The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a Federal Government regulatory agency, provides these World Wide Web pages as a public service.
Providing the public with vital safety information over the Internet is an essential part of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission's (CPSC) effort to carry out its mission. Web page text, brochures, and posters presented on CPSC websites are public information. You may freely distribute, copy, or link to any of this information. However, the information may not be used in a way that states or implies CPSC endorsement. If you do distribute, copy or link to any of this information, please credit CPSC.
Images on this website may have been licensed for use by CPSC from a stock photography service or other copyright holder and the copyright holder may prohibit republication, retransmission, reproduction or other use of the images.
You may freely copy and distribute recall notices, including photographs of recalled items, without permission. Any other use of photographs found in recall notices may require permission from a copyright holder.
Questions about use of specific images or other materials may be submitted via our Contact Us form.
We do not attempt to identify individual users of the site or their usage habits. The exceptions to this are Section 15 reports submitted through the online reporting form, reports of harm (Reports) and business comments submitted through SaferProducts.gov, information provided voluntarily on contact forms, and authorized law enforcement investigations.
If you identify yourself by sending an e-mail to CPSC or filling out a web site form, any personal information provided is used only to respond to your message, and will not be disclosed outside of the agency without explicit permission. If you join one of the CPSC's e-mail subscription lists, your e-mail address will be used for that purpose only and will not be disclosed outside of the agency. If you submit a Report through SaferProducts.gov, via the CPSC Hotline, or by fax or postal mail, the Report will be processed and placed in the Database if it meets the minimum requirements for publication. Your name and contact information will never appear in the Database. You will be given the option of allowing the CPSC to provide your name and contact information to the manufacturer or private labeler that you identified in your Report. By law, we can provide this information to the manufacturer only if you give us written permission to do so.
When you visit some websites, their web servers generate pieces of information known as "cookies." Cookies are small bits of text that are either used for the duration of a session (session cookies) or saved on a visitor's hard drive in order to identify that user, or information about that user, the next time a user logs on to a website (persistent cookies). Visitors can accept cookies (generally their browser's default setting) or decline them through their browser settings.
The CPSC website uses a session cookie when users submit online forms, such as Section 15 reports, contact forms, e-mail subscription forms, and query forms. This Tier 1, single session cookie does not utilize any specific tracking or customization technology, but is intended to maintain session continuity during form submission, which assists in site navigation. The information collected from this cookie is a random, computer-generated number for use regarding session continuity and website troubleshooting and is captured in CPSC web logs, which are accessible only by CPSC Information Technology staff. The cookie does not contain any Personally Identifiable Information (PII), is not stored on your computer, and is deleted as soon as you close your browser. Web logs containing information collected from the cookie are maintained for three years.
In accordance with U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidelines (pdf), the CPSC website also uses a persistent cookie as part of a Web customer satisfaction survey we are conducting in collaboration with ForeSee Results. The sole purpose of this Tier 2 (multi-session, persistent, tracking) cookie, which ForeSee Results’ survey mechanism places by default on a visitor's hard drive, is to track whether a particular visitor to the CPSC website has previously taken or declined to participate in the survey so as not to be offered it again within a certain amount of time. No PII is saved in this cookie set by ForeSee Results, nor can this cookie be used to track visitor activities across other websites. You may opt out of this tracking technology by modifying your individual browser settings. Instructions for changing your settings are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Please note that by opting out, you will remain eligible to be randomly selected to complete the survey on future visits to our website.
CPSC uses Google Analytics, a web service by Google, Inc., to perform web measurement and analytics on its Pool Safely website. Google Analytics sets one multi-session, persistent, tracking cookie (classified by the OMB guidelines as Tier 2) and three single session cookies (classified by the OMB guidelines as Tier 1). The Tier 2 cookie expires up to two years after it is set to the user’s browser. The CPSC utilizes Google Analytics to track site traffic and provide aggregate reports of how the public interacts with the Pool Safely website, which ultimately enables better website design and user experience. No PII is saved in these Google Analytics cookies, nor can the cookies be used to track visitor activities across other websites. The measurement data that is collected is retained only for as long as is needed for proper analysis and optimization of the Pool Safely website and is accessible only to CPSC Information Technology staff and agency contractors. Since disabling this web measurement technology requires modifying individual browser settings, it is enabled by default. You may opt-out of this technology by modifying your individual browser settings. Instructions for changing your settings are located at http://www.usa.gov/optout_instructions.shtml. Google also provides a browser plug-in that will allow you to opt-out of Google Analytics measurements, which you can find at http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Please note that opting-out in no way affects your access to content within poolsafely.gov or how you see the website.
The CPSC’s Publicly Available Consumer Product Safety Information Database (Database) at SaferProducts.gov also utilizes cookies. The Public Portal of SaferProducts.gov utilizes single session, non-persistent cookies (classified by the OMB guidelines as Tier 1) to identify that (1) a registered user has logged on to the site and (2) an e-mail has been sent to a registered user who saves the report for the first time to avoid the issuance of duplicate e-mails when a report is continually saved. The Public Portal of SaferProducts.gov also utilizes a multi-session, persistent cookie (classified by the OMB guidelines as Tier 2) to continue to display search results and web pages based upon the search and font size settings selected by the user. The business portal of SaferProducts.gov utilizes a single session, non-persistent cookie (classified by the OMB guidelines as Tier 1) to identify which company a registered user would like to represent when the user is associated with more than one company. These technologies are enabled by default for the user’s convenience. No PII is saved in these cookies, nor can these cookies be used to track user activities across other websites. Search result preferences will be retained for 30 days from the last time the user utilized the search functionality and font size preferences will be retained for 30 days from the last time the user accessed the site.
Flickr® - CPSC maintains official Flickr account(s) (owned by Yahoo®) to share CPSC imagery with the public. Your use of Flickr, and the privacy of your PII, as provided by Flickr, can be found on their Yahoo! Privacy page (http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/flickr/details.html). As part of the Flickr service, anonymous usage statistics (not containing any PII) are made available to users to understand the amount of traffic and use of their uploaded content. CPSC may periodically review this usage data to help improve our content. CPSC will not receive any PII. In addition, CPSC provides embedded Flickr content within our own pages on the domains which we own and maintain. In these cases, Flickr may set a persistent cookie as a result of the embedded content. CPSC use of any possible information provided to us through this embedded content will be consistent with the previously stated usage. If there is any more specific use that falls outside of the stated one on this page, that information will be listed directly alongside the embedded content.
The CPSC’s websites utilize some third-party applications to maintain site security and enhance visitor accessibility of information contained on these sites. The CPSC has embedded LongTail Ad Solutions, Inc.’s (LongTail) JW Player on several CPSC sites, including CPSC.gov, SaferProducts.gov, and PoolSafely.gov, to play Adobe Flash and compatible videos. No PII will become available to the CPSC or LongTail as a result of this application. We recommend that you visit http://www.longtailvideo.com/privacy/ for additional information on LongTail’s privacy policy.
CPSC.gov, SaferProducts.gov, and PoolSafely.gov also utilize Clearspring Technologies, Inc.'s (Clearspring) AddThis. AddThis is a content sharing platform that allows visitors to the CPSC's websites to e-mail, print, or share across the Internet content from the sites. No PII will become available to the CPSC as a result of this application. Clearspring will have access to PII only if you explicitly provide it with this information, such as asking the company to send an e-mail on your behalf. In this instance, Clearspring will use the e-mail addresses to deliver that message. Clearspring, however, will not share this information with anyone, including the CPSC, and the information will be removed automatically from its site after a short period. We recommend that you visit http://www.addthis.com/privacy for additional information on Clearspring’s privacy policy.
The Public and Business Portals of SaferProducts.gov utilize Google Inc.’s (Google) reCAPTCHA service to prevent spam and other harmful computer programs. No PII will become available to the CPSC or Google as a result of this application. We recommend that you visit http://www.google.com/recaptcha/policy for additional information on Google’s privacy policy for reCAPTCHA.
In addition, the Public Portal of SaferProducts.gov utilizes Adobe Flash Player, which allows an individual to upload to the Database, on an optional basis, supporting documents associated with a Report, such as photographs or product packaging. If you upload a file that contains PII, that PII will become available to CPSC staff. Only authorized CPSC personnel will have access to this information and may utilize it in investigations and other legally-authorized agency activities. This PII will not be shared outside of the agency, unless you provide explicit consent to share your name and contact information to the manufacturer or private labeler that you identified in your Report. The CPSC’s secure Consumer Product Safety Risk Management System maintains this PII for an indefinite period of time.
In order to manage our sites, we collect some information for statistical purposes. This is standard information which is automatically collected and stored in log files; it does not identify a visitor personally. This government computer system uses software programs to analyze the data and furnish statistics. We use the statistics for such purposes as assessing what information is of most and least interest to users, improving technical design specifications, and identifying performance or problem areas. On PoolSafely.gov, we also use Google Analytics (see above) for web analytics.
Below is an example of the information written to log files based on a standard request for a World Wide Web document:
xxx.yyy.com, -, 5/8/99, 3:37:51, W3SVC, WEB, cpsc.gov, 2125, 332, 7485, 200, 0, "GET, /index.html, Mozilla/4.04 [en] (Win95; U), http://www.consumer.gov/index.html, 123.123.23.12-1633920240.29265185, -,
xxx.yyy.com (or 123.123.23.12)-- this is the host name (or IP address) associated with the requester (you as the visitor). In this case, (....com) the requester is coming from a commercial address. Depending on the requester’s method of network connection, the host name (or IP address) may or may not identify a specific computer. Connections via many Internet Service Providers assign different IP addresses for each session, so the host name identifies only the ISP. The host name (or IP address) will identify a specific computer if that computer has a fixed IP address.
5/8/99, 3:37:51 -- this is the date and time of the request.
W3SVC, WEB, cpsc.gov -- this is the name of the service, server computer name, and server host name (or IP address).
2125, 332, 7485 -- this is the processing time, bytes received, bytes sent.
200, 0 -- these are the status codes - 200 is OK - the request was filled, and 0, there were no Windows NT errors.
GET, /index.html -- GET is the operation performed, followed by the location of the requested file.
Mozilla/4.04 [en] (Win95; U) -- this identifies the type of browser software and operating system used to access the page, which may affect the design parameters to use in constructing the pages.
http://www.consumer.gov/index.html -- this indicates the last page the person viewed, which indicates from where people link to our Web pages and how they move around in our web site.
123.123.23.12-1633920240.29265185, - -- session ID if appliable
Requests for other types of documents use similar information. No other user-identifying information is collected.
The log files are destroyed after three years.
CPSC recognizes that an open Internet policy, with respect to the dissemination of information via its web site, is an ideal way to deliver safety information to the widest possible audience.
In accomplishing its safety mission, CPSC also recognizes the importance of the global marketplace and, therefore, does not preclude links from international sites.
Links IN -- Other Organizations' Links To CPSC's Web Site
CPSC welcomes links to any part of its site (www.cpsc.gov) from all who wish to do so. However, no link may present or display a product or activity in a way that states or implies CPSC endorsement.
Links OUT -- CPSC's Links To Other Organizations
CPSC's web site has links to other Federal government sites. CPSC will not consider requests to "out-link" to private, commercial or other non-Federal web sites.
From time to time, CPSC also may decide on its own, not based on any request, to out-link to a non-Federal web site. This would be a Commission decision, where such a link would clearly support the agency's mission of preventing deaths and injuries from consumer products, and where it is clearly determined that it would not in any way jeopardize the agency's independent, regulatory status. Such a link may be short or long-term, at the discretion of the Commission.
We will not collect personal information about any visitor to this site unless it is voluntarily given to us.
All materials on the site are presented by the CPSC for general informational purposes only. These materials do not, and are not intended to, constitute legal advice.
CPSC is responsible for ensuring the privacy and confidentiality of the information it collects on members of the public, business partners, and its own employees. These people have a right to expect CPSC will collect, maintain, use and disseminate identifiable personal information only as authorized by law and as necessary to carry out agency responsibilities.
Privacy Impact Assessments (PIAs) are performed on computer systems and applications in order to evaluate any risks these systems may pose to personally identifiable information.
The Privacy Act requires agencies to publish in the Federal Register notices of new or substantially altered systems of records, that is, systems from which personal information, confidential or not, is retrieved by personal name or identifier.
CPSC reviews each system of record notice biennially to ensure it accurately describes the system of records. All systems containing personally identifiable information are reviewed on an annual basis to ensure that holdings are accurate, relevant, timely and complete and necessary for the proper performance of a documented agency function.
To ensure the security of the site and to ensure that the service remains available to all users, this government security system employs software programs to monitor network traffic so we can identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage.
Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on this service are strictly prohibited. Such attempts may be punishable under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.
For any questions about this policy, please contact the CPSC Web Team at 301-504-6987 or webteam@cpsc.gov.