Please remember that any information (including personal and medical information) that you reveal in a HCCS public forum (such as a bulletin board, mail list, chat room/event) is not protected by this Privacy Policy. Such postings will be seen by third parties not related to HCCS. What you've written could be used by others in ways we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. Also, if you access a third party site from a link on HCCS, any information you reveal on that site is not subject to this Privacy Policy. You should consult the privacy policies of each site you visit.

ARTICLE 1

Information We Collect

Personal Information is information that can be used to identify or contact you. HCCS collects only the personal information you provide to us. We collect the Personal Information that you provide to us when you register as for a user name and password. This information can be linked to your computer use when you choose to use various HCCS Interactive Tools and Services such as the "Information Sessions" that require you to enter your user name and password.

Registration and Member Profile

You may use our website without registering or submitting any Personal Information. In that case, the only information we collect will be non-personal information that cannot be linked to you as an individual. This site will collect number of people who have used the site and number of times a site is visited by an individual.

The information we collect in the Registration form is set forth below:

Full Name
Member Nickname
Password/Hint
Street Address
Zip Code
Gender
Age Range (18-24, 25-34, 34-54, or 55+)

This information will be used in case you reveal information on HCCS that mandates a professional contact a third party to ensure your safety or the safety of others. For example, if you report in a information session that you intent on harming yourself, authorities may be notified.

Cookies

Cookies are small computer files that we transfer to your computer's hard drive that allow us to know how often someone visits our site and the activities they conduct while on our site (such as the chatrooms you visited, etc.). The HCCS does not use cookies. We will not store any information on your computer.

Sponsors, partners or advertisers on HCCS may also use their own cookies when you click on their advertisement or link to their site or service, or even if the advertisement simply appears on a page that you are viewing. Some advertisers use companies other than HCCS to serve their ads and these companies ("Ad Servers") may also collect non-personal information through the use of cookies on our website. We do not control these third parties' use of Cookies, or how they manage the non-personal information they gather through them. You should review the privacy policy of other sites you visit or link to from our site to understand how these other sites use cookies and how they use the information they collect through the use of cookies on their own sites.

Your browser software can be set to reject all cookies. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject cookies in the "Help" section of the toolbar.

Public Forums

This Privacy Policy does not protect you when you use HCCS public forums. As a service to our users, HCCS features chat rooms and bulletin boards where users with similar medical conditions can share information and support one another. In addition, we offer online discussions on a variety of topics moderated by medical experts. You should be aware that any information shared in a chat room, bulletin board or online discussion is public information and may be seen or collected by third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. You should think carefully before disclosing any personal information in any public forum.

ARTICLE 2

Disclosure of Your Information

Except as set forth in this Article or as specifically agreed to by you, HCCS will not disclose any Personal Information it gathers from you. We may release Personal Information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as a physical threat to you or others. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personal Information to a third party, we will notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order.

Disclosure to Linked Sites

For your convenience there are links to websites operated by companies other than HCCS ("Third Party Websites") that are not contractors who provide content or services through our website. These links may be found in advertisements, referenced within content, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. HCCS does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Websites and HCCS does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you choose to link to one of these Third party Websites, you should review the privacy policy posted on this other site to understand how that Third Party Website collects and uses your Personal Information.

Disclosure of Aggregate Information

HCCS may provide to third parties non-personal information about you that does not allow you to be identified or contacted and that is combined with the non-personal information of other users ("Aggregate Information"). For example, we might inform third parties regarding the number of users of our site and the activities they conduct while on our site. We might also inform a pharmaceutical company (that may or may not be an advertiser on our site) that "30% of our users live east of the Mississippi" or that "25% of our users have tried alternative medicine."

ARTICLE 3

How HCCS Handles Privacy and Security Internally

Encryption technology is used in transmitting the information you send us to our servers to help ensure the integrity and privacy of the Personal Information you provide to us via the Internet. Encryption involves systematically scrambling numbers and letters, so that even if someone managed to intercept the information, they would not be able to make sense of it. In order to take advantage of this encryption technology, you need to have an Internet browser that will support 128-bit encryption, such as Netscape or Microsoft Explorer.

Your Personal Information is kept physically separate from where your password is encrypted and stored on a database. On the employee side, only a limited number of HCCS employees are authorized to access your Personal Information. All HCCS employees must abide by our Privacy Policy and those who violate our Privacy Policy are subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.

Although we will make every reasonable effort to protect your Personal Information from loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties, you should be aware that there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the Internet. There is also some risk that thieves could find a way to thwart our security systems.

ARTICLE 4

This privacy statement applies only to the HCCS website. The HCCS site does contain links to other sites. Once you enter another website (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that HCCS is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy statements of each and every web site that you visit through a link or advertisement on HCCS site or any site that collects Personal Information from you.

ARTICLE 5

Updating Your Personal Information

You can always contact us in order to (1) delete your Personal Information from our systems, or (2) update the Personal Information that you have provided to us by contacting us at ****

Revised June, 2001