Thank you for visiting the www.childcare.gov web site and reviewing our privacy policy. We respect your right to privacy! Your e-mail address is exclusively for the use of our web site. Your e-mail address will not be shared with anyone outside of www.childcare.gov. For the improvement of our web site however, we do keep track of all visits to determine which pages are used the most and which are used the least. If you have any questions/concerns please contact the childcare.gov web manager.

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the web site, 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:

1. 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) an 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 web site;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
3. The date and time you access our site;
4. The pages you visit; and
5. If you linked to the www.childcare.gov or www.americasteens.gov web site from another web site, the address of that web site.

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 use. 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 www.childcare.gov or by filling out a form with your personal information and submitting it to us through our web site -- we use that information to respond to your message and to help us obtain the information you have requested. We do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you. We will 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. We do not collect information for commercial marketing.

Links to Other Sites

Our web site has links to many other federal agencies. In a few cases we link to private organizations. Once you link to another site, you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

Kids and Teens

At www.childcare.gov we are especially concerned about protecting the privacy of kids and teens. We hope parents and teachers are involved in their kids and teens' Internet explorations. It is particularly important for parents to guide their kids and teens when they are asked to provide personal information on line.

We specifically ask kids and teens to get their parents' permission before providing any information on line -- at our site or any other site -- and hope parents will always be involved in those decisions. Parents can review the child's personal information, ask to have it deleted and refuse to allow any further collection or use of the information. Furthermore, parents have the option to agree to the collection and use of the child's information without consenting to the disclosure of the information to third parties.

Here are helpful Internet tools for parents and more information on kids and teens privacy.

If you have additional questions or requests related to www.childcare.gov or this Privacy Policy, please contact: