Privacy Policy & Terms of Service
Welcome to our site(s)!
We extend the following information to assure you that we are concerned about and respect your privacy while visiting our Web site.
The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) and Kids With Food Allergies (KFA) will always endeavor to ensure that any information you provide to us online and offline will remain secure. We want you to feel safe. We therefore request that you take a moment to review the following important information. (Updated December 2016)
Information About Health
Information accessible on our sites is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice and information. Information provided in web pages, messages, blog posts or articles on this website is general in nature and may be helpful to some people but not others, depending upon their personal medical needs. You should always consult with your personal physician or qualified healthcare professional prior to changing or undertaking a new diet, exercise program or following advice designed for general audiences only. Advance consultation with your physician is especially important if you are under eighteen (18), pregnant, nursing a baby, or have health problems. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay to seek it because of something you may have read on this site. Always verify any food products by contacting each manufacturer to make sure that any foods are safe for you or your child’s individual health, diet and nutritional needs.
While all content published on these websites is believed to be accurate, errors sometimes occur. It remains your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of all opinions, advice, services, and other information found on this site.
Statements and opinions expressed in our online community, newsletter, and private messages should be viewed and used with particular caution, and do not represent the views, ideas, opinions, or advice of Kids With Food Allergies or AAFA. We do not undertake editorial control and are not responsible for the content of any messages posted by the online community.
Source of Site Information
The medical and scientific information on our sites should not substitute for seeking responsible, professional medical care. Source information and posting dates are provided for guidance.
Collection of Information
AAFA/KFA does not collect personal information without your knowledge during your visit to our Web sites. However, AAFA/KFA does at times ask that you provide us with personal information while online. The type of information we collect typically, but not always, corresponds directly with the service you request. For instance, you can make donations, when requested you can offer your thoughts, opinions, concerns, ideas, personal experiences, questions and/or suggestions or you can request that a resource be sent to you directly from our Resource Catalog.
As a visitor, the personal information you provide may also be used to improve the usability of, and information available on, our sites. In other words, at times we will ask you for more information, beyond just your name and contact information, than is needed to facilitate our response to your specific request. Your provision of such additional information is your acknowledgement that you consent to our use of such information to better serve you, our visitor, and others coming to our sites.
By registering as a user of our websites, donating or subscribing to our newsletter, you agree to receive communications from us, including invitations to contribute to our fundraising efforts. Should you not wish to receive communications from Kids With Food Allergies or AAFA at any point please e-mail us.
We may require users who want to participate in our online community to register. As part of the registration process, you will be required to provide us with a username (which doesn’t have to be your real name), password and a valid email address, zip code and answers to other questions.
As a registered user, you have the option of providing some additional information such as your children’s ages and allergies. This optional information is made available to our users to foster a sense of community. If you do not wish to provide this optional information, you may leave the optional fields blank and your registration will still be processed.
AAFA/KFA does not sell, lease or rent your personal information. However, we may disclose personal information as required by law, regulation, court order, subpoena, search warrant, in the course of a legal proceeding or in response to a law enforcement agency request, to enforce our Terms of Service, or site rules; or to protect the safety and security of our visitors and our sites. Also, from time to time, AAFA/KFA may directly send you literature from a partner, sponsor or other, but neither your address, phone, e-mail nor any other information is provided to any of these groups.
We may also allow access to our database by third party companies who provide services to improve or maintain the website, databases and online community. These third parties only have access to the extent necessary to perform those services.
Donor Privacy
Donor transactions will be safe and secure, and our donor privacy policy assures you we will not sell, trade or share any donor’s personal information that is collected online or offline with anyone, nor send donor mailings on behalf of other organizations. We will only share personal information if a donor has given permission to do so.
Site Advertising
Some of our sites allow for advertising or sponsorship. We may place advertisements or sponsor acknowledgements adjacent to relevant content in our website, resources and materials. Any content will be separate from, and will not be influenced by, any sponsorship or advertising on our website.
Harvesting of E-mail Addresses
Notice: “Harvesting” e-mail addresses from our websites or web services and any transfer of e-mail addresses for the purpose of sending e-mail is prohibited.
Security
Our Web sites’ e-commerce system uses protection software to transmit data from your computer to our Web site as safe and secure manner as possible. In certain areas, password protection is used to protect your privacy and security.
Changes
AAFA/KFA reserves the right to make changes to this privacy policy at any time and requests that you review this policy for updates.
Cookies
A small piece of data that a website can store on your system is referred to as a “cookie.” Cookies are often used to enhance your online experience. Many browsers recognize when a cookie has been sent to your computer and will give you the option to refuse or allow it. We use small text files to remember your username and e-mail address so that you can access sections of the website.
These cookies collect some non-personal information such as your type of browser, but do not collect, store, or maintain any other private personally identifiable information. The only information we match with your e-mail address from a cookie is your Internet service provider address and the date when you last visited our online community.
When you are visiting our community it is possible for community administrators to determine which users are currently online and which for each user is currently visiting; otherwise, we will not have any knowledge of what particular pages you have chosen to visit. We may use this information for management purposes, such as to identify duplicate registrations or to deal with registrants who abuse their privileges in using the message boards or chat rooms.
We use aggregate, non-personally identifiable data derived from cookies to compile statistics such as the number of visitors to our site, the type of browser and operating system’s visitors use, what countries visitors are coming from, and what pages and files users visit. We may use this type of information for management and administrative purposes, such as for planning service improvements. This type of report will not contain any personal information and will not identify any uses of our website or online community. When you register on our site, you may choose to refuse our cookie, or you may delete or turn off our cookie from your hard drive at any time although this may create problems for use of certain parts of our website.
How You Can Control the Use of Your Personal Information
We give you choices and control of what information you provide to us. You can update your personal profile by logging into our online community, choosing “manage”, then select the settings of profile item you wish to update. We want to caution you as a website visitor, that any information you disclose in the public areas of these services (online community forums, including, blogs, videos or photos sharing, chat rooms) and other publicly view content in which you voluntarily we participate can be viewed by anyone who accesses those areas and is not considered to be confidential or privileged. You should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit in the public areas can be read, collected, or used by other users of our website and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to disclose publicly.
Our Policies Regarding Children
Our websites and online community are limited to individuals of legal age in accordance with our terms of service. We do not provide web-based services for children at this time, although we do provide services to adults that may be of benefit for their children. We will not intentionally collect any information from a child under age 13 years of age. Should you learn that we have information on a child under age 13, please promptly let us know by e-mail.
Postal Mail
We communicate with our supporters primarily by online communications, but do send direct mail and other occasional communications by personal mail. You may opt out of receiving postal communications by e-mail or by calling us at 1‑800‑7ASTHMA, Ext. 272.
Your privacy rights under California law
California’s “Shine the Light” law regulates the sharing of personal information by a company for direct marketing purposes by requiring a company to notify a consumer of its sharing practices or by providing the consumer the opportunity to opt out of having his or her personal information shared with a third party free of charge. If you wish to opt out of having your information shared with third parties, please contact us at gro.afaa@ofni
TERMS OF USE
We intend our Web sites to be useful, informative, and current. Hopefully we’ve accomplished that — and would ask that you let us know if you’d like to see improvements or changes that would make it even easier for you to find the information you need and want.
Restrictions on Use of Our Online Materials
For permission to reprint or re-use any materials on this site, contact AAFA/KFA in writing, c/o Office of External Affairs at gro.afaa@ofni. All materials contained in the AAFA/KFA Web sites (“Online Material”) are the copyrighted property of AAFA/KFA. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are proprietary to AAFA/KFA. No Online Material from our Web sites may be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, or distributed in any way, except that you may download a copy of any Online Material on any single computer for your personal, noncommercial home use only, provided that you 1) retain all copyright, trademark and propriety notices, 2) you make no modifications to the materials, 3) you do not use the materials in a manner that suggests an association with any of our products, services, events or brands, and 4) you do not download quantities of materials to a database, server, or personal computer for reuse for commercial purposes. You may not copy, reproduce, republish, upload, post, transmit or distribute our Online Material in any way or for any other purpose unless you get our written permission first. Neither may you add, delete, distort or misrepresent any content on the AAFA/KFA sites. Any attempt to modify any Online Material, or to defeat or circumvent our security features is prohibited.
Everything you download, any software, plus all files, all images incorporated in or generated by the software, and all data accompanying it, is considered licensed to you by AAFA or third-party licensors for your personal, non-commercial home use only. We do not transfer title of any software or other content to you. That means that we retain full and complete title to the software and to all of the associated intellectual-property rights. You may not redistribute or sell the material or reverse-engineer, disassemble or otherwise convert it to any other form that people can use.
Submissions
By submitting, disclosing, or offering any recipe, review, photograph, image, video, comments, feedback, postcards, suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, and other information, content or material, or other item (each, a “Submission”) to AAFA/KFA either online or offline and whether or not solicited by AAFA/KFA, you hereby grant to AAFA/KFA an irrevocable, nonexclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free right and license to use, display, publicly perform, modify, reproduce, publish, distribute, make derivative works of, sublicense, and otherwise commercially and non-commercially exploit your Submissions and all copyright, trade secret, trademark, or other intellectual property rights therein, in any manner or medium now existing or hereafter developed (including but not limited to print, film, or electronic storage devices), and the exclusive right to use, display, publicly perform, modify, reproduce, publish, distribute, make derivative works of, sublicense, and otherwise exploit all such materials on commercial websites, without compensation of any kind to you or any third part
You hereby represent and warrant (a) you have all necessary right, power, and authority to grant the license set forth herein to your Submission, and (b) your Submission does not violate, misappropriate, or infringe any copyright, trade secret, trademark or other intellectual property right of any third party. You will take, at AAFA/KFA’ expense, any further action (including, without limitation, execution of affidavits and other documents) reasonably requested by AAFA/KFA to effect, perfect, and confirm the license granted to AAFA/KFA to your Submission as set forth herein. You acknowledge that you are responsible for any submission you make. This means that you (and not we) have full responsibility for the message, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality, and copyright. If you delete a Submission from our site, our general license to that Submission will end after a reasonable period of time required for the deletion to take full effect. However, the Submission may still exist in our backup copies, which are not publicly available. In addition, if we made use of your Submission before you deleted it, we will continue to have the right to make, duplicate, redistribute, and sublicense those pre-existing uses, even after you delete the Submission.
Publication or use of any Submission is at the sole discretion of AAFA/KFA and AAFA/KFA is under no obligation to publish or use any Submission. If your Submission is published, used and/or posted on the web site or otherwise used by AAFA/KFA, we may include your name, likeness, photo or biographical information in conjunction with such publication, posting, or use. By submitting, disclosing, or offering a Submission, you hereby grant AAFA/KFA the right to use your name in connection with the publication, use or posting of your Submission. You must include your full name and e-mail address with your Submission so we can contact you if we have any questions about your Submission; however, only your name or your user name and not your e-mail address will be published with your Submission. No Submission shall be treated as confidential. If you desire your Submission to contain an attribute, please note this at the time you submit it. Even though you retain the copyright, it might not be possible to list the attribution in conjunction with the Submission.
Submitting Your Online Material to Us
All remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, comments, or other information that you send to AAFA through our sites becomes and remains AAFA property, even if this agreement is later terminated. That means that we don’t have to treat any such submission as confidential. You can’t sue us for using ideas you submit. If we use them, or anything like them, we don’t have to pay you or anyone else for them. We will have the exclusive ownership of all present and future rights to submissions of any kind. We can use them for any purpose we deem appropriate to our AAFA mission, without compensating you or anyone else for them. You acknowledge that you are responsible for any submission you make. This means that you (and not we) have full responsibility for the message, including its legality, reliability, appropriateness, originality, and copyright.
Limitation of Liability
AAFA/KFA will not be liable for any damages or injury that accompany or result from your use of any of our sites. These include (but are not limited to) damages or injury caused by any:
- USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SITES
- USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) ANY SITE TO WHICH YOU HYPERLINK FROM OUR SITES
- FAILURE OF OUR SITES TO PERFORM IN THE MANNER YOU EXPECTED OR DESIRED
- ERROR ON OUR SITES
- OMISSION ON OUR SITES
- INTERRUPTION OF AVAILABILITY OF OUR SITES
- DEFECT ON OUR SITES
- DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION OF OUR SITES
- COMPUTER VIRUS OR LINE FAILURE
In addition, we are not liable for any damages arising out of or in any way attributable to use of our sites, any content thereon, or any omission therein, including:
- DAMAGES INTENDED TO COMPENSATE SOMEONE DIRECTLY FOR A LOSS OR INJURY
- DAMAGES REASONABLY EXPECTED TO RESULT FROM A LOSS OR INJURY (KNOWN IN LEGAL TERMS AS “CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.”)
- OTHER MISCELLANEOUS DAMAGES AND EXPENSES RESULTING DIRECTLY FROM A LOSS OR INJURY (KNOWN IN LEGAL TERMS AS “INCIDENTAL DAMAGES.”)
AAFA/KFA is not liable even if we’ve been negligent or if our authorized representative has been advised of the possibility of such damages or both. In states with exemptions to this terms, AAFA/KFA’s liability to you for all losses, damages, injuries, and claims of any and every kind (whether the damages are claimed under the terms of a contract or claimed to be caused by negligence or other wrongful conduct, or they are claimed under any other legal theory) will not be greater than the amount you paid to access AAFA’s/KFA’s sites.
Links to Other Sites
We sometimes provide referrals to and links to other World Wide Web sites from our sites. Such a link should not be seen as an endorsement, approval or agreement with any information or resources offered at sites you can access through our sites. If in doubt, always check the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address provided in your WWW browser to see if you are still in an AAFA-operated site or have moved to another site. AAFA/KFA is not responsible for the content or practices of third party sites that may be linked to our sites. When AAFA provides links or references to other Web sites, no inference or assumption should be made and no representation should be inferred that AAFA is connected with, operates or controls these Web sites, nor is AAFA/KFA responsible for the content on third-party sites. Any approved link must not represent in any way, either explicitly or by implication, that you have received the endorsement, sponsorship or support of any AAFA site or endorsement, sponsorship or support, including its respective employees, agents or directors.
Monitoring Online Postings
AAFA/KFA shall have the right to monitor and review the content of any discussions, chats, forums, postings, transmissions and bulletin boards, although AAFA/KFA is not under legal obligation to do so. AAFA/KFA assumes no responsibility or liability arising from the content of an online posting. However, we do specifically prohibit you or any visitor from posting or transmitting any unlawful, threatening, libelous, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic, or profane material or any material that could constitute or encourage what could be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability or otherwise violate any law. AAFA/KFA will fully cooperate with authorities and court orders requesting details of any criminal postings. AAFA/KFA shall have the right in its sole discretion to edit, refuse to post or remove any material submitted to or posted on any AAFA/KFA web site. AAFA/KFA shall have the right to remove any material that it determines to be in violation of these provisions or otherwise objectionable. In addition, children 12 and under are not authorized to post messages or participate in Forums on any AAFA/KFA Web site unless the site has been specifically designed for them and all appropriate parental notification and approval devices have been complied with fully.
Acceptable Behavior For Our Online Community and Other Interactive Features On Our Website
We expect our users and site visitors to abide by common standards of decency and courtesy. We reserve the right to remove any posted item it deems objectionable, offenses or inappropriate or not in the best interest of the organization. Users or visitors who abuse any interactive features, including online community areas, will be banned from future participation on the site.
The following will not be permitted in our online community or other interactive areas of our website(s):
- Rude, offensive, discriminatory, harassing, vulgar or seen items
- Illegal, fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading items
- Impersonating others or creating multiple identities
- Items in violation of copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights
- Personal attacks and postings appearing to libel or slander others
- Commercial advertisements or self-promotion, including announcements, or testimonials of websites, services, businesses, products, online groups/lists, etc. in which you have a personal interest or involvement or from which you derive some kind of remuneration
- Items about treatments or cures without basis in scientific fact
- Offers to buy, sell or swap items (donating or giving away items in exchange for postage or shipping is acceptable)
- Announcements about research projects, solicitations of subjects for interviews or studies, conducting surveys, polls, or otherwise gathering information about users for anything other than personal use without the express permission of AAFA/KFA
- Announcements about fundraisers for other organizations or personal requests for money, goods or services without the express permission of kids with food allergies
- Items about political elections, candidates or party affiliations
- Debates not related to food allergies with regard to the pros/cons about immunizing, breast versus bottle, homeschooling versus traditional schooling, etc.
- Content that contains or installs any viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses or other harmful or destructive content
- Spam, or machine- or randomly-generated content
Users are required to disclose any financial interest in commercial funding or affiliations related to the subject of any posts made on our online community or chat rooms if one exists.
Complaints or suspected violations regarding online community postings may be reported by using the “Alert an Administrator feature of the online community or by emailing us at gro.afaa@ofni with details of your concern.
Termination of This Agreement
This agreement is effective until terminated by either party. You may terminate this agreement at any time, by destroying all materials obtained from all AAFA Web sites, along with all related documentation and all copies and installations. AAFA may terminate this agreement at any time and without notice to you, if, in its sole judgment, you breach any term or condition of this agreement. Upon termination, you must destroy all materials. In addition, by providing material on our Web sites, we do not in any way promise that the materials will remain available to you. And AAFA is entitled to terminate all or any part of any of its Web sites without notice to you.
Jurisdiction and Other Points to Consider
Unless otherwise specified, the Online Materials on our sites are presented to provide information about the resources of AAFA/KFA. AAFA was organized under the laws of the state of New York, in the United States of America. If you use our sites from locations outside of the United States, you are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. These Terms of Use, and the agreement they create, shall be governed by and interpreted according to the laws of the State of New York (without applying the state’s conflict-of-law principles.) If any provision of this agreement is unlawful, void or unenforceable, it will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. AAFA may modify these Terms of Use, and the agreement they create, at any time, simply by updating this posting and without notice to you. This is the ENTIRE agreement regarding all the matters that have been discussed.
Questions or Suggestions
Please direct all questions or comments regarding this privacy policy to AAFA via phone at 1-800-7ASTHMA, Ext. 272, e-mail at gro.afaa@ofni<.strong>, or write us at AAFA, 8201 Corporate Drive, Suite 1000, Landover, MD 20785. This Web site may provide links to external Web sites maintained by individuals or organizations external to AAFA. Once you access information that links you to another Web site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the Web site containing the information you have linked to.