Privacy Policy

Thank you for visiting our websites located at shalomsesame.org and shalomsesame.com, which we will refer to collectively below as the “Site.”  Through the Site, Sesame Workshop aims to extend our mission to use educational media to help children reach their highest potential. Sesame Workshop has been trusted by parents for decades to provide safe, entertaining and educational content. We take this trust seriously and recognize the importance of privacy concerns especially in the Internet environment. With this in mind, we have adopted this Privacy Policy for the Site.  “Sesame Workshop” also is referred to as “we,” “us” or “our” in this Privacy Policy.

Information Submitted by Users

In the areas of the Site where we collect “personally identifiable information” from users, we may explain within those areas the general purposes for collecting the information and will use the information to carry out such purposes (such as collecting your e-mail address if you request to receive a newsletter) and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.  “Personally identifiable information” includes, for example, an individual’s name, home address, e-mail address, telephone number, credit card information, or any other information that can be used to identify or contact an individual, whether online or offline.  

On all areas of the Site, we seek to collect personally identifiable information only from adults, not from children under 13. 

Our Services Providers (as defined below) may have access to your personally identifiable information as necessary to provide their services. They are required to maintain the privacy of all such information in their possession or control and can only use the information for the purpose that we have contracted them, for example processing donations or fulfilling thank you gifts. We do not sell or exchange e-mail addresses with third parties for their own purposes.

Please understand that if you choose to not receive promotional correspondence from us, we may still contact you in connection with your relationship, activities, transactions and communications with us. Also, a request to have us stop sharing your personally identifiable information with other entities for marketing purposes will only apply as of the date of your request, and we will not be responsible for any communications that you may receive from entities that received your personally identifiable information prior to such request. In these cases, please contact that entity directly.

You may be able to send information about our products and services to your friends and family members through our Site such as by clicking on a “Send to a Friend” or similar button. In some of these cases, you may provide the name and e-mail address of your friend or family member to us. Such information will be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable law.

Information Collected Automatically

We also collect information by various technical means, without your submitting any information, in order to help us understand the usage of the Site (such as the number of visitors to the Site and the most popular pages) and to enhance the user experience (such as whether you have a high or low bandwidth connection to the Internet). The information collected in this way generally is not personally identifiable information.

We also collect data automatically through “cookies,” “web beacons,” and “web logs” which are commonly used on the Internet. 

A “cookie” is a piece of information that a web site transfers to a user's computer for record-keeping purposes.  As a user moves from page to page at our Site, a cookie is used to tell us that it is the same user.  We also may use a cookie to keep track of your selections.  You may set your Internet browser to accept or not accept cookies and you may delete any cookies that you have received. However, should you decide to disable any cookies we place on your computer, you may not be able to use certain services or features on the Site. 

A “web beacon” is a one-pixel image (which may be visible or transparent), which may be embedded on a web page or e-mail message, and which may also provide us with information about usage of that page or e-mail message.

We also maintain web logs that record basic information about visitors to our Site such as the Internet Protocol (IP) address for their computers and the type of browser and operating system they use. An IP address is a number designated for your computer by your Internet service provider to provide access to the Internet. We may use your IP address to gather aggregate information on the use of the Site, but we will only be able to identify you individually if we link the IP address to you as a particular user. 

Additional Uses and Disclosures of Information

We may use third parties to help operate our Site and deliver our services (our “Services Providers”), and we may share the information we collect with them, to use on our behalf, in order to help us operate our Site and deliver our services. 

We may disclose and use the information we collect in connection with investigations of illegal or unauthorized activity or in response to requests by law enforcement agencies as well as government and other authorities.

We may disclose information to protect our rights or property or other users of the Site.

In the event that Sesame Workshop, or substantially all of its assets, is acquired by one or more third parties as a result of an acquisition, merger, sale, reorganization, consolidation or liquidation, information we collect on our Site may be one of the transferred assets. 

We may disclose aggregate statistics regarding user behavior as a measure of interest in, and use of, our Site and e-mails to third parties in the form of aggregate data, such as overall patterns or demographic reports that do not describe or identify any individual user.

Wireless E-mail Addresses

If the e-mail address you provide to us is a wireless e-mail address, you agree to receive messages at such address from Sesame Workshop (unless and until you have elected not to receive such messages). You understand that your wireless carrier’s standard rates apply to these messages, and that you may change your mind at any time and elect not to receive such messages. You represent that you are the owner or authorized user of the wireless device on which messages will be received, and that you are authorized to approve the applicable charges.  

Security

Sesame Workshop will endeavor to protect the security and integrity of sensitive information collected on the Site. However, due to the inherent nature of the Internet as an open global communications vehicle, we cannot guarantee that information, during transmission through the Internet or while stored on our system or otherwise in our care, will be safe from intrusion by others, such as hackers. 

In some areas of the Site, you may establish access through a username and a password. You are solely responsible for maintaining the strict confidentiality of your password. 

In the unlikely event that we believe that the security of your personally identifiable information in our possession or control may have been compromised, we may seek to notify you of that development. If a notification is appropriate, we would endeavor to do so as promptly as possible under the circumstances, and, to the extent we have your e-mail address, we may notify you by e-mail. You consent to our use of e-mail as a means of such notification. If you prefer for us to use another method to notify you in this situation, please e-mail us at dotorgmail@shalomsesame.org with the alternative contact information you wish to be used.

Links from the Site to Third Party Site

When you are on our Site, you may have the opportunity to visit, or link to, other sites, including other Sesame Workshop sites or sites operated by subsidiaries or affiliates of Sesame Workshop or by unaffiliated third parties. When you link to such third party sites, you become subject to their terms of use and privacy policies rather than ours. You should review these third party sites’ privacy policies regarding any personally identifiable information that they may collect about you at their sites. Sesame Workshop does not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of third party sites and your use of such sites is at your own risk.

The Sesame Street Store is operated by a third party — Resolution, Inc. — a licensee of ours. Resolution, Inc. has entered into an agreement with us to operate the Sesame Street Store site and to sell and ship products related to Sesame Workshop’s educational and entertainment programs.  The Sesame Street Store site is a different site than our Site, and Resolution, Inc. has adopted a separate and distinct privacy policy for the Sesame Street Store site.  Any personally identifiable information you provide to the Sesame Street Store site is subject to the privacy policy of the Sesame Street Store site. In the event that, pursuant to the Sesame Street Store site privacy policy, your information is shared with us, we will treat such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Children’s Areas of the Shalomsesame.com Site

Sesame Workshop does not collect personally identifiable information from users who we know are under 13 on the Site. However, there are some areas of our Site that may be attractive to children even though they are intended for parents, such as our newsletter subscriptions and “Send to a Friend” features. Therefore, we take certain precautions to protect the privacy of our child users. 

Sesame Workshop will not condition a child’s participation in a game, offering of a prize, or any other activity or service on or available through the Children’s Areas on the disclosure of more personally identifiable information than is reasonable necessary to participate in an activity. 

Any parent of a child under 13 who has provided personally identifiable information to Sesame Workshop may request a description of the personally identifiable information that has been collected from or about that child and either limit or restrict any further maintenance or use of such information from that child and/or direct us to delete it. Also, a parent may decline to allow any future collection of personally identifiable information from that child. Such requests can be made by contacting us at dotorgmail@shalomsesame.org. We will take reasonable measures to verify that the requestor is, in fact, the parent or guardian of the child in question before providing a child’s personally identifiable information.

The statements in this Privacy Policy generally about our collection and use of personally identifiable information also apply to our treatment of the personally identifiable information we may collect on or through the Children’s Areas.

Changes to Privacy Policy

 

Whenever this Privacy Policy for our Site changes, we will post the changes to the Site, and such changes will be effective immediately upon posting. If you do not agree to the changes, please do not continue to use the Site.  Under certain circumstances, we may also elect to notify you of changes or updates to our Privacy Policy by additional means, such as posting a notice on the front page of our Site or sending you an e-mail if we have your e-mail address.

Sesame Workshop

The Site are operated by Sesame Workshop, located at One Lincoln Plaza, New York, New York, 10023, USA, 212-595-3456, dotorgmail@shalomsesame.org.

Effective date: August 4, 2008.