Privacy Policy
Your Privacy Rights
General Policy
In general you can visit us on the Internet without telling us who you are or giving us personal information. However, in order for you to access information that we deem private, we may ask you to provide some personal information. With regard to such information,
- we will never sell or give your name or personal information to any other organization or third party, nor will we share private information with other registered users of this website;
- we may keep track of your interactions with our sites and our services in order to offer you a more personalized experience; and
- we will use the information we collect to provide the services you request. Our services may include the display of customized content and advertising.
Please see below for our full privacy policy.
Scope of the Privacy Policy
This website is operated by the Church of God, an International Community. We refer to this organization as “the Church,” “we” or “our.” The Church understands the importance of our readers’ and visitors’ 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 on which the Policy is posted. In recognition of the need to provide additional privacy protections for children, we have a separate Privacy Policy that applies to children. Read the children’s privacy policy below.
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, e-mail address and phone number. When other information or other product orders are directly associated with personally identifiable information, this other information also becomes personally identifiable information.
Personally Identifiable Information That We Collect
No registration is required for some features on this website. However, if you are interested in obtaining information, products or services from the Church, or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as accessing sections of the site that are not offered to the general public), you may need to provide us with information about yourself. For example, we ask that you provide your name, city, zip/postcode and e-mail address. In addition, we may combine the personally identifiable information that you provide 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 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 collect your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the Internet, such as your ISP (Internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we 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 website and communications more targeted to your interests.
Our website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our website. We 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 also use persistent cookies. Persistent cookies allow us 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 ordering products. 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 may be limited.
Finally, our website uses 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 websites. We use these technical methods to tell us what parts of our website you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may perform 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 also use these technical methods in HTML e-mails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive e-mail from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those e-mails and/or clicked on links in those e-mails. 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 e-mails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.
Information Use
The Church may use your personally identifiable information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on our site, provide you with informational and/or promotional materials that you might find interesting, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy. These uses may generally be categorized as relationship-maintenance uses and promotional uses. We describe these uses in more detail below.
Relationship-Maintenance Uses
The Church uses your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage your account, deliver services that you have requested, and generally enhance your experience on our website. Collectively, we refer to these types of uses as “Relationship-Maintenance Uses,” and they include all the ways in which we use your personally identifiable information to maintain and manage our relationship with you that do not involve sending promotional materials. Examples of Relationship-Maintenance Uses include, but are not limited to
- processing and tracking your membership
- providing the services you request
- sending you other administrative communications
- sending you updates to our privacy policy
- making changes to web-based features
Promotional Uses
The Church may also use your personally identifiable information to provide you with promotional information about activities, services and products offered by us, including promotional material that you have requested. However, you may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, e-mail or telephone, as explained below and in the section titled “Your Choices.” We will not share your e-mail address, postal address, telephone number or any other personal information with third parties or any other organizations for promotional purposes. Examples of promotional uses include, but are not limited to
- providing you with information about educational opportunities
- providing you with e-mail newsletters
The Church may provide you with promotional materials by mail, e-mail, telephone or other means. You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us by mail, e-mail and/or telephone as provided in the “Your Choices” section below, and in the case of e-mail, you can always opt out of receiving subsequent promotional e-mails by clicking on the "Unsubscribe" link that we provide in every such promotional e-mail message.
Information Sharing and Disclosure We take very seriously our responsibility to maintain your privacy with respect to your personally identifiable information. We will therefore share that information only with the following entities, and only in the manner described below.
Service Providers
The Church contracts with other companies to provide certain services on our behalf, including credit card processing, shipping, e-mail distribution, and promotions management. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services, and they are permitted to use the information only for that specific purpose or as required by law.
Subsidiaries and Affiliated Entities
The Church has developed and will develop other subsidiary and affiliated entities that may offer other products and services. We may share your personally identifiable information with these Affiliates so they can let you know about product and service offerings in which you might be interested. The Church’s Affiliates include Vision Foundation International; Vision Media Productions; Vision journal; Church of God – United Kingdom, Company No. 3121130, Registered Charity No. 1059248; Church of God, an International Community – Canada; Church of God, an International Community – Australia; Church of God, an International Community – Philippines; Church of God, an International Community – South Africa; Église de Dieu (Suisse) [Switzerland]; Die Kirche Gottes e. V. [Germany]; and Stiftung Vision [Germany]. Registration on this site constitutes the registrant’s consent to receive mail, including electronic files of any type, from the Church or its Affiliates in the normal course of serving the registrant. The use of personally identifiable information by the Church’s Affiliates is subject to the same opt-out rights (and limitations upon those rights) that apply to the use of personally identifiable information by the Church and that are described below in the section titled “Your Choices.”
Other Third Parties for Promotional Purposes
The Church will not give or sell your name to other organizations or third parties that are not directly affiliated with the Church. We do not sell our list to other companies for any promotional activities.
Legal Purposes and Business Transactions
The Church may disclose any user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, when we believe that doing so is required by law; may be necessary to protect the property, rights, or safety of ourselves, visitors to our websites, or other persons; or will help to enforce any terms of use of this website. It may also be necessary to disclose our customers’ personally identifiable information to third parties, such as credit card companies, to help resolve disputes that arise in the ordinary course of business. The Church may also transfer user or customer information, including personally identifiable information, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation, or asset sale.
Aggregate Information (non–personally identifiable)
The Church may share with third parties aggregated information about you and other visitors to our website. When we do this, however, we make any personally identifiable information non–personally identifiable by combining it with information about other individuals or by removing characteristics that make the information personally identifiable to you. We share this information in order to improve our website and develop content and services that we hope will be of interest to you.
Your Choices We understand the importance of protecting our customers’ privacy, and we therefore provide you with the opportunity to opt out of having your personally identifiable information used or disclosed for certain purposes. Receiving promotional communications from the Church or its Affiliates is optional. If you do not wish to receive promotional communications from the Church or its Affiliates, please call or write to us at the address below.
You may also use this address and phone number to request us to update or change any of your personally identifiable information, or to request additional information regarding our disclosure of your personally identifiable information to certain third parties for promotional purposes. Call us at (888) 777-7203 from the United States or Canada, or 1 626 535-0444 from outside the United States and Canada. Write to us at Church of God, an International Community, Attn: Customer Services – Privacy, P.O. Box 90607, Pasadena, CA 91109-0607, and include your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and a note of instructions.
If you have previously agreed to receive e-mail and/or newsletters from us, you may use the address and phone number above to notify us that you no longer wish to receive such e-mail and/or e-mail newsletters. Because we plan our communications in advance, it may take several weeks for your request to become effective. If, due to human error, you continue to receive our communications, please contact us again and we will make every effort to correct the situation.
Links to Other Sites
We may provide links on our website to other sites we think you will enjoy. By doing so, the Church does not necessarily agree with or endorse the content on these sites. As well, these sites operate independently of the Church and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the policies of 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 website may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. The Church 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.
Children’s Privacy
Our website is a general-audience site, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 make known to us his or her personally identifiable information, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personally identifiable information.
Changes in this Privacy 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 e-mail at the last e-mail 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 notifying you of the changes.
If you have questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, please e-mail us or write to us at
Church of God, an International Community
Attn: Customer Services – Privacy
P.O. Box 90607
Pasadena, CA 91109-0607