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Legal Center / Privacy Policy
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submitted by Dr. Gary Farr - Contact the author here.
Last Updated August, 10, 2007
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BecomeHealthyNow.com understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our customers. BecomeHealthyNow.com is committed to honoring your privacy, and to offering special protections for any personal health information you choose to share with us. The document you are reading is our privacy policy for our Web sites that are accessible by consumers, and it describes what information we may collect about you, what uses we may make of it, how you can tell us what to do with your information, and what precautions we take against unauthorized access or use of your information.
This privacy policy applies only to our Web sites that may be used by consumers and that provide health care information and services. Here is a list of those sites:
- BecomeHealthyNow.com (www.BecomeHealthyNow.com) is our Web site for patients and allied health care professionals. BecomeHealthyNow.com provides health-related articles, reference tools, medical and clinical information and resources, medical news, medical conference coverage, treatment updates, and accredited continuing education for healthcare professionals. It also has tools intended only for the use of a trained healthcare professional.
- BecomeHealthyNow.com is also the name we use to refer to our company. When we refer to ourselves as "we" or "BecomeHealthyNow.com," we mean our entire company, including any company that we control (for example, a subsidiary that we own). We may share information among our subsidiaries that we own or control, but it is always protected under the terms of this privacy policy.
- This privacy policy only applies to BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites. You should read the privacy policy at each Web site that you visit after you leave one of our sites. We are not responsible for how other Web sites treat your privacy, once you leave a BecomeHealthyNow.com site.
As our privacy policies change in significant ways, we will make every effort to notify you of the changes. Minor changes to the policy may occur that will not affect our use of individually identifiable health information. When the privacy policies change in a way that significantly affects the way we handle personal information, we will not use the information we have previously gathered without obtaining consent from the appropriate individual. We will post privacy policy changes on our Web sites in a timely manner.
In this section of our privacy policy, we discuss the different types of information we may collect about you, and the ways in which we collect them.
Visitors to each of our Web sites can access the Web site's home page, and browse some areas of the site, without disclosing any personally identifiable information. We do track information provided to us by your browser, including the Web site you came from (known as the "referring URL"), the type of browser you use, the time and date of access, and other information that does not personally identify you. On most of our sites, you must register with us to use all of the site.
Customers registering for services on our Web sites are asked to provide us with identifying information, such as name, gender, contact information, and other identifying information. On our registration screen, we clearly label which information is required for registration, and which information is optional and may be given at your discretion. You will also be given a choice about whether or not you want to receive newsletter information. BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites will ask for the customer's consent before collecting personally identifiable information.
We may also collect information about physicians or other healthcare professionals who register on our Web sites from other sources in order to verify their licensure status and identity. In some cases we may ask customers for information after they register, such as credit card information. Where necessary (for example, to process an order for a purchase), our Web sites may contact financial or credit organizations to confirm customer credit card information.
- Discussion Boards: When you are using a discussion board on our Web sites, you are posting a message and your user name, which is available for all registered users to see. When you are posting publicly, any user of our web site can see your message. You should not post any information you want to keep private to a discussion board or other public forum on our Web sites.
- Tools: On some of our Web sites, we offer health assessment tools that ask you to provide self-assessment information. Many of our tools provide you with the option of storing health information you provide over time on our servers. For example, you can use our nutrition tools to track weight and diet over a period of months or even years. We store this information on our computers. Some of our tools do not allow storage of information (for example, our clinical calculators on BecomeHealthyNow.com). We will always make it clear to you when information you provide to us through a tool will be saved.
- Member Lookup: When you are registering as a member, you have a choice about whether or not you want other members to be able to look you up and send you messages. If you opt not to be listed, no other members will be able to look you up.
- Additional Forms and Emails: We may also ask you to provide additional information after you register if you want to obtain additional services or information or to resolve complaints or concerns.
In addition, we gather information about you that is automatically collected by our Web server, such as your IP address and domain name. BecomeHealthyNow.com will use this information to personalize its offerings and presentations to you, facilitate your movements throughout our site, provide personalized services, and to communicate with you individually.
In regards medical records, we allow you to enter health information about yourself. For example, when performing a Symptom Survey Analysis or a Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis, this data is considered to be medical records. We will always give you a copy of any test that is performed and we detail all telephone consultations so that a permanent medical record is established.
When you create your own health record with BecomeHealthyNow.com, you have control over who besides yourself may see the record. You have a choice whether or not to give your physician or other healthcare professional the right to see what you have in your record, and you also control who has access to your login and password.
Cookies are a technology used by the BecomeHealthyNow.com Web sites to identify a user as the user moves through the Web site. Your browser allows us to place some information on your computer's hard drive that identifies the computer you are using. We use cookies to personalize our Web sites and to track your usage across all of our Web sites.
Your Web browser can be set to allow you to control whether you will accept cookies, reject cookies, or to notify you each time a cookie is sent to you. If your browser is set to reject cookies, Web sites that are cookie enabled will not recognize you when you return to the Web site, and some Web site functionality may be lost. The Help section of your browser will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting cookies.
Although cookies do not normally contain personally identifiable information, if you are a registered user we may associate your registration information with cookies our Web site places on your computer's hard drive. Associating a cookie with your registration data allows us to offer increased personalization and functionality. For example, you can elect to have our Web sites "remember" your user name and password and bypass the sign-in process on each visit to the site. Without cookies, this functionality would not be possible.
Some of our business partners may use cookies on our site (for example, advertisers.) We have told them that we do not want them to use cookie information to track our customer's activities once they leave our sites. However, because of the way advertisements are served on our Web sites, we do not have total control over how advertisers use cookies on our Web site. If you become aware that a BecomeHealthyNow.com advertiser is placing an unwanted cookie on your hard drive, please contact our privacy officer to assist us in resolving the problem.
BecomeHealthyNow.com's Web sites are designed and intended for use by adults, and are not intended for, nor designed to be used by children under the age of 18. Minors under the age of 18 may register for our Web sites that collect or present personal healthcare information only with the prior written consent of their parent or legal guardian, and then only under the direct supervision of that parent or guardian. The parent or guardian is responsible for providing supervision to ensure the minor's authentication information is kept secure and the credibility of the health record is maintained. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we know is a child under the age of 13.
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