Brookings Institution Privacy Policy

See also Conditions and Terms of Use for the Brookings Website

The Brookings Institution values our visitors' private information and understands the need for security and trust surrounding such information. The following policy outlines the ways in which we collect, store, and use personally identifiable information in providing our products and services.

Except for very limited exceptions further described in the remainder of this Privacy Policy, we do not share any personally identifiable information with third parties.

Information Collection & Use

Registration

In order to use certain parts of The Brookings Institution website, you may need to first complete a registration form to create a user name and/or password. During registration you may be required to give contact information. We may use this information to contact you about the services on our site in which you have expressed interest.

Online Orders

If you purchase a product or service, or choose to make a donation, we request certain personally identifiable information from you on our order forms. We encrypt this information using Secure Sockets Layer technology (SSL) and digital certificates from Verisign, Inc.

We use this information for billing purposes and to fill your orders. If we have trouble processing an order, we will use this information to contact you.

Surveys

Occasionally, we may provide you the opportunity to participate in surveys on our site. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary. We use survey results to further improve this site and its content as well as to enhance our communications with you.

We may use third-party service providers to conduct surveys. Those companies will be prohibited from using our users' personally identifiable information for any other purpose than what has been identified above. We will not share the personally identifiable information you provide through a survey with third parties unless we give you prior notice and a choice to opt out.

Tell a Friend/Forward to a Colleague

If you use referral services to tell a friend/colleague about our site or electronic newsletters, we will send your friend/colleague a one-time e-mail inviting him or her to visit the site. The Brookings Institution maintains this information in our database for the purpose of sending the referred e-mail and compiling aggregate statistics on the usefulness of our referral program. That address will be used for no other purpose—except in the case where that individual opts to subscribe to this or any other Brookings newsletter.

Communications from the Site

Newsletters and Products

If you wish to subscribe to our electronic newsletter(s) or receive other materials, we will use your e-mail address to send the requested materials. We always provide a way to unsubscribe or opt out. Please see the "Choice/Opt-out" section, below.

Customer Service and Profile

Based upon the personally identifiable information you provide us (i.e., your "profile"), we will send you a welcome e-mail to verify your enrollment when you subscribe to an electronic newsletter.

In addition, we may store information that we collect through cookies, log files, transparent gifs, and other technologies to create a "profile" of your preferences.

Choice/Opt-out

We provide you the opportunity to opt out of having your personally identifiable information used for any of these purposes.

If you no longer wish to receive electronic newsletters and/or promotional communications, you may opt out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)

At times, we share aggregated demographic information about our user base with our partners. This information does not identify individual users. We do not link aggregate user data with personally identifiable information in these cases.

Personally identifiable information

We do not share personally identifiable information (your "profile") with third parties, except insofar as that information is required to fulfill a service, such as product fulfillment, that you have requested.

Agents

We use an outside shipping company to fulfill Brookings Bookstore orders, and a credit card processing company to bill you for goods and services you purchase from us. These companies do not retain, share, store, or use personally identifiable information for any other purposes.

Service Providers

We use third parties to provide fulfillment and processing functions on our site. When you register for products and/or services, we may share information as necessary for the third party to provide those services.

These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose.

Legal Disclaimer

We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on the Brookings Institution. We further reserve the right to disclose or use your personally identifiable information for the purposes of collecting on debts owed in connection with the purchase of goods or services on this website.

Website Tools

Log Files

Website visits generate certain information that is automatically stored in log files, including Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.

We use this information, which in itself does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users' movements around the site, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.

Cookies

We may use both session ID cookies and/or persistent cookies. Both kinds are stored on the site visitor's hard drive.

We set a persistent cookie that stores your passwords on your hard drive. Persistent cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site.

If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site may be limited.

Transparent images and Web Beacons/Web Bugs

We may employ transparent images and Web Beacons (also referred to as Web Bugs) that help us better manage content on our site. Transparent images and Web Beacons are embedded invisibly on web pages.

We may use transparent images in our HTML-based e-mails and newsletters to help us gauge the effectiveness of our electronic communications. If you would like to opt out of these, please see "Choice/Opt-out." You can also request to receive text-only electronic newsletters, which do not contain transparent images.

Though we do not currently use Web Beacons in our e-mails, we reserve the right to do so at some future date. In that case, this Privacy Policy will be updated accordingly (see "Changes in this Privacy Statement," below).

Links to Other Sites

This Website contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by The Brookings Institution. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other sites.

Access to and Removal of Personally Identifiable Information

You may correct, update, delete or deactivate your personally identifiable information by e-mailing us at communications@brookings.edu, or by contacting us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below.

Security

The security of your sensitive personal information is important to us. We encrypt that information using Secure Sockets Layer technology (SSL) and digital certificates.

Changes in this Privacy Statement

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by e-mail, or by means of a notice on our home page.

Contact Us

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

The Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts, Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20036
202-797-6000