Who We Are
True Oyster Restoration Initiative, Inc., is a 501(c)3 non-profit located in Baltimore, Maryland. Our focus is on marine ecosystem restoration, primarily in the Chesapeake Bay. We endeavor to make a difference in bolstering and improving the environment.
Our website address is — https://savetheoyster.org
Your privacy is very important to us.
Contact Form
We have a contact form for the purpose of communicating with readers interested in our organization, and those participating in our programs. In this form, there is a field for name, email address, phone (optional) and message/comment.
To prevent abuse — IP address, user agent, name, email address, website, and message are submitted to the Akismet service (owned by Automattic) for the sole purpose of spam checking. The actual submission data is stored in the database of the site on which it was submitted and is emailed directly to us. This email will include the submitter’s IP address, timestamp, name, email address, phone (optionally), and message.
Post and post meta data associated with a user’s contact form submission is synced. The IP address and user agent originally submitted with the message are synced, as well, as they are stored in post meta.
Google Web Fonts and Spam Protection
For uniform representation of fonts, this page uses web fonts provided by Google. When you open a page, your browser loads the required web fonts into your browser cache to display texts and fonts correctly.
For this purpose your browser has to establish a direct connection to Google servers. Google thus becomes aware that our web page was accessed via your IP address. The use of Google Web fonts is done in the interest of a uniform and attractive presentation of our plugin. This constitutes a justified interest pursuant to Art. 6 (1) (f) DSGVO.
If your browser does not support web fonts, a standard font is used by your computer.
This site deploys Google’s spam protection.
Further information about handling user data, can be found at https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq and in Google’s privacy policy at https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/.
Web Stats
To get an idea of daily views and interest in our organization, we employ a statistics feature. Information for this feature can include IP address, ID (if logged in), username (if logged in), user agent, visiting URL, referring URL, timestamp of event, browser language, country code.
Important: The site owner does not have access to any of this information via this feature. For example, a site owner can see that a specific post has 285 views, but cannot see which specific users/accounts viewed that post. Stats logs — containing visitor IP addresses and WordPress.com usernames (if available) — are retained by Automattic for 28 days and are used for the sole purpose of powering this feature.
Activity tracked includes post and page views, video plays, outbound link clicks, referring URLs and search engine terms, and country. When this feature is enabled, this feature tracks performance on each page load that includes the JavaScript file used for tracking stats. This is exclusively for aggregate performance tracking across similar sites in order to make sure that the feature and code is not causing performance issues. This includes the tracking of page load times and resource loading duration (image files, JavaScript files, CSS files, etc.). The site owner has the ability to force this feature to honor DNT settings of visitors. By default, DNT is currently not honored.
Third-Party Payments
Payments are made externally off-site through the PayPal system. Please review and understand the PayPal policies and service before you send a payment.
Embedded Content from Other Websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Cookies
If you send a message on this site, you opt-in to saving your name, email address and message. Cookies are sometimes used for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year.
If you visit admin pages, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.
How Long We Retain Your Data
If you send a message using our form, the comment and its metadata are saved indefinitely.
What Rights You Have Over Your Data
If you send a message using our contact form, you can request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.
Where Your Data is Sent
Form messages are checked through an automated spam detection service. We collect information about visitors who send messages using the form on our site that use the Akismet anti-spam service. The information we collect can include the commenter’s IP address, user agent, referrer, and Site URL (along with other information directly provided by the commenter such as their name, username, email address, and the comment itself).
The website also uses Google’s spam protection to prevent abuse. Please refer to Google’s policy links above.
Updates
These policies will be updated from time to time, to include features and changes related to the website. Please refer to this page for the latest information.
If you have questions, please send us a message, or write to:
True Oyster Restoration Initiative, Inc.
209 Goodwood Gardens,
Baltimore, MD 21210 USA
Last updated: September 12, 2022.