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Privacy Policy

Who We Are

Founded in 1844, the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC) is the state’s oldest continuously operating cultural institution. In keeping with the founders’ commitment to preserve the remnants of Maryland’s past, MCHC remains the premier institution for state history. With over 350,000 objects and seven million books and documents, this institution now serves upward of 100,000 people through its museum, library, press, and educational programs.

Our website address is: https://www.mdhistory.org.

What Personal Data We Collect and Why We Collect It

When you place an order with us, we request your name, billing address, shipping address, credit card number and expiration date, and e-mail address. We consider this information to be private, and we keep this information on a secure server to protect it from outside parties with the exception of credit card information, which is processed by a third party service and not stored by the Maryland Center for History and Culture. We use the information only for the limited purposes of processing your orders, and administering our site, notifying you of products or special offers that may be of interest to you (only if you select to be included on our mailing list). We do not share our e-mail list or any customer information with any other organization. We like to keep you all to ourselves!

COMMENTS

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

MEDIA

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

CONTACT FORMS

If you send us a message via one of our contact forms your first name, last name, email address and questions/comments are included. This information is stored indefinitely by the Maryland Center for History and Culture and is available to you upon request.

COOKIES

If you visit our login page, we will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser.

When you log in, we will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select “Remember Me”, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed.

If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

EMBEDDED CONTENT FROM OTHER WEBSITES

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

ANALYTICS

We may also partner with selected third-party vendors such as Cloudfare, Google Analytics and others to allow tracking technologies and remarketing services on mdhs.org through the use of first party cookies and third-party cookies, to, among other things, analyze and track users’ use of mdhistory.org, determine the popularity of certain content and better understand online activity. By accessing mdhistory.org you consent to the collection and use of your information by these third-party vendors. You are encouraged to review their privacy policy and contact them directly for responses to your questions. We do not transfer personal information to these third-party vendors. However, if you do not want any information to be collected and used by tracking technologies, you can visit the third-party vendor or the Network Advertising Initiative Opt-Out Tool or Digital Advertising Alliance Opt-Out Tool.

You should be aware that purchasing a new computer, installing a new browser, upgrading an existing browser, or erasing or otherwise altering your browser’s cookies files may also clear certain opt-out cookies, plug-ins, or settings.

Who We Share Your Data With

We do not share our email list or any customer information with any other organization.

How Long We Retain Your Data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What Rights You Have Over Your Data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where We Send Your Data

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service. Financial transaction data is processed by Blackbaud, a third party provider.

Additional Information

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR DATA

Information is secured in transit and storage using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) technology and encryption. While we have taken reasonable steps to secure the personal information you provide to us, please be aware that despite our efforts, no security measures are perfect or impenetrable, and no method of data transmission can be guaranteed against any interception or other type of misuse. Any information disclosed online is vulnerable to interception and misuse by unauthorized parties. Therefore, we cannot guarantee complete security if you provide personal information.