When you signed up as a member of this Forum you were asked to select a member name of your choosing. These names guarantee your anonymity. Look around. Not only are so many names non descriptive, many are quite creative and humorous.

In addition to your member name, you were asked to supply a password. That has no identifying properties.

Lastly you were asked to provide an e-mail address so that we could verify the registration through the procedure described above. That e-mail address is securely stored in our files. That's it guys. Those are the only 3 pieces of identification we require of you.

Let us stop for a moment to pose a question. We already pointed out that we don't share your information with anyone and we think we can easily prove it to you.
Has anyone here been bombarded with e-mails dealing with medications?? We know we can possibly get at least 20 spam mails a day dealing with unmentionable sites, gambling, weight loss, money making opportunities, etc., but we have never received an e-mail promoting Paxil or Prozac!! If your e-mail addresses were sold or in anyway harvested, we assure you they would be used. We have no doubt that each of you would have unsolicited e-mails in your inbox dealing with depression and medication and you don't!!

What is more essential is what we don't have in our files:

We don't know your address, your phone number or your social security number or any account numbers of any kind.

Since this is an open and public Forum, there is always the slight possibility that individuals or companies are combing this Forum for their own statistical purposes. We would have no knowledge of that and we truly have no way to stop them. However, even if that were the case, all they could do is tally information in mass to come up with patterns or general insights. You are not an identifiable person on this Forum. You could become a statistic of some analysis, but surely you can see that your real identity is always and automatically protected since it simply DOES NOT EXIST HERE on our Forums.

There is no Computer Tracking of Identifiable Information.

Our Web site does not track, collect or distribute personal information about individual visitors. We regularly compile aggregate statistics (Cookies) that show the number of visitors to our site, the requests we receive for particular information on our Web site, and the Internet Protocol (IP) number that those requests come from. These aggregated statistics may be used by DepressionForums.org to improve the Web site in an ongoing effort to provide better information and services to you.

Cookies


Depressionforums is dedicated to protecting the privacy of our visitors and to ensure that our information is accurate, complete, and up-to-date. To be useful we must gain and earn the trust and confidence of our members and visitors. Therefore, with the help of Administration and Members alike, we strive to maintain the highest possible level of integrity. Our principals are based on the best codes of practice and ethical standards. We invite suggestions on how we can do better.

We understand that health is a very personal subject and we want our Members and Visitors to be as comfortable as possible while visiting our website and using our services. This policy tells you, among other things, what information we gather from you, how we may use or disclose that information and our efforts to protect it. Please read this policy carefully, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding its contents

Types of Information Collected

In connection with your use of our site, we ask for and may collect a variety of information from and about you in different ways. For example, when you register to use our site, we ask for and store your user name, email address and other identifying contact data. Cookies were originally designed to help a website distinguish a user's browser as a previous visitor and thus save and remember any preferences that may have been set while the user was browsing the site. Currently, websites use cookies to enhance the user's visit; in general, cookies can securely store a user's ID and password, personalize home pages, or identify which parts of a site have been visited.

You may set your web browser to notify you of cookie placement requests or decline cookies completely. In addition, you can delete the files that contain cookies; those files are stored as part of your Internet browser, however, if you delete cookies that have been sent from our site, this will cause you to reenter data (e.g. login again).


ADVERTISING

Any use by you of any other subscriber's information, personal or otherwise, for any commercial purpose or to obtain direct financial gain (e.g. mass marketing) is prohibited. Any such use shall be deemed to be a violation of these Terms of Service. DepressionForums.org is to be used by you for your personal use only.

Advertising or Self Promotion:

We do not permit any form of commercial advertising in posts, avatars, or signatures using your avatar or signature to link to other websites, personal or otherwise for promotional messages that are advertising in nature.

Commercial uses of Depression Forums.org are strictly prohibited unless prior written consent from the Administration has been granted, which is highly unlikely.
You agree that you will not use Depression Forums.org for chain letters, junk mail, 'spamming,' solicitations (commercial or non-commercial) or bulk communications of any kind including but not limited to distribution lists to any person who has not given specific permission to be included in such a list.
You agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or by this Forum.
You also agree to stay 'on topic' in posts, do not cross post or duplicate messages to other areas of the forums, create long subject lines, post commercial advertising, or post any other type of SPAM on these boards.

DEPRESSIONFORUMS.ORG is a private, all volunteer message board.
We do NOT have any pop up advertisements what- so-ever - No pop under advertisements and nothing will follow you when you leave our site and we will continue to adhere to this policy.
We do not have anything to do with the Pharmacy Manufacturers and do not track you as in monitoring antidepressant usage and side effects such as other depression forums do.
DF has no direct funding from drug companies. However, DF does have bills to pay to cover the costs of our server and the general running of the site. In an ideal world, we would prefer to be sponsored entirely by member donations and/or subscriptions, but we cannot afford to run on subscriptions alone as we now have a dedicated server for you and plenty of expense.

To make up the shortfall, Depressionforums.org accepts ads from advertising agencies. These advertising agencies sell our ad space and pay DF directly. They make their money by dealing with the large pharma companies directly and selling ad space on many health sites, DF included.
If you look at the larger sites you will notice similar ads. If you do not wish to see the ads, you may take out a subscription for a nominal price.
We appreciate your understanding and wish you all the very best, as we know you do DF.
Your Help

DEPRESSIONFORUMS.ORG relies primarily on donations or subscriptions to maintain these forums. Any member who continues to post, send PMs and actively use this free service understands that they do so under Our Terms of Service

Sincerely,

The Depression Forums Administration