Privacy Policy

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Last updated on February 1, 2012.

The California Center for Public Health Advocacy ("CCPHA," "we" or "us") respects the privacy of the visitors and members to its websites.  We want you to understand the types of information we collect and what we do with that information. CCPHA has created the Kick the Can project (the "Project"), which includes the website accessible at www.kickthecan.info and related websites and applications, including our Facebook KickTheCan app (collectively, the "Sites"), to provide information about the negative health effects of sugary drinks, summaries of sugary drink related policy activity around the United States, and information about beverage industry strategies.

The Sites are directed to users in the United States only.

You should review this Privacy Policy in conjunction with the Terms of Use located at www.kickthecan.info/terms-use. This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and is part of the Terms of Use, and together with any other Site agreements (such as the Submissions Contract) these documents are the overall Agreement between you and CCPHA.  Certain terms in this privacy policy (such as "User" and "Member") are defined in the Terms of Use, and we use them here for ease of reference. CCPHA may use third party platforms to host the Sites, to offer you additional information or features or enhance your experience on the Sites. CCPHA is not responsible for those third parties' terms of use, privacy policies and/or practices.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at: privacy@kickthecan.info.

Agreement

Your use of any of the Sites signifies your agreement to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

Children

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. CCPHA requests that children under the age of 13 not use the Sites nor submit any personal information to the Sites. Since information regarding children under the age of 13 is not collected, CCPHA does not knowingly use or distribute personal information regarding children under the age of 13. If CCPHA obtains actual knowledge that it has collected personal information about a child under the age of 13, that information will be immediately deleted from our database.

Information We Collect About You and How We Use It

In order to provide a full range of services and features on the Sites in support of the mission of the Project, we may collect the following types of information about you:

Information you provide: You may be asked to provide personal information ("Personal Data") in order to submit materials, sign-up to receive information,  or otherwise participate in Sites or Project activities. This information may include your name, e-mail address, street address, city and zip code, social networking page address (such as Facebook), blog address and instant messenger user/screen name, user/screen name of those to whom you send content. We may combine the information you provide to us with information that we obtain about you through other services or third parties; we do this to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of the Project and the Sites. Please remember that any information that you disclose in public areas of the Sites becomes public information. You should exercise caution when deciding whether or not to disclose certain information about yourself on the Sites.  Other Users may also provide us with your e-mail address, user/screen name in order to send you content. We also collect other profile data including but not limited to personal interests, gender and age in order to assist Users and Members in finding and communicating with each other.

Cookies: When you visit the Sites, we send one or more cookies -- a small file containing a string of characters -- to your computer or other device that uniquely identifies your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of the Project and the Sites, including for storing user preferences and tracking user trends. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. You should be aware, however, that some of our Sites' features may not function properly if you disable cookies on your computer.  We do not link the information we store in cookies to any Personal Data you submit while on our Sites.  Please note that we may allow third party advertisers that are presenting advertisements on some of our pages to set and access their cookies on your computer.  Advertisers' use of cookies is subject to their own privacy policies, not our Privacy Policy.  In addition, we may also record the pages you visit on our Service through the use of pixel tags (also called "clear gifs" or "beacons").

• Log information: When you visit the Sites, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. These server logs may include information such as your web request, Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser. We use this information to improve the quality of the Project and the Sites.

User communications: When you send e-mail or other communications to us, we may retain those communications in order to process your inquiries, respond to your requests and improve the Project and the Sites.

Services offered through other websites: We may offer some of our services relating to the Project on or through other websites (for example, our Facebook or Twitter pages). Personal information that you provide to those sites may be sent to the Project. The other websites may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies. For example, when you share or recommend (with or without adding your own comments) the Site, the Project or any Site content to your Facebook profile, that action is governed by the Facebook Privacy Policy.

Location data: In connection with the Project, we may offer location-enabled services as part of the Sites. If you use those services, the Project may receive information about your actual location (such as GPS signals sent by a mobile device) or information that can be used to approximate a location (such as a cell ID).

Links: We may present links in connection with the Project in a format that enables us to keep track of whether these links have been followed. We use this information to improve the quality of the Sites and the Project.

Other websites: This Privacy Policy applies to the Sites only. We do not exercise control over all websites that include our applications, products or services, or links from within our various Sites. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you.  You should review and understand the privacy policies of those sites.

At times the Sites may ask you for Personal Data relating to third parties. For example, you may have the opportunity to send certain content to a friend by entering that friend’s email address. If you choose to use one of these services, we store this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email. Your friend may contact us at privacy@kickthecan.info to request that we remove this information from our database.

Sending Emails Via the Sites

In certain cases, we may enable you to send individual e-mails to the President, legislators, state or federal agencies, and other targets as well as Letters-to-the-Editor to various news publications, through our website. These messages are sent in your name, with your e-mail address as the return address and your full name and contact information is provided as part of the submission. These messages will only be sent out under your name as you approve them on an individual basis using our email tool. You are solely responsible for the specific message(s) you send using our email tool.

Petitions, Pledges and Surveys

For petitions, pledges and surveys you sign or complete on the Sites, we treat your name, city, state, and comments as public information - for example, we may provide compilations of petitions, with your comments, to the President, legislators, state or federal agencies, beverage companies, affiliated groups, nonprofits with similar missions and other targets, or to the press.  If you choose to sign or comment on a petition or survey, the Personal Data you provide will be publicly displayed.  Your Personal Data may also be delivered to the intended recipient of such campaign either electronically or in writing. We will not make your street address publicly available, but we may transmit it to members of Congress, to the President and/or state or federal agencies as part of a petition. This is a standard industry practice in such situations. In no such case will we disclose your email address, mailing address or phone number without your permission. We may also make your comments, along with your first name, city, and state available to beverage companies, the press and public online.  

Ways We Use and Share Information

You can decline to submit Personal Data, in which case CCPHA may not be able to provide certain Site features or services to you.

By voluntarily providing us with Personal Data, you are consenting to our use of it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you provide Personal Data to the Sites, you acknowledge and agree that such Personal Data may be transferred from your current location to the offices and servers of CCPHA and any authorized third parties referred to herein.  If you use a bulletin board, blog or chat room on the Sites, you should be aware that any Personal Data you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the Personal Data you choose to submit in these forums.

Note that in the event we do collect Personal Data and provide it to affiliated groups, third party agents, vendors or contractors of CCPHA ("Contractors"), we take reasonably commercial effort to ensure access is granted only upon condition that the Personal Data is kept confidential and is used only for carrying out the services these Contractors are performing for CCPHA.

In all cases where Personal Data is collected, we may use this information to forward to you products and services that we believe you will find helpful as well as for some of the purposes set forth herein.  At any time, you may opt out of receiving these promotional communications as set forth herein.

We may use and share your Personal Data in several ways:

First, we may strip the information collected of Personal Data and create Aggregate Information based upon all users of a particular site.  This Aggregate Information (such as user/usage statistics, database usage, number of logins, number of profiles accessed) which may not contain Personal Data, may be used for a number of purposes including providing information to content providers; ensuring compliance with license and royalty agreements, providing the Sites and services to you, and internal site management and administration purposes primarily by our technical support staff.  In some cases, our staff, content providers, and/or Contractors will be provided Aggregate Information to evaluate the effectiveness of certain Site features or offerings, to support the mission of the Project, and to improve the user experience, process and fulfill transactions and providing you with information about our services.

We may also use your Personal Data to track, generally, your browsing habits, pages used or accessed, keywords and search terms, geographic location to support the mission of the Project or for other purposes and then send you information about the Project.

If you send us an email with a request of some sort, including a question, or to report abuse of any of our Sites by others, we will retain that information so that we may respond to you. 

In addition, we may forward your email address to our staff so that you can receive information about the Project.  To opt out of these communications, you need only send an email to customer service at privacy@kickthecan.info.

In addition to the above, CCPHA may use your Personal Data, which may include disclosing your information to our Contractors, staff, and/or affiliated groups and nonprofits, for the following purposes:

Providing our Sites and services to you, including the display of customized content, surveys, petitions and/or information about the Project;

Fulfilling your request for products, services or features;

Facilitating the use of the Sites;

Managing your account preferences;

Auditing, research and analysis in order to maintain, protect and improve our Site;

Ensuring the technical functioning of our network;

Developing and advertising new products or services to support the mission of the Project;

Furthering the mission of the Project;

Keeping you informed about the Sites and the Project, including our services, applications, petitions, surveys and promotions;

Identifying and protecting against misuse or unauthorized use of the Sites or services;

Third-party hosting of the Site or of certain features, or order processing/fulfillment;

Marketing, administration, processing or fulfillment of contest and sweepstakes promoted, administered, or sponsored by us or on the Sites; and

Marketing, administration, display, processing or delivery of a survey or petition offered on the Sites.

In addition, with your explicit permission, we pass along certain of your Personal Data to the following groups (as is standard practice):

The President, legislators, state and federal agencies and news publications, beverage companies and other targets when you choose to use our email tool to send them messages;

With the President, legislators, state and federal agencies, news publications, beverage companies, and the general public when you sign petitions or complete surveys.

We may also share some of your Personal Data with affiliated groups and nonprofits in furtherance of the mission of the Project, such as:

Preventobesity.net, the Center for Science and in the Public Interest (CSPI), the California Endowment and the Yale Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity;

Affiliated Third Parties -- for example, our database administrators and vendors -- for the sole purpose of helping us do our work and provide the features on our Site;

Third Party Administrators, such as organizations we engage to facilitate large distribution of messages.

Some of our Sites may allow Users to sign up for our newsletters or other communications. If you choose to take advantage of these options, we will collect the Personal Data you provide in connection with your request, such as your name, email address, and mailing address, and we may use the Personal Data for the purpose you provide it to us and in the other manners described by this Policy.

In all cases where Personal Data is collected, we may use this information, including your email address, to forward to you information  about the Project that we believe you will find helpful as well as for some of the purposes set forth herein. We make commercially reasonable efforts to comply with CAN-SPAM, and at any time, you may opt out of receiving promotional communications by following the directions at the bottom of the email message you receive from us.

Under circumstances where we determine that members may be misusing our systems for malicious purposes (for example, using the numbers we provide to make harassing phone calls), such activities may be reported to law enforcement agencies. In such cases, we may, in our sole discretion, release Personal Data, including name and address, to those agencies.

Although CCPHA does not expect to release your Personal Data for other purposes than those already stated, under certain circumstances it may become necessary to disclose your Personal Data to third parties for purposes other than those stated herein, such as in connection with a corporate divestiture or dissolution where we sell all or a portion of our assets (including our associated customer lists containing your personal information), or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is: required by law or is pertinent to judicial or governmental investigations or proceedings, including in exigent circumstances, pursuant to a valid subpoena or other legally valid request; reasonably necessary to enforce our applicable Terms of Use; required to detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues; or protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of CCPHA, its members, Site users or the public. From time to time, we may supplement Personal Data collected on our Site with information collected by third parties.

If we propose to use your Personal Data for any purposes other than those described in this Policy, we will offer you an effective way to opt out of the use of your Personal Data for those other purposes. 

California has passed legislation requiring certain specific disclosures be made available to California residents who use the Internet and provide information that may be used for marketing purposes.  That legislation requires any business that discloses a customer's Personal Data to any third party for direct marketing purposes to provide the customer a method for obtaining the names, addresses and certain other specified details of anyone who might have received that Personal Data. 

We would like to offer this option to any Member, regardless of whether or not you are a California resident.  As such, you may request this information from us by writing to:

CCPHA

PO Box 2309
Davis, CA 95617
Attention: Kick the Can Privacy Rights

or by sending an e-mail to privacy@kickthecan.info. 

We are not obligated to respond to more than one such request from you per calendar year.

User profile information including users' pictures and/or screen names, may be displayed to people in order to facilitate user interaction in the CCPHA interactive communities or to display Soda Stories and other user-generated content submitted by Users through the Sites.  We may also use a Member's email address to send updates, a newsletter or news regarding the Sites or the Project.

If you are visiting the Sites from outside of the United States, please note that the Sites are directed to users in the United States only.  CCPHA requests that Users visiting the Sites from outside of the United States do not submit any Personal Data to the Sites. Be advised that, if you choose to provide us Personal Data, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated.  The data protection and other laws of the United States might not be as comprehensive as those in your country.  Please be assured that we seek to take reasonable steps to ensure that your privacy is protected.  By using our Sites, you consent to the transfer of your information to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in this Policy.

Financial Donations

If you choose to make a donation to CCPHA, your credit card information will be used only for this transaction through our secure online payment system. CCPHA does not retain credit card information.

Promotions, Sweepstakes and Contests

If you chose to enter a promotion, sweepstakes or contest hosted on our Sites or sponsored by CCPHA and/or one of our partners, we (and/or our promotional partner) may ask for your name, address, and email address. You may be asked to provide additional information or to answer certain questions, some of which may be optional, in order to participate. We and/or our partner may contact you in connection with a particular promotion, such as a sweepstakes or contest, in order to update you of your status, administer the promotion, let you know that a promotion has ended, and for other purposes. Promotions that are hosted on the Sites may be sponsored by CCPHA, may be co-sponsored by CCPHA and another company, or may be sponsored by companies other than CCPHA. Some or all of the data collected during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor(s) or companies indicated on the entry form. We may use third-party companies to generate and manage some of our promotional campaigns. We may share with these companies information about those visitors to our web site who participate in the promotional campaigns. This sharing is for the purpose of targeting future campaigns and upgrading visitor information used in reporting statistics.

Third-Party Advertising and Third Party Websites

Ads appearing on the Sites may be delivered to Users by CCPHA or one of our advertising partners.  Our advertising partners may set cookies.  These cookies allow the ad server to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement.  In this way, ad servers may compile information about where you, or others who are using your computer, saw their advertisements and determine which ads are clicked on.  This information allows an ad network to deliver targeted advertisements that they believe will be of most interest to you.  This privacy policy covers the use of cookies by CCPHA  and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.

CCPHA is not responsible for the privacy policies of websites and services to which the Sites link, or of which the Sites or Service are a part. If you provide any information to such third parties different rules regarding the collection and use of your personal information may apply. We strongly suggest you review such third party's privacy policies before providing any data to them.

Facebook App

We may develop and make available one or more Facebook applications in furtherance of the Project (collectively "the App").  By using or accessing the App, you are accepting the practices described here, in our Terms of Use and in Facebook's privacy policy and terms of use.  We are not responsible for Facebook's privacy policy and terms of use and for the way in which Facebook may collect, use, store or share your information.  We do not knowingly collect information from minors under the age of 13 and our App isn't intended for minors under the age of 13.

When you use the App, we collect and store certain information that you provide directly or through the third part that is offering our App.  Here is what we may collect when you "allow" and use the App:

Information You Provide to Us. For instance, when you sign a petition or "Take the Pledge" within the App, we collect your first and last name and email address.

Facebook Information. We collect information from your Facebook profile and page that you provide in connection with the Facebook process, which may include (but is not limited to) your profile photo, user ID, gender, lists of friends, email address(es), groups, photos, posts, timeline information, and other information you provide through any and all notification channels, including but not limited to wall posts.

Device Information. If you are accessing the App from mobile device, we may collect information to identify your device and its capabilities and information from its sensors

Information about players and play.  We collect information on how the App is used. We may also collect information about your play and interaction with other players and the App.

Communication Features. You may be able to take part in certain activities on our App that give you the opportunity to communicate or share information not just with us, but also with other users of our App These include:  participating in player forums and message boards, posting public comments to other users' profiles and sending private messages or invitations to other users, etc.  We may record and store archives of these communications to protect the safety and well being of our users and our rights and property in connection with the service. You acknowledge and consent to the recording and storage of such communications for these purposes.

When you allow and use the App on Facebook, we will be able to access and store profile and other information about you as described above. The categories of information you share with us will depend, in part, on the permissions you grant us and the privacy settings you have established on Facebook. We do not offer an "opt out" option for specific fields that are shared by Facebook.

If you choose to use our invitation service to tell friends about our App and Site or invite them to "take the pledge," sign a petition and/or participate in the Project, your friends will be invited via wall posts on Facebook.   Other players of the game may see your name, profile photo, number of friends, badges and score on the App leaderboard, in their News Feed, on your Wall and in the Facebook Ticker, as may be applicable.

Our App is a social sharing service and is meant to be used for entertainment and information purposes. Please don't use it for any other purpose.  Any improper use or collection or misuse of information obtained using our App or Site -- personal or otherwise -- is a violation of our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and may result in termination of your ability to use the App and/or the Site.

In general, we use and share the Personal Data collected through the App as provided in other sections of this Privacy Policy and as follows:

Information you submit to us by using the App may be used to create your game account and allow play of our game, to respond to requests that you make or to aid us in serving you better (for example, to fix technical problems, respond to user inquiries, provide administrative services, and monitor traffic, the number of visitors, and the effectiveness of the App), to prevent fraud or potentially illegal activities, to provide in-game leader boards and promote in-game player achievements, to solicit input and feedback and to notify users of App updates. We may share the information you provide to us through the App with partners and vendors who provide these services for us.

We may use aggregated user data to advertise or market the App to others.

We may use your Personal Data to provide you with notifications, alerts or updates about the App, send you emails, post to Facebook as you (such as status updates or Wall posts) and publish your application activity (such as scores, achievements and other activity). If you do not want to receive such notifications or a, you must uninstall the App.

We may also share the information you provide to us with affiliated groups and nonprofits in furtherance of the Project.

The App may encourage interaction among players. Your friends and other players may see your name, profile photo and descriptions of your game activity. Other players may be able to send you game requests or even friend requests through the related Facebook communication channels.

If we have provided any third party with your Personal Information (with your permission) and you subsequently opt-out by uninstalling the App, you will have to contact the third-party directly with your opt-out request(s). If we provide any of the information collected from you with a third party, their use of that information will be governed by their privacy policy. We may display your Facebook Profile information as you have provided it to Facebook on the App and on our Site. While we endeavor to update the information we display regularly, there may be a delay in updating your information in the App and/or Site if you change your Facebook profile information.    

If you remove the App, please note that CCPHA has no ability to remove your information from Facebook.

Security

CCPHA takes commercially reasonable security measures to help ensure data privacy and security including through various hardware and software methodologies and internal reviews. However, due to the open communication nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that communications between you and the Sites or any information provided to us in connection with the Sites or the Project will be free from unauthorized access by third parties. Users of the Sites do so at their own risk. CCPHA cannot guarantee the security of any information that is disclosed online. In light of the above and because of the complex and constantly changing nature of our mission, and the security risks associated with using the Internet, CCPHA does not guarantee error-free performance under this Privacy Policy. To the extent permissible under law, CCPHA shall not be liable for any incidental, consequential or punitive damages relating to this Privacy Policy.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the rights to modify our Privacy Policy at any time and will notify you by posting an amendment to the Privacy Policy on this page.  We will provide notification to you in advance of substantive changes becoming effective, such as by posting a notification on the Sites or via e-mail.  If you continue to access and/or use the Sites after the effective date of such changes, then such access and/or use will be deemed an acceptance of and an agreement to follow and be bound by the Privacy Policy as changed.  The revised Privacy Policy supersedes all previous privacy notices or statements regarding the Sites.  For this reason, we encourage you to frequently review this Privacy Policy for any modifications, and recommend that you print out a copy for your records. 

Governing Law

This Privacy Policy and the relationship between you and CCPHA shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of California, including application U.S. federal laws, without regard to conflict of law principles or the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods.

Do You Have Questions?

We know that you may have additional questions regarding the privacy of your information when you access the Sites.  Please feel free to contact us at privacy@kickthecan.info.