EFFORTS — PO Box 20241
Kansas City, MO 64195–0241

Phone: (877) 2–ENDCOPD
The information on (or referenced by) the EFFORTS’ website and discussion lists is not intended or implied to be a substitute for the professional medical advice of your own healthcare providers.

We thank those who have shopped at Amazon and donated to EFFORTS through the Smile program. On February 20th 2023, Amazon discontinued the program.

If you would like to donate to EFFORTS, click the Paypal Donate button or mail a check to PO Box 20241 Kansas City, MO 64195–0241.

As a patient advocacy group, we rely on your contributions/donations to maintain the mail list group, this website, and help board members attend conferences and to increase our participation in research.



EFFORTS Privacy Policy 2023


EFFORTS takes your privacy seriously. This privacy policy describes what personal information we collect and how we use it. We will update this privacy policy from time–to–time as technology changes and/or as our own mission changes.


Routine Information Collection

All Web servers have access to basic information about their visitors. This information includes things such as IP addresses, referring page, browser type and version and date and time of visit. None of this information can be used to identify a visitor to this site.

EFFORTS does not record this information except when a request is made to join or leave one of our lists. In this case, the information is recorded in an email sent to our list manager; the email itself is deleted after we have processed your request.

When you send an email to our list group, it is automatically sent to all of our other members. Your email address is, of course, visible. If you desire a higher degree of anonymity, we recommend that you set up an email account to be used for EFFORTS only.


EFFORTS never sells, or rents any personal information gathered. Your name and email address is stored on the server of our list provider, Gaggle. Their Terms of Service and Privacy Statement can be found here.

Users have the option of disclosing additional information. For example, some users add pictures of themselves to the Members section of our site or to one of our photo contests. Some users voluntarily complete a survey with responses added to our Web site. Such activities are optional and are accessible by any third party.



Email Visibility

Only members of the list group are allowed to post to the list. Whenever you send an email to the list group, it is sent to all other members. If you wish to send something to an individual member, you should make sure that you send to that person alone (in other words, don’t just press Reply).

When you send an email to the list group, it is automatically archived on our list group. Any current member can browse or search through our archived emails.



Cookies and Web Beacons

A cookie is a small text file saved to your computer to track usage, preferences and so forth. Cookies are often used for your convenience though they are just as often used for the convenience of marketers. EFFORTS does not place any cookies on your computer.

Web beacons are small graphic files—often just one–pixel in size—that are used on some sites by third parties to track your usage statistics and practices, usually to tailor ads to be placed in front of you. EFFORTS does not use or allow Web beacons on our site.

NOTE: As the site is upgraded, a user log–in system for administrative personnel is being added. Logging in utilizes what is known as a “session cookie”. This cookie tracks certain information in the server memory and is automatically erased at log out time or after 20 minutes of inactivity.…whichever occurs first.



Advertising

EFFORTS does not use or allow any third party advertisements. We provide pages that list items in which you may be interested such as our books page and our oximeter page. These pages are provided as a convenience and EFFORTS is not compensated for any listing. We may occasionally announce on our main page the availability of an item and provide a link. Again, we are not compensated for those announcements, rather we provide them as a convenience to our users.

EFFORTS is occasionally solicited to place advertisements on our pages. All such solicitations are turned away.

EFFORTS does employ some third party “widgets” on our home page. These display links to content on other sites that may be of interest to you. Throughout our site, we have links to third–party content that we think might be of interest. We urge common sense discretion when visiting those sites and remind you that those sites will have their own privacy policies.



Controlling Your Privacy

All Web site users have the ability to control their level of privacy while using the World Wide Web. Things you can do and our recommendations:

    — DO use the latest version of your browser. Using old versions of browsers leaves you vulnerable to viruses and other malware. As of this writing, January 9, 2019, the most popular browsers (with latest version) are listed in descending order: Chrome 71.0, Firefox 58.0, Edge (Internet Explorer 11 can be launched from Edge), Safari 11, Opera 57.0.

    — DO leave cookies on. Most browsers allow you to disable cookie; if you are truly concerned about cookies on your computer, we recommend that you block them at the site level.

    — DO disable scripts in your browser. Most sites, including EFFORTS, use javascript to enhance your experience.

    — DO keep your anti–virus software up–to–date. You don’t have to pay for superior protection. There are a number of top–notch programs available that are free for personal use. In you have Windows, leave the Window Defender Antivirus in place. For other operating systems you may want to consider Avast Free for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows, or AVG Free for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS.

    — NEVER respond to a pop–up that urges you to download software to fix a computer infection. Some Web sites have been compromised and visiting them will cause such a pop–up to be displayed. At best, you will be charged for useless software. More often, clicking on the pop–up will actually infect your computer. We recommend that you close your browser. Do not attempt to close the pop–up by pressing Cancel or the “X”.

    — DO NOT click a link in an email unless you know exactly what the link is. Often, you can move your mouse pointer over the link and look in the lower left corner of your email program or Web browser to see where the link will bring you. Even better, manually type the address into a browser window.

    — DO use common sense in interacting with other EFFORTS users. If you get an email with oddly phrased English that urges you to visit a Web site to buy little blue pills, the email is probably a scam even if it seems to be coming from a legitimate EFFORTS subscriber.



Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact us at efforts.managers@gaggle.email.