Thank you for visiting
the U.S. Department of Agriculture website and reviewing our privacy
statement. Our privacy policy is clear: We will collect no personal
information about you when you visit our website unless you choose
to provide that information to us.
Here is how we handle information about your visit to our website:
Information Collected and Stored Automatically
If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website,
read pages, or download information, we will gather and store certain
information about your visit automatically. This information does
not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store
only the following information about your visit:
- The Internet domain (for example, "xcompany.com" if
you use a private Internet access account, or "yourschool.edu"
if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an
IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your
computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access
our website;
- The type of browser and operating system used to access our
site;
- The date and time you access our site;
- The pages you visit; and
- If you linked to the U.S. Department of Agriculture website
from another website, the address of that website.
We use this information to help us make our site more useful to
visitors - to learn about the number of visitors to our site and
the types of technology our visitors are using. We do not track
or record information about individuals and their visits.
If You Send Us Personal Information
If you choose to provide us with personal information, as in an
e-mail to the Secretary or someone else or by filling out a form
with your personal information and submitting it to us through our
website, we use that information to respond to your message and
to help us locate for you the information you have requested. We
treat e-mails the same way that we regard letters sent to the U.S.
Department of Agriculture. We are required to maintain many documents
under the Presidential Records Act for historical purposes, but
we do not collect personal information for any purpose other than
to respond to you. We only share the information you give us with
another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency,
or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not create individual
profiles with the information you provide or give it to any private
organizations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture does not collect
information for commercial marketing.
When You Visit USDA Agency/Staff Office Websites
Please read the USDA Agency/Staff Office Privacy Statement when
you visit those websites. Where necessary, an Agency/Staff Office
may have additional privacy criteria, conditions, or information
that you should know.
Links to Other Sites
Our website has links to many other federal agencies. In a few
cases we link to private organizations, with their permission. Once
you access another site through a link that we provide you are subject
to the privacy policy of the new site.
Website Security
Information presented on the USDA website is considered public
information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate
byline/photo/image credits is requested.
- For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains
available to all users, this government computer system employs
software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized
attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
- Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, no other
attempts are made to identify individual users or their usage
habits. Raw data logs are used for no other purposes and are scheduled
for regular destruction in accordance with National Archives and
Records Administration General
Schedule 20.
- Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information
on this service are strictly prohibited and may be punishable
under the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National
Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
Comments or Questions
If you have any comments or questions about the information presented
here please forward them to howard.baker@usda.gov
Children's
Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 |