Virginia Department of Social Services partners with a member of TRUSTe's Data Collection program, which ensures this privacy policy and practices have been reviewed for compliance with TRUSTe's program requirements, including transparency, accountability and choice regarding the collection and use of your information.
The TRUSTe Data Collection program covers the collection of information via third-party websites.
What information is collected?
We collect non-personally identifiable information.
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small text file stored on a user's computer for record-keeping purposes. We use persistent cookies to assist us with the collection and use of anonymous browsing data. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser's "help" file. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on a site. If you reject cookies, you may still navigate web sites, but your ability to use some areas of the sites may be limited.
What are pixels (web beacons/web bugs)?
We employ a technology called "pixels" (a.k.a. web beacons/web bugs) that helps us better manage the advertising content on our network of third-party sites. Pixels are either embedded as images on a page (in which case they are practically invisible), or as javascript. Pixels are similar to cookies, and are used to track users as they navigate around the web. Unlike cookies, which are stored on a user's computer hard drive, pixels are embedded invisibly on web pages. Javascript pixels are newer than image pixels, which use lightweight javascript to the same effect but are far faster. We do not tie the information gathered by image or javascript pixels to personally identifiable information.
In performing our advertising services, we collect non-personally identifiable consumer information in multiple ways, including:
- On our own web sites, on the web sites of publishers that call our pixels (or "beacons")
- When we serve online advertisements, and from third party providers.
This anonymous data includes, but is not limited to, information such as a web visitor's IP address, web pages which have been viewed by a web visitor, date and time, domain type, and responses by a web visitor to an advertisement delivered by us or a third party advertising technology vendor.
As the Internet evolves, we may use different types of technologies to collect these types of anonymous, non-personally identifiable information. The collection of this anonymous data allows us and our advertisers to better target advertising to user interests. The data also allows us provide improvements to our services, for example, improving the effectiveness of the advertisements delivered to users and limiting the number of times a person sees a given advertisement.