WebMD understands how important the privacy of personal information is to our users. This Privacy Policy will tell you what information we collect about you and about your use of WebMD and its services. It will explain the choices you have about how your personal information is used and how we protect that information. We urge you to read this Privacy Policy carefully.

We have organized this Privacy Policy under the following topics:

To give you confidence that we adhere to strict healthcare industry privacy standards and that we comply with our own privacy practices, we participate in the following external, independent programs:

URAC - WebMD has been awarded e-Health accreditation from URAC, formerly the American HealthCare Accreditation Association. URAC is an independent accrediting body that has reviewed and approved WebMD's WebMD.com Web sites for compliance with its more than 45 quality and ethics standards that are based on the Hi-Ethics Principles. WebMD helped create the Hi-Ethics Principles as a founding member of the Hi-Ethics alliance. Hi-Ethics was an organization of health Web sites committed to a set of ethical principles designed to ensure that consumers can confidently realize the full benefit of the Internet to improve their health and the health of their families. To verify our compliance, click on the URAC logo. Please note that the URAC certification only applies to the WebMD.com site.

TRUSTe - WebMD is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. WebMD has been awarded TRUSTe's Privacy Seal signifying that this privacy policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe for compliance with TRUSTe's program requirements including transparency, accountability and choice regarding the collection and use of your personal information. The TRUSTe program does not cover information that may be collected through downloadable software. TRUSTe's mission, as an independent third party, is to accelerate online trust among consumers and organizations globally through its leading privacy trustmark and innovative trust solutions. If you have questions or complaints regarding our privacy policy or practices, please contact us at:

1201 Peachtree Street, NE
400 Colony Square, Suite 2100
Atlanta, GA 30361
Or call: 866-788-3097
If you are not satisfied with our response you can contact TRUSTe here. As required of TRUSTe licensees, we will inform you of the following in this Privacy Policy:

This site complies with the HONcode standard for trustworthy health information: verify here.
Health on The Net Foundation - WebMD complies with the principles of the HON Code of Conduct established by the Health on the Net Foundation. Please note that the Health on The Net Foundation certification applies to WebMD.com, MedicineNet.com, and eMedicineHealth.com domains.

This Privacy Policy applies to Web sites owned and operated by WebMD, including WebMD.com, the WebMD Health Manager, MedicineNet.com, RxList.com, and eMedicineHealth.com including the mobile optimized versions of these sites. This Privacy Policy also applies to the WebMD Mobile Device Application (or "App") for the iPhone, the iPad and mobile devices operating with the Android operating system. Except where noted, statements in this Privacy Policy with respect to our Web sites also apply to our WebMD Mobile Device App.

Reference to "WebMD" means WebMD, LLC., including any company that WebMD, LLC. controls (for example, a subsidiary that WebMD, LLC. owns). "WebMD Web sites" include any site that WebMD owns or controls (for example, MedicineNet.com). WebMD may share information among its subsidiaries or sites that it owns or controls, but is always protected under the terms of this Privacy Policy.

The WebMD Web sites contain links to other sites. Once you enter another Web site (whether through an advertisement, service, or content link), be aware that WebMD is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other sites. We encourage you to look for and review the privacy statements of each and every Web site that you visit through a link or advertisement on WebMD.

We hope that reading our Privacy Policy helps you understand how we manage information about you. Throughout our Privacy Policy, we have underlined various terms and hot-linked them to our Glossary or to the corresponding Section within the Privacy Policy to help you better understand their meaning.

While you may use some of the functionality of WebMD without registration, many of the specific tools and services on our website require registration. If you use our Web site without registering, the only information we collect will be Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies or Web Beacons. If you choose to register with our Web site for certain Interactive Tools or other services, we require you to submit Personally Identifiable Information. Depending on the tool or service you have selected, we may also collect Personal Health Information. You are responsible for ensuring the accuracy of the Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information you submit to WebMD. Inaccurate information will affect the information you receive when using our site and tools and our ability to contact you as described in this Privacy Policy. For example, your email address should be kept current because that it is how we communicate with you.

Even if you do not register with WebMD, we collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site, special promotions and newsletters.

A. Cookies

We collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site and your use of the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers through the use of Cookies. Every computer that accesses a WebMD Web site is assigned a different Cookie by WebMD. The information collected by Cookies (i) helps us dynamically generate advertising and content on Web pages or in newsletters, (ii) allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our Web site and selected sponsors' and advertisers' sites, (iii) how many people open our emails, and (iv) for what purposes these actions are being taken. We may use Cookie information to deliver certain advertisements to your browser on our owned or operated Web sites based on areas of the Site that you have visited during the same session or to determine the popularity of certain content or advertisements. In connection with our sale of advertising we may allow third parties to place a cookie on your browser in order to enable advertisers to recognize your browser in order to deliver an advertisement based on non-personally identifiable information. Importantly, we do not allow these advertisers to collect any information based on your visits to WebMD. We may also acquire Non-Personal Information about our users that these third parties have access to and we may use that information for the purpose of content development and for marketing purposes. Cookies are also used to facilitate a user's log-in, as navigation aids and as session timers. Cookies used by WebMD and WebMD Health Manager are also used to restrict underage use of the tools. We also use cookies in order to enable us to conduct survey's for our own use and on behalf of our advertisers. These cookies are used to determine whether you have seen certain content or advertising so that we may request your opinions.

Most browser software can be set to reject all Cookies. Most browsers offer instructions on how to reset the browser to reject Cookies in the "Help" section of the toolbar. If you reject our Cookies, certain of the functions and conveniences of our Web site may not work properly but you do not have to accept our Cookies in order to productively use our site. Additionally WebMD may geographically target advertising based on your IP address. We use local shared objects, also known as Flash cookies, to enable you to use certain interactive tools on our site. Flash cookies are different from browser cookies because of the amount and type of data they collect, and how the data is stored. WebMD does not share information stored in flash cookies with third parties and the data in them is not used by or on behalf of WebMD for delivery of advertisements.

Cookie management tools provided by your browser will not remove Flash cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for Flash cookies, please visit the Macromedia Site.

B. Mobile Device Applications (Apps)

When you download and install our WebMD Mobile App onto your mobile device we assign a random number to your App installation. This number cannot be used to identify you personally, and we cannot identify you personally unless you choose to become a registered user of the App. We use this random number in a manner similar to our use of Cookies as described in this Privacy Policy. Unlike Cookies the random number is assigned to your installation of the App itself and not a browser, because the App does not work through your browser. Therefore the random number cannot be removed through settings. If you do not want us to use the random number for the purposes for which we use Cookies, please do not use the Mobile Device App and please use your mobile device browser to access our Web sites or our mobile optimized sites. We do not obtain any information about your mobile device, other than the brand, make and model and type of operating software your device uses.

Physical Location
WebMD obtains your consent (via an opt-in) before using information from pin-pointing technology like GPS or cell tower information. You can withdraw your consent (opt-out) for the use of "location" by WebMD at any time by changing your location services in the "Settings" function on your mobile device.

C. Web Beacons

We also may use Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your use of our Web site and the Web sites of selected sponsors and advertisers, and your use of special promotions or newsletters. The information collected by Web Beacons (i) allows us to statistically monitor how many people are using our website and selected sponsors' and advertisers' sites, (ii) how many people open our emails, and (iii) for what purposes these actions are being taken. Also we may use web beacons and Cookies to deliver advertisements on any of the Web sites owned or operated by WebMD based on areas of our Web sites that you have visited during the same session.

D. Third Parties Collecting Non-Personal Information on WebMD's Behalf

Third parties under contract with WebMD may use Cookies or Web Beacons to collect Non-Personal Information about your usage of WebMD's sites. These third parties may use this information, on our behalf, to help WebMD deliver our advertising on other sites on the Internet based on your browsing activity on our sites. Any browsing activity on our sites used to help deliver these ads would be categorized in terms of general health and wellness areas of interest, such as diet and nutrition, fitness and skin care, and not on a basis specific to any medical condition. WebMD may further tailor the advertising on these third party sites based on other Non-Personal Information such as your geographic location (zip code), gender and/or age range to the extent known by these third parties. These third parties have agreed not to use Non-Personal Information they collect from our sites except to deliver advertisements on our behalf. If your browser is set to reject cookies, the Non-Personal Information will not be sent to these third parties and will not be used to deliver ads on third party sites. Please read Part 3.A for more information on rejecting cookies.

We collect Personally Identifiable Information, like your name, email address, date of birth, and zip code, you provide to us when you register as a member of WebMD and/or when you update your member profile. We use the Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to respond to your questions, provide you the specific services you select, send you emails about Web site maintenance and updates, and inform you of significant changes to this Privacy Policy.

A. Newsletters & Emails to You

At registration and at various times as you use WebMD, you will be given the option of receiving recurring informational/promotional newsletters via email from WebMD and/or directly from third parties. These emails will not contain Personal Health Information. When you sign up for our email newsletters or at any time, you can choose to Opt-In to receiving additional promotional emails from WebMD or our Sponsors. In order to subscribe to WebMD newsletters via email, we need your contact information, like name and email address. You can unsubscribe from the newsletters by simply

• Following the directions included at the bottom of each email newsletter you receive from WebMD
• Editing the information you entered when you registered by going to: https://member.webmd.com/default.aspx?returl=
• Sign in to WebMD
• Select, "My Profile"
• Select "Update" under the newsletters option on the right hand side of the page
• Uncheck the newsletters you don't want to continue receiving. (If you want all newsletters to stop, then you must uncheck all of them)
• Check any additional newsletters you want to receive
• The unsubscribe process may take up to three (3) business days to complete.
• Press "Submit" at the bottom of the page to confirm your new choices
• An email will be sent to confirm the updates you make to your selection of newsletters

If you have difficulties with our unsubscribe or subscribe service, please Contact Us and let us know about your problem. WebMD Customer Care will manually unsubscribe you from that newsletter in two to three business days.

In some cases, when you click on a link or an advertisement on our site, in an e-mail or newsletter, your browser may be momentarily directed to the website of a third party which, acting on behalf of WebMD (see Disclosure to Third Party Contractor Web sites, below), notes or "counts" your response to the e-mail or newsletter before re-directing your browser to your selected destination; this re-direction process may not be apparent to you.

When you use the WebMD Health Community and click the Watch This Discussion link in any Health Community posting, WebMD will send you an email summary of each day's postings in that Community.

B. Emails You Send to WebMD

This Privacy Policy does not apply to content, business information, ideas, concepts or inventions that you send to WebMD by email. If you want to keep content or business information, ideas, concepts or inventions private or proprietary, do not send them in an email to WebMD. We try to answer every email within 48 business hours, but are not always able to do so.

C. Email a Friend

If you use our Email a Friend service to tell a friend about our site or newsletter, we will ask you for your name, your email address and your friend's email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site using your name and email address as the "from" email address. WebMD does not use your name, your email address or your friend's email information for any other purpose. We will only use the information you provide to send the email you request.

D. Community, Health Communities, Blogs and other Public Forums

WebMD features several community areas and other public forums where users with similar interests or medical conditions can share information and support one another or where users can post questions for experts to answer. We also offer online discussions moderated by medical or healthcare experts. Our communities are open to the public and should not be considered private.

Any information you shared in any online community area (including Personally Identifiable and Personal Health Information) like a chat room, Health Community, Ask Our Expert posting or online discussion is by design open to the public and is not private. You should think carefully before posting any Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information in any public forum. What you post can be seen, disclosed to or collected by third parties and may be used by others in ways we cannot control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes. As with any public forum on any site, the information you post may also show up in third-party search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN, Bing etc. If you mistakenly post personal information in our Community areas and would like it removed, you can send us an email to request that we remove it by using the Contact Us link on every page of our site. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information and if we can't, we will let you know and why not.

We use third parties like Blogger from Google to manage the WebMD blog(s) on our site. When you choose to reply to a post or create your own post on a WebMD blog, you will be given the option to create an account for Google Blogger, Google will share the information you post as necessary for us and Blogger to provide continued service and to allow you to post your blogs on both the Google Blogger site and the WebMD site. Google will share ownership of your information as necessary to continue to implement the blogs on our site and as described in the Google Blogger privacy policy. WebMD will use your information as described in this privacy policy.

E. Website Registration and Interactive Tools on WebMD

After you have registered as a member of WebMD, you may choose to use certain WebMD interactive content, tools and services that may ask you to voluntarily provide other types of information about yourself including Personal Health Information. Some of the tools (like certain quizzes or calculators) do not retain your Personal Health Information, while others (like Ovulation Calendar) store your Personal Health Information in accordance with the authorization you provide at the time you use the tool.

F. Children

We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. Neither WebMD nor any of its services are designed or intended to attract children under the age of 13. We do not collect Personally Identifiable Information from any person we actually know is under the age of 13. A parent or guardian, however, may use WebMD Health Manager to establish a personal health record and a WebMD Health Manager home page for a minor. The parent or guardian is solely responsible for providing supervision of the minor's use of WebMD Health Manager. The parent or guardian assumes full responsibility for ensuring that the registration information is kept secure and that the information submitted is accurate. The parent or guardian also assumes full responsibility for the interpretation and use of any information or suggestions provided through WebMD Health Manager for the minor.

G. Market Research

From time to time the WebMD market research department, or our operations contractors acting on our behalf, conducts online research surveys through email invitations, pop-up surveys and online focus groups. When participating in a survey, we may ask you to enter Personally Identifiable Information. WebMD may combine your Personally Identifiable Information you submit in a survey with information about you from other sources. The information from other sources may include financial, health or other identifiable information. This Personally Identifiable Information is used by WebMD for research purposes. Aggregate Information from the survey results may be reported to our clients. Personally Identifiable Information collected through market research will be used only by WebMD and our service providers and contractors and will not be given or sold to any other third party without your consent or as otherwise allowed by this Privacy Policy. For general market research surveys we will not knowingly accept survey responses from or conduct interviews with any person under the age of 13.

Some surveys may provide remuneration (payment of some kind) to participants such as a small cash fee for your time or an entry into a sweepstakes for a larger prize and may contain opt-in permission for additional email follow-up surveys. We will tell you when you agree to participate in a survey if it is a paid survey. When our market research surveys collect Personally Identifiable Information like name, email address or contain additional opt in permissions for follow up or re-contact, or if a survey offers to provide remuneration of any kind, we will not knowingly accept participants in these instances under the age of 18. Authorized Market Research surveys that appear on WebMD will always include a link to the WebMD Privacy Policy. WebMD is not responsible for unauthorized market research surveys that are conducted on third party sites. It is possible that when you click on certain banner advertisements on the WebMD site to visit an advertiser's site that you may receive invitations to participate in market research surveys from the advertiser or other third party site. These surveys are not subject to WebMD's Privacy Policy and are not related to WebMD. You should always read the privacy policy and or terms and conditions of use so you can understand how these third parties use your information and what rights you have regarding its use.

In addition to collecting survey responses from our members, Cookies may be used to authenticate respondents or to help you pick up where you left off in a survey. If you have Cookies disabled you may not be able to participate in some studies. Cookies may be used to connect survey data with WebMD site usage characteristics. In connection with surveys on our behalf and on behalf of our advertisers we may use cookies to determine whether you have seen certain content or advertising so that we may request your opinions.

WebMD Health Manager allows you a secure place to store your Personal Health Information and provides tools and services in order to better manage your health and the health of your family. WebMD Health Manager requires additional registration whether you access it through (i) WebMD, (ii) your employer's Web site or (iii) your healthcare sponsor's website.

Important Note: If you are an employee or health plan member who has enabled access to your health record at WebMD.com by registering at your employer's or health plan's website, the privacy policy applicable to your information at your employer's or health plan's website remains applicable to your personal health record at WebMD.com. If your employer or health plan account is no longer made available to you by your employer or health plan, you will continue to have access to your health information from your PHR at WebMD.com, using the same username and password. In this situation, the privacy policy that applies to your information will be the privacy policy at the WebMD.com site, www.webmd.com/phr. Except for employees or health plan members covered by their employer's or health plan's privacy policy described above, the following applies to your access to WebMD Health Manager through this site:

A. WebMD Health Manager Home Page

Personal Health Information that you enter into one of the WebMD Health Manager tools is used to provide you personalized and clinically relevant information on your personalized Health Manager home page and throughout the Health Manager product. WebMD Health Manager creates a personal home page specifically for you. You control and authorize who can gain access to this page.

B. Concept Unique Identifiers

WebMD Health Manager tailors the information you receive on your personal Health Manager home page to reflect your interests, concerns and personal health characteristics. We attach a concept unique identifier (CUI) to every piece of information that you provide us. For example, if you complete the HealthQuotient and indicate that you have diabetes, that single piece of information is tagged with a CUI that is specific to diabetes. Every user that indicates he or she has diabetes receives this CUI tag. Each time you view your personalized Health Manager pages, this CUI tag is matched to content from WebMD about diabetes, and if our automated algorithms determine that this is likely to be an important topic to you, it will appear on your personalized pages.

C. Aggregate Data

WebMD Health Manager may combine, in a non-identifiable format, the Personal Health Information you provide with information from other users to create Aggregate Data that may be disclosed to third parties. Aggregate data does not contain any information that could be used to contact or identify you. For example, WebMD Health Manager may use information gathered to create a composite profile of all the users of a particular third party site. These third party Web sites may use this information to understand community needs and to design appropriate programs and activities on their site. WebMD Health Manager will not disclose your Personal Health Information to any third party without your prior permission, except as otherwise permitted by this Privacy Policy.

D. Secure Message Center

WebMD Health Manager has the ability to use Personally Identifiable Information that you provide to send you personalized emails or secure electronic messages. During registration or at anytime, you have the option of choosing whether or not you wish to receive emails pertaining to your health interests, including news, announcements, reminders and opportunities. The WebMD Health Manager email service requires an "Opt-in" authorization from you.

Information that WebMD Health Manager deems related to your Personal Health Information will be delivered to you through the Secure Message Center on your personal health home page.

If you decide that you would prefer not to receive personalized email or secure electronic messages from the WebMD Health Manager tool, you may "Opt-out" of the service by clicking on the settings tab on your Health Manager home page and changing your email preference.

E. Interactive Tools on WebMD Health Manager

Interactive tools within the WebMD Health Manager, gather self-reported Personal Health Information. In addition, certain of these tools can store Personal Health Information coming from third party data interchange agreements between your employer, health plan, pharmacy benefits manager and other third parties that provide data interchange services. We maintain and limit the use of that information to the Opt-in permission you have provided at the time you use the tool.

WebMD does not knowingly engage in business with a company that uses Spyware. We do not provide Users with downloadable software that collects or uses any PII or PHI without full disclosure and Opt-in consent.

Sponsors or advertisers on WebMD may use their own Cookies, Web Beacons or other online tracking technologies in the banner advertisements served on WebMD and in emails, special promotions or newsletters we send you. Some advertisers use companies other than WebMD to serve their ads and to monitor users' responses to ads, and these companies ("Ad Servers") may also collect Non-Personal Information through the use of Cookies or Web Beacons on our Web site. In certain situations, information collection may be facilitated by momentarily directing your browser to the Web site of an Ad Server or other third party acting on behalf of the sponsor, partner, or advertiser before re-directing your browser to its selected destination (e.g., back to WebMD to show the ad, or to the advertiser's website); this re-direction process will not be apparent to you.

We do not control these third parties' use of cookies or Web Beacons, or how they manage the non-personal information they gather through them. However, we do require sponsors, advertisers and Ad Servers who collect cookie or web beacon information through our Web site to agree that they will not collect any Personally Identifiable Information from our site without your consent. They have promised us they will not link any non-personal cookie or web beacon information collected by them on our site to Personally Identifiable Information they or others collect in other ways or from other sites except as may be described in connection with a particular program. For example, in connection with "Ad links" furnished by Yahoo, non-personal information sent by your browser to Yahoo when you click on a sponsored link or submit a query may be used by Yahoo as described in its privacy policy. In addition, WebMD's Advertising Policy is posted on our Web site and will provide additional detail about our relationship with advertisers and the companies that serve ads. You should review the privacy policy of other sites you visit or link to from our site to understand how these other sites use cookies and how they use the information they collect through the use of cookies or web beacons on their own sites. Certain Ad Servers allow you to prevent them from collecting data through the use of cookies. In order to do so, you must Opt-out of such data collection with each individual site. Currently, you can Opt-out of Cookies for several Ad Servers by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative gateway Opt-out site. This website will also allow you to review the Ad Server's privacy policies. You can find additional information and resources about how to opt out of advertising and related cookies by visiting the World Privacy Forum's Site.

WebMD does not knowingly engage in business with any company that uses Spyware or Maleware. We do not provide users with downloadable software that collects or uses any PII or PHI without full disclosure and Opt-in consent.

Except as described in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, WebMD will not disclose any Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information it gathers from you on our website. We may only release Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information to third parties: (1) to comply with valid legal requirements such as a law, regulation, search warrant, subpoena or court order; or (2) in special cases, such as in response to a physical threat to you or others, to protect property or defend or assert legal rights. In the event that we are legally compelled to disclose your Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information to a third party, we will attempt to notify you unless doing so would violate the law or court order. In addition, we may disclose Personal Information as described below.

A. Disclosure to WebMD Operations and Maintenance Contractors

WebMD operations and maintenance contractors sometimes have limited access to your Personally Identifiable Information in the course of providing products or services to WebMD. These contractors include vendors and suppliers that provide us with technology, services, and/or content for the operation and maintenance of our Web site. Unless you have Opted-out of receiving emails and newsletters from WebMD, these contractors also may have access to your email address to send newsletters or special promotions to you on our behalf or to send emails to you for purposes such as conducting market research on our behalf. Access to your Personally Identifiable Information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary for the contractor to perform its limited function for WebMD. We also contractually require that our operations and maintenance contractors 1) protect the privacy of your Personally Identifiable Information consistent with this Privacy Policy, and 2) not use or disclose your Personally Identifiable Information for any purpose other than providing us with products and services as required by law.

Disclosure to Third Party Contractor Websites

Certain content and services offered to you through our website are served on Web sites hosted and operated by a company other than WebMD ("Third Party Contractor Web sites"). WebMD does not disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to these Third Party Contractor Web sites without your consent, but you should be aware that any information you disclose once you access these other Web sites is not subject to this Privacy Policy. WebMD does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these Third Party Contractor Web sites. You should review the privacy policy posted on the other Web site to understand how that Third Party Contractor Website collects and uses your Personally Identifiable Information. WebMD makes an effort to make it obvious to you when you leave our website and enter a Third Party Contractor Web site, either by requiring you to click on a link or by notifying you on the site before you visit the third party site. In addition, if you see a phrase such as "Powered by" or "in association with" followed by the name of a company other than WebMD, then you are on a Web site hosted by a company other than WebMD.

WebMD also provides links to sites provided by Third Party Contractor Websites that have business arrangements with WebMD to pay commissions based on sales of products or services generated through WebMD. An example of this would be "Ad links" from Yahoo on our Search pages.

Disclosure to or by Co-branded Channel Partners

WebMD is a contractor and provides co-branded content and services to Channel Partner Web sites hosted and operated by companies other than WebMD Channel Partner Websites. You can only access these co-branded content and services only through the Channel Partner Web site, and usually from the health section of these other Web sites. The co-branded WebMD pages that you may access through a Channel Partner Web site may have different registration processes and opportunities for information collection, and Personally Identifiable Information that you provide on these pages may be shared with the Channel Partners. WebMD does not share Personal Health Information with Channel Partner Web sites without your consent. Each of these co-branded WebMD Web sites has its own privacy policy posted on that site, which explains what information is disclosed by WebMD to the Channel Partner and vice versa. If you visit one of these co-branded WebMD sites, please read the privacy policy that is posted on that site, as well as the individual privacy policy of the Channel Partner Web site.

Disclosure to Linked Sites

In addition to the Third Party Contractor Web sites that you may access as described above, for your convenience there are links to Third Party Web sites operated by companies that are not affiliated with the WebMD Web site and that do not have contracts to provide content or services through the WebMD Web site. These links may be found in advertisements, referenced within content, or placed beside the names or logos of sponsors. WebMD does not disclose your Personal Information to these Third Party Websites without obtaining your consent. WebMD does not endorse and is not responsible for the privacy practices of these sites. If you choose to link to one of these Third Party Web sites, you should review the privacy policy posted on this other website to understand how that Third Party Web site collects and uses your Personally Identifiable Information.

E. Disclosure of Aggregate Information

WebMD may provide Aggregate Information to third parties. For example, we might inform third parties regarding the number of users of our website and the activities they conduct while on our site. We might also inform a pharmaceutical company (that may or may not be an advertiser on our site) that "30% of our users live east of the Mississippi" or that "25% of our users have tried alternative medicine." Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this Aggregate Information. We require parties with whom we share Aggregate Information to agree that they will not attempt to make this information personally identifiable, such as by combining it with other databases.

Here are some of the security procedures that WebMD uses to protect your privacy:

WebMD Health Manager provides additional protection for your Personal Health Information as follows:

Despite WebMD's efforts to protect your Personally Identifiable Information and Personal Health Information, there is always some risk that an unauthorized third party may find a way around our security systems or that transmissions of your information over the Internet may be intercepted.

A. Updating Your Personally Identifiable Information

WebMD tools that collect and store self-reported data allow you to correct, update or review information you have submitted by going back to the specific tool, logging-in and making the desired changes. WebMD may store user submitted data (PII and/or PHI) in an active database for a period of six (6) months. After six (6) months, user submitted data, including PII and/or PHI will be held in an active database or on an inactive back-up medium for a period of not less than six (6) years.

B. Removing your Personal Information

If you have a complaint or problem, please use our Customer Support Form (Contact Us.) Our customer service department will forward your complaint to the appropriate internal WebMD department for a response or resolution. We try to answer every email within 48 business hours, but may not always be able to do so. If you want to (1) delete your Personally Identifiable Information from our systems, (2) update the Personally Identifiable Information that you have provided to us, or (3) change your preferences with respect to marketing contacts or other activities, select the privacy option on our Contact Us form.

If you do not receive adequate resolution of a privacy related problem, you may write to WebMD's Privacy Office at:

WebMD, LLC
Attn: Office of Privacy
1201 Peachtree Street, NE
400 Colony Square, Suite 2100
Atlanta, GA 30361
Or call: 866-788-3097

We will notify you within 30 days of receipt of your letter to confirm your personal identifiers have been removed.

C. Updating Your Personal Health Information in WebMD Health Manager

Self-Reported Information - Please log-in to the WebMD Health Manager, access your "settings" tab, and the functions will show you how to correct, update or review your information. We remove Personal Health Information only at the request of the authorized user. In order to verify that it is the authorized user requesting removal of his/her Personal Health Information, we require you to send a signed statement, including your name, address, email address and birth date, to the address below authorizing WebMD Health Manager to remove your Personal Health Information from our active databases and other readily searchable media. Upon receiving your request, your personal health identifiers stored in active databases and other readily searchable media will be removed so that you cannot be identified or associated with any Personal Health Information you previously provided. Mail your requests to:

WebMD Health Manager
Attn: Record Removal
2701 NW Vaughn St., Ste. 700
Portland, Oregon 97210

We will notify you within 30 days of receipt of your letter to confirm your personal health identifiers have been removed.

Professionally Sourced Health Information - For Personal Health Information at WebMD Manager, your ability to correct, update or remove previously provided Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information only covers information within the reasonable control of WebMD Health Manager. We place certain restrictions on your ability to correct, update or remove professionally sourced health information that you have authorized to be entered into your WebMD Health Manager record. You may potentially authorize physicians, other health care providers, health plans, hospital systems, pharmacists or laboratories (or their respective Web sites) to provide data into your WebMD Health Manager record. While you can remove this professionally sourced information from your record for the purpose of controlling the viewing or sharing of that information, WebMD Health Manager will maintain an audit log, a notice of that transaction and a copy of the information deleted.

D. Limitations on Removing or Changing Information

Upon your request, we will delete your Personally Identifiable or Personal Health Information from our active databases and where feasible from our back-up media. You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to WebMD from our servers.

E. TRUSTe Watchdog

If you have contacted WebMD about a privacy related concern and you do not believe that the problem has been addressed, you may file a complaint with TRUSTe. You can also visit TRUSTe's Watchdog site at www.truste.org/pvr.php?page=complaint. Please bear in mind that the TRUSTe Watchdog service is for the WebMD.com or WebMD Health Manager site and only information collected by WebMD.com or WebMD Health Manager should be reported in a TRUSTe Watchdog complaint.

Personally Identifiable Information - We will inform you if a material change is made to the Privacy Policy, which means a change that expands the permissible uses or disclosures of Personally Identifiable Information allowed by the prior version of the Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the WebMD Web site will indicate acceptance of the changes. You may of course choose to Opt-out of continuing to use the WebMD Web site. Please exit the site immediately if you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy or any revised policy.

Personal Health Information - We will inform you if a material change in the Privacy Policy is made that involves the use of your Personal Health Information, and your express Opt-in authorization will be requested. If you choose to not accept the new privacy policy, then the current privacy policy conditions will remain in effect, so long as WebMD Health Manager continues to make the functionality available. WebMD reserves the right to discontinue or limit functionality in all its products including WebMD and WebMD Health Manager.

Non-Significant Changes - WebMD may make non-significant changes to the Privacy Policy that do not affect Personally Identifiable Information or Personal Health Information. For these instances, WebMD may not notify you of such non-significant changes.

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and other places appropriate throughout our site so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, and by means of a notice on our home page.

This sort of statistical information is called aggregate data because it reflects the habits and characteristics of a large group of anonymous people. Web sites may use aggregate data or share it with their business partners so that the information and services they provide best meet the needs of the users. Aggregate data also helps advertisers and sponsors on the Web know how effectively they are reaching and meeting the needs of their target audience.

browser: Short for web browser, a browser is a software application used to locate and display web (Internet) pages. The most popular browsers are AOL, FireFox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator. In addition, most modern browsers can present multimedia information, including sound and video, though they require plug-ins for some formats.

Ideally, the password should be something that nobody could guess. In practice, many people choose a password that is easy to remember, such as their name or their initials. This is one reason it is relatively easy to break into many computer systems.

If other pieces of information are linked to PII, they also become PII. For example, if you use a nickname to chat online and give out your real name while chatting, your nickname becomes PII when linked with other PII.

Usernames are also required to post a reply on Health Communities, use certain tools and online services like WebMD Health Manager.