The Marine Mammal Commission Web site is managed by the Marine Mammal Commission directly. Direct administration of this computer system 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.

All Web servers need to collect technical information in order to share their contents with visitors. The technical information (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. These aggregate statistical summaries are posted on a Web site for use by Marine Mammal Commission personnel, and are available to the public.

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.

This Web site does not use Web "cookies."

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 Government Agency 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 the mmcwebmaster.

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:

03/04/03 13:19:18 OK 200 somemachine.somenetwork.com Mozilla/4.78 (Macintosh; U; PPC) http://othermachine.othernetwork.com/neatsites.html "mmc.gov" :welcome.html 15208

What this entry means: