FirstStep Counseling, Inc. Privacy Policy
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and operated by FirstStep Counseling, Inc. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At FirstStep Counseling, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.
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.
INFORMATION THAT FIRSTSTEP COUNSELING GATHERS AND TRACKS
FirstStep Counseling gathers two types of information about users:
1. Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys:
2. Information gathered through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our site. This information allows us to better tailor our content to user's needs better understand the demographics of our audience.
FirstStep Counseling gathers User Information In The Following Processes:
OPTIONAL VOLUNTARY INFORMATION
1. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
We offer a free electronic newsletter to users. FirstStep Counseling gathers the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by emailing FirstStep Counseling at info@firststepks.com and requesting to be unsubscribed from the newsletter.
2. Submission of "Request for Appointment" form
We collect certain personal information in order to initiate contact and set up an appointment with you. This information may include: first name, last name, street address city, state, zip code, home phone, email address, contact restrictions, current employer, work phone, insurance company, and name of policy holder.
5. Surveys
FirstStep Counseling may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. 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
FirstStep Counseling tracks user traffic patterns throughout our site. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. FirstStep Counseling 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).
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 off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. ________ 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
FirstStep Counseling 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 enhance your personal interaction with us.
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, . 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. FirstStep Counseling never shares newsletter mailing lists or any information collected on this site with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.
When 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.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
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
FirstStep Counseling operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.
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 FirstStep Counseling, Inc. 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.