AskDrWalker.com Privacy Policy:

Index:  Our Pledge to You  IP Addresses  Cookies 

Your privacy is a top concern for us. We aim to have the strongest privacy policy of any health Web site.

We want you to get the most out of AskDrWalker. Having a truly personal experience entails sharing some personal information with us and we want you to feel comfortable and trust that we make every effort to protect your confidentiality. Please take a few minutes to read our complete policy so you can understand how information is used and the specific measures we take to protect your personal information.

Our Pledge to You

• We will do our very best to protect your personal privacy
• We will never sell your personal information to anyone.
• We will never individually identify you to third parties. However, to defer the costs of publishing AskDrWalker, we may at times distribute general information about our users to advertisers or business associates. This information typically includes the total number of people who visit our site, the percentage of women vs. men, etc., but we will never individually identify you.
• We will clearly state why we are collecting personal information and how it will be used.
• We will keep this policy, as well as our privacy practices and systems, up to date. You can choose to be notified of changes to the policy.
• You have control over how your personal information is used.
• You can inspect and edit your complete personal profile.

IP Addresses
An Internet Protocol address is a unique string of numbers assigned to your computer by your Internet Service Provider (ISP). All computers must have an IP address in order to connect to the Internet. This address may be the same every time you log on or a different number may be assigned each time you connect. AskDrWalker may use your IP address in an effort to determine the quickest route for your computer to use when connecting to our site's servers. User IP addresses are used by our Web server logs to count the number of users who visit different pages. We do not use this IP information in any other system.

Cookies
A “cookie” is a small line of text that is stored with your Web browser when you visit a cookie-enabled Web site. The text can contain an identification code (such as "userID=28347234") or user preferences (such as "myFont=Helvetica"). As you browse the Web, cookie-enabled sites will send cookies to your browser along with Web pages; your browser has options that will let you control whether the browser accepts cookies, rejects cookies, or notifies you each time a cookie is sent to you.

If your browser is set to reject cookies, cookie-enabled Web sites will not recognize you when you return. This provides you with anonymity, but it also makes it very difficult to offer you customized services. It is also less secure than using cookies, because all of your specific data must be sent to the Web site each time you view a page. Accepting cookies means your private data can stay at the Web server, and the only information going over the Internet is your ID cookie.

If your browser is set to accept cookies, any cookies that are sent to your browser are stored in your computer for a period of time. A "session" cookie is stored only in your computer's working memory ("RAM"), and only lasts for your browsing session. When you close all of your browser's windows, or when you shut down your computer, the session cookie disappears forever. A "permanent" cookie is stored on your computer's hard drive until a specified date (could be tomorrow, next week or 10 years from now). Permanent cookies stay on your computer until either a) they expire, b) they are overwritten with newer cookies, or c) you manually remove them.

AskDrWalker uses cookies in the following ways:

1. To collect general information related to how many people are using AsDrWalker.
2. To record your participation in online polls we may offer. The cookie only notes that you have responded and are ready to see the poll results. Your specific response is not stored in the cookie.
3. Community boards use session cookies to identify you by your login user name, and to have your e-mail address handy rather than look it up on each page view. The boards also use a persistent cookie to tell when you last logged on to the boards. This way the boards can indicate to you which messages are new to you. Our chat system uses a persistent cookie to save your chat settings, such as whether you are using the HTML chat client or the Java chat client.
4. To let you easily move through “members-only” pages after login once per session. Without cookies, you would need to log in each time you browse to another members-only page.
5. We run our own ad server, powered by Microsoft FrontPage 2000 technology. Our ad server uses a cookie in order to limit the number of exposures a person has to a particular ad during their visit to AskDrWalker. The cookie expires when you terminate your visit.
6. In some cases AskDrWalker's advertisers may utilize third-party advertising companies to serve banners or links on the AskDrWalker site. These parties may collect information by placing a cookie on your hard drive. See Third-Party Ads for more information.

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