BrainTalk Communities - Official Disclaimer and Privacy Policy

General Disclaimer and Disclaimer for Interactive Programs

The BrainTalk Communities (BTC) web site is intended to provide general educational information and to help users arrange more easily for health care services

This site is not an attempt to practice medicine or provide specific medical advice and should not be used to make a diagnosis or to replace or overrule a qualified health care provider's judgement. Nor should users rely upon the BTC web site if they might need emergency medical treatment. We strongly encourage users to consult with a qualified health care professional for answers to personal questions. Use of programs on the BTC site does not establish a doctor-patient relationship.

You assume full responsibility for using the information on this site, and you understand and agree that BTC is not responsible or liable for any claim, loss, or damage resulting from its use by you or any user. While we try to keep the information on this site as accurate as possible, we disclaim any warranty concerning its accuracy, timeliness, and completeness, and any other warranty, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. BTC also does not warrant that access to the site will be error- or virus-free.

We provide access to other web sites for your convenience. BTC is not responsible for the availability, accuracy, or content of those external sites, nor does it endorse them.

Material on the BTC web site is protected by copyright law. Unless otherwise stated, users may print or download information from this site for personal, non-commercial use only, provided they identify the source of the material and include a statement that the materials are protected by copyright law. Reprinting or otherwise reproducing any document in whole or in part is prohibited, unless prior written consent is obtained from the copyright owner.

By choosing to use the BTC web site, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of this Disclaimer and our Privacy Policy (see below). We encourage you to read them. We reserve the right to modify these terms and policies and recommend that you periodically review them, because if you use this site you will be expected to comply with them.

• BTC offers interactive programs, such as bulletin boards and chat rooms. You should understand that any information you provide using these programs (including personal information) is totally voluntary, and will be widely accessible to the general public. It also may be electronically stored indefinitely, and may be used by BTC in the future (such as for educational purposes).

• BTC is offering these interactive programs for educational, patient care, and research purposes. We expect all users to use the programs lawfully and appropriately. BTC has no oblication to monitor the interactive exchanges on this site or the content or accuracy of such exchanges, and it does not endorse the views of any user. BTC reserves the right, however, to monitor system access and to remove, edit, or refuse to post information that is brought to its attention and that it determines in its sole discretion is objectionable or inappropriate for any reason. BTC shall have a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive license to use comments and postings submitted by users for research, educational, or patient care purposes. No compensation shall be payable for such use.

• If you wish to remove any information you have submitted to this site, we will make reasonable efforts to accomodate your request. If you have posted a message on the BrainTalk Communities bulletin board, you always have the ability to edit or remove everything you post yourself. If you have forgotten your BrainTalk Communities password, please click here. If you wish to remove a post from the MGH Neurology Forum Archives, please contact John Lester. If you have posted a message in any of the BrainChat Chatrooms, there is no need to "remove" any posts you make in these chatrooms, since chatroom messages are NOT saved or archived in any way (unless explicitly stated otherwise).

By choosing to use this BTC site, you acknowledge and agree to the terms of this disclaimer and the Privacy Policy (see below), which we encourage you to read.

Privacy Policy

We respect your privacy interests and so operate this site by these principles.

You may use the BTC web site without disclosing personally identifiable information. We want to be clear that we will not obtain such information about you unless you choose to submit it to us. For example, if you email your comments, that identifies your email address.

We have taken reasonable steps to ensure the integrity and confidentiality of personally identifiable information that you may provide. You should understand, however, that electronic transmissions via the internet are not necessarily secure from interception and so we cannot guarantee the security or confidentiality of such transmissions.

The web server of the BTC web site collects and saves the default information customarily logged by World Wide Web server software. Our logs contain the following information for each request: date and time, originating IP address and domain name (the unique address assigned to your internet service provider's computer that connects to the internet), object requested, and completion status of the request. We use these logs to help improve our service by evaluating the "traffic" to our site in terms of number of unique visitors, level of demand, most popular page requests, and types of errors.

These logs may be kept for an indefinite amount of time, used at any time and in any way necessary to prevent security breaches and to ensure the integrity of the data on our servers.

Please note that we use "cookies," which are small files stored on your computer's hard drive that are used to track personal information. We may use this information to save username and password data when you are accessing interactive parts of our websites, to allow your web browser to "remember" who you are and assist you by "logging on" without you having to type your username and password repeatedly.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations or other facially valid legal processes, we will not share any information we receive with any parties outside of BTC.