California Resident Privacy Notice

This PRIVACY NOTICE FOR CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS supplements the information contained in the Privacy Policy of Vitals Consumer Services, LLC and our related, affiliated and/or subsidiary companies (collectively, “we,” “us,” or “our”) and applies solely to our users who are residents of the State of California (“consumers” or “you”) in relation to your use of our products and services (collectively, the “Products and Services”), which are made available to you through www.medhelp.org (the “Website”)

We adopt this notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and other California privacy laws.  Any terms defined in our Privacy Policy or in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this notice.

Information we collect.

We have collected the following categories of information from consumers within the last twelve (12) months:

Certain information that we collect identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household (“personal information”).

Personal information does not include:

• Publicly available information from government records.
• De-identified or aggregated consumer information.
• Information included in categories D, F, G and K is collected and used in a de-identified and/or aggregated manner.
• Information excluded from the CCPA's scope, such as:
• health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data; or 
• personal information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

Categories of sources from which information is collected.

As described in our Privacy Policy, we may obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from you, such as when you register with us.
• Indirectly from you, such as information we may collect in the course of providing the Products and Services.
• Directly and indirectly from your activity on the Website as described below. 
• From third parties that interact with us in connection with providing the Products and Services.

Products and Services

We may obtain, collect, retain, store or otherwise maintain your personal information from the following sources:

• In the course of using our Products and Services, we may ask you to provide us with certain personal information that can be used to contact or identify you and administer your use and enjoyment of our Products and Services. For example, when provided, we collect personal information like your email address, date of birth and zip code when you register as a member of My Med Help or update your member profile (“Registration Information”).
• If you choose to use certain features, tools and services available in My Med Help to manage your health information, we will collect health information that you enter into those My Med Help features, tools and services. If you choose to use our Invite a Friend, Email This, or Share This service to tell a friend, family member or health care provider ("HCP") about our Website, we will ask you for your name, your email address and your friend’s, family member’s or HCP’s email address.
• If you decide to post information in Public Areas, your personal information may also contain sensitive personal information, including any confidential health information (if you choose to provide it) that you voluntarily provide.
• From time to time, Med Help may communicate with you through postal mail, email, fax, telephone, or other forms of electronic communications regarding your account, inquiries you may make to Med Help customer service, the Products and Services and new Products and Services. If you respond to these communications, your responses may also contain personal information.

You can decline to provide your personal information to us by not engaging in the activities described above, such as by not registering or creating an account on our Website or by not using the Products and Services. If you decline to submit personal information, we may not be able to or may choose not to provide to you some or all of our Products and Services. Accordingly, you can determine to a large extent what personal information you wish to provide to us.

Activity and Cookie Data

Please review our Privacy Policy for a description of collection and use of non-identifiable information, including information relating to your activity on our Website and use of social media features.

Use of personal information.

Your personal information included in each of categories A, B, D and E described above may be used for the following business purposes:

• providing the Products and Services, operating, improving, and personalizing the Products and Services, providing customer service, administering our business activities, customizing our advertising and marketing communications, making available Products and Services to our users or as otherwise described when we collect the information;
• providing you personalized and clinically relevant information on your personalized My Med Help page and throughout the Products and Services. My Med Help creates a personal home page specifically for your health information;
• communicating with you, your family member or your HCP, corresponding with you to respond to your comments or questions, sending you emails about our website;
• auditing, research and analysis in order to troubleshoot, maintain, protect and improve the Products and Services and the Website;
• ensuring the technical functioning of Med Help’s network and the Website, including creating and maintaining backups or other archival copies of persona information and other related data;
• developing and offering Products and Services, which may include use of your personal information by Med Help in connection with developing and offering to you Products and Services which may be supported by third-party advertising from manufacturers, retailers and/or other service providers within the healthcare industry (e.g., pharmaceutical and/or medical device manufacturers, suppliers, or retailers) and communicating about these Products and Services to You through postal mail, email, fax, telephone, text message, or other forms of electronic communications;
• to personalize your search experience on the Website;
• for any other purposes disclosed at the time the information is collected or to which you consent; and
• as otherwise specifically described in this Privacy Policy.

In addition, we may use personal information about you for other purposes that are disclosed to you at the time we collect the information and/or with your consent.

Sharing your personal information

Personal information disclosed for a business purpose

• Med Help staff and moderators sometimes have limited access to your personal information in the course of providing the Products and Services to you and other members, to troubleshoot problems or resolve complaints;
• We may disclose your registration information to certain third parties in connection with the various programs, tools and services that are provided through the Website;
• We may share your personal information with employees, contractors and agents of Med Help who need to know such information for performing their duties with respect to the purposes set forth in this section. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination, if they fail to meet these obligations;
• We may employ third parties to perform services on our behalf. Examples may include services to improve our Website, marketing, advertising, and promotional efforts and to facilitate transactions. These third parties will have access to your personal information only as necessary to perform their services, and they may not use your personal information for any other purpose;
• We may share some or all of your personal information with any of our parent companies, subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control with us.
• We may disclose your personal information to government authorities, and to other third parties when compelled to do so by government authorities, at our discretion, or otherwise as required by law, including but not limited to in response to court orders and subpoenas. We also may disclose your personal information when we have reason to believe that someone is or may be causing injury to or interference with our rights or property, other users of the Website, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities;
• We may use or disclose personal information if we believe in good faith that such use or disclosure is necessary to (a) help identify any person attempting to break into or damage our Products and Services, (b) to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding any illegal activities, (c) to comply with relevant laws, or legal or regulatory obligations, or (d) to protect or defend the rights or property of Med Help or its customers;
• We may partner with a contractor to provide co-branded or privately labeled content and services to channel partner websites hosted and operated by companies other than us. You can access these co-branded or privately labeled content and services only through the channel partner or private label partner website. The co-branded or privately labeled web pages that you may access through a channel partner or private label partner website may have different registration processes and opportunities for information collection, and personal information that you provide on these pages may be shared with the channel and private label partners.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have disclosed your personal information included in each of categories A, B, D and E for the business purposes described above.

We disclose your personal information for a business purpose to the following categories of third parties: (i) service providers, and (ii) third parties to whom you or your agents authorize us to disclose your personal information in connection with o Services.

Personal information “sold” to third parties

Your registration information may be provided to third party advertisers and retailers, and their affiliates, to offer goods and services that they believe you may be interested in.

We permit third-party advertising companies and networks to place paid advertisements that may be visible when you visit, use and/or access the Website. These companies and networks include, among others, third party ad servers, ad agencies, advertising networks, advertising technology vendors, and research firms. These third party ad servers and advertisers may use cookies, pixel trackers, or other internet technology to improve the effectiveness and targeting of advertisements to you on the Website and any other place where that third-party is serving advertisements. We do not have access to, nor control over, advertisers’ or ad service providers’ cookies or how they may be used or how they were collected. In many cases, this information could be used to show you ads based on your interests on other websites.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have made available your personal information included in category A, B and D to third parties for advertising services described herein.

We do not sell the personal information of consumers that we know are minors under 16 years of age without affirmative authorization as required under the CCPA.

Your rights

The CCPA provides California consumers with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

Access to specific information and data portability rights

You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

• the categories of personal information we collected about you.
• the categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
• our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
• the categories of third parties with whom we share that personal information.
• the specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
• if we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing:
• sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and
• disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. 

Deletion rights

You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your personal information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service providers to:

• complete the transaction for which we collected the personal information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you.
• detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities.
• debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.).
• engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information's deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research's achievement, if you previously provided informed consent.
• enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us.
• comply with a legal obligation.
• make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Right to opt out of the sale of your personal information

You have the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information subject to certain exclusions as described below. Once we receive your request, we will not sell your personal information, unless an exclusion applies. We may request that you authorize the sale of your personal information after 12 months following your opt-out. 

The CCPA excludes certain transfers of your personal information from what constitutes a sale thereof:

• As directed by you:
• When you direct us to intentionally disclose your personal information or use the Services to intentionally interact with us or a third party (provided that third party does not sell your personal information, unless that disclosure would be consistent with the CCPA).
• Opt-out signal:
• We may share an identifier for you if you have opted out of the sale of your personal information for the purposes of alerting third parties of your election.
• Service provider:
• We may share your personal information with a service provider that is necessary to perform a business purpose as described above if both of the following conditions are met:
• we provide notice of the sharing and your opt-out right as described herein.
• the service provider does not further collect, sell, or use the personal information of the consumer except as necessary to perform the business purpose.
• Change of control:
• We may transfer to a third party your personal information as an asset that is part of a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, or other transaction subject to certain requirements described in the CCPA.

We are unable to process opt-out requests across devices for advertising services described herein. For example, if you opt out on your browser, we are not able to honor that request if you are using one of our App due to our practices and the limitations described above. Please see below on how to opt out across devices.

Exercising access, data portability and deletion rights

To exercise the access, data portability and deletion rights described above, please submit a request to us by either:

• Calling us at (866) 967-1408.
• Clicking here.

By calling the toll-free number or using the above link, you will be asked to provide certain identifying information, such as name, email, residency and date of birth, which we will only use to process or verify your request. You will be asked to validate your request by clicking a validation link in an email that will be sent to the email address provided.

The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative.
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

You may be asked to provide further verifying documentation, such as proof of residency and identity.

Only you or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child. If you are making a request through an authorized agent acting on your behalf, such authorized agent must provide proof of written authorization to do so, and you must verify your identity directly with us, unless such authorized agent provides proof of a power of attorney pursuant to Probate Code sections 4000 to 4465.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with personal information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the personal information relates to you.  Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.  We will only use personal information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor's identity or authority to make the request.

Exercising your opt-out right.

You may exercise your opt-out right by visiting the our Website and clicking the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in the footer.

You have options and choices about the collection and use of information by third parties on our Platform:

For more information about these third-party ad networks and opting out of tracking, see: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

For more information about interest-based information tracking and opting out, see: http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

For information about disabling and controlling third-party cookies in your browser, see: http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=1

Additionally, most browser software can be set to reject all cookies, including third party cookies, however, if you choose to reject our cookies, your ability to access and use the Services will be limited. Typically the cookie settings are within the “options” or “preferences” menu in your browser. The links below provide information about cookie settings for some commonly used browsers:

• Internet Explorer
• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox

Response Timing and Format

We endeavor to respond to a verifiable consumer request within 45 days of its receipt.  If we require more time (up to 90 days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing.  Any disclosures we provide will cover a period of no less than 12 months preceding the receipt of a verifiable consumer request.  The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable.  For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your personal information that is readily useable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable consumer request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded.  If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will tell you why we made that decision and provide you with a cost estimate before completing your request.

Non-Discrimination

We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights. Unless permitted by the CCPA, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services.
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties.
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services.
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.

We may provide a different level of Services if the difference is reasonably related to value provided by your data.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to change or modify this privacy notice and any of our Services at any time and any changes will be effective upon being posted unless we advise otherwise. By continuing to use the Services after changes are made to this privacy notice, you agree to such changes.  We encourage you to periodically review this privacy notice for the latest information on our privacy practices.

Contact information

Please send us an email by using the Contact Us link at the bottom of every page of the WebMD Sites if you have any questions about this privacy notice or the personal information we maintain about you. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

You can also contact WebMD’s Privacy Office at:

WebMD LLC Attn: Office of Privacy
1201 Peachtree Street, NE
400 Colony Square, Suite 2100
Atlanta, GA 30361
Phone: (866) 967-1408

Effective Date: January 1, 2020