Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Data Usage and Terms of Service

Welcome to WWW.LA-UMC.ORG, the official online ministry of the Louisiana Conference of The United Methodist Church. LA-UMC.org is operated by Louisiana Conference Communications (LAUMC). LA-UMC.org is designed to provide information to anyone interested or involved in supporting the mission and ministry of The United Methodist Church of Louisiana, for the sole purpose of supporting the mission and ministry of The United Methodist Church. When using LA-UMC.org, you agree to the terms and conditions listed on this page (the "Terms of Service Agreement"), which may be updated by us from time to time.

LA-UMC.org may provide, or third parties may provide, links to other World Wide Web sites or resources. Because LA-UMC.org has no control over such sites and resources, you acknowledge and agree that LAUMC is not responsible for the availability of such external sites or resources, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. You further acknowledge and agree that LAUMC shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such site or resource.

You may not: (1) modify WWW.LA-UMC.ORG,(2) publish, display, disclose, rent, lease, modify, loan, distribute, or create derivative works based on WWW.LA-UMC.ORG or its documentation or any part thereof without the express written permission of LAUMC, (3) remove, obliterate, or cancel from view any copyright, trademark, confidentiality or other proprietary notice, mark or legend appearing on WWW.LA-UMC.ORG,(4) reverse engineer, decompile, translate, adapt or dissemble WWW.LA-UMC.ORG, nor shall you attempt to create the source code from the object code for WWW.LA-UMC.ORG without the express written permission of LAUMC, or (5) assign the license for the Service.

Personal Information and Interactive Features

Certain features of LA-UMC.org and our related e-communications may require you to register personal information and obtain a user name and password from LA-UMC.org or through our EZRA and/or Mission Connect Database Dashboard. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account number and/or password. You are responsible for all uses of your account, whether or not actually or expressly authorized by you.

When required to provide, LAUMC grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to create an account for and use LA-UMC.org in accordance with this Terms of Service Agreement. WWW.LA-UMC.ORG and any associated documentation are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of LAUMC.

To enable LAUMC to protect our customers and respond to customer needs and complaints you consent to LAUMC employees being able to access your account and records on a case-by-case basis to investigate complaints or other allegations or abuse. LAUMC shall not disclose the existence or occurrence of such an investigation unless required by law.

All interactive communications (email, chat, discussion boards, etc.), even though intended for a private audience, are subject to public access. Although we reserve the right to remove without notice any bulletin board posting for any reason, we have no obligation to delete content that you may find objectionable or offensive.

Information and opinions expressed in bulletin boards or other interactive communications are not necessarily those of LAUMC. Users alone are responsible for the contents of the messages they communicate when using our services as well as the consequences of any such messages. However, you agree not to use LA-UMC.org to:

• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable to LAUMC.
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available content that violates laws or regulations designed to protect minors.
• impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, the LA-UMC.org webmaster, forum leader, guide or host, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
• forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any content transmitted through WWW.LA-UMC.ORG;
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as inside information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary right ("Rights") of any party;
• upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any other form of solicitation.
• intentionally upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
• disrupt the normal flow of dialogue, cause a screen to scroll faster than other users of LA-UMC.org are able to type, or otherwise act in a manner that negatively affects other users’ ability to engage in real time exchanges;
• interfere with or disrupt LA-UMC.org or servers or networks connected to WWW.LA-UMC.ORG, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to UMC.org;
• intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including, but not limited to, regulations promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, any rules of any national or other securities exchange, including, without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, and any regulations having the force of law;
• stalk or otherwise harass another, or
• collect or store personal data about other users.

LAUMC does not condone copyright infringement and will not tolerate such infringement by its users. Accordingly, LAUMC may, in appropriate circumstances and at its discretion, disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who may be infringing the intellectual property rights of others.

We may modify or discontinue services or your account with us, with or without notice, without liability to you, any other user or any third party. We reserve the right to terminate your account if we learn that you have provided us with false or misleading registration information, interfered with other users or the administration of LAUMC ’s services, or violated these Terms of Service.

You understand and agree that LAUMC ’s services are provided AS-IS. LAUMC assumes no responsibility for the timeliness, deletion, mis-delivery or failure to store any user communications or personalization settings. YOU UNDERSTAND AND EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF LAUMC ’S SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK, THAT ANY MATERIAL AND/OR DATA DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF LAUMC ’S SERVICES IS AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF SUCH MATERIAL AND/OR DATA.

EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY SET FORTH ON OUR SITES, LAUMC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT AND IT MAKES NO WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION REGARDING THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF LAUMC ’S SERVICES, REGARDING THE ACCURACY OR RELIABILITY OF ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED THROUGH LAUMC ’S SERVICES OR THAT LAUMC ’S SERVICES WILL MEET ANY USER’S REQUIREMENTS, BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE OR ERROR FREE.

LAUMC WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES OF ANY KIND RESULTING FROM THE USE OF OR THE INABILITY TO USE LAUMC ’S SERVICES, RESULTING FROM ANY GOODS OR SERVICES PURCHASED OR OBTAINED OR MESSAGES RECEIVED OR TRANSACTION ENTERED INTO THROUGH LAUMC ’S SERVICES, RESULTING FROM LOSS OF, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF A USER’S TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA OR FOR THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLES, EVEN IF LAUMC HAD BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless LAUMC, its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, consultants and agents from any and all third-party claims, liability, damages and/or costs (including, but not limited to, attorney’s fees) arising from your use of our services, your violation of the Terms of Service or your infringement, or infringement by any other user of your account, of any intellectual property or other right of any person or entity. The Terms of Service will inure to the benefit of LAUMC ’s successors, assigns and licensees. These Terms of Service will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Louisiana. Any action brought to enforce this agreement or matters related to the site shall be brought in either the state or federal courts of Louisiana. If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision or portion of the Terms of Service to be unenforceable, the remainder of the Terms of Service will continue in full force and effect.

These Terms of Service constitute the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersede and replace all prior or contemporaneous understandings or agreements, written or oral, regarding such subject matter. Any waiver of any provision of the Terms of Service will be effective only if in writing and signed by LAUMC.

Privacy

LAUMC respects your privacy, believes personal information should remain private, and will not disclose or sell personal information to any outside organization for any purpose.

For registered Web site users and subscribers to our electronic newsletters, you may choose whether you want to receive e-mail about specific events, products, fundraising or promotions. If you do not give permission for us to send e-mail to you, LAUMC will not send unsolicited e-mail. In this case, LAUMC will communicate with you only for the purpose of maintaining or upgrading your registration with us. Please note that opting out may impact your ability to receive news or information that is of use to you.

For e-commerce customers, LAUMC will use your e-mail address only for the purpose of confirming and processing orders for our products.

What type of information does LAUMC collect?

We collect two types of information about visitors: personal information (collected when you sign up for email updates, which may include personal details such as name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, which you have voluntarily submitted to us); and aggregate information (such as information about how many visitors log on to our sites, the pages they access, etc.). We also may receive some information about you from other LAUMC sources and may add it to your account information. For example, we might get your updated address from an event sign up with us. Age information may be required and collected by way of birthdate, age verification checkboxes or inference from credit card usage to ensure that registrants to our sites are above the age of 13 in order to maintain compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

You can visit our Web site without telling us who you are or revealing personal information about yourself, in which case you may, however, be unable to receive some information. We collect, maintain and use personal information you have voluntarily submitted to contact you, including via email, to respond to your comments or requests for information, or to contact you over our Web site.

WWW.LA-UMC.ORG will not trade, sell or share your personal information for use by any business, without your consent, unless required by law or as disclosed to you when the information is collected. Your personal information will generally be stored in our databases located mainly in the United States. For easier processing of e-mail campaigns or other marketing purposes, however, your personal information may be sent, usually on a temporary basis, to a mailing house. Nonetheless, our policy is to ensure that your information is always granted the same level of protection.

How Do We Use Your Information?

We use your information in a number of ways, including the following:

• To improve the content on our web site. For example, we may use cookies to find out which parts of our site or our products are visited most often.
• To enhance your online experience. For example, we may use it to recognize you and welcome you to the site.
• For marketing and promotional purposes. For example, we send out e-mails to our customers about products or events that we think may be of interest to them. We also may send you offers for discounts or free services on our site.

You may change your permission statement at any time by emailing or writing LAUMC Communications or by using the “Contact Us” email on our website.

Personalized & Remarketing Advertising Policy

Personalized messaging or advertising (formerly known as interest-based advertising) enables LAUMC to reach users based on their interests and demographics. A cornerstone of personalized and remarketing advertising is to convey to users how their online browsing activities are used to improve the content of ads they see online, and to give people meaningful choices over how that information is used (information visibility, control, and opt-out options).

LAUMC may use third party ad-serving companies to display interest-based and remarketing advertising. These interest-based ads, also sometimes referred to as personalized or targeted ads, are displayed to you based on information gathered from your interaction with our sites and services. In providing interest-based ads, these services regularly use cookies, web beacons (also known as action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies (collectively, “cookies”). Cookies enable ad networks and advertisers to learn about what ads you see, what ads you click, and other actions you take on our sites and other sites. This allows the ad-serving companies to provide you with more useful and relevant ads. For example, if they know what ads you have been previously shown they can be careful not to show you those same ads repeatedly. Also, some third parties may provide us information about you (such as the sites where you have been shown ads or demographic information) from offline and online sources that may be used to provide you more relevant and useful advertising. LAUMC does not provide any personal information to third party sites that display interest-based ads promoting LAUMC .

Copyright Permissions

Except as otherwise expressly permitted under copyright law, you agree not to reproduce, retransmit, disseminate, sell, distribute, publish, broadcast or circulate the information received through LA-UMC.org to anyone, including, but not limited to, others in the same company or organization, without the express prior written consent of LAUMC.

Tax Exempt Status

The Louisiana Conference of The United Methodist Church is a qualified 501 (c) (3) tax exempt organization under Internal Revenue Code section 170.