Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 16, 2024

This privacy policy sets out how ALSforums.com uses and protects any information that you provide, whilst using ALSforums.com services. This includes, but is not limited to ALSforums.com and any associated websites and sub-domains.

ALSforums.com is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Any information provided by you to ALSforums.com, by which you can be identified, will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

ALSforums.com may change this policy as and when necessary. It is your responsibility to check this privacy policy periodically to ensure you agree with any changes.

ALSforums.com service is an interactive support community for individuals affected by ALS. To use the service, you must provide personal information to other members of the service and enter personal information into the ALSforums.com database. At ALSforums.com, we take your privacy seriously. We are committed to ensuring that only you have access to the information you provide about yourself. This commitment includes any medical or condition data, your personal preferences and all other personal data you enter on our site.

The following statement discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices at ALSforums.com.

Data Collection

The forms on our site require users to give us contact information (like their name and email address), and other personal information relating to your cancer experience. Such information may be used to provide you with personalized and matched content within the site; individual email inquiries may be forwarded to the appropriate department for response. Information that is not used to directly support the service may be used in a research capacity to evaluate the benefits of this service. At ALSforums.com we do not share or sell any information that could be linked to your identity.

Occasionally we use Google as a third party vendor. Google uses cookies to serve ads on your site. Google's use of the DART cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to your users based on their visit to your sites and/or other sites on the Internet. Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google ad and content network privacy policy.

Additionally, this website uses Google Adsense, Google Analytics, as well as local logs that track users based on IP address.

Data Security

In the parts of the site where personal information is entered and viewed, ALSforums.com has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. To ensure that the data transferred between your Web connection and ours is not viewed by anyone but you, we are using powerful Web site encryption technology. The ALSforums.com Web server is located at an InterNap web- hosting facility in Seattle, WA. InterNap allows us to offer a high-speed, high-availability internet connection backed by redundant network infrastructure and advanced, proprietary security technologies. Access to the ALSforums.com Web server is restricted to a few key ALSforums.com employees. All data entered in the ALSforums.com database is regularly backed up and the backup media is securely stored to prevent loss or damage.

Retaining, Modifying and Deleting Your Personal Data

You may access, retain, modify or delete the information we hold about you. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact us using the contact details below. If you would like to update, correct, modify or delete from our database any personal data you previously submitted to us, please let us know by accessing and updating your profile. If you delete certain information you may not be able to use certain Site features in the future without re-submitting such information. We will comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable. Also, please note that we will maintain personal data in our database whenever we are required to do so by law.

Please note that we need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting such change or deletion (for example, when you enter a promotion, you may not be able to change or delete the Personal Data provided until after the completion of such promotion). We will retain your personal data for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Request for Removal of Data

You may request your data be deleted from our website at any time by making a request directly with a moderator, or by emailing: [email protected], or by using our contact form.

All personally identifiable information, upon request of deletion, as well as your username and email will be removed from our systems from the time the request is completed, including all forward/future database backups.

EU Data Subject Rights

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have the right to: (a) request access to your personal data and rectification of inaccurate personal data; (b) request erasure of your personal data; (c) request restrictions on the processing of your personal data; (d) object to processing your personal data; and/or (e) the right to data portability (“collectively, “Requests”). We will honor all such Requests but we can only process Requests from a user whose identity has been verified. To verify your identity, please provide your email address or [URL] when you make a request. For more information about how to get access to personal data and for exercising your rights, you can submit a request to [email protected] with “Personal Data Request” in the subject line of the message. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.

Contacting Our Users

At ALSforums.com we do not contact our users unless they first request that we contact them, have given us permission to contact them, or in the event that a problem has been detected with their account requiring that they be notified. We do not provide our users' contact information to any outside parties without expressed consent.

Correcting and Updating Submitted Information

Users may delete or modify any information submitted to our site at any time by going through forms and making changes or deleting information. Users may modify the contact information they enter on our site at any time by contacting us at ALSforums.com (see contact information below).

IP Address Collection

The ALSforums.com Web site automatically collects your IP address when you visit. We use this information for market and demographic trending purposes only and with no identifiers.

Your IP is annonymized when shared with Google Analytics.

Statistics Collection

The ALSforums.com Web site automatically collects tracking information about the pages you visit on the ALSforums.com domain.

Onsite Advertising

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you.

Links to Other Sites

We do make efforts to ensure that inappropriate links and content does not appear on our website. As hard as we try, we cannot assume liability for information posted on this website due to the volume of members we have posting information.

With that said. This site contains links to other sites. ALSforums.com is not responsible for, and maintains absolutely no liability for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites. Link offsite at your own risk.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, please feel free to contact us.