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Privacy Policy

At Democracy for America Advocacy Fund (DFAAF), we are committed to protecting your online privacy and the security of the information that you might provide to us.


Information We Collect About You

We at DFAAF will potentially collect personal information from you in the three following ways: (1) information you provide directly to us; (2) information we collect automatically when you use the Site; and (3) information we obtain from other sources.  

How we use the information you provide directly to DFAAF:

We collect information that you provide to us directly and will potentially use this information to send you news and information about DFAAF. When you volunteer online we may ask you to give us contact information (such as your name and e-mail address) and geographic information (such as your zip code and state). We may ask you to tell us how you would like to help. We may use this information to send you material and to help match your interests to our activities. By providing us your telephone number, you are consenting to receive calls and texts, including those made with automatic dialing systems or featuring a recorded message. We may also collect any other types of identifying information you choose to provide or authorize to collect about yourself or others. You may update your information by emailing us at website@democracyforamerica.com. DFAAF may share information with its successor organizations, if any.

Automatically Collected Information:

When you access the DFAAF website, there will be some information about you that we automatically collect as a part of our website’s functionality. This includes:

  • Log and Usage Information:  We collect information related to your access to and use of the Site. This includes things like the type of browser you use, the version of the app you’re using, the time you accessed the website, the pages you viewed, your IP address, and the page you visited before navigating to our Site.

  • Device Information:  We collect information about the computer or mobile device you use to access our Site, including the hardware model, operating system and version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information. We also collect information from your device that you authorize us to collect, such as your contacts for purposes of providing you functionality that allows you to share messages with your contacts. If you would like to make changes to the level of access that is available to us, you can consult your device settings for choices you may have to limit our access to this information.

  • Transactional Information: If you make a donation or purchase, we may collect information about the transaction, such as donation amount, purchase price, product detains, and date and location of the transaction.

  • Location Information:  Based on your IP address, we may derive the approximate location of the device you are using to access our site. 

  • Information Collected by Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies:  We (and our service providers) use different technologies to collect information, including cookies and web beacons. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in device memory that help us improve our Site and your experience, see which areas and features of our Site are popular, and count visits. Web beacons (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFs”) are electronic images that may be used in our Site or emails and help deliver cookies, count visits, and understand usage and campaign effectiveness.  For more information about cookies and how to disable them, see Data Tracking below.

Information We Collect From Other Sources

DFAAF and our service providers may also obtain information about you from other sources, such as publicly available databases and voter file data from state parties. We may combine this information with the other information we collect about you on our Site. If you connect to us or our site through a social media platform, we may also receive information through the social media platform.

How We Use Information

We may use the information we collect to:

  • Provide, maintain and improve our Site;

  • Provide and deliver the information you request, process donations and transactions and send you related information, including confirmations and receipts,

  • Send you technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages and provide technical support;

  • Respond to your emails, submissions, comments, questions and requests; request feedback or support, and otherwise contact you about your participation in the campaign and the use of the Site;

  • Communicate with you about candidates or petitions, such as sending you information to keep you informed about various issues, events, activities, and volunteer opportunities, and provide news and information we think will be of interest to you (see Data Tracking below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);

  • To solicit volunteers, donations and support for DFAAF and our affiliates, issues and organizations that we support and to connect you with other volunteers;

  • Contact you if Federal election laws require us to request additional information from you;

  • Remind you to vote and register to vote and assist you in finding your registration information, polling location and campaign events near you;

  • Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Site;

  • Personalize and improve the Site and provide advertisements, content or features based on your user preferences, interests, and browsing and online activities;

  • Facilitate contests, sweepstakes, and promotions and process and deliver entries and rewards;

  • Appropriately monitor and respond to fraudulent, abusive or illegal activities on our site to protect the rights and property of DFAAF and our users, and enforce our Terms of Service.

  • Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.

When you sign one of our petitions:

When you sign one of our petitions, we treat your name, city, state, and any comments as public information. We may, for example, provide compilations of petitions, with your comments, to national leaders, without disclosing email addresses. We may also make comments available to the press and public online, identifying only your first name, the first initial of your last name, your city and state.

Information on Children:

The DFAAF website does not ask children 13 or under for any information that can be used to identify the child. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children 13 or under. Persons under the age of 18 are not permitted to contribute via the website. For more information about protecting children’s privacy online, you can visit https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/privacy-and-security/children%27s-privacy. Parents who have questions concerning this Privacy Policy or our practices can contact us at website@democracyforamerica.com.

Sharing of Information:

Including what is described in this privacy policy, we may share information about you in the following ways:

  • With vendors, service providers, volunteers, and consultants who need access to such information to carry out work on our behalf;

  • With candidates, organizations, campaigns, groups or causes that we believe have similar political viewpoints, principles or objectives or share similar goals and with organizations that facilitate communications and information sharing among such groups; 

  • Subject to applicable contractual or legal restrictions, in connection with the sale or exchange of your information and related data to a broker or other non-profit or for-profit entity;

  • With other participants in a joint fundraising committee;

  • In response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; When we believe in good faith that we are lawfully authorized or required to do so or that doing so is reasonably necessary or appropriate to comply with the law or legal processes or respond to lawful requests, claims or legal authorities, including responding to lawful subpoenas, warrants, or court orders;

  • When we have good faith belief that disclosure is necessary in the protection or defense of our rights, safety, security, users if our site, or others, or if it becomes necessary to investigate illegal activities;

  • If we are concerned that your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies and have an interest in protecting DFAAF’s rights, property, and the safety of our employees, volunteers, constituents, or others;

  • If it is pertinent to any structural changes related to DFAAF’s operation;

  • With your express or implied consent, or at your express or implied direction.

We may also share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used by those third parties to identify you.

Links to other sites:

Our site links to a limited number of other web sites. DFAAF is not responsible for the content, third-party activities, or the privacy policies of these web sites and their third-party affiliates.

Data Tracking

In order to better serve our visitors, we use cookies and periodically analyze web logs. We may also use third-party services such as Google Analytics and Twitter conversion tracking, in addition to other third-party services. This helps DFAAF to understand traffic patterns and know if there are problems with our website. We may also use embedded images in emails sent to you to track open rates for our emails, so that we can tell which mailings are important to you.

Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies, however, this does not necessarily affect third-party flash cookies that may be used in connection with our Sites. You can also review your choices regarding behavioral advertising cookies at www.aboutads.info/choices. If you choose to refuse or delete cookies, you will need to repeat this process if you use another computer or browser. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Site.

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Do-Not-Track Signals 

Some web browsers may transmit “do-not-track” signals to the websites and other online services with which the browser communicates. There is no standard that governs what, if anything, websites and online services should do when they receive these signals. We currently do not take action in response to these signals. If and when a standard for responding is established, we may revisit our policy on responding to these signals. 

Promotional Communications

You may opt out of receiving promotional emails or text messages from DFAAF at any time by following the instructions in those emails or text messages.  If you opt out, we may still send you non-promotional emails related to your account. It may take some time for your opt-out request and new privacy settings to take effect. Additionally, we will not necessarily be able to access or determine the use of any information third-parties received before your opt-out.

Advertising

We may place online advertising with third-party vendors, including Google, Facebook, AddThis and Twitter, which will be shown on other sites on the Internet. In some cases, those third-party vendors may decide which ads to show you based on your prior visits to the website. At no time will you be personally identified to those third-party vendors, nor will any of the information you share with us be shared with those third-party vendors. If you prefer to opt out of the use of these third-party cookies on the DFAAF website, you can do so by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page or by following the individual opt-out links in the section below.

Individual Opt-Out links

DFAAF recognizes that your privacy is important to your Internet experience. If you wish to individually opt-out of third-party targeted advertising by one or more of our partners, DFAAF has provided the individual links here. To opt out of Twitter's interest-based advertising, click here. To opt out of Google Analytics, click here. Information on adjusting your Facebook settings can be found here. To opt out of AddThis targeted advertising, click here.

When you subscribe for updates:

We will use your email address to send you updates. You may remove your name from our mailing lists at anytime by e-mailing us at website@democracyforamerica.com .

When you sign up for our mailing lists:

We collect your e-mail address, state, and zip code.

We use your e-mail address to send you DFAAF updates. We may use your zip code and state to send you e-mail messages about upcoming campaign events in your area. You may remove your e-mail address from our lists by emailing us at website@democracyforamerica.com . We do not share our mailing lists with non-political third parties; however, we may share your information with other like-minded Democratic candidates and organizations.

We log IP addresses, or the location of your computer network on the Internet, for systems administrations and troubleshooting purposes. We also may use IP addresses in the aggregate to track which pages people visit in order to improve the quality of the Site. We do not use this data to develop profiles of individual visitors to our website.

Mobile Text Messages

With your consent, we may send promotional and non-promotional text messages your mobile device.  You can unsubscribe to these messages at any time by replying STOP.

Facebook Messenger:

DFAAF uses Facebook messenger to communicate with supporters in a manner consistent with Facebook messenger’s privacy requirements.

How we protect your information:

Our website has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. Our server is located in a locked, secure environment.

When you contribute online, we use a secure server and SSL to protect your credit card number and other personal information during the transmission. SSL is short for Secure Sockets Layer, a protocol developed by Netscape for secure transmission of private information over the Internet. SSL works by using a private key to encrypt data that are transmitted over the SSL connection. Both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer browsers support SSL, and websites use SSL when users transmit confidential information such as credit card numbers. Web pages that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http. SSL uses 128 bit encryption within the United States. Click here to read more about SSL.

At DFAAF, we are putting forth every effort to ensure the security and privacy of the information that you share with us online. Remember that steps you take to help protect the privacy of your personal information, such as safeguarding your passwords and logging off the website after viewing or submitting personal information, are equally important. If you have broadband access to the Internet it is strongly advised to use a firewall.

YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

California law permits residents of California to request certain details about how their information is shared with third parties for direct marketing purposes.  If you are a California resident and would like this information, please contact us at website@democracyforamerica.com.

Choice/Unsubscribe:

We provide you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving communications from us easily and promptly. E-mail us at website@democracyforamerica.com . Our unsubscribe requests are processed weekly.

Correcting Your Information:

If you need to correct the information you have provided to us, please send an email to website@democracyforamerica.com .

If you need to change your email address, you can unsubscribe from our mailing list and sign up again using your new information.

Contacting us about privacy:

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, the information we have collected from you online, the practices of this Site, or your interaction with this website, send email to: website@democracyforamerica.com .

You can also reach us via US Mail at:

Privacy
Democracy for America Advocacy Fund

PO Box 8706

Essex Junction, VT 05452

In an ongoing effort to provide the utmost in security of the information you give to us, DFAAF reserves the right to revise or update the policy used. Should any of our changes be substantial in nature, we will post them clearly and conspicuously in advance of their effective date. Updates or revisions will not be applied retroactively.

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