Privacy

Terms of Use and Privacy Agreement for Harvard Health Publishing www.health.harvard.edu

Published: August 2023

Please read this Terms of Use and Privacy Agreement ("Agreement") carefully before using www.health.harvard.edu ("Website"), an Internet site maintained by the Harvard Health Publishing ("Harvard") Division of Harvard Medical School. Your use of the Website is subject to your acceptance of this Agreement.

Harvard has created this Terms of Usage and Privacy Statement to help demonstrate its commitment to privacy. This Statement describes Harvard' information gathering and dissemination practices for the Website.

1. WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT

  • Information you provide to us: There are cases where Harvard Health Publishing may ask you for personally-identifiable information to process and fulfill online shopping transactions, email newsletter registrations, site registrations, customer service submissions and sweepstakes participation. Information includes your name, mailing address, email address, user name, password, payment information (card information and billing address). To provide you with content and offers targeted to your needs, we may ask you for your interests including health topics.

We do not collect information such as social security number, driver's license number, medical history, race, ethnicity, geo location, employment-related information, education information or biometrics.

  • Information We Collect From Other Sources: In order to enhance our ability to provide relevant marketing, offers and services to you, we may obtain information about you such as postal and email addresses from other sources including public databases, joint marketing partners, data providers, as well as from other third parties.
  • Information We Collect Automatically Through Cookies and Similar Technologies: Harvard Health Publishing uses tracking tools like browser cookies and web beacons to automatically collect information about how you interact with our Sites and Services and other websites over time and across devices. Cookies allow us to tailor the Sites to better match your interests and preferences. Cookies also help ensure that information like your shopping cart or login to the site is maintained as you browse. You can ask your browser to not accept cookies or to notify you when a cookie is being sent if you do not wish to accept cookies. You can also manually delete all cookie files from your computer.

We automatically collect non-personally-identifiable information about your use of the Sites, such as the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, Google.com, if you are connecting via a Google search), the date and time you access the Sites, and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our Sites. This information will not be linked to personally-identifiable information. Harvard Health Publishing may use this information to analyze and enhance the Sites, and may aggregate this information and share such aggregated information with business partners, sponsors and other third parties.

This site uses IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track users' movements inside the site, determine which site referred users to us, and gather very general demographic information. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

  • Information Imported from Social Networks: When you choose to interact with us through social media your interactions with the social media platforms ("Social Networks") typically allows the Social Networks to collect information such as "Likes," profile information gathered from the Social Networks, or the fact that you viewed or interacted with our Services. Social Networks may collect information about you through digital cookies they place on your device and other tracking mechanisms even when you are not directly interacting with their applications. Please review the Social Networks' privacy policies and choices for sharing information of any Social Network connected to our Services.

2. HOW WE USE YOUR INFORMATION

We use the information we collect or receive (alone or in combination):

  • to respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests, such as to provide you access to the Services or products you have ordered, to respond to any inquiry, feedback, or information and materials regarding our products and services.
  • to send you marketing communications, including via email in compliance with applicable laws and in accordance with your preferences, that we believe may be of interest to you.
  • disclose that information to third parties when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Harvard Health Publishing's rights or property, other members or users of the Web Site, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities;
  • for our business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, developing new products, enhancing, improving or modifying our Sites and products and Services, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and operating and expanding our business activities.
  • disclose that information to third parties when we believe in good faith that the law requires it; and
  • transfer such information to successors of our business assets.
  • to send administrative information to you, for example, invoices, confirmation and renewal notices, information regarding our Services or Sites, and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
  • for other reasons that we may describe to you at the time of collection.

3. HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to the following categories of recipients and for the following reasons:

Service providers

In order to provide our Services to you, it is necessary for us to disclose your information to contracted third parties and service provider partners who perform certain functions of our Services on our behalf. Examples include cloud hosting providers (to provide data storage and processing services); communications providers (to process new queries and to manage our emails); third party fulfillment providers (to send you magazines or other products or provide access to our Services).

Payment Processors

When you make a purchase directly with us, any billing information you provide as part of your payment is collected and processed directly by our service provider, Strategic Fulfillment Group (SFG), and our payment processor, Paymentech or Stripe. Harvard Health Publishing never receives or stores your credit card information. SFG, Paymentech and Stripe are committed to complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and using industry standard security.

Marketing Partners

A customer's name and mailing address may be released for one-time use to carefully screened third-party mailers who offer products or services that may be of interest to our readers. We may also share personal information with third party marketing partners for commercial purposes. See Section 4 for how to opt out of our sharing of your information for these purposes.

Commercial Partners

We may share information we collect with third parties that assist us with providing our Services to you and finding relevant leads.

Your User Content

If you choose to submit content (e.g., online comments or communications to our editorial staff or members) ("User Content"), we may publish your name, screen name and other information you have provided to us on our Sites.

Compliance with laws

We may disclose information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or other legal process (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).

Vital interests and legal rights

We may disclose information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, to verify the authenticity of any transaction, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person, violations of our Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy, or as evidence in litigation in which Harvard Health Publishing may be involved.

Business transfers

We may share or transfer information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company, provided that we inform the buyer it must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Policy.

Consent

We may share your information with any other person with your consent to the disclosure.

4. HOW YOU CAN ACCESS AND CONTROL THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT

To remove or change your contact information in our database, or to not receive future mailings or other communications, as well as for all other inquiries, please use one of the following methods:

Opting-Out of Emails.

On some of our Sites you may manage your email preferences and unsubscribe from our lists by visiting the Customer Service link. All of our email newsletters contain an UNSUBSCRIBE link at the bottom of the email. Look for the words "Click here to remove your email address" or "Unsubscribe" and click on that link. You may also contact us at [email protected] or call 1-203-857-3100 to manage and modify your email preferences.

Opting Out of Postal Direct Mail Marketing.

To unsubscribe from marketing materials via postal mail, contact us at [email protected] or call 1-203-857-3100. Please provide us with the exact name and address as it appears on the mailing label so we can identify your record.

Opting-Out of Third Party Sharing.

To request that your personal information not be shared with third parties, email customer service or call 1-203-857-3100.

Any Other Opt-Out Questions.

For other inquiries and information requests including removal of your name and other information from our database please use the Contact Us form on the pages of our Sites or contact us at [email protected] or call 1-203-857-3100.

Turning Off Tracking Technologies.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a persistent or session cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off such cookies through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different, so look at your browser's Help menu to learn the correct way to modify your cookies.

5. CHILDREN

The Sites are not directed at individuals under thirteen years of age, and Harvard Health Publishing does not intend to collect any personally-identifiable information from such individuals.

6. LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES

The Sites allow links to various other web sites. Harvard Health Publishing assumes no responsibility for the information practices of sites you are able to access through the Sites. These links to other sites do not imply affiliation or endorsement of a linked site.

7. SECURITY

The importance of security for all personally-identifiable information associated with our users and members is of utmost concern to us. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personally-identifiable information, Harvard Health Publishing can't ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your personally-identifiable information, we will take reasonable efforts to ensure its security on our systems.

CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) provides our customers who are California residents with certain rights relating to their personal data. California residents may contact us at any time to exercise the following rights: (i) to opt-out of allowing us to sell their personal information, (ii) to require that we delete their personal information from our marketing archives, and (iii) to receive a disclosure from us of how we have used their personal information and with whom we have shared it for marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and wish to exercise any of your rights under the CCPA please send a request by email to [email protected].

Or via the U.S. Mail to:

Harvard Health Publishing

Attention: CCPA Request

535 Connecticut Avenue

Norwalk CT 06854

Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

  • The categories of personal information we collected about you.
  • The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
  • Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
  • The categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
  • The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
  • If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
    • sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
    • disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

You have the right to request that Harvard Health Publishing delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

  • Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
  • Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.

Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.

We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.

If you have an account with us, we will deliver our written response to that account. If you do not have an account with us, we will deliver our written response by mail or electronically, at your option.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the 12-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request's receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

  • Deny you goods or services.
  • Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
  • Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
  • Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

Harvard GDPR Disclosure [https://gdpr.harvard.edu/eeaprivacydisclosures]

Terms of Usage

The text, audio, images, photographs, graphics, descriptions, and other material provided on the Website are collectively referred to as the "Content."

You may use the Content only for personal and non-commercial purposes. You may not use Content without express prior written consent from Harvard Health Publishing in connection with: (1) the development of any software program, including, but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system; or (2) providing archived or cached data sets containing Content to another person or entity. You may not use robots, spiders, scripts, service, software or any manual or automatic device, tool, or process designed to data mine or scrape the Content or other data or information from the Harvard Health Publishing website, or otherwise use, access, or collect the Content, data, or information from the website using automated means. Harvard Health Publishing expressly reserves all rights in the Content, including without limitation the rights to reproduce, display, distribute, create derivative works from, and otherwise exploit the Content.

Posting Guidelines

HARVARD HEALTH PUBLISHING cannot review all Communications made on or through the Site. However, HARVARD HEALTH PUBLISHING reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor the Forums and edit, modify or delete any Communications (or portions thereof) which HARVARD HEALTH PUBLISHING in its sole discretion deems inappropriate, offensive or contrary to any HARVARD HEALTH PUBLISHING policy, or that violate this Agreement.

To help HARVARD HEALTH PUBLISHING maintain a safe and civil environment, you agree not to upload or distribute to, or otherwise publish through the Site or Forums any Communication which

  • (i) is for commercial purposes or otherwise advertises or solicits for the sale of goods or services;
  • (ii) is obscene, indecent, pornographic, profane, sexually explicit, threatening, or abusive;
  • (iii) constitutes or contains false or misleading indications of origin or statements of fact;
  • (iv) slanders, libels, defames, disparages, or otherwise violates the legal rights of any third party;
  • (v) causes injury of any kind to any person or entity;
  • (vi) infringes or violates the intellectual property rights (including copyright, patent and trademark rights), contract rights, trade secrets, privacy or publicity rights or any other rights of any third party;
  • (vii) violates any applicable laws, rules, or regulations;
  • (viii) contains software viruses or any other malicious code designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
  • (ix) impersonates another person or entity, or that collects or uses any information about Site visitors.

You further acknowledge that conduct prohibited in connection with your use of the Forums includes, but is not limited to, breaching or attempting to breach the security of the Site.

General Compliance with Laws

All users shall comply with all applicable laws, statutes, ordinances, and regulations regarding use of the Website.

Links from Other Websites / Intellectual Property Rights

Harvard generally welcomes links to its Website. You may establish a link to the Website, provided that the link does not state or imply any sponsorship or endorsement of your website or its contents by Harvard or by any group or individual related to or affiliated with Harvard. You must obtain Harvard's express written consent in order to use on your website any Content provided on Harvard's Website. Use of any Harvard University shield, crest or mark without express written permission is illegal. Please visit this link for information on our permissions policy.

Links to Other Websites / No Harvard Endorsement

Harvard may include links to other Internet sites solely as a convenience to users of its Website. Harvard does not necessarily endorse any such websites or the information, material, products or services contained on or accessible through such websites. Users access and use such websites, including information, material, products, and services therein, solely at the users' own risk. Harvard is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other Internet sites.

Changes to the Privacy Statement

Harvard may make improvements or changes in the information, services, products, and other materials on www.health.harvard.edu, or terminate www.health.harvard.edu, at any time without notice. Harvard may modify this Agreement at any time, and such modifications shall be effective immediately upon posting of the modified agreement.

Disclaimers

Your use of the Website is at your own risk. Harvard makes no warranties or representations as to the Content and assumes no liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions therein. This site is for informational purposes only and does not provide medical advice. Individual circumstances vary so users should consult their physicians. Harvard also assumes no responsibility, and shall not be liable for, any damages to, or viruses that may infect, your computer equipment or other property on account of your access to, use of, or browsing in the Website or your downloading of any materials from the Website.

General

This Agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. Headings are for reference purposes only and in no way define, limit, construe, or describe the scope or extent of such section. Harvard's failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others does not waive Harvard's right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. This Agreement sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between Harvard and users of the Website with respect to the subject matter hereof.

Contacting the Website

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this Website, or your dealings with this Website, please contact [email protected].

Revised March 2022