Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting the Trade Agreements Web site, an interagency effort by the United States Government to provide the public with the latest information on America's trade agreements. This policy establishes how we will handle information we learn about you from your visit to our site. Please be assured that the privacy of our visitors is of utmost importance to us. We collect no personally identifiable information about you when you visit our site unless you choose to provide that information to us.

The specific practices outlined in this privacy statement apply strictly to the TradeAgreements.Gov Web site. Some of our Web pages contain links to Web sites outside the TradeAgreements.Gov site, including those of other federal agencies, state and local governments, and private organizations. Please be aware that when you follow a link to another site, you are then subject to the privacy policies of the new site.

Your Rights under the Privacy Act: Information concerning the Privacy Act can be found on the following Web site: http://www.cftc.gov/foia/foiprivacyact.htm

Automatic Collections: For each HTTP request (which is what your Web browser generates when you request a page or part of a page from a Web site) received, we collect and store only the following information:

• the date and time

• the originating IP address

• the type of browser and operating system used (if provided by the browser)

• the URL of the referring page (if provided by the browser)

• the object requested

• completion status of the request

• pages visited

How the Information is Used: We use the information that we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different areas of our site, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors. This includes analyzing these logs periodically to determine the traffic through our servers, the number of pages served, and the level of demand for pages and topics of interest.

How Long is the Information Retained: The logs may be preserved indefinitely and used at any time and in any way necessary to prevent security breaches and to insure the integrity of the data on our servers.

Interaction with Children: The TradeAgreements.Gov Web site does not provide content to children and does not collect personally identifiable information from these visitors. Therefore, the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) are not incorporated in this privacy policy.

Cookies: The TradeAgreements.Gov Web site does not use "persistent cookies" or any other persistent tracking methods (to include Session Cookies) to collect personally identifiable information about its visitors.

Personal Information via Forms: The TradeAgreements.Gov Web site does not use forms. Feedback is solicited via email for specific purposes, such as when the submitter is requesting a personal response. All information submitted by visitors is voluntary.

How e-mail is Handled: By sending us an electronic mail message you may be sending us personally-identifying information. In these cases, we may retain the information as long as necessary to respond to your request or otherwise resolve the subject matter of your e-mail. Please be aware that email is not necessarily secure from interception or misdirection. For your own protection you may wish to communicate sensitive information using a method other than email.

Consent to Information Collection /Sharing: Generally, we will not share any personally identifiable information you give us with any other government agency, private organization, or the public, except with your consent or as required by law. By pressing the "send" button in your email, each visitor constitutes consent to use the information for purposes stated in this policy.

Information Protection: We want to be very clear: regardless of the information being transmitted to TradeAgreements.Gov, we will protect all such information consistent with applicable law including, but not limited to, the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Freedom of Information Act.

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage to the information on our Web sites. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change 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.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration General Schedule 20.

TradeAgreements.Gov may share information received from its Web site with other Federal agencies. For example, if a breach of our IT security protections were to occur, the information collected by our servers and staff could be shared with appropriate law enforcement and Homeland Security officials.