Privacy Statement for The Ohio State University osu.edu websites
The Ohio State University is committed to protecting the privacy of website visitors as well as the privacy of our students, faculty & staff, alumni and friends. This privacy statement describes the type of information which may be collected from visitors to Ohio State’s websites. Ohio State University does not sell or rent website visitor information and does not share website visitor information except as compelled by law. This privacy statement is updated as necessary to reflect current collection methods and usage of website visitor information.
What information is collected?
Anonymous information
Ohio State may collect and store from website visitors: Referrer pages, date/time stamps, pages requested, browser & computer information, user agent, headers, files downloaded, and any errors encountered.
Personal information
Ohio State may collect and store personal identifying information, such as name, username, email address, IP address, social network account information and activity, mailing address, and telephone numbers.
How is the information collected?
Ohio State may use network, server and browser technologies to collect website visitor information, including:
Cookies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie
Scripts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_scripting
Server logs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_log
Custom URL parameters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Query_string
Tracking images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_beacon
Information & correspondence submitted voluntarily by visitors via forms, comments, chats
Why is the information collected?
Ohio State collects website visitor information to: Best serve audiences by optimizing and personalizing visitor experiences in both digital and physical spaces, manage a visitor relationship with the university, foster/promote further communications, gauge communication effectiveness, gain insights into user behavior and preferences, track interests, identify errors and issues, and conduct market research.
Is the information secure?
For data collected from website visitors, Ohio State follows the guidelines prescribed in the university’s Information Security Standard (ISS) policy: https://ocio.osu.edu/policy/standards/security
Third Parties
Ohio State may contract and partner with external third-parties to place ads on websites not affiliated with Ohio State University. These non-affiliated sites may send and share visitor information and browsing behavior, collected in accordance with their own privacy policies, with Ohio State. These third-party websites may also display advertisements to previous visitors of the Ohio State site.
Opting out
Ohio State respects the privacy decisions of our constituents. Website visitors may choose to not have data collected by Ohio State websites. The Federal Trade Commission provides guides for protecting the privacy of children visiting websites: https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/topics/protecting-kids-online
Do not track
Most modern web browsers provide a user privacy setting, which when enabled, informs websites to disable its information collection methods. More information:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_Not_Track
Responsible Internet advertisers have tools to opt-out or control advertisements and tracking:
http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/
https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en
https://www.facebook.com/help/769828729705201/
Minors/Children
Ohio State does not knowingly collect website visitor information from children or minors as defined by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Questions
Please e-email: comments@osu.edu with any questions about this privacy statement.