LLP Privacy Policy

This website and app is operated by the Cornell Lost Ladybug Project (LLP) under the domain name: www.lostladybug.org. We refer to this website and app as "Lost Ladybug Project," "we" or "our." The Lost Ladybug Project understands the importance of our customers' privacy. Our privacy policy tells you what information we collect when you visit our website, how we use, share and protect it, what choices you have about how the information is used, and how you can access and update that information. If you do not agree to this privacy policy, please do not use this website. This privacy policy applies to personally identifiable information collected on the website where this privacy policy is posted. Certain aspects of this privacy policy also apply to the personally identifiable information we collect offline.

For purposes of this privacy policy, "personally identifiable information" means information that identifies a particular individual, such as name, postal address, email address, and phone number. When other information, such as email newsletter choices, product purchases, or consumer product preferences, is directly associated with personally identifiable information, this other information also becomes personally identifiable information.

Information Collection

Personally Identifiable Information We Collect

There are many features on this website for which no registration is required. However, if you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the Lost Ladybug Project, or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as uploading ladybug photos and data, making an online purchase, making an online donation to the Lost Ladybug Project, or participating in sweepstakes, contests, surveys, or certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, if you order a product from us, we ask for your name, postal address, email address, telephone number and your credit card number. If you upload ladybug photos and data, respond to any of our promotions, offers, contests or certain special initiatives, you have opted into consent communication regarding those promotion, offers, contests, etc. If you are ordering a product as a gift for another person, we will ask you for that person's name, postal address and phone number in order to enable us to deliver the gift to the recipient. If you participate in an activity such as a survey or sweepstakes, we may also ask you to provide other types of information such as gender and personal interests, which we may associate with personally identifiable information. In addition, we may combine personally identifiable information that you have provided to us with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources.

Other Information Collected Through Technology

In addition to information you choose to provide to us, we may also collect non-personally identifiable information through technology to make our site more interesting and useful to you. For instance, when you come to our site, we may collect your Internet Protocol ("IP") address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the Internet, like your ISP (Internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we may also use IP addresses to collect information regarding the frequency with which our visitors visit various parts of our sites. We may combine this information with personally identifiable information that you have provided to us and/or with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources in order to make our web site and communications more targeted to your interests.

Our website may also use cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user's computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We may use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our web site. We may use transient (also called "session ID") cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. We may also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow our online store and other parts of our web site to recognize your browser when you return after your first visit to that part of our website. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as checking out from our online store. You can choose to remove persistent cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our site will be limited, such as our shopping cart feature or online games.

Finally, our website may use a variety of technical methods for tracking purposes, including clear gifs (also known as web beacons). Clear gifs are small pieces of data that are embedded in images on the pages of web sites. We use these technical methods to tell us what parts of our web site you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our site. These technical methods may involve the transmission of information directly to us or to a service provider authorized by us to collect information on our behalf. We may also use these technical methods in HTML emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and/or clicked on links in those emails. The information from use of these technical methods may be combined with information that is personally identifiable so that we can make our website, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.

Third-Party Advertisements

Any advertisements that appear on this website are delivered to you by our internal web technology staff. Information about your visits to this site, such as the number of times you have viewed an ad (but not your name, address or other personally identifiable information) is used to serve ads to you. In addition, we may share website usage information about visitors to our sites with our web advertising partners for the purpose of managing and targeting advertisements and for market research analysis on our site and other sites. None of this information is personally identifiable information. These partners and third-party advertisers who place advertisements on our web site may also use cookies and web beacons to collect non-personally identifiable information when you click on or move your cursor over one of their banner advertisements. Once you have clicked on an advertisement and left our website, our privacy policy no longer applies and you should read the privacy policy of the advertiser to see how your personally identifiable information will be treated on its site.

Information Use

To support and grow our membership base, the Lost Ladybug Project may exchange its member names and addresses with other nonprofit organizations with missions related to conservation. We do not sell or make any profit from your name and address. The Lost Ladybug Project’s policy is to never exchange or sell any email addresses or phone numbers. You may send a note to the email address below if you would like your record coded “Do Not Trade” and we will be happy not to include your name and address in our exchanges with other conservation organizations.

The Lost Ladybug Project may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy.

We NEVER trade our email lists with any organization that is not part of the Lost Ladybug Project.

Email Communication

If you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the Lost Ladybug Project, or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as uploading ladybug photos and data, making an online purchase, making an online donation to the Lost Ladybug Project, or participating in sweepstakes, contests, surveys, or certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, if you respond to any of our promotions, offers, contests or certain special initiatives, you have opted into communication regarding those promotion, offers, contests, in addition to related topics of interest. You may also sign up to receive regular email communications from the Lost Ladybug Project. All these email communications sent to you can be opted out through the unsubscribe link in the emails you receive from us. We will comply with the opt-out request within 10 business days. You may still receive communications during that period, but we strive to make the opt-out happen instantaneously. We NEVER trade our email lists with any other organization. To delete the personal information that we've collected from you, please contact us (see bottom of page for contact information). We may have copies of your information for database backup purposes, but the information will never be used in any other way and the backup data are regularly purged.

Links to Other Sites

We may provide links on our website to other sites we think you will enjoy. These sites operate independently of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read these policies at any site you visit.

Information Security

The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to safeguard any personally identifiable information or credit card information that you provide to us. We use data encryption technology to help protect against loss, misuse or alteration of your credit card information. Secure Socket Layers (SSLs) encrypt the credit card information sent between your computer and our database. However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.

Personally Identifiable Information Contained in User Content

Some sections of our web site may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. The Lost Ladybug Project does not monitor such transmissions, and therefore cannot be responsible for any personally identifiable information or other information that may be contained in such transmissions.

Changes in this Policy

We may amend this privacy policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use, and/or share your personally identifiable information, we will notify you by sending you an email at the last email address that you provided us and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the websites covered by this privacy policy. In any event, changes to this privacy policy may affect our use of personally identifiable information that you provided us prior to our notification to you of the changes.

Contact Us

If you have questions or wish to send us comments about this privacy policy, please write us at:

Lost Ladybug Project, Cornell University, Insectary Building, Ithaca, NY 14853
ladybug@cornell.edu