ideas, suggestions or questions (e.g., fundraising ideas related to the tsunami relief efforts), we may ask visitors to provide a first name and e-mail address.   For other activities, such as sending an electronic postcard or e-mail to a friend, we may also ask for personally identifiable information about other people.   We also may collect parent's e-mail addresses to seek the parent's verifiable consent or notify the parent of his/her child's online activities and enable the parent to unsubscribe his/her child from a newsletter or other similar activity.  

If visitors are given the option of making charitable contributions, participating in charitable solicitations or similar cause-related activities on this site, visitors will be required to provide additional types of information such as their full name, billing and mailing addresses, e-mail address, telephone number and a credit card number.   If an item is being ordered and requested to be shipped to a third party, we will also need the recipient's name and mailing address.

II. How We Use the Information
We use visitors' personal information collected on the site for internal purposes only.   For example, we use information to respond to children's requests and to enable them to participate in an activity (e.g., subscribe to a newsletter, submit fundraising suggestions or questions).   Each newsletter also would include instructions for subscription removal via return e-mail.   If visitors are given the option and choose to give charitable contributions or to participate in charitable solicitations on this site via credit card, then we may also use personal information provided by visitors to send them information regarding such charitable contributions and solicitations. If, at any time in the future, visitors would like to request that we no longer send them this information, they can follow the unsubscribe instructions at the end of the communications or contact us at Privacy.CartoonNetwork@turner.com .

When we collect parents' e-mail addresses, we use those e-mail addresses to notify them when we have received personal information such as e-mail addresses from their children and to give parents the option to remove their child's name from lists. We use information we collect about others only to enable visitors to our site to communicate with those other people, for example, by sending them electronic greeting cards or e-mail or to notify them of charitable solicitations made on their behalf.  

We do not share children's personally identifiable information with outside third parties not bound by this privacy policy without obtaining prior parental permission. Sometimes, we use agents or contractors to provide services to our visitors.   In these cases, we require the agent or contractor to keep the information confidential and to use it only for the specific services they are performing.

We sometimes use non-personally identifiable information that we collect to improve the design and content of our site, and to improve our visitors' experience on the site.   We also may aggregate this information to analyze site usage and traffic, as well as to offer products, programs, or services.

III. Cookies and Web Beacons
This site may use a software technology called "cookies." Cookies are small text files that we place in visitors' computer browsers to store their preferences. Cookies themselves do not contain any personally identifiable information. Although cookies could enable a web site operator to relate a visitor's use of this web site to personal information that the visitor has provided, such as an e-mail address, we do not use cookies for this purpose on this site.   We do use cookies to determine how many visitors we have and how often they visit various sections of our site.

IV. Collection of Information by Third-Party Sites and Ad Servers
This site contains links to other sites, including those of charitable organizations and Tsunami relief efforts, whose information practices may be different than from those of this site.    Visitors should consult these other third party sites' privacy notices since these sites are not covered by our privacy policy.   It is important for you to read the privacy policies since the linked web sites may follow different procedures - particularly those web sites that allow you to make a charitable contribution by use of credit cards over the Internet.

V. Security
We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and correctly use any information we collect online.

We are particularly sensitive to visitors' security concerns regarding the use of credit cards to make charitable contributions or to purchase products in connection with charitable solicitations over the Internet. If orders can be placed on this site in the future, we will use a technology that automatically encrypts credit card data while information is being transmitted over the Internet, provided that the visitor's browser supports the Secure Socket Layer protocol (SSL).

VI. Parental Review of Information; Contact Information

Parents, please send a letter or postcard to our Privacy Manager at the mailing address provided below if you would like to do any of the following:

• access personally identifiable information that the KidsHelpOut.org site has collected online from your child,
• correct factual errors in such information,
• request to have this information deleted, or
• request that we no longer collect or maintain such information.

Please be sure to include your e-mail address and a telephone number where we can reach you. To protect your child's privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting you access to the personal information that we collect and maintain about your child.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding our privacy policy and/or practices, please contact us at the following e-mail address or mailing address:

Email: Privacy.CartoonNetwork@turner.com

VII. Updates & Effective Date
From time to time, we may update this privacy policy. We will notify you about material changes in the way we treat personally identifiable information by placing a notice on this site. We encourage you to periodically check back and review this policy so that you always will know what personal information we collect, how we use it, and to whom we disclose it.  

The Privacy Policy posted on this site was updated on or about January 26, 2005.  

VIII. A Final Note to Parents

The Internet offers a world of opportunity for children. Your guidance and involvement are essential to help ensure that children have a safe and rewarding online experience. Your efforts to instill responsible information practices will help steer your children to age-appropriate sites, and will go a long way toward ensuring that your children have enriching online experiences.