Privacy Policy

The Independent Institute knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting Independent.org, you are accepting the practices described herein.

What Personal Information Does The Independent Institute Gather?

• E-mail Communications: To help us keep in contact with our users, we send a number of email alerts to our subscribers as well as announcements of upcoming events, new articles, and publications. To subscribe, please enter your email address on the left side of this page under the “Stay Connected” box, click “Subscribe”, and then follow the instructions on the subsequent page. To unsubscribe, please click the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email you receive from us.
• Events: Certain events we hold require you to RSVP through the website if you wish to attend. We use the information that you provide to respond to your request, and to communicate with you about future events.
• If you contact us using the email webform, buy a product in the store, or make a donation, we may add your email address to be a recipient of The Lighthouse, our free weekly email newsletter, as well as various other email alerts. To opt out of these mailings, please click the “Update your Preferences” link at the bottom of any email message to customize which mailings you wish to receive, or unsubscribe completely by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link.
• The MyCovCost calculator, accessible at MyGovCost.org and through the MyGovCost mobile iPhone app asks for visitors’ age, income, and education and uses this information to calculate the visitor’s share of government spending. Submissions are recorded for aggregated statistical purposes, but not in a way that personally identifies any user.

Does The Independent Institute Share the Information It Receives with any Third Party?

• We do not share lists of email addresses with any outside organization.
• We occasionally share our postal mailing list of donors and Independent Review subscribers with other organizations in exchange for access to their mailing lists. The process is carefully monitored and saves us significant amounts of money compared to renting or buying lists. If you prefer that your information not be shared, please call us at (510) 632-1366, and we will exclude you from our list-sharing activities.

Cookies

• Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that are stored in your computer’s browser cache to enable our systems to recognize your browser. The shopping cart feature of the Store uses cookies to remember what items you have added to your cart. In addition the site used cookies to remember if you have seen or submitted the email subscribe popup window, so that the site knows not to display the window again.
• Our websites may also employ cookies or tracking pixels to help us customize your experience. Data from these cookies may be used to serve you internet advertising even when you leave our websites. You can set your own cookie use policies via your web browser options. No individually identifiable information is passed to outside advertising platforms.

How Secure Is Information About Me?

• We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input for sales and donations.
• When you make an online sale or donation, our gateway service processes the transaction and we never see the full credit card number. We do not store credit card numbers.

What Choices Do I Have?

• You can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or contact us.
• If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please click the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email message.
• The Options in most browsers will allow you to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, delete existing cookies, or disable cookies altogether.