This site and its content are owned and operated by Bethany Christian Assembly (BCA). Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At BCA, we want to make your online visit with us is both satisfying and safe.
BCA reviews its Privacy Policy periodically and reserves the right, at its discretion, to modify or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time. This Privacy Policy applies to all web sites produced and maintained by BCA.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.
BCA gathers two types of information about users:
- Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to donate funds, to register for events, to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our prayer wall, to e-mail a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys.
- Information that BCA gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs. Under no circumstances does BCA divulge any information about an individual user to a third party.
BCA gathers user information in the following processes:
OPTIONAL VOLUNTARY INFORMATION
We offer the following services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
1. Online Giving or Events Registration
BCA uses a payment processor, USA ePay, to handle all online financial transactions. While some forms related to this may exist on the BCA website, none exist which ask for any identifiable information about you. All credit card numbers, names, and billing information will be requested only via USA ePay’s secure site. You may view USA ePay’s privacy policy by following this link. (http://www.usaepay.com/privacy.htm)
2. Electronic Newsletters
We offer free electronic newsletters to users. BCA gathers the e-mail addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. These addresses may be loaded within BCA’s account space at Constant Contact (www.contstantcontact.com), a well-known internet provider of e-mail marketing services. They enforce very strict policies against spamming and abuse, and provide you an option to permanently remove your e-mail address from any further mailings through a technology they call SafeSubscribe. Once your address is removed, it will not be added again by BCA or Constant Contact to any of our lists. You can read their privacy statement here (http://www.constantcontact.com/about-constant-contact/security/index.jsp).
3. Prayer Wall
Users of the site's prayer wall post messages which must be moderated (approved) by BCA staff before being publicly available. If you prefer to make an anonymous prayer request, select the appropriate option on the submission form. BCA reserves the right to edit or remove any content at its sole discretion.
4. "E-mail this to a friend" Forwards
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "E-mail this to a friend.” The user must provide his e-mail address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the e-mail. The information is not used for any other purpose.
5. Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users so they can easily share their opinions with other users and to see what our audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user. BCA may use a system to "tag" users after they have voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is not correlated with information about individual users.
6. Surveys
BCA may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. BCA may share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers, and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.
CHILDREN
Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
USAGE TRACKING
BCA tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. BCA does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
BCA sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for our users.
COOKIES
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain personal information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data from your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. BCA uses cookies to track user traffic patterns as described above. Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling, and surveys.
USE OF INFORMATION
BCA uses any information voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.
As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing.
We maintain reasonable and appropriate safeguards to ensure the security, integrity, and privacy of such information in our possession. BCA does not sell, trade, or rent personally identifiable information to third parties.
While we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas, we do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don't track which terms a particular user enters.
We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal processes, or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
BCA uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.
SECURITY
BCA’s data networks are protected by industry standard technologies. Our security policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary, and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.
LINKS
This web site may be linked to or from other web sites that are not operated by BCA or any affiliates. BCA is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of those third party web sites. Visitors to those web sites should refer to their separate privacy policies and practices.
OPT-OUT POLICY
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:
- Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
- Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users
YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by BCA. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.