Privacy Policy

On this page

6.1 Who we are and what this policy covers

The Desi Orbit Foundation, an Ohio nonprofit corporation (“TDOF,” “we,” “us,” “our”), operates desiorb.org and the related websites, subdomains, applications, newsletters, directories, and services described in § 1.1 of the Terms of Use (collectively, the “Platform”). This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect through the Platform, why we collect it, how we use and share it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.

This policy forms part of the Terms of Use (§ 1.18) and uses the definitions in § 1.2. It applies to everyone who uses the Platform: visitors, registered users, businesses and organizations that list with us, event organizers, advertisers and sponsors, donors, newsletter subscribers, and people who write to us. It does not apply to websites or services that we do not operate, including the businesses listed in our directory (see § 6.14).

6.2 Information you give us

We collect the information you choose to provide:

• (a) Account information. A name or display name, username, email address, and password (stored only in hashed form), together with any profile details you add, such as a photograph, biography, city, or community.

• (b) User Content. Everything you submit for publication — comments, business listings, event submissions, reviews and ratings, classified notices, forum posts, letters, obituaries, fundraising appeals, photographs, video, and logos — and the messages you send through the Platform’s listing-contact forms. User Content is governed by the User Content Policy and Community Guidelines.

• (c) Listing information. The business or organization name, address, telephone number, email address, website, hours, category, description, and images you submit for a directory listing. This information is published; submit only the contact details you are willing to make public.

• (d) Attestations, consents, and releases. Licence and credential attestations made at submission (§§ 2.4.2, 2.4.12, and 2.4.13), photography notices and organizer warranties, and signed parental consent and release forms for images of children (§ 2.5). We keep these on file.

• (e) Communications. Emails to our mailboxes, contact-form submissions, content reports (a name is optional; an email address is required if you want a response), appeals, requests for corrections, and copyright notices and counter-notices, which by law must include your name, address, telephone number, and signature (§§ 3.2 and 3.3).

• (f) Advertising, sponsorship, and paid listings. The business and billing contact details in an insertion order or listing agreement.

• (g) Donations. Your name, email address, the amount and date of your gift, and any message you attach. Payment card and bank details are entered directly with our payment processor; TDOF does not receive or store full card or account numbers.

• (h) Newsletter subscription. Your email address and preferences, if you subscribe.

• (i) Acceptance records. When you accept the Terms of Use at registration or on a submission form, we record your user or session ID, the date and time, your IP address, the form you used, and the version of the policies you accepted. These records are the evidence that the Terms bound you, and we keep them for that reason (§ 6.10).

6.3 Information we collect automatically

When you use the Platform, our systems record technical information: your IP address; the type and version of your browser and device and its language setting; the pages you view, the links you follow, and the page that referred you; and the date and time of each request. Security systems also record failed sign-in attempts and blocked requests.

We use Jetpack, a service of Automattic Inc., the company that hosts the Platform on WordPress.com, for site statistics and security. Jetpack Stats reports page views, referrers, and the approximate country or region derived from IP addresses, in aggregated form; Automattic’s own privacy policy governs its processing.

Images you upload are stripped of embedded EXIF and GPS metadata before publication (§ 2.5), so a photograph does not disclose where it was taken.

We do not use fingerprinting, cross-site tracking, or third-party advertising networks, and we do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising.

6.4 Cookies and similar technologies

The Platform uses a small number of cookies and similar technologies:

You can delete or block cookies in your browser settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies will prevent you from signing in or submitting content. Because we do not sell personal information or use it for targeted advertising, a Global Privacy Control or “Do Not Track” signal does not change how the Platform treats you; we treat such a signal as a request to opt out of any such sale or sharing in any event.

6.5 How we use information

We use personal information to:

• create, secure, and administer your account;
• publish the User Content and listings you submit, with your display name, business name, or organization name where the Platform shows it;
• moderate content, handle reports and appeals, and enforce the Terms of Use, the User Content Policy, and the Copyright and DMCA Policy;
• respond to your questions, requests, and correspondence;
• send service messages, such as sign-in and password emails, moderation notices, receipts, and notices of changes to our policies;
• send newsletters and community updates, where you have subscribed;
• administer advertising, sponsorship, paid listings, and donations, and issue receipts and acknowledgments;
• keep the Platform secure and detect spam, fraud, abuse, and unlawful activity;
• measure use of the Platform in aggregate and improve it;
• keep the records we need to demonstrate that our policies were accepted and applied, and to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims;
• comply with the law, including court orders, subpoenas, and mandatory reporting duties.

We do not use personal information to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, and we do not use User Content to train machine-learning models. Our use of reviews, testimonials, and endorsements follows § 1.10 of the Terms of Use.

6.6 What is public

The Platform publishes what you submit for publication. Comments, reviews, forum posts, listings, events, classified notices, letters, obituaries, and fundraising appeals are visible to anyone, appear with your display name and avatar or your business or organization name, may be indexed by search engines, and may be copied or quoted by others. Include in them only the contact details you are willing to make public.

Deleting content removes it from the Platform, but TDOF may keep archival and backup copies for up to 24 months after removal, copies that a legal hold or a legal retention obligation requires, and the record of the content in its moderation log (§ 1.6). Copies already distributed or reshared by others, and copies held in search-engine caches, are beyond our control.

Messages sent through listing-contact forms are delivered to the business or organizer you contact and are not published. We do not routinely read them; we may access a message when a recipient reports it, when the law requires, or when investigating abuse of the messaging system (§ 2.4.14).

Photographs and video of identifiable people, including children, are governed by § 2.5 of the User Content Policy. Any person depicted, or the parent or guardian of any child depicted, may ask for an image to be removed by writing to moderation@desiorb.org; images of children are removed on request in every case.

6.7 How we share information

We do not sell personal information, we do not rent or sell donor or subscriber lists (§ 1.11), and we do not share personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. We share personal information only as follows:

• (a) Service providers. Companies that process information on our instructions and under contract to host the Platform (Automattic Inc., through WordPress.com and its Jetpack service), deliver email, filter spam, provide forms, back up data, and process payments for advertising, paid listings, and donations.

• (b) Other users and the public. Through the public parts of the Platform, as described in § 6.6, and to the business or organizer you choose to contact through a listing-contact form.

• (c) People affected by reports and notices. We do not disclose the identity of a person who reports content to the person reported, except where the law compels it (§ 2.8). Copyright law requires us to forward a takedown notice, including the sender’s contact details, to the person who posted the material, and to forward a counter-notice to the complainant (§§ 3.2 and 3.3).

• (d) Legal requirements and safety. We disclose personal information in response to valid legal process — a subpoena, court order, or lawful request from a public authority — and where disclosure is necessary to prevent imminent harm to a person. Where the law permits, we notify the affected user before disclosing their identity. We report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to law enforcement (§ 2.3(e)), and we make other reports where the law requires them.

• (e) A successor organization. If TDOF merges with, or transfers the Platform to, another nonprofit organization, personal information may transfer as part of that transaction; you will be told before your information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

• (f) With your direction or consent. For example, when you ask us to pass your details to an organizer or an advertiser.

6.8 Advertising and sponsorship

Advertising on the Platform is served by TDOF’s own systems, and every paid placement is labelled (§ 1.10). We count impressions and clicks in aggregate to report performance to advertisers; advertisers receive counts, never your personal information. We do not build advertising profiles, and no third-party advertising network operates on the Platform. Where an advertiser supplies its own creative, that material may load resources from the advertiser’s servers or link to the advertiser’s website, which operates under the advertiser’s own privacy practices.

6.9 Donations and payments

We use donor information to process and acknowledge gifts, issue receipts, keep the records that tax and accounting law require, and, with your permission, recognize your support publicly. Tell us if you prefer your gift to remain anonymous. Payments for donations, advertising, sponsorship, and paid listings are processed by third-party payment processors under their own privacy policies; TDOF receives confirmation of the transaction and the details needed for its records, not your full card or bank account number. Fundraising appeals posted by community members are User Content; TDOF never receives, holds, or routes funds for them (§ 2.4.8).

6.10 How long we keep information

6.11 Security

We protect personal information with measures that include encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, limits on which volunteers can access account information and moderation records, security monitoring, and prompt software updates. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. Use a strong, unique password, keep it to yourself, and tell us at legal@desiorb.org if you suspect unauthorized use of your account (§ 1.4).

If a breach of security affects your personal information, we will notify you and any authorities as the law requires, within the time limit set by Ohio law (Ohio Rev. Code § 1349.19).

6.12 Your choices and rights

• (a) Access and correction. Sign in to My Account to view and update your account information and profile. A business or organization may update its listing through the Platform’s listing-management feature.

• (b) Your content. You may edit or delete your own comments, listings, events, classified notices, and forum posts where the Platform allows it, or ask us to do so at moderation@desiorb.org.

• (c) Account deletion. Ask at privacy@desiorb.org (§ 1.15). We will delete or anonymize your account information as described in § 6.10 and tell you which records we must keep.

• (d) Images of you or your child. Ask for removal at moderation@desiorb.org (§ 2.5(d)). We do not require you to explain why.

• (e) Email. Every newsletter contains an unsubscribe link. Service messages — about your account, your content, a moderation decision, or a change to our policies — are sent for as long as you have an account.

• (f) Cookies. See § 6.4.

• (g) Privacy rights under state and other laws. Residents of states with comprehensive privacy laws may have the right to know what personal information we hold, to receive a copy, to correct or delete it, and to opt out of its sale, of targeted advertising, and of profiling. We honour these requests from any user, wherever you live, subject to verifying your identity and to the exceptions the law allows, such as records under a legal hold, records we are required to keep, and content that is not personal information. Write to privacy@desiorb.org with the subject line “Privacy Request.” We respond within 45 days and may extend that period once where the law permits; you may appeal a refusal by replying to our decision, and an authorized agent may act for you with your written permission. We do not treat anyone differently for exercising these rights.

• (h) Visitors outside the United States. The Platform is hosted and operated in the United States, and your information is stored and processed there, where privacy laws may differ from those of your country. We do not direct the Platform to users in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or India, but if you write to us we will consider a request under the GDPR, the UK GDPR, or India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act in good faith.

6.13 Children

The Platform is not directed to children and is not intended for them. You must be at least 16 to create an account or submit User Content (§ 1.3), and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16. If we learn that we have, we delete the account and the associated information promptly — except where a legal hold or a legal retention obligation requires preservation, in which case we restrict access instead. A parent or guardian may contact privacy@desiorb.org.

Photographs and information about children submitted by adults are governed by § 2.5 of the User Content Policy, which requires written parental or guardian consent for any image in which a child is the individual subject and never publishes a child’s full name, school, class, home neighbourhood, or regular schedule.

6.14 Third-party sites, embedded content, and links

The Platform links to third-party websites, including the websites of listed businesses and organizations and links posted by users, and may embed content from other services, such as videos or social-media posts. Embedded content behaves as if you had visited the other service directly: that service may set cookies and collect information about you under its own privacy policy. Links are not endorsements (§ 1.8), and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of sites we do not operate.

6.15 Changes to this policy

We may revise this policy. We will post the revised policy with a new effective date and version number and keep prior versions available. For material changes we will give at least 14 days’ notice by a prominent notice on the Platform, and by email to registered users where we hold a working address (§ 1.17). Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance; where the law requires affirmative consent, we will ask for it.

6.16 Contact

The Desi Orbit Foundation — 966 Hawkin Lane, Aurora, OH 44202