Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

As referenced in this Statement, “Personal Information” means information that identifies you as an individual or relates to an identifiable individual, and may include name, email address, postal address, phone number, social media handle/ID, and similar contact information. We may also collect credit card or other payment information if you make a donation to EDF, however, we only use payment or credit card information for the purposes for which it was provided, and we do not store credit card or other payment information.

When you sign up for newsletters, become a member, or register for special services on one of our Sites, you will often need to provide us with certain Personal Information. You can always opt out, now or at any time later, to avoid unwanted messages or solicitations.

If you ask for one of our many personalized or enhanced services, we will ask you to provide us with some degree of Personal Information. For example, if you wish to contact your representative in Congress, we will ask for your address so that we can direct your communication to the correct member of Congress. We also keep a record of faxes and e-mails you send from our system, as well as your comments.

If you post information or materials on our message boards, chat, profile pages, blogs, and other services, please note that any information you post or disclose through these services or on or through our Sites will become public and may be available on the Sites and to the general public. We urge you to be very careful when deciding to disclose any information, especially Personal Information, on such services.

We want to be very clear: We only obtain this kind of information from you when you choose to provide it via your engagements with us.

As you navigate the Sites, certain information (but not necessarily Personal Information) may be collected passively, meaning it is gathered without you actively providing it, as described below:

Through your browser: Certain information is collected by most browsers, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type and operating system type and version screen resolution, and Internet browser type and version.
Through your device: If you access the Sites through a mobile device or other network-connected product, certain information may be collected about that device, including your device type, network service provider, and other identifiers. We may collect unique device identifiers (such as IDFA and AID tags and UUID and UDID identifiers) associated with the device you use to access the Sites. In addition, your device may allow us to collect certain weather-related information, such as the exact barometric pressure where you are located.
Using cookies: Cookies are pieces of information stored directly on the computer you are using. Cookies allow us to collect information such as browser type, time spent on the Sites, pages visited, and language preferences. We and our service providers use this information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, display information more effectively, and to personalize your experience while using the Sites. More specifically, we use cookies to:
recognize your computer or device to make your use of the Sites easier, such as to remember your locations of interest and other preferences with the Sites;
gather statistical information about use of the Sites in order to continually improve the design and functionality of the Sites, understand how individuals use the Sites, and to assist us with resolving questions regarding the Sites;
select which of our advertisements are most likely to appeal to you and display them while you are on the Sites and on other websites, applications, and online services that you use;
track consumer responses to online advertisements; and
to learn more about cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
Using monitoring tools: The Sites may utilize pixel tags, web beacons, clear GIFs, Flash Shared Objects, HTML5 Local Storage, HTML5 Mini Databases, and other similar technologies, both on certain aspects of the Sites and in HTML-formatted e-mail messages to you. These monitoring tools are used for the purpose of, among other things, measuring the success of our marketing campaigns, compiling statistics about Site usage and response rates, and tracking the activities of users of the Sites and e-mail recipients.
IP Address: Your IP Address is a number that is automatically assigned to the computer that you are using by your Internet Service Provider. An IP Address is identified and logged automatically in our server log files whenever a user visits the Sites, along with the time of the visit and the page(s) that were visited. Collecting IP Addresses is standard practice on the Internet and is done automatically by many online service providers, including website operators. We use IP Addresses for purposes such as calculating Site usage levels, helping diagnose server problems, and administering the Sites.
Analytic tools: We also use tools and third party services to collect information about usage of the Sites, including Google Analytics. You can learn more about Google Analytics, and its privacy practices, at the Google Analytics Help Page. Generally speaking, Google Analytics collects information on how often users visit the Sites, what aspects of the Sites they visit when they do so, and what other websites users visited prior to accessing the Sites. The Sites make use of Google Analytics services for Demographics and Interest Reporting as well as Display Advertising features, including Remarketing, Google Display Network Impression Reporting, and DoubleClick Campaign Manager integration. You may opt out of Google Analytics for Display Advertising or customize Google Display Network ads through the Google Ads Settings page. You may also prevent your data from being collected and used by Google Analytics by opting out through the use of the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.
If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting the transfer to your computer of a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular site. If you have not set your browser to accept cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Sites and you may not be able to access some of the features we offer. For example, we may not be able to recognize your computer, and you may need to log in every time you visit. You also may not receive advertising or other offers from us that are relevant to your interests and needs.

Our overriding goal in our use of your Personal Information is to better serve you and our other supporters and website visitors and to advance our environmental advocacy goals and mission. You can opt out at any time to stop any further contact from us. We use your Personal Information to give you personalized service based on your interests, to send you email alerts and newsletters, to answer your requests, to let you become a member, and to better understand demographic information about our supporters and website visitors.

We may share your Personal Information, as well as a record of interactions you conduct with us, with service providers conducting advertising and analytics on our behalf. We do so in order to deliver relevant information about our work and provide you with the opportunity to support it through a variety of communication channels, including online advertising, social media messages, email messages, and offline communications.

We may disclose your information, whether Personal Information or not, to third parties who perform functions on our behalf such as acknowledgment of charitable gifts and aggregate analysis and marketing activities, as well as to professional advisors such as auditors and attorneys. When sharing Personal Information with third parties, EDF undertakes to see that any third party to which EDF discloses Personal Information is under an obligation to use the Personal Information solely for the purposes for which the information was disclosed. We may also share your postal address and name with certain organizations who provide information to other environmental and charitable groups whose work may be of interest to you, however, if you wish to opt-out of such sharing, please email members@edf.org to make that request.

Your information and data, whether Personal Information or not, may also be disclosed or distributed to another party with which EDF enters or may enter into a corporate transaction, such as, for example, a merger, consolidation, acquisition, or asset purchase, or to a third party pursuant to a subpoena, court order, or other form of legal process, in response to a request by or on behalf of any local, state, federal, or other government agency, department, or body, whether or not pursuant to a subpoena, court order, or other form of legal process, or if determined by EDF in its sole judgment that such disclosure or distribution is appropriate to protect the life, health, or property of EDF or any other person or entity.

Now, or at any time in the future, you can unsubscribe in order to stop receiving emails from us. You can also opt-out of receiving messages or solicitations, or discuss your communications preferences with us, by contacting us.

We take commercially reasonable precautions to protect us and our users from unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of Personal Information we hold.

We take care to utilize appropriate and reasonable administrative, physical, and technical measures to help safeguard Personal Information that we control. While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your Personal Information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to Personal Information. The computers/servers on which we store Personal Information and process credit card donations and updates to monthly billing are kept in a secure environment. We also use "anti-hacking" security measures and employ security consultants.

Despite the efforts we use to protect your Personal Information, no transmission or electronic storage of information can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your use of the Sites or engagement with us is not secure, please contact us.

Please contact us to obtain, change, update or delete our records of your Personal Information, or to change your privacy options.

Should our practices change, this notice will be immediately updated.

Disclaimer. We do our very best to make sure, to the best of our knowledge, that all our information is accurate, however, we do not provide any warranties as to its accuracy. This means that if you rely on it, you cannot hold us at fault for any inaccuracies.

Legalese version: Environmental Defense Fund and its affiliates make no warranties, express or implied, about the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any of the information it provides to the public.
Changes without notice. We may make certain changes to this Privacy Statement without any separate notice to users. The current Privacy Statement will always be posted here. We will not, however, materially change the overall purpose of this Privacy Statement, which is to illustrate how we endeavor to protect your privacy, without providing you appropriate notice.

The Sites are not intended for persons under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information online from persons in this age group. We reserve the right to delete any information identified as having been provided by such persons at our discretion.

If you are a California resident, you may request an information sharing disclosure. If you provide notice to the address below, we will provide you with a notice of your right to prevent sharing of your Personal Information as well as a cost-free means of doing so. To receive such a notice, please contact us.