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The Global Network Initiative is pleased to announce that Facebook has become the sixth company to join GNI.
At the April 16 meeting of the Global Network Initiative Board of Directors, Independent Chair Jermyn Brooks informed the Board of his intention to step down at the end of this year, consistent with his commitment to serve at least one year of his second two-year term.
The Global Network Initiative ("GNI") has designed this Privacy Policy to explain how your information is collected and used when you visit our website, www.globalnetworkinitiative.org (the "Website"). By visiting or using the Website, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not visit or otherwise use the Website.
We have a few key guidelines for the use of user data collected on the Website:
How does GNI collect information when you visit our Website?
GNI uses one analytics package - Piwik.
How does Piwik Work?
Piwik processes first-party cookie data on our servers. However, your IP address is truncated when this transfer happens, so that none of the data we store actually contains your full IP address. This data is then analyzed and shown to us in aggregated form. To use Piwik, we place first-party cookies (cookies that only we can read) on your browser. None of the visit or individual-level data that is collected through these cookies is combined by GNI with any other data. Period.
Why does GNI use cookies at all?
While server log files provide a fair amount of information on website visits, they can be very inaccurate. Some users on the same network, for instance, may all show up on a logfile analyzer as one user - that is, log file analysis is server-based, not browser-based. Cookies are generated per-browser and give us a much more accurate depiction of our website traffic.
What cookies are stored on your computer?
Piwik will place two distinct cookies on your computer.
The first Piwik cookie is written whenever you visit our Website and contains the timestamp of your browser’s initial visit to our Website, the timestamp of your most recent visit to our Website, the timestamp of your current visit, the number of times you have visited our Website, a unique visitor ID, the URL that referred you to our Website, and a hash of our domain (globalnetworkinitiative.org). This cookie lasts for 3-6 months. If you delete this cookie, a new cookie will be placed with new identifiers upon your next visit to the GNI Website.
Piwik will also place a "session cookie" to keep track of a user’s activity as she browses our Website. This helps us understand how our Website is being used. This cookie expires thirty minutes after you stop interacting with our Website. The next time you interact with our Website, a new session cookie will be created.
For more information on how Piwik logs visits, see http://piwik.org/privacy/.
What information does GNI automatically collect when you visit our Website?
When you visit any web page hosted at our Website, we will record the following information about you through Piwik:
What do we do with the information we automatically collect when you visit our Website?
The data we collect is processed by our analytics services for the purposes of analyzing general traffic patterns and performing routine system maintenance. This information shows us which features are being used or read most often, from which areas of the country and the world our site is attracting visitors, and how people are finding our Website. All of this information helps us determine how to make our Website more accessible and useful.
GNI can never (and will never try to) trace aggregate traffic reports back to an individual user. To see a graphical demonstration of the types of information GNI can see via our analytics programs, click here.
Unless we detect an attack on our Website, we will not use any data we collect automatically when you visit the Website for any reason other than those described above. If we detect an attack on our Website, we will use this data to try to determine the source of the attack. Except as described in the Disclosure Policies section of this Privacy Policy, we do not sell, rent, exchange or otherwise disclose to third parties any information that we automatically collect about our Website visitors without their consent.
Search
Our site search function is supported by Drupal (http://www.drupal.com/), an open source Content Management System. GNI records search terms used in searches of our Website. We will retain search terms for no more than 31 days. We do not correlate search term data with IP address or any other information about our visitors.
What information can you choose to share with GNI?
Except as noted here, GNI uses information that you share with us voluntarily only for internal purposes. Specific types of information that you may choose to share with GNI include:
Feedback and Emailing Us
We use your feedback to improve our Website and our organization. If you choose to provide information about yourself using a feedback or email form on our Website, we will not use the information for any purpose other than to respond to your inquiry or to act on your suggestion or comment. We will not share your information with third parties except with your permission or upon your request, or as otherwise described in the Disclosure Policies section of this Privacy Policy.
Twitter
Our Tweet button service is offered by Twitter. To use this feature, you must enter your Twitter login information. This information is collected directly by Twitter and will not in any way be transmitted to or logged by GNI. You can find Twitter’s privacy policy here (https://twitter.com/privacy). Using our Tweet button will take you off of our Website and on to Twitter's website. This will not result in cookies being placed on your computer by our Website, but may result in cookies being placed by Twitter.
Email a Friend
You can email articles from our Website to friends. To use this feature, you must enter your and your friends’ email addresses. This information is processed directly by a form on the Website, and will not be stored by GNI. Emailing articles to your friends will not result in cookies being placed on your computer.
Our Disclosure Policies
GNI does not sell, rent, exchange or otherwise disclose to third parties any information that we collect about our site visitors without consent. We will, however, comply with lawful requests from law enforcement1 that follow appropriate legal standards and procedures. If the law or a lawful order requires us to disclose information about your activities on our Website, we will (unless prohibited by law from doing so) attempt to contact you prior to such disclosure, and attempt to disclose to you the fact that we have submitted information to legal authorities (including disclosing which information we have submitted). We will object to disclosure requests that we believe are improper.
Our Retention Policies
All data that is collected into log files by our web server is deleted every 31 days. We do not have backup storage of our log files. Deleting our log files permanently erases them.
Cookies placed on your computer from Piwik have different retention rates.
Cookie type Retention period
User cookie 3-6 months
Session cookie 30 minutes from set/update
Aggregated data about visitors to our Website – which cannot be linked back to individual visitors – is maintained indefinitely.
Any information you provide us via email or feedback forms on our Website (as well as responses, if any, to your inquiry or comment) may be used and retained as necessary in order to respond to your inquiry or comment.
Contact information you provide when making a donation online will be used to process your donation and will be retained as necessary for internal and tax reporting purposes.
Security
GNI has implemented reasonable security measures designed to protect the information we collect from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration and disclosure. A Secured Socket Layer (SSL) connection is used throughout the Website and when you submit a donation through our donation processor. This SSL connection encrypts your information as it travels across the network. Your information is stored by GNI on servers located in the United States and will be password protected. You should be aware, however, that no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its security.
What if you have concerns or want to know what information we have about you?
Feel free to contact us via our feedback page to ask us to disclose to you any information we have about you. You have the right to request that we correct, update, or delete information that we may have about you. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe that the change would violate any law or legal obligation or cause the information to be incorrect.
If you have any concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact GNI via our feedback page or call (202) 407 8830. We can also be reached at 1634 Eye Street NW, Suite 1100, Washington DC 20006.
Changes in this Privacy Policy
Our Privacy Policy may change in the future. The Effective Date of this policy, as stated below, indicates the last time this policy was revised. If we make material changes to how we treat our users’ personal information, we will post the amended policy here and notify you through a notice on the Website’s homepage. Your continued use of the Website after notification of material changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes your consent to the changes.
Effective Date of Privacy Policy: 4/3/2012
