FRAMES & NBII Disclaimer & Privacy Statements

The following statements and disclaimers apply to all Web pages managed by the Fire Research And Management Exchange System (FRAMES) and / or their partner, the National Biological Information Infrastructure (NBII) unless otherwise noted. FRAMES and NBII are working together to demonstrate the value of connecting tools, information, and people for the wildland fire community. NBII hosts the FRAMES website and provides additional support. An outline of the working relationship between FRAMES and NBII can be found in: "Building a Partnership to Web Deliver and Manage Wildland Fire Data, Tools, and Information."

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Definitions

FRAMES: The Fire Research And Management Exchange System is a project administered through the College of Natural Resources at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho.

NBII: The National Biological Information Infrastructure is a program in the Biological Resources Division (BRD) of the U.S. Geological Survey. 

Services: Include but are not limited to web, mail, and FTP services operating within the "www.frames.gov" domain.

Content: Is any and all data made available through the use of Services.

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Links to non-FRAMES and NBII Sites

Our Services contain links to other sites on the Internet that are owned and operated by third parties. We are not responsible for the operation of or content located on or through any such site. We are providing these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply our endorsement of the site.

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Non-endorsement of Commercial and other non-FRAMES and NBII Products and Services

Hypertext links and other references to non-FRAMES and NBII products and services are provided for information only and do not constitute endorsement or warranty, expressed or implied, by FRAMES and NBII, their partners or sponsoring agencies, the U.S. Government, or the University of Idaho, as to their suitability, content, usefulness, functioning, completeness, or accuracy.

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FRAMES and NBII Public-Domain Software

Links are provided to public-domain software that is (1) developed by third parties or (2) developed by or for FRAMES and NBII. FRAMES and NBII assures no warranty, expressed or implied, as to the accuracy and functioning of software, nor shall the fact of distribution constitute any such warranty, and no responsibility is assumed by either FRAMES or NBII therewith.

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Content Accuracy, Completeness, and Usability of FRAMES and NBII Data and Information

We make every effort to provide and maintain accurate, complete, usable, and timely information on our Web pages. However, some FRAMES and NBII data and information accessed through these pages may, of necessity, be preliminary in nature and presented prior to final review. These data and information are provided with the understanding that they are not guaranteed to be correct or complete. Users are cautioned to consider carefully the provisional nature of these data and information before using them for decisions that concern personal or public safety or the conduct of business that involves substantial monetary or operational consequences. Conclusions drawn from, or actions undertaken on the basis of, such data and information are the sole responsibility of the user.

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Copyright

FRAMES and NBII-authored or produced data and information are in the public domain. While the content of many FRAMES and NBII Web pages are in the public domain, some pages contain material that is copyrighted by others and used by FRAMES and NBII with permission. You may need to obtain permission from the copyright owner for other uses. Furthermore, some non-FRAMES and NBII data, products, and information linked, or referred to, from this site may be protected under U.S. and foreign copyright laws. You may need to obtain permission from the copyright owner to acquire, use, reproduce, or distribute these materials. It is the sole responsibility of you, the user of this site, to carefully examine the content of FRAMES and NBII pages and all linked pages for copyright restrictions and to secure all necessary permissions. While the data and information produced are in the public domain, the design of pages at the http://www.frames.gov is the sole property of the University of Idaho. All rights are reserved.

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Liability

Neither the University of Idaho, FRAMES partners or sponsoring agencies, or the U.S. Government nor any participating agency thereof, nor any of the employees, contractors, or subcontractors who work on the FRAMES project, make any warranty, express or implied, nor assume any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, nor represent that its use would not infringe on privately owned rights.

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Privacy

We are committed to protecting your privacy. The following describes our policy on privacy.

How we handle the information we gather when you visit our Website:

Web server activity logs

Like most Web servers on the Internet, our servers collect and store all of the information that your Web browser sends when it requests a Web page, including:

• - the name, domain, and numerical internet address of the "host" computer (typically a computer belonging to your Internet Service Provider and not your personal computer) from which you access the Internet.
• - the date and time you accessed our site;
• - the Internet address of the Web page that you came from
• - the page you requested from our site and the number of characters sent to your computer; and
• - the information your Web browser software sends as its so-called "User Agent," which typically identifies the browser software and may also indicate the operating system and type of CPU used in your personal computer.

It is impossible to determine the actual identity of an individual user from this information.

The logs are periodically summarized and analyzed in order to study site usage over time and to perform other studies to help us improve the site's organization, performance, and usefulness.

Electronic mail

When you send us personal identifying information via e-mail (that is, in a message containing a question or comment, or by filling out a form that e-mails us this information), we use it to respond to your requests. We may forward your e-mail to other FRAMES / NBII employees, contractors, or subcontractors who work on the FRAMES project, partners or sponsoring agency personnel who are better able to answer your questions. We do not retain or distribute lists of e-mail addresses to any parties outside of the FRAMES / NBII except as necessary to conduct official business. In no event do we distribute lists of e-mail addresses to private or other non-partnering entities.

File transfer protocol (FTP)

FRAMES sites using the file transfer protocol may also store your e-mail address if your Web browser is configured to provide it. By default most Web browser software does not send your e-mail address; this option is configured through your browser preferences. In Netscape Navigator, for example, this option must be set by you through the Advanced preferences category by the item labeled, "Send email address as anonymous FTP password."

Online surveys

When you voluntarily provide us with personal information as part of an online survey, we use it to perform various quantitative and qualitative analyses to improve customer service and satisfaction. We may forward the information collected to other FRAMES / NBII employees, contractors, or subcontractors to perform the actual analysis. You are under no obligation to participate in such surveys. Non-participation will not inhibit your use of the Web site in any way. If you provided the information to us in error, you may request its removal at any time.

Marketing information

We may collect information from you, with your permission, that will allow us to provide customer services, such as promotional materials and product availability notices. We may forward the information collected to other FRAMES / NBII employees, contractors, or subcontractors, partners or sponsoring agency personnel to provide specific marketing services. We will remove such information at your request.

Collection and release of gathered information

We want to make it clear that we will not obtain personal identifying information about you when you visit our Web site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Except in the course of officially authorized law enforcement investigations, or in the event of a suspected attempt to deliberately circumvent our system's security with the intent to gain unauthorized access or to do physical damage (for example, an attack by hackers), we do not attempt to identify individual users or share any information we receive with any parties outside of the FRAMES / NBII. In the latter case, collected information associated with a suspected intruder might be shared with an incident response service.

Retention of collected information

Cookies - Some applications may save a "cookie" on your browser to provide a temporary history of actions taken. We do not retain any record of "cookies" beyond what is necessary for running the application.

Web server activity logs - Monthly extracts of the log files are archived and stored off-line at our discretion for an indefinite period of time. Some statistical summaries derived from these data may be retained online or off-line at our discretion for an indefinite period of time.

E-mail - Information collected via e-mail will be retained at our discretion in a directly readable form for as long as necessary to complete our response. The e-mail may be retained in an archival form as required by Federal laws and regulations governing the retention of historical records of government agencies. For more information, please refer to the National Archives and Records Administration's Records Management Program.

Online surveys - Information collected via online surveys may be maintained at our discretion for an indefinite period of time.

Marketing information - Such information may be maintained at our discretion for an indefinite period of time.