The American Indian Institute (AII) is committed to respecting privacy. This privacy policy governs our collection and use of personal and business information collected from participants in our programs, visitors to our website and through our email and regular mail correspondence, telephone calls, and faxes, and reflects our policies toward privacy in respect to all other means of gathering and disseminating data.

Our policy is to use any and all data collected by any means, whether through the internet, email, our online database and/or any interactive forms or surveys only for such uses that are important to our organization and our cause, in light of the professional standards required and expected from nonprofit organizations.

AII reserves the right to change this policy whenever deemed necessary without prior notification. Should changes be made, they will be posted on this Privacy Notice with the date of revision.

Because your physical mail and e-mail addresses are confidential, we never share either type of list with outside parties, and only key AII personnel and certain technical contractors are allowed access to our lists. Lists are accessed only for the purpose of upgrading our systems or distributing AII newsletters, publicity campaigns, alerts, correspondence, event notifications, or other professional communications that help us accomplish our mission as a nonprofit organization.

Visitors to the Website and Website Security
The AII websites collect information about each visitor to our websites in these ways:

1. Through your IP address
2. Through cookies
3. Through online forms for posting employment, events, and training items
4. Through any correspondence you send us via mail to our online posted mailing address, our online listed emails, and through other forms not associated with the database

Details about these methods of information collection follow.

IP Addresses
Your IP address does not reveal any personal information about you or your activities. Our web server host logs all IP addresses of all visitors to automate information collection concerning web traffic, usage, length of time visitors stayed, new visitors, entry and exit points, and the like. It is also used as statistical information for reporting and to find ways to improve web usability.

Cookies
Our websites use cookies to gather information about traffic and to enhance your visits to our sites. A cookie is:

"A message given to a Web browser by a Web server. The browser stores the message in a text file. The message is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server." (Definition from Webopedia at: http://www.pcwebopedia.com/TERM/c/cookie.html, accessed 02/20/2004.) Cookies are used to customize web pages to provide the user with preferences. They can be deactivated in your browser if you wish by configuring your browser's preferences not to accept them. No information gathered by any cookies we have on our site is used to disseminate information about your personal use of the Internet, nor is it ever used for any marketing or advertising purposes.

Online Forms
Online forms are used to gather information about you and your organization when you complete the form to register for an event or request information. None of the information gathered is shared with 3rd parties, except that which is intended to be shown on results pages as delineated on the form. If you post information that is available on the web, and wish to have it removed or corrected, please contact us, and we will comply with your request as soon as possible.

Correspondence
None of your contact information or any of your correspondence that you send via regular mail, online through forms, through email, or any other means is ever sold to third parties under any circumstances, and is used only to conduct our daily business in accomplishing our mission under our policies as a nonprofit entity.

AII Sharing Practices
None of the information we collect is shared with any 3rd-party except as aggregated statistics for organizational performance reporting purposes, capturing and defining web traffic patterns, and website improvement. Information of this kind is never used to track or monitor individual users. Our purpose is to provide communications, to improve the information flow, and to improve the content and usability of our website, programs, products, and services.

If you send us questions about our website content or any of our areas of operation, we may forward your request for information to parties who would be able to assist you, or we may respond to you with that information in kind. You may at any time request us not to do so, and we will comply with that request, except as we are required by legal regulations or a court order to do so. It is unlikely we will contact you for verification, but we reserve the right to do so, should it become necessary. If you contact us by email or phone, we may ask you to verify your personal information so that we may respond to your inquiry with an assurance of your identity.

Our online databases are protected by security put in place to safeguard data integrity and to prevent unauthorized access and/or use of its systems. These security measures have been designed to provide the user with reasonable protection of private information entrusted to our possession.

Opt In/Opt Out of Ancient Voices eNews
Sign up for Ancient Voices eNews by clicking the eNews Signup link at the bottom of any page of this site or here. Once you are part of our contact/distribution lists, you can opt out any time you like by contacting AII by email or by calling 406-587-1002.

Corrections to Personal Information
If your personal or your organization's information needs to be updated, please contact AII by email or by calling 406-449-3717

Online Purchases
AII may provide you with links to affiliate sites to allow you to purchase items. Any transaction conducted as a result of those links is not conducted on our site, but is conducted on the site of the seller or the company managing the transaction through their online ecommerce functions. Therefore, AII does not either see or collect any personal information about you, your transaction, and/or your credit card. All transactions and transaction details are between the purchaser and the company, and AII makes no guarantee about these transactions. Buyers are responsible to be fully informed about sellers' and/or companies managing online transactions policies, and will hold AII harmless of all disputes between the buyer and the seller/transaction management company. Should AII offer products and services for online purchase directly on AII's website in the future, AII will update this policy as necessary.

Contacting Us
If you believe that your personal and/or private information is being used for a purpose other than its intended purpose, or if you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or the practices of our site, contact AII at 406- 587-1002, and AII staff will address it immediately.