Privacy & Terms | Animal Charity Evaluators

Privacy Policy

At Animal Charity Evaluators (“Animal Charity Evaluators,” “ACE,” “we,” “us,” and “our”) our mission is to find and promote the most effective ways to help animals. When you visit animalcharityevaluators.org and/or any of our subdomains (the “Site” or “Website”) or reach out to us in a different way, you may share information with us that helps us continue our important work. This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) is meant to help you understand how ACE collects, uses, and shares information you give us when you visit our Site or contact us in a different way.

We wrote this Policy to help you understand:

what types of information we collect and why we collect it;
how we use the information we collect; and
options available to you—including how to access, update, and remove your information.

We welcome your questions and comments on this Policy.

By using this Site or by contacting us, you consent to this Policy.

How We Collect Information

We collect two different types of information about you through our Website: (1) information that you may voluntarily choose to provide us while using the Website, and (2) information collected automatically as a result of your use of our Site. Details describing both types of information are provided below.

Voluntarily provided information

Information you choose to provide to us

Filling out a form: You may voluntarily choose to provide certain Personal Information to us. All information that can be used to identify you—including your name, email address, phone number, and postal address—are examples of Personal Information we may ask you to provide when you take certain actions on our website (such as leaving a comment on a post, subscribing to our mailing list, or making an online donation). We will never ask you to send highly sensitive Personal Information (such as your Social Security number or Driver’s License number) through our Site. Jump to: Processing Donations.

Communicating with ACE staff: When you send an email message through our Contact Us web form or to any animalcharityevaluators.org email address published on our Site or active in our email service provider, we may store the content of your email, your email address, and any information you provide to us in your associated email contact profile or signature, as well as any response we send back to you.

When you initiate personal communications with ACE via any phone number published on our Site or provided by a staff member (e.g. in their email signature) or take part in an in-person conversation with an ACE team member identified on our Site, we may store information regarding the nature of the conversation and Personal Information you provided to us in the conversation, along with any notes taken by staff members regarding the conversation. This helps us manage any follow-up questions you might have and facilitate further correspondence with you.

Non-donor information: ACE may receive or obtain information such as an email address, phone number, or postal address for a person who is not yet a registered donor (“non-donor”) with ACE in connection with certain ACE features, such as when a non-donor chooses to subscribe to our mailing list, when a donor makes a gift in honor or in memory of someone else and provides us with that person’s contact information in order to notify them of the gift, or when a non-donor contacts us to make an inquiry. Non-donor information is used only for the purposes disclosed when it was submitted to ACE or to facilitate action authorized by the non-donor or person who made an honorary/memorial gift. If a person contacts ACE to specifically inquire about making a donation, that person may be added to our internal Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database as a prospective donor. Only the information provided voluntarily by that person (such as an email address or phone number) is entered into the database.

Publicly available information: Staff members of ACE may do an online search on a name or email address that has been provided to us, whether by the person themselves, through making a donation or inquiry with ACE, or from someone else who provided a name or email address. If public profiles, such as personal websites or social media accounts, are found, links to those sites may be stored in the person’s record in ACE’s CRM database. This information is not shared with any other charities or parties without the person’s consent.

Your information may also be given to us by third parties, such as online fundraising platforms and other charities or organizations that have referred you to us. For example, you may choose to donate to ACE or an ACE-managed recommended charity fund via a third-party, such as Facebook, the PayPal Giving Fund, GiveDirect, FirstGiving, Rethink Charity, Causevox, or the Effective Altruism Foundation. Please read the third party’s privacy policy and terms & conditions when you provide information to them to better understand how they will handle your Personal Information.

Automatically collected information

ACE, like the majority of other websites you visit and use regularly, may automatically collect information from your browser or device when you use the Site, such as the frequency and duration of your visits to the Site, and the type of device you are visiting from. Websites use cookies and other tracking tools for a variety of reasons, including to improve the user’s website experience. For example, cookies are used to remember your preference settings so that pop-up modals do not appear on every single page you visit—even after you’ve dismissed it.

About cookies

This Site uses cookies—small text files that are placed on your machine to help the Site provide a better user experience. Cookies may identify your browser, device, Internet Protocol (IP) address, unique device identifier, device attributes, location, and language. Cookies are used for a variety of reasons, including to remember important information that will make using the Site more convenient for visitors.

Like many websites, ACE uses these tools to analyze trends, gather pooled demographic information about Site users, track how you interact with content on the Site (including how much time you spend on and how frequently you visit the Site), exclude internal traffic from trend analysis and facilitate Site administration, tailor the Site for you, and help the Site work better for you. These tools also provide information that is used to prevent fraud and keep the Site secure. View more information about the cookies we use in the table below.

To learn more about cookies in general, you can visit aboutcookies.org or Cookiepedia.

You can use the options in your web browser to notify you when you receive a cookie and/or change your cookie preferences in your browser or with third parties. You have control over the cookies stored by our Site on your browser, and you have the ability to delete cookies used by our Site at any time. If you don’t know how to change your individual cookie settings, you can visit whatismybrowser.com to determine what your current browser cookie settings are and find directions on how to change them.

Third-Party cookies and information

Our Site uses third-party cookies and tools from Adobe, Facebook, Google Analytics, Google Advertising Features, YouTube, WordPress, and Fundraise Up.

Adobe: When we designed our Site, we chose to use licensed fonts from Adobe using their Typekit service. In order for us to use the Typekit service, Adobe may collect some information about our Site and users. A full list of the information that may be collected by Adobe is available here from Adobe. You may block the use of the Typekit service using privacy-focused browser plugins such as Privacy Badger, or use a text-based privacy browser, like Lynx. However, blocking the use of Adobe Typekit may impact the functionality of our Website and limit your ability to view content.

Facebook Business Tools: The Site also uses Facebook Business tools (“Facebook Tools” or “FB Tools”). FB Tools collect or receive information from our Site and then use that information to help us understand the effectiveness and use of our Site and our Site audience. You may opt out of the collection and use of your information for ad targeting by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Choice Tool.

Google: Our Website uses Google Analytics and Google Advertising Features to collect data about the traffic on this website via Google advertising cookies and identifiers, in addition to data collected through Google Tag Manager, our standard Google Analytics implementation. You can opt-out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising and customize Google Display Network ads using the Ads Settings Feature on Google. You can also use a browser Add-on to disable tracking by Google Analytics.

YouTube: Our Website uses a YouTube video player (“YouTube”). In order for us to use this video player, YouTube may collect some information about our Website and users. More information regarding the information that may be collected by YouTube is available on YouTube’s website. You may block the use of the YouTube service using privacy-focused browser plugins such as Ghostery. However, blocking the use of YouTube may impact the functionality of our Site and limit your ability to view content.

WordPress: ACE uses WordPress to power this Site, just like 28% of all websites on the web. In order for us to use this CMS, WordPress may set cookies and collect some information about our Site and users. Some ways in which our WordPress Site might collect user data include user registrations, comments, form entry submissions, analytics and traffic log solutions, other logging tools and plugins, and security tools and plugins.

If you fill out a form, leave a comment, or log in to the Site as a user, Personal Information will be collected. If you do not wish for your Personal Information to be collected, do not submit any personally identifiable information on our Site.

Fundraise Up: Our Website uses Fundraise Up to handle donations. Using ecommerce tracking technologies linked to the Fundraise Up donation forms we automatically collect site usage and traffic data. This information is not personally identifiable and is collected for the purpose of comparing effectiveness of different donation campaigns, tracking donor conversion and creating revenue reports.

Website comments: When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Akismet, an anti-spam plugin we use, collects information including the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).

Media uploads: If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Embedded content from other websites: Pages on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Advertising Alliances Opt-out: Many advertising companies that may collect anonymous information for targeted advertising use are also members of the Digital Advertising Alliance or the Network Advertising Initiative. Both organizations supply instructions on how individuals can opt-out from targeted advertising by their members. You can read more about your opt-out options by visiting aboutads.info and networkadvertising.org.

ACE does not attempt to identify users or assist in the merging of Personal Information with Non-personal Information collected through any third-party advertising product or feature unless we have your prior explicit consent allowing us to do so.

How We Use Collected Information

In most cases, we use consent as the basis for processing all Personal Information for direct marketing purposes, including most fundraising and campaigning activities and promotion of our work.

You can consent to receive information about ACE, our recommended charities, new website content, upcoming events, open volunteer and career opportunities, and information on how you can support our work. You can choose to hear from us by email or by phone. If you would like to remove yourself from our marketing communications, you can notify us by email or click on the “Update preferences” or “Unsubscribe” link found at the bottom of an email sent to you by our mailing list.

Activities where we use consent or another legal basis for processing information are described in the sections that follow.

Administration and general work activities

When you contact us, it is in our interest to process your Personal Information in order for us to supply information that you requested, to respond to complaints, to tailor personalized communications to you in the future, and to minimize the likelihood of us sending you duplicated or irrelevant information.

We also believe it is in our legitimate interest to thank supporters whenever possible. You may also receive email notifications about failed recurring payments or other donation transaction-related messages. To unsubscribe completely from receiving any emails from us (except those required under the basis of contractual or legal obligation), please contact us.

We may disclose Personal Information to any staff member at ACE, but we make efforts to limit sharing of this information to instances where it is necessary to fulfill your request. For example, if you submit a contact form requesting that we fix a bug on our website, your message and email address may be forwarded to a member of the communications team so that they can contact you for more information about the issue and/or notify you once the bug is resolved.

If you do not wish to be contacted by ACE for any purpose, please contact us. When you contact us to notify us that you do not wish to receive any communications from us, we will need to process your Personal Information, and will do so under basis of legal obligation.

Processing donations

We will use the information you provide to us (such as your name, address, email address, and payment processing information) to process your donations to ACE and/or to our recommended charities or funds.

Making an online donation: In order to make an online donation, you need to provide us with a valid email address and/or a physical address so that we can comply with our legal obligation to send you a receipt. You also need to provide us with personally identifiable information associated with your payment method (including your billing contact name, address, and credit card information). On ACE’s donation forms, certain information (such as credit card numbers) are encrypted using secure socket layer (SSL) technology. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the Personal Information submitted to us, both during transmission and after it is received. Jump to: Information you choose to provide to a third-party with permission to share with us.

Fundraise Up: ACE uses Fundraise Up, a fundraising widget for collecting online donations. Fundraise Up is PCI- and GDPR-compliant, abiding by industry-standard SSL technology to keep information secure. (Read Fundraise Up’s policy on the data they collect and what they share.) Fundraise Up is partnered with Stripe and PayPal, two of the industry’s established payment processors. Sensitive financial information does not get stored on Fundraise Up’s servers and is sent directly to Stripe’s and PayPal’s PCI-compliant servers through SSL. If you elect to donate on a recurring basis, your credit card information will be securely stored on Stripe’s or PayPal’s servers for future payment purposes.

PayPal: ACE uses Paypal as one of its online donation processors for the Site. For donations processed through PayPal, ACE does not store any private financial information (such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers) as this information is stored with PayPal. (Read Paypal’s policy on the data they collect and what they share.)

Stripe: ACE uses Stripe as its other online donation processor (in addition to PayPal) for the Site. For donations processed through Stripe, ACE does not store any private financial information (such as credit card numbers or bank account numbers) as this information is stored with Stripe. (Read Stripe’s policy on the data they collect and what they share.)

Making an offline donation: No private financial information is stored by ACE when a donation is sent by check, or when a donation is sent via a wire transfer or EFT. Our financial institution stores images of the checks we deposit, which are only viewable by key staff and board officers at ACE who access our online banking. Additionally, no private financial information is stored by ACE when a donor transfers securities to ACE. The securities transfer and sales are processed by our third-party provider, Fidelity, and any private financial information provided by the donor is stored with Fidelity. ACE does retain bank account information for people who sign up to make Automatic Clearing House (ACH) payments to ACE.

Surveys and testimonials: Donors may provide ACE with additional information after they have made their online donation, such as a personal testimonial or answers to a survey on the Site. This information is stored in the donor’s record in ACE’s CRM database, but is not shared with any outside parties. Survey results are used in aggregate to measure donors’ interests. Testimonials may be published on ACE’s website or in printed materials, but only with the donor’s explicit consent.

Volunteering and internships

If you apply for volunteer or internship opportunities with us, it is in our legitimate interest to contact you to confirm we have successfully received your application and to follow up with you regarding your interest.

We will only add you to our mailing list if you gave consent on your application form, or if you update your profile (if you are an existing subscriber). With this consent, we may send you information about additional volunteer and job opportunities, information about our work, information about the work of our recommended charities, information about upcoming event opportunities, requests for help (including assistance with fundraising activities), and gratitude for your support.

Updates and events

We will only process and use your Personal Information to communicate with you about monthly updates, effective giving opportunities, and upcoming events through our e-newsletter list when we have your consent to do so. To update your communication preferences, contact us or click on the “Update preferences” or “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of one of our emails that you received.

Monitoring, evaluation, and reporting

To ensure that we can achieve our mission of finding the most effective ways to help animals, we monitor and evaluate the impact of our programs and activities. We also have an obligation to report to ACE donors on how their donations are helping us achieve our mission. In both instances, it is in our interest to process Personal Information for this purpose. This means that we may use the information that you give us to understand the effectiveness of our programs, events, and fundraising, or to improve engagement with our online content. This includes processing any information that you share with us via feedback forms or surveys. We only share information about you with our donors and subscribers if it is anonymized and/or aggregated, or if we have your explicit permission.

Human resources

If you are an ACE staff member (employee or independent contractor) or Board Member, we have a legal obligation to process and share your Personal Information for a number of purposes, including payroll, taxes, benefits enrollment, reporting employment status, and ensuring health and regulatory requirements are satisfied. ACE team members can find our policies on Personal Information collection on ACE’s intranet.

Making a donation through ACE

When a person makes a donation through ACE’s website and restricts their donation to one or more of our Top Charities, we will share Personal Information (such as their name, address, email address, and phone number) with the intended charity/charities. We will also disclose the amount they donated to the intended charity, but will not share any information about how much they may have donated to any other charity. Donors may opt-out of having their information shared with the recipient charity or charities by selecting the “Donate anonymously” checkbox at the bottom of our Top Charity donation form.

For donations made to ACE or to an ACE-managed fund, no Personal Information about the donor is shared with any other charities or third parties for their use except as described in the following paragraphs. We process and store information with third parties when necessary, such as our donation payment processor and ACE’s CRM database.

We have a legal obligation to report donations made to and via ACE (above a certain threshold) as well as the corresponding donors’ names and addresses on our annual tax return. Donors who wish to have their information kept off of this report may contact us. This portion of the tax return is seen by our tax preparer and is required to be shared with certain state government agencies, but is not shared with any other individuals outside of ACE.

Information about donations made to and via ACE may be shared with our auditor in order for them to complete our annual financial audit. The auditor is not allowed to use any Personal Information about donors except for the purpose of the audit, and they are not allowed to retain or share any of the Personal Information.

We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal identification information to others. We also require our recommended charities to confirm that they will not sell, trade, or rent any information about the persons who donate to their charity through ACE.

To make your donation to our Top Charities anonymous, select the “Donate anonymously” checkbox at the bottom of our Top Charity donation form. This will protect all Personal Information about you from being shared with the charity or charities to which you have restricted your donation, and will result in ACE only notifying them of the amount that was donated.

To make your donation to ACE or an ACE-managed fund anonymous, you may contact us to request that your record be modified to an anonymous record in our CRM database. Certain individuals at ACE may still be able to view your Personal Information, but your account will be anonymous.

To make your donation to ACE or an ACE-managed fund completely anonymous and unidentifiable to us, we recommend making your donation through a third party, such as a donor-advised fund, Facebook, or an ACE partner charity. However, keep in mind that a third-party donation processor will need to know your information to process your donation, and we are not responsible for their privacy and security policies, as we have no control over them. Jump to: Information you choose to provide to a third party with permission to share with us.

Confidentiality and disclosures

We understand that some information collected may be sensitive or confidential in nature, and we will take reasonable measures to keep this information private. In the event that Animal Charity Evaluators is required by law or court order to disclose the information submitted by a user, we will provide the user with notice (unless such notice is prohibited) so that the user may object to or seek to limit the disclosure.

How We Secure and Retain Collected Information

Information security

Animal Charity Evaluators will take commercially reasonable efforts to prevent the loss or unauthorized disclosure of information. We adopt appropriate data collection, storage, and processing practices and security measures to protect against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction of your Personal Information, username, password, transaction information, or data stored on the Site. For example, our online forms are encrypted, the Site is PCI compliant and uses an SSL certificate for extra security, and our network is hosted and routinely monitored by a large and trusted IT provider.

As is the case with all online activities and services, the security of data transmitted over the internet cannot be completely guaranteed, and Animal Charity Evaluators shall not be responsible for any harm that users or any third party may suffer as a result of a breach of security with respect to use of the Site or any information transmitted to the Site. In the event of a security breach, we will make every attempt to notify affected users within 24 hours of us being made aware of such an event occuring.

Data retention

We keep your information only so long as we need it to provide Animal Charity Evaluators’ services to you and fulfill the purposes described in this Policy. This is also the case for anyone with whom we share your information and who carries out services on our behalf. When we no longer need to use your information and there is no need for us to keep it to comply with our legal or regulatory obligations, we’ll either remove it from our systems or depersonalize it so that we cannot identify you.

Additional Information

Data transfer

This Site is hosted and operated in the United States and is not subject to the laws or jurisdiction of any state, country, or territory other than that of the United States. Your information may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers, and by using this Site you consent to the transfer of collected information to countries outside of your country of residence—including the United States—which may have different data protection rules than those of your country. By using this Site, you authorize us to transfer and store your information in the United States for the purposes described in this Policy.

Third-party links

You may find links to third parties on our website (e.g., Facebook, YouTube, GuidedTrack, Guesstimate, and Box.com). These websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data, or solicit Personal Information from you when you visit them. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for their privacy and security policies whatsoever, as we have no control over them. It is your responsibility to learn about their privacy policies prior to providing them with Personal Information. Jump to: Third-party cookies and information.

Your communication preferences

The Personal Information you voluntarily provide for our mailing lists allows us to keep you updated on effective advocacy interventions and our recommended charities. If you do not want to be on our mailing lists, you can opt out anytime by updating your preferences. You may update your preferences or request to unsubscribe from our mailing lists by using the “Update preferences” or “Unsubscribe” links at the bottom of any email that you receive from ACE that was sent by Mailchimp. You may also send an email to contact@animalcharityevaluators.org requesting to unsubscribe.

Information from underage users

The Site is intended for adults; Animal Charity Evaluators will not knowingly collect any Personal Information from children 13 years of age or younger. We do not target underage users with advertising for any programs or activities. If we discover or are notified that we have collected any Personal Information from a child under the age of 13, we will remove that information from our records as soon as is reasonably possible.

Options for European Economic Area (EEA) users

Those in the European Economic Area have options in relation to the information that we have about you, described below. To exercise these options, please contact us by email or submit your request on our Data Access page. If you’re an EEA user, you can:

Access the information we hold about you. We’ll share this with you within 30 days of you asking us for it.
Have your information corrected or deleted. We will remove or anonymize any information that we have stored that is personally identifiable to you, unless we are required by law to keep it.
Ask us to stop using your information, including when we use your information to send you promotional emails. You may unsubscribe from our group Mailchimp emails anytime, however you may continue to receive personal emails from ACE staff members if you have provided us with your email address in other ways, such as when making a donation. To completely remove your email address from our records, please contact us by email or submit your request on our Data Access page.
Have the information you provided to us sent to another organization, where we hold this information with your consent or for the performance of a contract with you, where it is technically feasible.
Complain to a regulator. If you are based in the EEA and think that we have not complied with data protection laws, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Commission in Ireland or with your local supervisory authority.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Animal Charity Evaluators has the discretion to update this Privacy Policy at any time. When we do, we will post a notification on the main page of our Site. We encourage you to check this page for any changes, in order to stay informed about how we are helping to protect your Personal Information. By using this Website and/or contacting us, you acknowledge and agree that it is your responsibility to review this Privacy Policy periodically and become aware of modifications to our collection, use, and disclosure of Personal Information through our Website.

Your Acceptance of these Terms

By using this Site or contacting us, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Policy, please do not use our Site or contact us. Your continued use of this Site and/or correspondence with us following the posting of changes to this Policy will be deemed as your acceptance of those changes. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies or practices of any of our recommended charities, third-party websites, or third-party apps.

By using the Site or by contacting us, you acknowledge that Animal Charity Evaluators will process and store your information in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your Personal Information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside.

Questions? Feedback?

ACE is always interested in feedback from our community, and we welcome your questions and comments on this Policy.

Terms of Use

This Website (“Website” or “Site”) is owned and operated by Animal Charity Evaluators (“Animal Charity Evaluators”, “ACE”, “we”, or “us”). By using this Site, you signify your consent to these Terms of Use (“Terms”) and you agree to ensure that any person in your company or firm to whom you grant access to this site will abide by these Terms. We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add or remove portions of these Terms at any time and shall inform you of any such material changes by posting notice on the site. Your continued use of the site following the posting of changes to these Terms will mean you accept these changes.

Privacy

Animal Charity Evaluators respects the privacy of our users. Animal Charity Evaluators’ Privacy Policy is expressly incorporated herein by reference and made a part of these Terms.

Links to third party sites

The site may contain links to third-party websites (“Third-Party Sites”). You understand that Animal Charity Evaluators has no control over Third-Party Sites, does not endorse, has not reviewed and is not responsible for the content or availability of Third-Party Sites. You acknowledge that use of Third-Party Sites is at your own risk.

Intellectual property

The content on the Site, including without limitation, the text, graphics, photos, videos, interactive features and the like and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein (“Content”), are owned by or licensed to Animal Charity Evaluators, subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under United States and foreign laws and international conventions. As a user of the Site you are granted a nonexclusive, non transferable, revocable, limited license to access and use the Site and Content in accordance with these Terms. Animal Charity Evaluators may terminate this license at any time for any reason. Content on the Site is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only and may not be used, copied, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever, except as permitted by these Terms, without the prior written consent of Animal Charity Evaluators. Animal Charity Evaluators reserves all rights not expressly granted in and to the Site and the Content. If you download or print a copy of the Content for personal use, you must retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained therein. You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Site or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content or enforce limitations on use of the site or the Content therein.

User conduct

You shall not attempt or engage in potentially harmful acts that are directed against the Site including, without limitation, the following: (a) using the Site in contravention of any other agreement to which you are a party, including without limitation any employment agreement to which you may be a party; (b) impersonating any other person or misrepresenting your identity or affiliation with any person or entity; (c) using manual or automated software, devices, scripts, robots or other means or processes to access, “scrape,” “crawl” or “spider” any pages contained in the Site; (d) introducing viruses, worms, software, Trojan horses or other similar harmful code into the Site; (e) interfering or attempting to interfere with the use of the Site by any other user, host or network, including without limitation by means of submitting a virus, overloading, “flooding,” “spamming,” “mail bombing,” “pinging” or “crashing” the site; (f) causing, allowing or assisting machines, bots or automated services to access or use the Site or without the express written permission of Animal Charity Evaluators; (g) misusing, tricking, disrupting or otherwise interfering with the functioning of the Site; (h) harvesting or collecting email addresses or other contact information of other users or clients from the Site by electronic or other means; (i) reverse engineering, decompiling, disassembling, deciphering or otherwise attempting to derive the source code for any underlying intellectual property used to provide the Site, and (j) engaging in “framing,” “mirroring” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Site.

Disclaimer of Warranty

The site is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement or otherwise. Without limitation, animal charity evaluators disclaims any and all warranties regarding the security, reliability, timeliness and performance of the site. Animal charity evaluators makes no warranty, express or implied, that your use of the site will be uninterrupted, timely or error-free. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of certain warranties, so portions of the above disclaimer may not apply to you.

Limitation of Liability

To the extent not prohibited by applicable law, animal charity evaluators will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of or inability to use the site. You expressly agree that your use of the site is solely at your own risk. Under no circumstances shall animal charity evaluators be liable for any direct, indirect, special or consequential damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, income or business opportunities, regardless of the nature of the claim or the form of action, arising out of or connected with the site (including but not limited to its operation, its contents, or the content, information or materials contained therein, or the use or inability to use any other site linked to the site, or any content contained in any such site, or these terms, or the privacy policy applicable to the site) even if animal charity evaluators, its suppliers or licensors have been notified of the possibility of any damages.

Termination

You acknowledge and agree that Animal Charity Evaluators, in its sole and absolute discretion, may, without notice to you, suspend or terminate your use of, or access to, the Site for any reason including when Animal Charity Evaluators believes that you have violated any of these Terms. You further agree that Animal Charity Evaluators shall not be liable to you or to any other person as a result of any such suspension or termination. If you are dissatisfied with the Site or with any terms, conditions, rules, policies, guidelines or practices of Animal Charity Evaluators, your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using the Site.

Copyright notices

If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any Content infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):

A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;
Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material;
Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number and, if available, an electronic mail;
A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and
A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Notification should be sent to: Copyright Agent at erika.alonso@animalcharityevaluators.org. You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the requirements of this Section 75(D), your DMCA notice may not be valid.

Governing law and entire agreement

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to the rules of conflict of law that may cause the laws of another jurisdiction to apply. You agree to the sole and exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the federal or state courts of the State of Illinois in the event of a dispute of any kind arising from or relating to the Site, or your use or review of it. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes and replaces all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding such subject matter. If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision or portion of these Terms to be unenforceable, such provision shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that these Terms will otherwise continue in full force and effect. Failure of Animal Charity Evaluators to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not be deemed a waiver of such right or provision in that or any other instance.

Thank you for your interest in participating in Animal Charity Evaluators’ social media page. The purpose of these pages is to create a place where our followers can share their thoughts, opinions, and insights on Animal Charity Evaluators, and on topics relevant to our mission.

By using or accessing our social media pages, you agree to comply with Facebook’s Terms and Conditions, and Twitter’s Terms of Service. As we welcome input from anyone, please note that postings by fans on our social media pages do not necessarily reflect the views of Animal Charity Evaluators, nor do we confirm their accuracy.

We understand that animal advocacy is a subject many of you are passionate about – a passion we share. We welcome all questions and commentary, including constructive feedback. We don’t take decisions on moderating posts lightly, but we do expect that participants post content and commentary that is both relevant and respectful to this community as a whole. Animal Charity Evaluators reserves the right to remove any posts that don’t adhere to our guidelines and to block anyone who violates them repeatedly. Specifically, we do not tolerate these kinds of posts:

Abusive, harassing, stalking, threatening or attacking others
Defamatory, offensive, obscene, vulgar or depicting violence
Hateful in language targeting race/ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality or political beliefs
Fraudulent, deceptive, misleading or unlawful
Trolling or deliberate disruption of discussion
Violations of any intellectual property rights
Spamming in nature
Uploading files that contain viruses or programs that could damage the operation of other people’s computers
Commercial solicitation or solicitation of donations
Link baiting (embedding a link in your post to draw traffic to your own site)

Thank you for participating in helping us create a respectful environment for our followers. If you have any questions, please email us at contact@animalcharityevaluators.org.