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Privacy Statement

​Third-Party Web Sites and Applications including Social Media Sites

Third-Party websites and Applications (TPWA) are Web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by NIH, such as non-.gov hosted applications and those embedded on an NIH Web pages that could cause personally identifiable information (PII) to become available or accessible to NIH, regardless of whether NIH solicits or collects it.

As part of the Open Government Directive, NIH.gov uses a variety of new technologies and social media options to communicate and interact with citizens. These sites and applications include popular social networking and media sites, open source software communities and more. The following list includes the websites and applications we use and their purposes. For any sites or applications that collect PII, this list also includes details on information collected and how NIH protects your private information.

Third-Party websites and Applications

AddThis: NIH.gov uses the AddThis service to allow visitors to bookmark and share the News in Health website content on a variety of social media sites. Visitors who use the AddThis service to share content do not need to register or provide any personal information. The AddThis service providers collect non-personal data, including the aggregate and summary statistics on browsers and usage patterns. AddThis also uses non-personal data to manage the service efficiently and diagnose server problems. Although AddThis offers some analytics and usage data to NIH, these reports do not include any personally identifiable information. The reports are password protected and only available to NIH.gov managers, members of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff requiring this information to perform their duties. The AddThis Privacy policy is available at: http://www.addthis.com/privacy .

Bit.ly: NIH uses bit.ly to shorten long URLs for use in e-mail messages, Twitter feeds and on Facebook pages. Bit.ly collects and provides data on how often e-mail recipients, Facebook and Twitter-

users click on the shortened URLs distributed by NIH.gov staff. Bit.ly analytics show how many people clicked on the URLs posted by NIH compared to the total number of clicks on the shortened URLs. Bit.ly analytics do not provide any personally identifiable information about the visitors who opened the shortened links. The Bit.ly Privacy policy is available at: http://bit.ly/pages/privacy .

Facebook: NIH.gov has three Facebook pages:

  1. National Institutes of Health (NIH)
  2. Research Matters Weekly
  3. News in Health

Many other NIH Institutes and Centers (IC) sponsor their own Facebook pages. The privacy policies for the other ICs' Facebook pages  are located on the individual IC websites.
On each of the NIH.gov Facebook pages, NIH.gov staff posts news and other items of interest to citizens. If you have a Facebook account or 'Like' NIH Facebook pages, you can post comments or click on the 'like' option for individual entries. If you comment or click on the 'like' button, personally identifying information will be visible to NIH staff and other Facebook site visitors. The amount of visible personal information will depend on your own Facebook privacy settings. You can completely avoid displaying any personally identifiable information by not creating an account, not posting comments and not clicking on the 'like' options in Facebook. NIH staff does not collect, use or disclose any information about visitors who comment or 'like' the NIH Facebook sites. Facebook collects and reports on non-personally identifiable information about activities on Facebook pages. This information is password protected and only available to NIH.gov managers, members of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties. The Facebook privacy policy is available at: http://www.facebook.com/policy.php  .

GovDelivery Subscription Management: NIH uses GovDelivery to send e-newsletters, alerts and other messages to visitors who subscribe to them. To subscribe to an NIH product, you must provide an e-mail address and indicate your subscription preferences, including the items you want to receive. The e-mail subscriber lists are password protected by GovDelivery. Only the NIH managers who send newsletters, alerts or memos via GovDelivery and staff members who monitor the results of e-mail initiatives have access to the subscriber lists. GovDelivery never allows access to the subscriber lists to anyone outside of NIH or for any purpose. GovDelivery collects and provides

non-identifying information about the number of messages sent, clicks and open rates. This information is password protected and only available to NIH.gov managers, members of the NIH.gov Communications and Web Teams, and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties. The GovDelivery privacy policy is available at: http://www.govdelivery.com/privacy .

Twitter: NIH uses Twitter to send short messages (up to 140 characters) or 'Tweets' to share information about NIH with visitors and respond to comments and inquiries sent via Twitter to NIH. While visitors may read the NIH Twitter feeds without subscribing to them, visitors who want to subscribe to (or follow) NIH Twitter feeds must create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com. To create an account, you must provide some personal information, such as name, user name, password and e-mail address. Visitors have the option to provide additional personal information including a short biography, location or a picture. Most information you provide for a Twitter account is available to the public, but you can modify how much of your information is visible by changing your privacy settings at the Twitter.com website. NIH staff members monitor the number of subscribers and respond to comments and queries via Twitter, but the staff never takes possession of the personal information belonging to Twitter followers. NIH does not collect, maintain, disclose or share any information about people who follow NIH on Twitter. The Twitter privacy policy is available at: http://twitter.com/privacy .

Widgets: NIH.gov offers a variety of widgets that deliver small versions of selected NIH site content to other online locations outside of the site where the content originated. Widgets are portable pieces of code. Visitors can install the widgets on any PC or Mac Web page without requiring additional coding or configuration. NIH.gov widgets deliver information and links to any site or application where the widgets are installed. NIH widgets do not collect any type of personally identifying information from visitors who install NIH.gov widgets. The WidgetBox.com privacy policy is available at: http://www.widgetbox.com/info/legal/privacy-policy . Note: This is the privacy policy for the website www.widgetbox.com  (widget creator program), not the widgets themselves.

YouTube: NIH.gov posts videos on YouTube to make them available to all NIH.gov visitors. You do not need to register with either YouTube or Google (YouTube owner) to watch NIH.gov videos. When visitors watch videos, YouTube may record non-personally identifiable information about its site usage, such as channels used, videos

watched, and data transfer details to improve its services. If you log on to the YouTube site before watching NIH videos, YouTube may associate information about your site use with your YouTube account. If you log on to YouTube and comment on an NIH video, any personal information you included when registering for your account will be visible to visitors who click on the comment. If you do not log in before watching NIH videos posted on YouTube, your site use will not be associated with you or a YouTube account. The YouTube privacy policy is available at: http://www.youtube.com/t/privacy .