About this policy

This privacy policy describes the circumstances under which we collect, use and share information about you through your use of GEF-CSO (referred to herein as “GEF-CSO,” “we,” or “us”) at www.gefcso.org, our website that links to this Privacy Policy.

This Privacy Policy only addresses information collected directly through or from our website – it does not address or govern any information-gathering, use, or dissemination practices related to information collected from you other than directly through or from the website, such as from telephone, postal mail, or other means.

By accessing this site, you agree to be legally bound by and comply with this User Agreement. If you do not agree to comply with this User Agreement, you are not authorized to use this site.

• Who is collecting your information?
• What personally identifiable information is collected?
• Information collection
• How your personally identifiable information may be used and shared
• What choices are available to you regarding collection, use, and distribution of the information?
• What kind of security procedures are in place to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information?
• How you can access, update, or delete your information
• Changes in our privacy policy
• Official terms and conditions
• Information related to minors
• Your California privacy rights
• Copyright and links

1. Who is collecting your information?

We are GEF-CSO, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, non-profit, non-partisan news organization dedicated to covering climate change, energy and the environment. We are responsible for any information collected on our website.

2. What personally identifiable information is collected?

Personally identifiable information is information that identifies you, such as your name, phone number, email address, mailing address, or credit card number (if used to donate).

If you take steps to subscribe to our newsletter or donate to our organization, we will ask you to provide us with these kinds of personally identifiable information. We only obtain this kind of information when you choose to provide it.

3. Information collection

We collect data about you, such as your name, address and email address, when you sign up for our newsletters, donate to us, become a member, apply for a job, or otherwise submit this information to us. There is no cost to read our content or to sign-up for our newsletters, and you may unsubscribe at any time. Web visitors may be asked to submit their email address in order to view or continue reading a page.

In addition, as you navigate our website, certain information may be collected passively, which means it is gathered without you actively providing it. Here’s how:

• Through your browser: Certain information is collected by most browsers, such as your computer type, operating system type, and Internet browser type and version.
• Through your device: If you access our site through a mobile device or other network-connected product, certain information may be collected about that device, including your device type or network service provider.
• Using cookies: Cookies allow us to collect information such as browser type and pages visited. We and our service providers use this information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience while using the site.
• Using monitoring tools: The site may utilize monitoring tools such as pixel tags for the purpose of, among other things, measuring the success of our marketing campaigns, compiling statistics about site usage and response rates, and tracking user activity.
• IP Address: Your IP Address is identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever you visit the site, along with the time of your visit and the page(s) that were visited. We use IP Addresses for purposes such as calculating site usage levels, helping diagnose server problems, and administering the site.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of this information being collected and used in these ways, most computer systems, devices, and web browsers offer privacy settings and options, such as disabling cookies. We do not override these settings or options and encourage you to use them to enhance your choices and personalize your experiences. However, in order to access certain content, features, or services of the site, you may be required to provide us with certain information. If you do not wish to provide that information through the site or if you opt to utilize the aforementioned privacy features, you may be unable to obtain certain content, features, or services of the site.

4. How your personally identifiable information may be used and shared

We may use your personally identifiable information to give you personalized service (for example, news or information relevant to your location); to send you email alerts; to answer your questions or requests; to facilitate your online membership; and to better understand demographic information about our supporters and website visitors.

Our main goal in our use of your personal information is to better serve you and our other website visitors. We may also use this information to suggest other web site services to you, ask you to become a member, or to solicit donations.

We may share your personally-identifiable information, as well as a record of transactions you conduct with us, with third-party advertising and analytics partners and related service providers. We do so in order to deliver information about our work and your opportunity to support it through a variety of communication channels, including online advertising, social media messages, and email messages. We may also work with third party business partners, including advertisers and analytics companies, which use the technologies describe above to passively collect data about your use of our site. These companies use the information they collect to provide you with advertisements relevant to your interests, which may be delivered to you on the site or on third party websites or applications. This is called “Interest-Based Advertising” or “Online Behavioral Advertising.”

5. What kind of security procedures are in place to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of your personally identifying information?

We take commercially reasonable precautions to protect us and our users from unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of information we hold. We take care to utilize appropriate and reasonable administrative, physical, and technical measures to help safeguard personally identifiable information that we control. While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. We also use “anti-hacking” security measures and employ security consultants.

Despite the efforts we use to protect your information, no transmission or electronic storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

6. Changes in our privacy policy

GEF-CSO reserves the right, at any time and without prior notice, to make updates to this Policy. If we do so, we’ll make sure that updates are indicated in this policy and the current policy will always be posted here. Updates are effective immediately upon posting.

We will not change the overall purpose of this policy, which is to protect your privacy consistent with our goals as a non-profit, non-partisan news organization dedicated to covering climate change, energy and the environment.

7. Copyright and Links

Copyright in this site and the materials included in it, unless otherwise indicated, is owned by GEF-CSO. We do grant permission for republishing our original work upon request on a case by case basis. If you believe that your work has been copied, by us or by any third party on our site in a manner that constitutes copyright infringement, please contact us.

Please note that it is prohibited to download, republish, retransmit, or reproduce material we license from third parties. You may link to the home page of our site as long as the link does not cast us in a false or misleading light. You may not frame the content of our site.

Our site may contain links to other websites that we think may be of interest to you. We have no control over these other sites or their content. You should be aware when you leave our site for another that other sites are governed by their own user agreements and privacy policies, which you should be sure to read.