Privacy Policy


Effective July 18, 2018

Browsing, reading and downloading

RFA takes our responsibility to protect the privacy and data of RFA subscribers seriously. RFA does not store any personal data about you other than your email address. We use your email address only to send you the newsletter(s) to which you have subscribed. Your email address is protected and it will not be used for any other purposes.

For some newsletters, RFA uses the services of an outside vendor, Mailchimp (https://mailchimp.com). The only information RFA provides to Mailchimp is your email address.


When you browse, read or download from RFA’s Web site, RFA does not collect or store your email address or your name or other address unless you voluntarily provide it to RFA. Examples of when you would provide such information to RFA include registering for and using RFA’s Message Boards, using RFA's podcasting service or submission of an article to RFA.

When you browse, read pages or download information on www.rfa.org, RFA automatically gathers and stores the following information about your visit through log files and “cookies” (a string of characters that are written to a file on the user’s hard drive when the user visits a Web site):

  • the IP (internet protocol) address of the machine which accessed RFA’s Web site
  • the type of browser and operating system used to access RFA’s site
  • the date and time you access our site
  • if you linked to www.rfa.org through another Web site, the address of that Web site
  • whether you are a return visitor or a new visitor to RFA’s site
  • files downloaded or viewed

When you participate in RFA’s Message Boards, RFA collects and stores the information listed above. In addition, any information that you disclose on the RFA Message Boards becomes public, including the e-mail address you provide. Please refer to RFA’s Message Board Rules.

Submissions to RFA

If you post a comment, send an email, story idea, picture, essay and/or other submission to RFA through RFA’s website, RFA collects and stores the information listed above. In addition, RFA may print that submission, or an excerpt from it, on the RFA website, read it on the air, or otherwise publishes it, together with the name and location, if any (city, state, and/or country) you may have provided with the submission.

Use of Information

Use of collected information is limited to the following: responding to user e-mails, listing location of user when publishing user e-mails or other submissions, editorial purposes such as contacting users for an online survey, and other purposes specified at the time the information is gathered.

Personally identifiable information collected by RFA is not provided to outside parties. Other, non personally identifiable information may be provided to RFA service vendors (such as RFA's audience research service). RFA also may disclose personal information if required by law, if it believes that such action is necessary to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of the RFA website, or if necessary to protect the personal safety or property of RFA website users, the public, or RFA and its employees. Generally this would be U.S. law.

Children

You must be at least 13 years of age to send comments to or post any materials on RFA’s website. If you are under 13 years of age, do not send any information about yourself, including your name, address or e-mail address. If we discover that we have collected any personally-identifying information from a child under the age of 13, we will remove that information from our database as soon as possible.

Visitors between the ages of 13 and 18 must obtain permission from their parents or guardians before sending any personally-identifying information.

Links to other Sites

The RFA Web site may contain links to other sites. RFA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the disclosure of any information or materials gathered on these other sites.

Acceptance of Privacy Policy Terms

RFA reserves the right to change this policy in its sole discretion at any time. Use of the RFA website constitutes consent to any policy then in effect. Please make sure that you read RFA's Terms of use to understand additional terms and conditions which apply to the use of our website.

RFA is widely distributed on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, the iTunes Store, Google Play and other sites. RFA is not responsible for the privacy practices or the disclosure of any information or materials gathered on those sites.