Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting the Natural Inquirer website and reviewing our privacy statement. Our privacy policy is clear: We do not collect any personally identifiable information, (PII), without your explicit consent.

Here is how we handle your information when you visit our website:

Information Collected and Stored Automatically

When you browse through the Natural Inquirer website, read pages, or download information, we may gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. We may use technologies to gauge your browsing habits or web surfing history to improve the information presented to you. 

The information we store does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

  1. The Internet domain and IP address from which you access our website. For example, if you access our website from school, we see “schoolname.edu” and the school’s IP address;
  2. The type of browser and operating system used to access our site;
  3. The date and time you access our site;
  4. The pages you visit;
  5. If you linked to the Natural Inquirer website from another website, the address of that website;
  6. Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed;
  7. Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order.

We use this information to help us make our site more useful, to learn about the number of visitors to our site, the types of technology our visitors are using to visit our website, and to present relevant information to you based on your website browsing requests.

When you purchase from us, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

  • Send you information about your account and order
  • Respond to your requests, including complaints
  • Set up your account for our store
  • Comply with any legal obligations we may have
  • Improve our store offerings
  • Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them

If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. This includes your name, email address, and billing and shipping addresses.

We do not track your web activities beyond your browsing the Natural Inquirer website. We do not cross reference your browsing habits with other entities, and we do not sell or give away your information to other entities.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

COPPA applies to the online collection of personal information from children under age 13. USDA complies with COPPA and does not knowingly collect personal information about children.

Cookies

When you visit some websites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as cookies. Some cookies collect personal information to recognize your computer in the future.

Cookies are small files that web servers place on a user’s hard drive that helps a website or service. There are two types of cookies:

  1. Session cookies, also known as transient or per session cookies, serve technical purposes, like providing seamless navigation through naturalinquirer.org. They are stored in temporary memory and are only available during an active browser session. Once you close your browser, the cookie disappears.
  2. Persistent cookies, also known as permanent or stored cookies, are used to collect identifying information about the user, such as user name, web surfing behavior or user preference for a specific website. These cookies operate until they expire or a user deletes them.
  3. We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

Natural Inquirer may use both types of cookies to improve our on-line services to you.

You can disable cookies by adjusting the setting on your web browser.

You Send Us Personal Information

If you choose to provide us with personal information, as in an e-mail to our staff or by filling out a form and submitting it to us through our website, we use that information to respond to your message. This also helps us to locate the information you have requested. We treat e-mails the same way that we handle paper-based correspondence sent to the Natural Inquirer. We are required to maintain many documents under the Federal Record Act for historical purposes, but we do not collect personal information for any purpose other than to respond to you. We only share the information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency or as otherwise required by law. Moreover, we do not create individual profiles with the information you provide, nor will the information you provide be shared with any private organizations. Natural Inquierer does not collect information for commercial marketing.

When You Visit Websites

Please read the Privacy Statement of each website you visit. Our website has links to several other federal agencies. In a few cases, we link to private organizations with their permission. Once you access another site through a link that we provide, you are subject to the Privacy Statement of the other organization’s site.

Website Security

Information presented on the Natural Inquirer website is considered public information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image credits is requested.

1. For site security purposes and to ensure that this web site service remains available to all users, Natural Inquirer employs monitoring technology to identify unauthorized attempts to upload, change, or otherwise cause damage to USDA information or systems.

2. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this website are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Social Media

The Natural Inquirer uses third-party services such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to communicate and interact with the public. You may encounter these services as separate websites (for example, the Natural Inquirer Facebook page or as applications embedded within the Natural Inquirer‘s websites. These services are controlled and operated by third parties and are not government websites or applications. By interacting with Natural Inquirer through these third-party services, you may be providing non-government third parties access to your personal information which can be used to distinguish or trace your identity. Any information collected by a third-party service is subject to the privacy policies of the third-party service provider. These third-party services may, for example, use persistent (multi-session) cookies.

Generally, Natural Inquirer does not collect, disseminate, or maintain any personally identifiable information about you maintained by third party sites. However, you should be aware that Natural Inquirer or the USDA may read, review, or rely upon information that you make publicly available on these services (for example, comments made on the Natural Inquirer‘s Facebook page), as authorized or required by law.

Please note that these third-party services supplement Natural Inquirer‘s traditional communication and outreach efforts. Should you have concerns about communicating with USDA via these channels, please use traditional channels to contact us. 

 

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.

 

What rights you have over your data

 If you have an account on this site, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also 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.

Who on our team has access

Members of our team have access to the information you provide us. For example, both Administrators and Order/Distribution Managers can access:

  • Order information, like what was ordered, when it was ordered, and where it should be sent, and
  • Customer information like your name, email address, and shipping information.

Our team members have access to this information to help fulfill orders and support processing your order.