PRIVACY POLICY:
We protect children’s privacy:
At Green Allowance, we understand your concern. The Internet, as a widespread and often readily available resource, presents a host of possibilities and challenges for young users. We are extremely sensitive to family and teacher concerns about their children’s personal information and safety. We’re also parents, and we’ve designed the Green Allowance web site to comply fully with COPPA, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. The following is information about what information we collect, why we collect it, how we use it, who has access to it, and what parents’ rights are with regard to the collection, storage and use of their children’s personal information.
A parent or legal guardian must authorize the collection of personally identifiable information from an under-13 user.
Information you or your child provides to us:
In order to interact with the Green Allowance website, a user must register. During that process, the user is asked to create a “screen name”. The registrant is reminded to not use his or her real name. Why? Green Allowance utilizes screen names rather than actual names to protect the privacy of users.
We ask users to provide their birth date. Why? Birthdates help us identify under-13 users so that Green Allowance can comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) rules governing parental consent for them. For users in the “13 to 17” age group to which COPPA does not apply, we ask users to provide a parent’s email address for parental notification.
We ask users to provide their email address. Why? Every time a Green Allowance scorecard is generated, which for most users occurs about once per month, an email is sent to the user to notify him or her that the scorecard is available at the web site.
In addition, users or parents of users are asked to identify the utility that provides their service. If the utility company of the user is a sponsor of Green Allowance, the parent is asked to provide their utility account number and meter number. If the parent does not provide it, the child is asked to do so with the help of a parent. Though not required by Green Allowance, a user will also be asked for his/her home zip code and for them to select a K-12 school if he or she wishes to join a school team. No other personally identifiable information is requested.
How we use the information you and your child provide:
Green Allowance enlists as sponsors electrical utilities that promote conservation among their residential customers.
When users provide the Account information to Green Allowance, the actual consumption data are provided to us by your utility. If utility account information is provided to Green Allowance, it will only be used to generate reports available on the Green Allowance web site for you and your child. The savings on these reports are based on actual rather than estimated savings. Of course your utility also has access to this information.
Some utilities that partner with Green Allowance may offer recognition and/or prizes based on conservation performance or some other criterion. Performance data may therefore be used by a utility to identify the utility account owner as a winner of any such contests. Green Allowance will never sell or share this information with anyone. Green Allowance shall not use this information for any external purposes.
Parental notification:
Registration on the Green Allowance Website requires under-13 users to provide a parent’s valid email address.
Before under-13 users will be permitted to complete registration with Green Allowance, we require consent from a parent. In order to request consent, we ask the registrant to create a screen name and provide the email address of a parent (or legal guardian).
With this information, we will email the parent of the under-13 child that their child wishes to register at Green Allowance, and the email requests consent for their child’s participation and to send the parent communications about our privacy practices and about their child’s progress through periodic Scorecards. A parent may prohibit or discontinue scorecards emailed to the child. However, the scorecards will still be available online when the child logs in.
Green Allowance also allows the parent to log in to their child’s account and delete it. In doing so, the information is permanently deleted from Green Allowance’s records.
Green Allowance may also request an email address when a user submits a query through the “Contact Us” portion of the website so that we may respond to an inquiry. We will collect the email address for the sole purpose of responding directly to a specific inquiry.
Green Allowance will make provision for additional consent if there are “material changes” in a future release.
Parent’s Rights:
Parents’ agreement to the collection and use of their child’s information as described in this Privacy Policy do not include consenting to the disclosure of the information of third parties, except, when authorized and as noted, with their utility company.
Parents also have the right to review their child’s personal information, delete it, and refuse to allow any further collection or use of the child’s information.
Instructions on how to do so follow here:
How to Delete Your Child’s Registration:
Parents can delete the account for an under-13 child’s account at any time. If you don’t have your child’s screen name and password, simply click Log In and then choose “Forgot your screen name and password?” The screen name and password will be sent to your child’s and your email address. You can then log in to your child’s account, go to My Membership and click on “delete this account.” Your child, as well as any user of any age, can also delete his or her account the same way.
To End Emailing of Scorecards:
Parents can end the emailing of scorecards to an under-13 user or to themselves – just log into your child’s account, go to My Membership, and uncheck the “send email reports” box. To log in, you will need your child’s screen name and password. If you don’t have the screen name and password, please see the instructions under How to Delete Your Child’s Registration, above.
To contact us with any questions or concerns about our Privacy Notice,
write to us at support@greenallowance.com
call us at 1-646-873-7587
or send a letter to
Green Allowance LLC
Planetarium Station
P.O. Box 360
New York, NY 10024-0360
If you are a utility and would like your customers to participate, or for any other business-related questions, please email us at talk2people@greenallowance.com
If you have questions about how the site works, please look first at these sections:
