Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Privacy

Protecting your privacy is very important to us. Our Web site links to other NIH sites, federal agency sites and occasionally to private organizations. Once you leave the primary NIAAA.NIH.gov site, you are subject to the privacy policy for the site(s) you are visiting. We do not collect any personally identifiable information (PII) about you during your visit to NIH Web sites unless you choose to provide it to us. We do, however, collect some data about your visit to our Web site to help us better understand how the public uses the site and how to make it more helpful. We collect information from visitors who read, browse, and/or download information from our Web site. NIAAA never collects information for commercial marketing or any purpose unrelated to the NIAAA mission and goals.

TYPES OF INFORMATION COLLECTED

When you visit the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Web site (niaaa.nih.gov), the following information is stored:

  • Domain from which you access the Internet
  • IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to a computer when surfing the Web)
  • Operating system and information about the type of browser used when visiting the site
  • Date and time of your visit
  • Pages you visited
  • Address of the Web site that connected you to the NIAAA.NIH.gov Web site (such as google.com or bing.com)

We use this information to measure the number of visitors to our site and its various sections and to help make our site more useful to visitors. Unless it is specifically stated otherwise, no additional information will be collected about you.

When inquiries are E-mailed to us, we store the question and the E-mail address information so that we can respond electronically. Unless otherwise required by statute, we do not identify publicly who sends questions or comments to our web site. We will not obtain information that will allow us to personally identify you when you visit our site, unless you chose to provide such information to us.

COOKIES

When you visit some Web sites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as cookies. The use of cookies on the NIAAA Web site fall into two categories, based on the length of time they remain active:

Session cookies are used for technical purposes, such as enabling better navigation through the site, facilitating the use of user accounts, and generating aggregated statistics about how the website is used. There are two types of session cookies:

  1. Single-session cookies last only as long as a web browser is open.  Once the browser is closed, the data files on your computer are deleted. Information collected from per-session cookies will not be disclosed to third parties.  For these technical purposes, per-session cookies are enabled by default.  Under the framework of OMB M-10-22, this qualifies as a Tier 1 use.
  2. Multi-session cookies last beyond a single session of browsing a website; this allows a website to recognize a computer or user for defined amount of time.

Persistent cookies. We use persistent cookies to enable Google Analytics to differentiate between new and returning niaaa.nih.gov visitors by analyzing the data collected through the session and persistent metrics cookies.  The third-party analytics provider does not receive personally identifiable information through these cookies and does not combine, match, or cross-reference niaaa.nih.gov information with any other information.  Please review the third-party analytics provider’s privacy policy for additional information.

The OMB Memo 10-22 Guidance defines our use of persistent cookies as "Usage Tier 2—Multi-session without Personally Identifiable Information (PII).”  The policy says, "This tier encompasses any use of multi-session Web measurement and customization technologies when no PII is collected."

NIAAA generally does not access or store the raw information collected through these cookies.  We do view aggregate statistical analyses prepared by our third-party analytics provider, but these analyses do not include any personally identifiable information. We do not sell, rent, exchange, or otherwise disclose this information to persons or organizations outside the NIH.

How to Opt Out or Disable Cookies: If you do not wish to have session or persistent cookies placed on your computer, you can disable them using your Web browser. If you opt out of cookies, you will still have access to all information and resources at niaaa.nih.gov. Instructions for disabling or opting out of cookies in the most popular browsers are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Please note that by following the instructions to opt-out of cookies, you may be disabling cookies from all sources, not just those from https://www.niaaa.nih.gov. You can also delete cookies stored in your browser at any time.

THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES AND APPLICATIONS

Third-Party Websites and Applications are Web-based technologies that are not exclusively operated or controlled by NIAAA, such as non-.gov hosted applications and those embedded on an NIAAA Web page that could cause personally identifiable information (PII) to become available or accessible to NIAAA, regardless of whether NIAAA solicits or collects it.

Twitter: NIAAA uses Twitter to send short messages (up to 140 characters) or 'Tweets' to share NIAAA News messages with visitors and respond to comments and inquiries sent via Twitter. While visitors may read the NIAAA News Twitter feeds without subscribing to them, visitors who want to subscribe to (or follow) NIAAA Twitter feeds must create a Twitter account at www.twitter.com. To create an account, you must provide some personal information, such as name, user name, password and email address. Visitors have the option to provide additional personal information including a short biography, location or a picture. Most information you provide for a Twitter account is available to the public, but you can modify how much of your information is visible by changing your privacy settings at the Twitter.com Web site. NIAAA staff members monitor the number of subscribers and respond to comments and queries via Twitter, but the staff never takes possession of the personal information belonging to Twitter followers. NIAAA does not collect, maintain, disclose or share any information about people who follow NIAAA News on Twitter. The Twitter privacy policy is available at: http://twitter.com/privacy.

GovDelivery Subscription Management: NIAAA uses GovDelivery to send e-newsletters, alerts and other messages to visitors who subscribe to them. To subscribe to an NIAAA product, you must provide an email address and indicate your subscription preferences, including the items you want to receive. The email subscriber lists are password protected by GovDelivery. Only the NIH managers who send newsletters, alerts or memos via GovDelivery and staff members who monitor the results of email initiatives have access to the subscriber lists. The GovDelivery privacy policy is available at: http://www.govdelivery.com/privacy.

Questions about NIH privacy policies should be sent to the NIAAA Privacy Act Officer through the NIAAA Web Master.

Back to Top