Letter from Isabel | Charter Membership | Legal Information | Library of Information | Privacy Policy | Inappropriate Content | History of the Site

Summary

SmartGirl.org is a website written for and by teen girls. This site is owned by the University of Michigan and is operated by the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. Our mission is to create a place on the Internet where girls can feel free and safe to express their opinions and views on everything from the latest movies and the hottest fashion trends to everyday issues like school, relationships and navigating adolescence. Girls visiting the site can fill out reviews on different products (such as books, movies and CDs), take anonymous surveys, play games, or submit love poems, love letters and other content to be posted on the site. Girls who become members can participate in the SmartCenter.

Protecting the safety and privacy of our users is a top priority at SmartGirl.

• We never post, publish, rent, sell or intentionally distribute personally identifiable information about our community.
• We invite users to voluntarily fill out surveys, which are always anonymous.
• We invite users to voluntarily fill out reviews and essays for publication on our website. Work is selected for publication regardless of whether the user decides to include their email address with their work. If the user includes an email address with their work, we use that only to notify them whether their work was accepted or to admit them to membership. After this initial notification process, emails are no longer linked to girls' written work at SmartGirl.
• Girls' preferences are not tracked to their email addresses and SmartGirl has never and will never direct-market to individuals based on preferences stated in work submitted for publication.
• Apart from a one-time response to a specific request, we do not collect any personal information from visitors under 13 years of age without notifying their parents or getting their parents' consent. Apart from an email address for the newsletter mailing list, we do not keep any personal information from visitors under 13.
• Visitors or their parents may at anytime ask to have their information updated or deleted from our databases.
• Our staff is trained to handle the email addresses of our site visitors and they are contracted by law not to reveal any email addresses or use them for non-SmartGirl purposes.

Personal Information Is Not Required When Visiting SmartGirl

SmartGirl visitors are not required to provide any personally identifiable information (information that reveals their identity) when visiting the site. They are free to read the web site, fill out surveys, send in reviews and other written submissions, ask for advice and play games.

Visitors May Voluntarily Submit Personal Information

SmartGirl collects some personal information - an email address - only in the following instances and only when requested by our users:

Notification That Work Is Accepted For Publication. SmartGirl gives users the opportunity to write and submit product reviews, "Shining Hour" stories, creative writings, issues, love letters and love poems to be posted on the site. Users may ask SmartGirl to notify them whether their submission is accepted. To do so, we collect the user's email address. After notifying them, we delete the email address from our database.

Email Newsletter Sign Up. Users may ask to receive our free monthly email newsletter. We collect their email address in order to send them the newsletter each month. If they are under 13, we also notify their parents that we are sending them the newsletter, then delete the parents' email address. We keep the user's email address in our newsletter database. We only use the email address to send the newsletter.

"Email Us." SmartGirl gives visitors the opportunity to email us with questions, comments and recommendations. We respond to these individual email addresses when appropriate and archive the exchange for reference, legal, and administrative purposes. We do not recontact the user, add her email address to our mailing list, or use it for any other purpose.

In each of these instances, visitors provide their information voluntarily. We never give or sell a visitor's personal information to anyone outside the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. We only use the information for the stated purposes. We do not ask for more information than we need to fulfill our visitor's request.

Anonymity of Survey Respondents

Visitors are invited to fill out surveys about a variety of different topics. It is completely optional for a respondent to fill out a survey on SmartGirl. All survey responses are voluntary and ANONYMOUS. In our standard surveys we only ask respondents their age, gender, country, and state/province. We do not request or surreptitiously collect the names, email or street addresses of respondents.

Visitors Who Are Under 13

For kids under 13, SmartGirl has the following policy:

• As with all visitors to our site, we do not require children to provide us with personal information. We do not intentionally publish or distribute any personally identifiable information about our users. We do not ask for more information than we need. We use any information collected only for the stated purposes.
• We collect email addresses from those under 13 only to send them the newsletter (if they have requested it) or to answer a one-time question or request. We do not collect full name, street address, or other contact information from those under 13.
• If a child has asked to be put on our email newsletter mailing list, we request her email address and her parent's email address. We use the child's email address to send her the newsletter. We use the parent's email address to notify the parent that we have the child's email address and to give the parent the opportunity to remove the child from the mailing list.
• If a child has asked to be notified whether her review or other written submission has been accepted, we ask for her parent's email address. We use it only to notify the parent about his/her child's submission and then delete the email from our records.
• If a child has asked to participate in the SmartCenter, we request her parent's email address. We use the parent's email address to notify the parent that their child would like to participate in the SmartCenter and to give the parent the opportunity to prevent the child from doing so. After notifying the parent, the email address is deleted from the system.
• We do not collect name or street address from children under 13.
• Parents may at anytime request that their email address be updated or removed from our databases. Parents may also ask to review their child's postings in the SmartCenter at anytime.

Updating and Deleting Personal Information

The only personal information we have about any of our users is their email address.

Deleting or Updating Membership to the SmartCenter. Members and their parents may update or delete their child's membership at any time by emailing us with the child’s username. The subject of the email should include the words "END MEMBERSHIP".

Deleting or Updating Newsletter Mailing List. If users or parents wish to delete their or their child's email address from our newsletter mailing list, they can email us using the child's email account and put the words "UNSUBSCRIBE" in the subject heading. To update an email address for the newsletter, unsubscribe from the old email account and go to Newsletter to subscribe again.

Preventing future collection of personal information. At the request of a parent, SmartGirl will work with the parent to prevent the collection of information from their child for the newsletter or the SmartCenter.

Cookies and Other Data Collection

SmartGirl does not secretly collect personally identifiable information from visitors. SmartGirl does collect "cookies" (a string of numbers that identifies one computer in particular) but we cannot find out a visitor's identify from those cookies. We use them only to eliminate duplicate survey submissions, to track traffic patterns on the site and to allow members access to members-only content. Cookies collected for one purpose are not linked to cookies collected for another purpose at SmartGirl, so even though we collect a visitor's cookie as he/she surfs the site and we collect a cookie as he/she fills out a survey, the survey and surfing both remain anonymous.

SmartGirl's web server collects aggregate information about our visitors' traffic patterns and "clicking" behavior while on the site. We cannot identify individual visitors from this information, nor do we use it to target advertisements or content to users. We disclose this information to third parties in aggregate form only.

Our web hosting service gives us access to certain information, most of it in aggregate form, which they collect automatically. We only use this information to monitor traffic levels on our website and we never connect it to any of the preferences you state on SmartGirl. Here is the information our hosting service gives us:

• The type of browser and operating system people's computers use to access SmartGirl, in aggregate form
• The URLs of the websites people linked to us from
• The Internet domain people use to access us, in aggregate form (AOL, Mindspring, Erols, for example, or your company or school)
• The IP address that domain gives out (an IP address is a number your computer uses to get online)
• The dates and times people make visits to SmartGirl, in aggregate form
• How long people stay, on average
• The pages people visit, in aggregate form

Security

Our users' privacy and any personal information we may have about them are kept as secure as we are able, although like every other business entity, we cannot guarantee that this information will not be stolen. Passwords to access data at SmartGirl are only given to those trained to handle them safely. All SmartGirl staff members have signed confidentiality agreements that legally obligate them not to release email addresses or any other information about visitors.

Links to Other Sites

SmartGirl does provide links to other websites. These sites have different privacy policies from SmartGirl. SmartGirl is not responsible for the privacy policies of these other sites.

Get More Information About Online Privacy

Different countries have different privacy rules. In the U.S. the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act was enacted to protect the safety and privacy of kids online. SmartGirl is in compliance with this law and is a strong proponent of its mission. You can learn more about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by visiting the Federal Trade Commission website. For more information about children's online privacy, you can also visit Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU) of the Better Business Bureau.

SmartGirl is committed to ensuring and protecting the safety and privacy of all of its users. We at SmartGirl strive to create a safe, fun site that girls can enjoy and that parents are happy to have their daughters visit. If you have any questions or would like additional information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,
SmartGirl.org

admin@smartgirl.org
University of Michigan
1136 Lane Hall
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1290
(734)764-9537