YMCA of Greater Houston Privacy Policy
We have adopted and implemented this Privacy Policy as part of our commitment to protecting your personal information from misuse.
This Website is not directed at children under the age of 13. If you are under 13, please do not provide any personal information on this Website.
What information does the YMCA collect on its Websites?
The YMCA collects both personal information and aggregated information on its Websites. We discuss our collection and use of different kinds of information below.
Personal Information
You do not have to provide personal information to use our Website. However, particular services provided through the Website require that you furnish personal information. We collect such personal information only when you provide it to us, for example, in registering for programs and camps; pledging support; and becoming a YMCA member; and when taking part in promotional opportunities or registering for general information on programs and services. You may be asked to provide your contact information (such as your name, postal address, telephone numbers and/or email address), financial information (such as credit card numbers) and demographic information (such as your Zip code, age, or income level) in connection with your use of such services.
Contact information is used to respond to your inquiries; to notify you in connection with your request for services; register you for camps or conferences; or contact you with regards to your inquiries from our Website.
We use IP addresses to calculate Website usage levels. Whenever you are on the Internet, a number (an IP address) is automatically assigned to your computer. This number is identified and logged automatically whenever you visit our Website. Collecting IP addresses is standard practice on the Internet, and is done automatically by many Websites.
We may also disclose personal information if we believe that we are required to do so (i) by law, (ii) to comply with legal process or governmental requests, (iii) to enforce our User Agreement or (iv) to protect the rights, property, or safety of the YMCA, its users or the public.
Except as otherwise discussed in this Privacy Policy, this document only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you online. For some services, we either collect and transfer personal information to a third party service provider in order to verify and process your credit card. We encourage you to ask questions and to be cautious before you disclose your personal information to others.
This Privacy Policy will explain the following regarding use of our site:
What information does the YMCA collect from you?
In order to better provide you with services, the YMCA collects two types of information about its visitors: Personally Identifiable Information and Non-Personally Identifiable Information. Our primary goal in collecting information from you is to provide you with the information that you request in a timely and efficient manner and therefore you experience a smooth, efficient, and customized experience while using our Website.
Personally Identifiable Information
Refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are. Personal information is required when you order a service, register for a program, camp or conference, pledge your support or join our membership. This information includes your name, address, e-mail address, birth date, sex, phone number, credit card or other payment information, and details your order.[1] With this information, the YMCA can fill your orders and provide you with personalized service. If you visit one of the stores available through a link on our Website, that store may independently collect, use and share your personal information in accordance with its own privacy policy. If you have questions about a store’s information practices, please read its privacy policy.
We may disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to third parties to charge your credit card, fill your order, and provide customer service. For example, we must release your credit card information to the card-issuing bank to confirm payment.
Non-Personally Identifiable Information
Refers to information that does not by itself identify a specific individual. We gather certain information about you based upon where your usage of our Website in several ways. This information is compiled and analyzed on both a personal and an aggregated basis. For example, this information may include the Website’s Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) that you just came from, which URL you next go to, what browser you are using, and your IP address. A URL is the global address of documents and other resources on the World Wide Web. An IP address is a computer identifier on a Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) network, such as the World Wide Web. The Web uses the TCP/IP protocol to route information based on the IP address of the destination. An IP address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web, allowing Web servers to locate and identify your computer. Computers require IP addresses to allow users to browse and communicate on the Internet.
We review the actions of the YMCA visitors on an aggregate basis to determine customers’ preferences.
Where do we collect information from you and how do we use it?
The Personally Identifiable Information collected by the YMCA is used to process orders, registrations, reservations, pledges; to administer our systems; for statistical purposes; to improve our site and its performance; and to keep you informed about your order status. We will release the information to third parties to charge your credit card, provide customer service, and deliver promotional e-mails to you from the YMCA. We must release your credit card information to the card-issuing bank to confirm payment.
We gather information in the following ways:
We collect IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, to gather broad demographic information, and to monitor the level of activity on our site. We collect information from visitors to our site regarding the URLs they came from, domain types (e.g., .com or .org), their IP addresses, the date and time of their visit or order, the number of visits and orders, the number of visits per browsing session, the server type, the operating system and browser type used to come to the site, the country, state and telephone area code where their servers are located, the pages and page titles of our site that visitors viewed during their visit, whether the visitor’s computer is enabled for Java or cookies, browser language, applications and plug-ins, and any search terms entered on our site.
Ordering, Registering, Pledging Support, Joining
When you order from us or register with us, we collect personally identifiable information from you. When you order a service, register for a program, camp, pledge support, renew membership or submit a resume for employment with our career info, we will collect and maintain your name, e-mail address, billing address, shipping address, telephone number, order selections, credit card or other payment information, order number, referring URL, IP address, page you bought from or registered on and a password. Before confirming your order, pledge, or membership form, you will have the opportunity to review the order and make changes and additions to the information it contained and these changes will be automatically kept for future use.
Pledging Support
The personally identifiable information that the YMCA collects from you when you pledge your support to the YMCA of Greater Houston includes: your name, address, e-mail, phone number and credit card information, when you provide it. The information is used to provide you a receipt for your gift and to bill your credit card when applicable. We use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity of all information collected.
Online Surveys and Polling
In order to improve our services to you, we may ask some of our customers to voluntarily complete surveys, which may be collected by an independent third party. Individual survey answers are confidential, although Non-Personally Identifiable Information is collected and may be disclosed to third parties. If you do not wish to participate in a survey, simply decline to participate when asked.
Contact Information and Third Party Data
If you contact the YMCA or our customer service representatives by telephone, e-mail or letter, we may keep a record of your correspondence or comments. If you report a problem with our Website, we may collect such information in a file specific to you. If you contact us through our feedback area or by calling one of our customer service representatives, we may ask for your name, e-mail address and other information in order to send you a reply. If other users or third parties send us correspondence about your activities or purchases on our Website, we may keep the information in a file specific to you.
Advertising
We do not currently display advertisements on our site. However, should we at some point decide to allow advertising on our Website, we will update this Privacy Policy to reflect that change. The YMCA expressly reserves the right to track customers’ traffic patterns throughout their online session, including which pages, information and advertisements a customer views while using the site. We may use your IP address to diagnose problems with our servers, software, to administer our site and to gather demographic information. We may share aggregated statistics about pages viewed on our site.
With whom do we share your information?
Other Parties: We do not sell, trade, or license your Personally Identifiable Information to others without your consent. We may provide Non-Personally Identifiable Information about our customers’ sales, traffic patterns, and related site information to third parties, but these statistics do not include any Personally Identifiable Information. If a customer does not pay us for services ordered, we may submit their account information to a third party collection agency. Except as otherwise stated in this Policy, without your consent, the YMCA does not disclose its customers’ Personally Identifiable Information to other merchants.
Data Analysis Agents: The information collected by or for the YMCA may be provided to an outside company for the purpose of analysis. This analysis is to help us to improve our Website, services selection, and to notify you of special offers that may be of interest to you. That data analysis agent may not share any Personally Identifiable Information with others, or use it for any other purpose than to help the YMCA.
Website Analysis Agents: These third parties use their cookies’ identification numbers and internal Website tracking features to serve ads on our site and to collect aggregated information to create statistics about our customers and visitors, traffic patterns, and related site information. In the event that our ad servers collect any Personally Identifiable Information on our behalf, it will not be used by them or disclosed to any third parties.
How can you update or correct your Personally Identifiable Information?
We encourage you to check and promptly update your information if it changes at your home branch. You may ask to have the information on your account deleted or removed; however, because we keep track of past purchases, you cannot delete information associated with past purchases. Also, as a security measure we “back up” the data stored on our systems, and such prior information cannot be completely removed from our databases. As a result, you should not expect that all of your Personally Identifiable Information will be completely removed from our backed-up databases.
What are your choices regarding collection, use, and distribution of your information?
Email: We may send you e-mail or other communications regarding current promotions, specials and new additions to the YMCA site. You may “opt-out,” or unsubscribe from our newsletters by following the unsubscribe instructions in any e-mail you receive from us, or by sending an e-mail to: marketing@ymcahouston.org. After doing so, you will not receive future communications or mailings unless you open a new account.
You may also set your browser so that it will not accept “cookies;” however, you will be unable to shop on our site if you do so. To decline our cookies, click here and follow the instructions.
What security precautions are in place to protect against the misuse or alteration of your information?
In order to most efficiently serve you, credit card transactions and order fulfillment are handled by established third party banking, processing agents and distribution institutions. They receive the information needed to verify and authorize your credit card or other payment information and to process and ship your order. When you access your account information, the information is kept on a secure server. All of the customer data we collect is protected against unauthorized access by physical security means. We use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain the integrity of all information collected.
A special note about children’s privacy:
You must be at least 13 years old to have our permission to use this site. Our policy is that we do not knowingly collect, use or disclose Personally Identifiable Information about visitors under 13 years of age. User’s between the ages of 13 and 18 have our permission to browse this Website, however these user’s cannot order services or participate in any offers on the Website, or disclose any personally identifiable information without the contemporaneous consent of a parent or guardian. If you are the parent or guardian of a minor under 18 years of age and believe that they have disclosed personally identifiable information to us, please contact us at marketing@ymcahouston.org so that we may delete the minor’s information.
The YMCA’s use of “Cookies”:
When you use our Website we store cookies on your computer in order to facilitate your use of our Website. A cookie is a small text file, which a Website stores on your computer’s hard drive (if your Web browser permits) that can later be retrieved to identify you to the YMCA and customize your experience. The cookies make your use of the site easier, make the site run more smoothly and help us to maintain a secure site.
If you are unsure as to which privacy policy applies, please contact us by email at: marketing@ymcahouston.org.
Privacy Policy changes
If the YMCA makes changes to any terms or conditions of the Privacy Policy, the changes will be posted in this document so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information and to whom we will disclose it. The YMCA of Greater Houston reserves the right to change, modify, add or remove portions of this Policy at any time, and any changes will become effective immediately upon being posted unless we inform you otherwise. A conspicuous notice will be posted at least one week prior to the change. The YMCA treats personal information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Policy under which it was collected, unless you consent to a different use.