Privacy Policy of the COOL Web site:

Revised January 2014.

This is the web site of  the Church of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, a church in the Columbus Catholic Diocese.

Our postal address is
5225 Refugee Road
Columbus, OH 43232-5398

We can be reached via e-mail by clicking here to send us an e-mail message

We respect the privacy of visitors and our parish members. Therefore, we want everyone to know the following:

Our web server automatically collects some information about visitors to our web site when a request is made by a visitor for a web page. This includes the IP address and/or domain name of the visitor (the IP address is a number that is used by computers on the Internet to identify the computer of the visitor. This is so that data such as the web pages requested can be sent.)  We collect only the domain name, but not the e-mail address of visitors to our web pages unless they choose to provide it as noted below.  We aggregate information on what pages consumers access or visit, information volunteered by the visitor, such as survey information and/or site registrations and e-mail addresses of those who voluntarily register, subscribe to our newsletters, or use our contact forms.  We collect telephone numbers of those who complete our contact form in order to insure the church staff and pastor can properly respond to messages.

We also use IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our web site, and to gather broad demographic information about users in a particular geographic area.  We log the hostname of computers to our secure files which are available only to the webmaster and senior staff.  The information we collect is used to improve the content of our site, used to customize the content and/or layout of our pages for each individual visitor, and shared in summary form with church and diocese staff for purposes of understanding those who are interested in our parish and faith.  If illegal or impermissible activity is detected, the IP address will also be used to ban access to this site from that IP address.  When such information is provided to outside organizations, for example the number of visitors to a particular page at this site, it does not identify individuals. 

This information collected by this site does not however, contain anything that can identify individual visitors or users on a personal basis including the e-mail address unless you choose to provide it.  However, certain areas of our site, such as registered access, and some contact forms, require your valid e-mail address and telephone number for registration purposes in order to ensure a safe site for all visitors.  Your valid registration information is also required if you wish to post information to this site.  (This is done to limit spammers and for security purposes.)  This data is not used for any other purpose and is not disclosed to 3rd or outside parties. 

If visitors to our site harass other visitors, use inappropriate language, make threats of harm to another individual, attempt to enter secure areas of the site, attempt to post unacceptable material, or attempt to obtain private information, we may use IP addresses, domain names, or e-mail addresses in order to ban users from further access to our system. We do this to protect the privacy of everyone and security of our system.

We do not collect "cookies" or similar web related data except to save configuration information for users of our forums (bulletin board), photo and video galleries, and any page where user specific configuration is needed. We use cookies in these areas to store visitors preferences, customize Web page content based on visitors' browser type or other information that the visitor sends. We may also use cookies to keep track of the current state of your "session" or information for donation or volunteering purposes. Session cookies are discarded after your visit is complete and / or are logged out. In addition to the cookies that may be generated by this site, please also be aware of the following:  We may display third-party promotional information from outside companies to raise money for our activities. These companies may use information (this does not include your name, address, email address, or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide details about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please contact us at the above e-mail address or postal address.

We may publish various newsletters and maintain various mailing lists.  If you do not want to receive e-mail from us in the future, please let us know by following the unsubscribe information in our newsletters and other e-mail notices or contacting us at the above e-mail address.  You may be requested to provide your e-mail address so that we can locate it and delete it from our mailing list(s).  If you are a registered user, you may also set your "notification" preferences for the web site on your " My account " page accessible from the menu at the bottom of the home page. 

If you voluntarily supply us with your postal address, e-mail address, or telephone numbers on-line and you so consent, you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on parish activities and services of interest or upcoming events.  If you do not wish to receive such mailings or contact, please let us know by e-mailing us at the above address, or writing to us at the above address, and by setting the appropriate preferences on your account on this site as referenced above.

If you contact us to have any information removed from our files, please provide us with your exact name and full address or e-mail address.  We will be sure your name is removed from our lists.

We are a parish in the Columbus Catholic Diocese and follow the directives and policies of the diocese on matters of privacy and personal safety.  If you have questions on these policies please contact us or the diocesan offices.  We share summary information on our parish activities with the diocese.

We will not disclose any member's or visitor's personal data (such as street address or e-mail address) we may have to outside companies, third parties, or individuals and we use it only for internal purposes.  We do not distribute our mailing list to the public but we may share portions of it to other parish members for purposes directly related to our attempts to serve the needs of you, our visitor and members of the parish. Aggregate data, such as the distribution of ages of our site users or a summary of locations our site users may be used by ourselves or the diocese without prior notice.  However, any such use will not identify individuals.

From time to time, we may use visitor information for new, unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in this privacy notice.  You may always opt out of receiving any future mail from us or future use of this site. Visitors may prevent their information from being used for purposes other than those for which it was originally collected by e-mailing us at the above address, or writing us at the above address. 

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to a description of information that we maintain about them.  Upon request we offer visitors the ability to have inaccuracies corrected in contact information, financial information, or transaction information regarding themselves that we may have. Visitors can have this information corrected by sending us e-mail at the above address, or writing to us at the above address.  In order to complete your request we may ask for additional clarifying information in order to ensure we complete your request properly (and only for that purpose), e.g. if your name is common we may ask for an e-mail address in order to ensure we have the correct "Bill Williams"..

With respect to security: When we transfer and receive certain types of sensitive information such as financial information, we redirect visitors to a secure server and will notify visitors via their browser and notices on our site.  We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site.  No sensitive data is stored in a form or location accessible to the public.  We contract with third parties for provision of services such as web site hosting and as such we monitor their privacy and security activities but cannot be responsible for any failures on their part.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us at the above addresses or phone number.

This notice was revised on  January 12 ^th , 2014 and is effective as of that date.   We reserve the right to change this policy without notice to individual users or members.  Any revision will apply to all users thirty (30) days following the posted date.  Per the above procedures any user may opt out of future revisions within the thirty day period however doing so may prevent future use of our site.  Previous versions of this policy are archived and available upon request. This policy is a de-facto part of our site user "Terms and Conditions" and when you agree to that policy by use of this site you also agree to this policy except for any portion you opt out of according to the procedures stated above.