Focus on the Family (“Focus,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) has created this Website Privacy Policy to assure visitors that we are concerned about, and respect, your privacy while visiting our website. Focus will not provide your Personally Identifiable Information, including your e-mail address, to anyone except our supporting organizations (companies who perform services on our behalf, like product delivery and transaction services; however, these companies are prohibited from using your personal information for purposes other than those requested by us or required by law), our wholly-owned affiliated organizations, or our foreign Associate Offices. Except as otherwise provided in this Privacy Policy, we will keep your Personally Identifiable Information private and will not share it with third parties, unless such disclosure is necessary to 1) comply with a court order or other legal process; 2) protect our rights or property; 3) protect the safety and security of our other visitors; or 4) enforce our Terms and Conditions. We will endeavor to ensure that the information you provide to us will remain secure. We want you to feel safe in your online experience while visiting our site. We therefore request that you take a moment to review the following information.

E-mail

On our website there are a variety of ways to interact with us that may require or request your Personally Identifiable Information.

Unsubscribing to E-mail 

Focus wants to make it easy to unsubscribe to e-mails we send to you. Just look for the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any e-mail we send and follow the instructions there. You can unsubscribe at any time for any reason. In addition, you may contact us at the address or phone number provided in the Contact section below or click here to unsubscribe.

Your friend’s e-mail address

From time to time, we may offer you the chance to send an article or a note to someone else telling them about the site. Your friend’s Personally Identifiable Information is also covered by this Privacy Policy.

We will use your friend’s e-mail address to send the specific message you asked us to send. We will not contact your friend again unless he/she voluntarily subscribes to our services.

We recognize that there are some people who may abuse our “send to a friend” system to send e-mail to persons who are not truly friends and who do not want e-mail from us. Though minimizing such risks is important to us, we still consider this service important enough to offer it.

Collection of Information

We sometimes ask that you provide us with Personal Identifiable Information while online. The type of Personally Identifiable Information we collect typically corresponds directly to a request you make. For instance, you may make donations, offer feedback, enter contests, or request resources from our Online Store. We also use this information internally to improve our site. If you provide Personally Identifiable Information to us, we understand that to mean that you consent to our retaining and using such information as stated in this Privacy Policy.

Children’s Privacy

At Focus on the Family, we do direct some online services to children (defined as persons under age 13). Because we wish to make our best efforts to protect the privacy of all users of our site, including children, we endeavor to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, as well as similar state privacy protection laws. While these measures are included elsewhere in this policy, we summarize them here for the sake of communicating them clearly and understandably to you. 

Our site accurately describes its privacy policy in this document which,

1. includes our contact information
2. explains the types of personal information we collect and how we use it
3. explains our practices in terms of sharing personal information with third parties
4. allows parents to consent to the collection and use of their child’s Personally Identifiable Information, without consenting to disclosure to third parties
5. explains that we do not condition a child’s participation in an activity on the child’s providing more personal information than is reasonably necessary for the activity
6. allows parents to review their child’s information, have it deleted, or refuse to permit any further collection, by contacting Focus on the Family at 1-800-A-Family (1-800-232-6459)

Types of Information Collected

Traffic Data

We automatically track and collect “Traffic Data,” including your computer’s IP address, domain server, type of computer, and type of web browser when you visit our site.

We also maintain logs of the specific details of your activity on our site (e.g., how long you were signed on, the pages you visited, and when a particular link is clicked).

Traffic Data is anonymous information that does not personally identify you.

Personal Information

In order for you to access certain services and to purchase products that we offer on the website, we sometimes require you to provide us with Personally Identifiable Information that may include:

• Contact Data (such as your name, mailing, and e-mail addresses)
• Financial Data (such as your account or credit card number)
• Demographic Data (such as your ZIP code, age, and income)

Surveys

From time to time our site may request information from users via surveys. Participation is completely voluntary. Information requested may include demographic information (such as age and ZIP code).

We may post poll questions on the site that allow children under 13 to respond by email. Information gathered from polls or surveys is only for our internal use. We may post sample answers to polls or surveys on the website, but we do not include Personally Identifiable Information in those sample answers.

E-Cards

Our site may provide a feature whereby individuals, including children, may send an online greeting card via e-mail. We require the sending individual to provide his or her e-mail address in order to send the card as if it came directly from them. That e-mail address is not retained after the card has been sent.

Uses of Information Collected

If you request information related to our ministry, our products, or services, or seek to obtain promotional material, or request that we contact you, we will use your Contact Data to do such things.

We use your Financial Data to verify your qualifications for certain complimentary products or services or to bill you for products and services.

We may use your Demographic Data to customize and tailor your experience on the website, such as displaying content that we think would interest you, or to monitor and improve the use of our website and improve user satisfaction.

We use Traffic Data for monitoring and improving the use of our site and the satisfaction of visitors to our site.

Cookies

In addition to collecting information, sometimes we place a file, referred to as a “cookie,” on your computer in temporary Internet file space. These files do not contain your Personally Identifiable Information. Browsers typically recognize when a cookie has been sent to your computer, and based on your browser settings, it may give you the option to refuse or allow it. We can access cookies later in your session or in a later visit to our site in order to improve your visit to our site, as in the following examples:

Account Registration

When you request a resource, we require that you provide certain information to complete your transaction. This information is used to create a unique account within our Online Store. Following account registration and login, a cookie is used to automatically identify you as a registered user when you are browsing the Online Store.

Shopping Cart Identification 

This cookie allows us to maintain a “shopping cart” containing the products for which you are shopping at our Online Store. To limit unauthorized access, this cookie terminates when you exit our site at the end of a browser session.

Sharing of Information

We do not share your Contact Data or Financial Data with third parties except those that are providing services to us, such as a mailing service; however, these companies are prohibited from using your personal information for purposes other than those requested by us or required by law. Even then, we carefully screen those whom we use to provide such services. At Focus, we treat such information, and more importantly, your trust in providing it, very seriously. In certain instances, we may share your Contact Data with our wholly-owned affiliated organizations or our foreign Associate Offices if it makes sense for one of those entities to contact you on behalf of Focus. But even in those cases, our affiliated organizations and our foreign Associate Offices are also bound to maintain the confidentiality of the shared information.

We may share Demographic Data and Traffic Data with advertisers and other third parties. The data we share is not Personally Identifiable Information and is mixed with similar data from others.

User Choice Regarding Collection, Use and Distribution of Personally Identifiable Information

You may choose not to provide us with any Personally Identifiable Information. If so, you can still access and use much of our site; however, you will not be able to access and use those portions of the site that require your Personally Identifiable Information. If you do not wish to receive information we provide, you may opt out any time we ask you for Personally Identifiable Information.

In addition, if you are a parent of a child under the age of 13, you may opt out of our disclosure of your child’s information to any third party, but still allow us to collect and use the information for our purposes.

Security

Your Personally Identifiable Information is stored on secure servers. We provide you with strong encryption technology to transmit your Personally Identifiable Information securely from your computer to our systems.

At times we use password protection to protect your privacy and security and to limit visitors to various portions of our site to those who we intend to grant such access.

SECURITY AND DISCLAIMERS. Focus always uses industry-standard encryption technologies when transferring and receiving consumer data exchanged with our site. Focus has implemented security measures to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site. Unfortunately, however, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personally Identifiable Information, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to or from our website, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we endeavor to protect your information on our systems. IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT OF AN INTERCEPTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DESPITE OUR EFFORTS, FOCUS SHALL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR SUCH INTERCEPTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, OR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOST PROFITS) SUFFERED BY A CUSTOMER OR VISITOR, EVEN IF FOCUS HAS PREVIOUSLY BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. FOCUS DOES NOT WARRANT, EITHER EXPRESSLY ORIMPLICITLY, THAT THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY ANY CUSTOMER OR VISITOR SHALL BE FREE FROM INTERCEPTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS AND DOES NOT PROVIDE ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. EACH CUSTOMER OR VISITOR IS RESPONSIBLE FOR MAINTAINING THE CONFIDENTIALITY OF HIS OR HER OWN LOGIN INFORMATION.

EACH CUSTOMER OR VISITOR SHOULD BE AWARE THAT FOCUS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DELAY, NON-DELIVERY, OR NON-RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION EXCHANGED BETWEEN FOCUS AND THE CUSTOMER OR VISITOR OR VICE-VERSA DUE TO INTERNET CONNECTIVITY PROBLEMS, MAN-MADE OR NATURAL DISASTERS, FORCE MAJEURE, COMPUTER MALFUNCTIONS, OR INCORRECT CONTACT INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY THE CUSTOMER OR VISITOR.

FOCUS COOPERATES WITH INQUIRIES FROM LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES AND WILL ASSIST IN ATTEMPTING TO IDENTIFY A CUSTOMER OR VISITOR WHEN FOCUS IS REQUIRED BY LAW TO DO SO OR WHEN FOCUS, IN THE EXERCISE OF ITS JUDGMENT, DETERMINES IT IS NECESSARY TO PROTECT ITSELF, ITS WEBSITE, SERVICES, CUSTOMERS, AND OTHERS.

Contact Us to Update and Correct Personally Identifiable Information

If you need to update, change, or delete your Personally Identifiable Information or your child’s Personally Identifiable Information, please contact us at Focus on the Family, Attention: Relationship Services, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920, phone us at 1-800-232-6459, or email us at: [email protected].

Lost or Stolen Information 

You must promptly notify us if you suspect that your credit card, username, or password is lost, stolen, or used without permission. In such an event, we will update our records accordingly.

Other Limits to Your Privacy

This website may provide links to external websites maintained by individuals or organizations external to Focus. Once you access information that links you to another site, you become subject to the privacy policy of that site rather than ours. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such websites.

We may also provide you the opportunity to post information to our sites. Please understand that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes generally available to the public. We have no control over its use, and you should exercise caution when deciding to post Personally Identifiable Information.

Updates and Changes to Privacy Policy. We reserve the right, at any time and without notice, to add to, change, update, or modify this Privacy Policy, simply by posting such change, update, or modification on our website. 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. Any such change, update, or modification will be effective immediately upon posting on the website. 

(Last updated on September 9, 2022.)  

California Privacy Rights

The California Civil Code Section 1798.83 allows our California guests and customers to request certain information regarding our disclosures (if any) in the prior calendar year of Personally Identifiable Information to third parties for the direct marketing purposes of those third parties. To make such a request, please contact us at [email protected] or mail your request to Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920, Attn: Legal Department, and include your name and the address to which you would like us to respond. We will attempt to provide you with the requested information within 30 days of receipt.

Questions or Suggestions

Please direct all questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy to Focus at (800) A-FAMILY (232-6459) or write us at Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.  You may also contact us via e-mail at: [email protected].