This section of the page explains how Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET) will handle information we learn about you from your visit to our web site. The information we receive depends upon what you do when visiting our site.
If you visit our site to read or download information, such as country information or information about one of our activities:
We collect and store only the following information about you: the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, aol.com, if you are connecting from an America Online account, or iowa.edu if you are connecting from the University of Iowa's domain); the date and time you access our site, the Internet address of the web site from which you linked directly to our site; and what information you view while you visit our web site.
We use the information we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, find out what information is the most viewed, and to help us make our web site more useful to visitors. This gathering and storing of information is separate from the activity described as monitoring in our Security Notice.
The information gathered is used for two purposes: site management and, in the case of suspected unauthorized activity, for law enforcement and possible criminal prosecution (see Security Notice).
If you identify yourself by sending us a comment using our contact page or an E-mail:
You also may decide to send us personally-identifying information, for example, in an electronic mail message asking a question or providing us with a comment or suggestion. We use personally-identifying information to respond to your comment or suggestion, and to count the number of people sending us comments. In certain instances, your comment or suggestion may be forwarded to other U.S. government agencies or departments if they are in the best position to respond to your message.
We want to be very clear: We will not obtain personally-identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us.
Cookies and other information stored on your computer
When you visit some websites, their webservers generate pieces of information known as "cookies". Some cookies collect personal information to recognize your computer in the future. This is not the case at fews.net, where we only use non-persistent cookies or "per-session cookies." These cookies do not collect personal information on users and they are erased as soon as you leave our website. Per-session cookies serve technical purposes like providing seamless navigation through fews.net. These cookies do not permanently record data and they are not stored on your computer's hard drive. Fews.net cookies are stored in memory and are only available during an active browser session. Again, once you close your browser, the cookie disappears.