Scope of the Privacy Policy
This website is operated by the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School under the domain names: law.cornell.edu, www.law.cornell.edu, blog.law.cornell.edu, etc. We refer to these websites as "LII," "we" or "our." The LII understands the importance of our customers' privacy. Our privacy policy tells you what information we collect when you visit our website, how we use, share and protect it, what choices you have about how the information is used, and how you can access and update that information. If you do not agree to this privacy policy, please do not use this website. This privacy policy applies to personally identifiable information collected on the website where this privacy policy is posted. Certain aspects of this privacy policy also apply to the personally identifiable information we collect offline.
For purposes of this privacy policy, "personally identifiable information" means information that identifies a particular individual, such as name, postal address, email address, and phone number. When other information, such as email newsletter choices or written article submissions, is directly associated with personally identifiable information, this other information also becomes personally identifiable information.
Information Collection
Personally Identifiable Information We Collect
There are many features on this website for which no registration is required. However, if you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the LII, or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as making an online donation to the LII, or participating in sweepstakes, contests, surveys, or certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, if you respond to any of our promotions, offers, contests or certain special initiatives, you have opted into consent communication regarding those promotion, offers, contests, etc. If you participate in an activity such as a survey or sweepstakes, we may also ask you to provide other types of information such as gender and personal interests, which we may associate with personally identifiable information. If you make an online donation, information such as your name, postal address, email address, telephone number become personally identifiable information; however, credit card number are only collected by PayPal, our payment processor. Credit card information is not collected or retained by the LII. When making a payment to the LII via PayPal, you become subject to the terms of the PayPal privacy policy at http://www.paypal.com/privacy. In addition, we may combine personally identifiable information that you have provided to us with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources.
Other Information Collected Through Technology
In addition to information you choose to provide to us, we also collect non-personally identifiable information through technology to make our site more interesting and useful to you. For instance, when you come to our site, we collect your Internet Protocol ("IP") address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the Internet, like your ISP (Internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we also use IP addresses to collect information regarding the frequency with which our visitors visit various parts of our sites. We may combine this information with personally identifiable information that you have provided to us and/or with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources in order to make our web site and communications more targeted to your interests.
Our website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user's computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our web site. We use transient (also called "session ID") cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. We also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow parts of our website to recognize your browser when you return after your first visit to that part of our website. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as suppressing fundraising appeals for users who have opted out of seeing them during a prior session. You can choose to remove persistent cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your user experience on our website may be affected, such as you may see fundraising appeals on subsequent visits to our website even if you have previously donated or elected to suppress fundraising appeals.
Finally, our website uses a variety of technical methods for tracking purposes, including clear gifs (also known as web beacons). Clear gifs are small pieces of data that are embedded in images on the pages of web sites. We use these technical methods to tell us what parts of our web site you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our site. These technical methods may involve the transmission of information directly to us or to a service provider authorized by us to collect information on our behalf. We also use these technical methods in HTML emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails. The information from use of these technical methods may be combined with information that is personally identifiable so that we can make our website, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.
Justia Lawyer Directory
Since many people come to our website looking for legal advice or assistance with a specific legal issue--which we cannot and do not provide--as a free service to our visitors we mirror the Justia Lawyer Directory. Our visitors might use Justia's services to locate a lawyer in their area, to learn more about common legal problems, or to use the free Ask A Lawyer service that Justia provides. For questions regarding your online privacy when viewing or interacting with the Justia Lawyer Directory, please visit Justia's privacy policy, available at: https://www.justia.com/privacy-policy.
Information Use
The LII may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy.
Email Communication
If you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the LII, or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as making an online donation, subscribing to one of our publications, or submitting written content to the website), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, if you respond to any of our promotions, offers, contests or certain special initiatives, you have opted into communication regarding those promotion, offers, contests, in addition to related topics of interest. You may also sign up for our eNewsletters to receive regular email communications from the LII. All email communications sent to you can be opted out through the unsubscribe link in the emails you receive from us. We will comply with the opt-out request within 10 business days. You may still receive communications during that period, but we strive to make the opt-out happen instantaneously. We NEVER trade our email lists with any other organization. To delete the personal information that we've collected from you, please contact us (see bottom of page for contact information). We may have copies of your information for database backup purposes, but the information will never be used in any other way and the backup data are regularly purged.
Links to Other Sites
We may provide links on our website to other sites we think you will enjoy. These sites operate independently of the LII and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read these policies at any site you visit.
Information Security
The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to safeguard any personally identifiable information that you provide to us. However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.
Personally Identifiable Information Contained in User Content
Some sections of our web site may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. The LII does not monitor such transmissions, and therefore cannot be responsible for any personally identifiable information or other information that may be contained in such transmissions.
Changes in this Policy
We may amend this privacy policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personally identifiable information, we will notify you by sending you an email at the last email address that you provided us and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the websites covered by this privacy policy. In any event, changes to this privacy policy may affect our use of personally identifiable information that you provided us prior to our notification to you of the changes.
Return Policy
As the LII does not sell products or services through this website, we have no policy covering the return of purchased merchandise of the refund of any fees paid directly to the LII. All financial transactions that ultimately benefit the LII are provided through third-party vendors, and these transactions are subject to the return policies of the vendor to whom payment is made.
Contact Us
If you have questions or wish to send us comments about this privacy policy, please write us at:
Legal Information Institute
Cornell Law School
476 Myron Taylor Hall
Ithaca, NY 14853