The American Pain Foundation (APF) respects the privacy of individuals visiting our website and/or utilizing our services. Personal information that an individual submits to us on a voluntary basis, including health profiles, mailing list subscriptions, and any other requests found on the website will be used for the sole purpose for which it is submitted.
The APF website and all contents, where appropriate, are copyrighted 1999-2005 by the American Pain Foundation, Baltimore, MD 21201-4111. All rights reserved.
All of APF’s services are provided free of charge. The contents of this website may be downloaded or printed for personal use and convenience only. The contents may not be reproduced for any other purpose without the prior written permission of the APF. (See reprint agreement). Unless stated otherwise, the statements and opinions expressed by various authors on this website reflect the authors' personal views and do not imply endorsement by APF.
APF reserves the right to change the terms and conditions of its website policies and disclaimers at any time.
Medical Disclaimer
The information on this website is provided to help users find answers and support. Users may wish to print the information and discuss it with their doctor. Always consult with health care providers before starting or changing any treatment.
This information is provided for educational and information purposes only. APF is not engaged in rendering medical advice or professional services, and this information should not be used for diagnosing or treating a health problem. APF makes no representations or warranties, expressed or implied. Providing references to other organizations or links to other websites does not imply that APF endorses the information or services provided by them. Those organizations are solely responsible for the information they provide.
Legal Disclaimer
APF does not provide legal advice, make legal referrals, or take a position regarding inquiries about specific legal or law enforcement matters or any individuals involved in legal or law enforcement proceedings. The information on this website is provided solely for the user’s information and independent evaluation. APF makes no representations or warranties, expressed or implied. Providing references to other organizations or individuals does not imply that the APF endorses the information or services provided by them or legal positions taken by them. Those organizations and individuals are solely responsible for the information they provide.
TRUSTe Privacy Program
APF is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. The privacy practices of this statement apply to our services available under the domain and subdomains of http://www.painfoundation.org (including http://painaid.painfoundation.org) (the "Site"), which includes portions of our site hosted by our email, online advocacy and fundraising database third party service providers. Because this website wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Yvette Colón, MSW, Director of Education & Internet Services, by email at webmaster@painfoundation.org or by telephone at (888) 615-7246. If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with the website to resolve your concerns.
Advertising Policy
APF does not accept or feature advertising of any kind on its website.
Choice/Opt-out
Users are given the opportunity to “opt-out” of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our services For example, our electronic newsletter has an “unsubscribe” mechanism so users can terminate their subscription. Users who no longer wish to receive our information, educational and/or print newsletters can complete the web form at https://secure2.convio.net/apf/site/SSurvey?ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS&SURVEY_ID=1500, email us at info@painfoundation.org, call us at (888) 615-7246, or write to us at American Pain Foundation, 201 N. Charles Street, Suite 710, Baltimore, MD 21201-4111.
Consumer Services
Users of the APF website and consumers of APF services can request a variety of pain information, advocacy and support via email at info@painfoundation.org, toll-free information and order line at (888) 615-7246 or web form at https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/AmericanPainFoundation/register.html. We communicate with users in order to fulfill their requests and, unless requested not to, add their names and contact info to our mailing list. Those on the mailing list will occasionally receive information on our free services, advocacy efforts, publications, newsletters and pain-related health and legislative events. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we provide the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see our choice/opt-out procedure above.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Once the user closes their browser, the cookie simply terminates. If a user rejects the cookie, they will still have full access to our site. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance their experience on our site.
Correcting/Updating Personal Information:
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (i.e., address, email address, phone number, zip code), or if a user no longer desires our service, we will endeavor to provide a way to correct, update or remove user’s personal data provided to us. This can be done by completing our web form at https://app.etapestry.com/hosted/AmericanPainFoundation/register.html, sending email to info@painfoundation.org, calling us at (888) 615-7246, or writing to us at American Pain Foundation, 201 N. Charles Street, Suite 710, Baltimore, MD 21201-4111.
Information Collection and Use
APF is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. APF collects information from our users at several different points on our website.
Links
This site contains links to other sites. APF provides links to other sites as a benefit and convenience to our website visitors. Please be aware that APF is not responsible for the contents or privacy practices of any linked site. A link does not imply an affiliation with the linked site or an endorsement of the information or services provided by the linked organization, which is solely responsible for the information it provides. APF will link only to websites that contain information about pain/pain management and related health concerns. APF will not link to commercial services, products, online pharmacies, private businesses, individual pain clinics, hospitals, hospice programs or rehabilitation facilities, for-profit websites that exclusively advertise their own products and/or services, or websites that require the purchase of their own products and/or services as a condition for viewing their information. All link requests are to be submitted to webmaster@painfoundation.org for evaluation. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.
When users access certain parts of our website, such as our donations page, mailing list signup, Clinical Trials Center and Online Advocacy Center, you will be directed to a third party site that manages these processes for us. The pages have been designed to look like our website, but users are on another site. Users can check the URL and location bar of their browser to see where they are at all times.
Linking Information
All link requests are to be submitted to webmaster@painfoundation.org for evaluation. If the request is approved, APF grants owners, administrators or webmasters of the other website permission to use a hyperlink on that website, provided the following conditions are met: (1) any link must clearly be marked "American Pain Foundation;" (2) the link must point to the URL http://www.painfoundation.org, (3) the appearance, position and other aspects of either the link or the host website may not be such as to damage or dilute the goodwill associated with APF's name and trademarks; (4) the appearance, position and other aspects of either the link or the host website may not create the false appearance that an entity other than APF is associated with or sponsored by APF; and (5) APF reserves the right to revoke its consent to the link at any time.
Log Files
We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. APF uses WebTrends Live to statistically analyze traffic to this website. WebTrends Live does not create individual profiles for visitors. WebTrends Live does not have a database of individual profiles for each visitor and only collects aggregate data. For more information about the WebTrends Live privacy policy, please click here.
Mailing List
If a user wishes to receive APF mailings (including educational brochures), or subscribe to our newsletter or electronic newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name, street address, phone number and email address.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post a notice on our homepage so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of a homepage notice, email or electronic newsletter. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.
Online Chats and Discussion Groups
APF provides an online support community called PainAid, consisting of moderating discussion boards and chat rooms. Participants are identified by Username and IP address only when they post a message. Any other personally identifiable information is posted voluntarily by participants, but can be viewed by PainAid participants and other visitors.
Online Donations
Visitors to the APF website who wish to make online donations are asked to donate to us through eTapestry, our online fundraising database. To view eTapestry's security policy, please view http://www.etapestry.com/secure/secure_fs.html. To view APF's Network for Good profile (financial information, goals and accomplishments), please click here. All contribution information is kept private and confidential, and all information is stored in a secure location accessible only by designated APF and eTapestry staff.
Parental Control Protections
Although APF policy prohibits the posting of obscene and other improper material, we cannot control the content of postings to PainAid, its online support program, made by third parties. APF staff and volunteers moderate all chats and discussion boards. Language may be used and subject matter discussed that may be inappropriate for minors. Parental control protections (such as computer hardware, software, or filtering services) are commercially available that may assist you in limiting access to such material that may be harmful to minors. If you are interested in learning more about these protections, information, including a list of current providers of such protections, is available at Safety Surf and Awesome Library.
Publication Orders
We request contact information (name, shipping address, phone number, email address) from anyone requesting our publications. For bulk orders, we provide a publication order form. Payment for bulk orders is made via credit card, check or purchase order. The contact information is used for billing purposes and to fill orders. If we have trouble processing an order, this contact information is used to get in touch with the user.
Registration
Users have full access to the APF website without registration. Users who want to join APF’s PainAid: Online Support Program must first complete a simple registration. During PainAid registration a user is required to create a user name, supply an email address and electronically sign a PainAid User Agreement Form. This information is used solely to verify that the email address is valid and to welcome the user. PainAid users are not required to provide demographic or unique identifying information and they are not added to the APF mailing list.
Security
This website takes every precaution to protect users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, their information is protected both online and off-line. All of our users’ information is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our Consumer Education, Publications, Development and Advocacy Departments) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Our employees use password-protected computers and programs to access this information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. We review our privacy policies and procedures on a regular basis. APF staff is fully aware of the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our customers’ information is protected and kept confidential. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure, locked environment. If you have any questions about the security of our data, please send an email to Yvette Colón, MSW, Director of Education & Internet Services, at webmaster@painfoundation.org.
Sharing
Aggregated demographic information is used internally at APF to assess the interests of our users and to enhance their experience on our site. APF may share aggregated demographic information with our program collaborators. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person. We use outside mail houses to ship publications, newsletters and other mailings. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our website.
Surveys
APF regularly provides you the opportunity to participate in surveys on our site. If you participate, we will request certain personally identifiable information from you. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and you therefore have a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name, mailing address and email address), and demographic information (such as gender and age).
We use this information to assess the interests of our users, to enhance their experience on our site, to personalize the site and to communicate with participants with email/print newsletter and program updates.
We use a third party service provider to conduct these surveys; that company is prohibited from using our users’ personally identifiable information for any other purpose. We will not share the personally identifiable information you provide through a survey with other third parties unless we give you prior notice and choice.
Third Party Service Providers
When users access certain services within the site, such as making a donation, signing up for newsletters, participating in an advocacy activity, they will be directed to a third party site that manages these processes. These services have been designed to appear identical to our website. Users, however, are on a third party site which can be identified by checking the web address in the location bar of their browser.
Posted: January 18, 2004
Reviewed: May 25, 2005
Revised: December 7, 2005