NOAA, Ocean Explorer Privacy Policy

The Ocean Explorer Web site is managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (view NOAA Privacy Policy). Direct administration of the computer systems is handled by the National Ocean Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Information presented on these pages is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate photo and image credits is requested.

Visitor information collected by the Web servers is necessary in order to share their contents with visitors. (View visitor rights under the Privacy Act). The technical information collected (see example below) identifies what part of the Web site a visiting computer wishes to reach, and where to send the requested information once it is found. For site management, this technical information is also used for statistical analysis. Summary statistics are used for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest, identifying usage trends over time, determining technical design specifications, and identifying system performance or problem areas. This Web site collects no personally identifiable visitor information unless the visitor chooses to provide it.

Any additional visitor information collected on the site is for a specific purpose identified on the site. Submitting voluntary information constitutes visitor consent to the use of the information for the stated purpose.

Electronic mail sent to addresses listed on this Web site is treated no differently than any other electronic mail. All electronic mail transactions are handled by electronic mail servers, and do not pass through this Web site, nor are they monitored or recorded by this site in any way.

 

Links to Other Sites External Link

This site may have links to the Web sites of other federal agencies. There may be links to private organizations, with their permission. Once you go to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site. It is always a good idea to read the Privacy Policy of any Web site that you visit.

 

Retention of Information

We destroy the information we collect when the purpose for which it was provided has been fulfilled unless we are required to keep it longer by statute or official policy. Electronically submitted information is maintained and destroyed according to the principles of the Federal Records Act and the regulations and records schedules approved by the National Archives and Records Administration, and in some cases information submitted to us may become an agency record and therefore might be subject to a Freedom of Information Act request.

 

Sharing of Information

We may share the information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency. In other limited circumstances, such as responses to requests from Congress and private individuals, we may be required by law to disclose information you submit. Before you submit personally identifiable information, such as on an online form, you will be advised as to the purpose and how the information will be used.

We may also share information collected during your visit with non-federal entities, but only if your inquiry requires accessing data from that external entity. All of our sites that require such external access will be clearly identified to help you make an informed choice.

Specifically, information collected during your visit may be shared with the following specific non-governmental entities:

- Twitter. We offer a Twitter widget on our site that accesses a Twitter.com widget service in order to provide you with a current list of the latest Ocean Explorer 'tweets.' Please consult their site-specific privacy statements for details. - Twitter Privacy Notice External Link

- Flickr. We offer a Flickr widget on our site that accesses flickr.com in order to provide you with a current list of the latest Ocean Explorer Images posted on the Flickr service. Please consult their site-specific privacy statements for details. - Flickr Privacy Notice External Link

- Google. We offer a YouTube widget on our site that accesses Google.com (the parent company of YouTube) in order to provide a current list of the latest Ocean Explorer YouTube videos. You can also review the YouTube Privacy Notice External Link as an example of a third party provider policy.

- Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). We have contracted with an outside firm (crazyegg.com) to track where visitors click on a given page, using X/Y coordinates. This spatial information is used in our ongoing improvement process to determine the placement of information on a page. The only information passed on to the third party is the X/Y coordinates of clicks, as well as the browser's Internet address and browser type. No private information is passed on. The scripts that collect and parse this information are located on Amazon.com S3 servers.

 

Cookies

This Web site does not use persistent tracking technologies including Web "cookies."

Cookie disclaimer: “Cookies” are small bits of text that are either used for the duration of a session (“session cookies”) or saved on a user’s hard drive in order to identify that user, or information about that user, the next time the user logs on the a Web site (“persistent cookies”). NOAA does not use persistent cookies or any other persistent tracking technology. However, for some videos that are visible on http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov, a "persistent cookie" is set by third party providers when you click to play a video. These videos are identified with a link to a cookie disclaimer under the video and are used by the third party provider to collect statistics on the number of unique Web visitors viewing specific videos. A waiver has been issued by the White House Counsel's office to allow for the use of these types of persistent cookies by third parties on the White House Web site and Ocean Explorer web site is following the White House example by providing an alternative method for viewing these videos. If you would like to view a video without the use of persistent cookies, click on the other links that read "download" If you experience any difficulties, please contact oceanexweb@noaa.gov.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs hardware and software to monitor network traffic and to identify unauthorized attempts to add or alter information, or otherwise cause damage or interfere with information delivery. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no attempt is made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs may be stored indefinitely for use in statistical analysis or to protect the security and integrity of the computer system.

Unauthorized attempts to add information or alter information on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Please note that other National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Web sites may have different information collection practices. If interested, please consult their site-specific privacy statements for details on such policies.

If you have any questions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to oceanexweb@noaa.gov.

 

Example of information collected by this Web site

Web servers keep a record of their activity in a log file. Every time a visiting computer requests a file from the Web server, a log entry is recorded. A typical log file entry for the Ocean Explorer Web site looks like this:

10/04/00 13:19:18 OK 200 somemachine.somenetwork.com Mozilla/4.75 (Macintosh; U; PPC) http://othermachine.othernetwork.com/neatsites.html "oceanexplorer.noaa.gov" :welcome.html 15208

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