Privacy Policy

ActivHealth International, Inc. (aka "ActivHealth and/or The PHD Network") is committed to bringing you health information through its web site tools and Personal Health Development program “The PHD Network” (the "Network") that is both tailored to your individual needs and, at the same time, to protecting your privacy. The following is a summary of the various ways we treat the information you provide us while using The PHD Network.

The Network collects personally identifying information for use in the delivery of its’ personalized content, programs and reports. Each new user is required to acknowledge and provide consent as to the use of a users’ private information. We do not share such information with any outside party without the explicit consent of the user, so there's no need to send us an "opt out" message to prevent your name from appearing on a million mailing lists.

During enrollment, you will be providing us with information that will reveal your personal identity in conjunction with the Personal Health Assessment that is used to establish your personal wellness program on the Network. That personal information is maintained on The PHD Network server and not available to other entities without your express permission.

Sometimes, in the course of viewing a topic on the PHD Network, you will provide us with data that doesn't reveal your personal identity -- height, weight, that sort of thing. We use this sort of information to determine what's appropriate to show you, but we don't connect it to any name, address, or other identifying information. This way, we can give you customized information while viewing a program without compromising your privacy.

In a few cases -- if you email a question or some feedback to us, for example -- we may request your name, email address or other information so that we can email you with a personal reply. If you choose to supply this information we will use it only for the specific purpose for which you supply it -- unless we tell you otherwise at the time of collection, in which case you'll have an option to forbid other uses by us.

In other cases, we may require certain personal information, such as an email address. Again, we will use such information only for the specific purpose for which you supply it -- unless we tell you otherwise at the time of collection, in which case you'll have an option to forbid other uses by us.

We will never share any of your personally identifying data with any other party without your explicit permission, nor use it for unapproved commercial purposes.

A few special cases are worth noting:

From time to time we may run competitions or request material we can publish; to participate, you may have to supply us with your identity, and perhaps agree to have it publicly associated with your submission. The use may vary from case to case, and will be noted clearly on the relevant pages. Your participation will always be voluntary and knowing.
We may offer to send you information or updates from ActivHealth via email or otherwise; obviously, signing up will put you on a specific mailing list. We will not put you on any other mailing lists, from us or anyone else, without your permission.
As a part of our agreement with Duke University Medical Center, Duke will have access to certain non-personally identifying aggregate data in our database for the purposes of conducting scientific research. In the course of that activity, Duke may have access to certain demographic and health data about participants. However, Duke will not be given any personally identifying information about individual participants without the express permission of each participant, unless a participant who might be involved in a research study, has agreed in advance to participate in a study and granted permission for Duke to view the personal identifying health information.
You may have read about "cookies," nuggets of information that are placed by a Web site in a storage place on your own computer. The PHD Network reserves the right to use cookies to:
- Control the display of images, pictures, etc., to improve repeat usage and web page loading times to track usage patterns within the site.
Our cookies do not contain any personally identifying information, such as your name.

While using the Network, you may notice that our “service partners” occasionally serve you cookies, either directly or when you link to their sites. We cannot directly control what our service partners or these cookies do, but it is our policy that our service partners on the Network should use cookies the same way we do.

If you don't like cookies, your Web browser likely includes an option that allows you not to accept them. We do not recommend using this option as it makes browsing our site a less enjoyable experience, but you will always have this option.
Finally, while your individual information is protected as outlined above, we reserve the right to use aggregated, anonymous data about our users as a group. For instance, we might report to a group administrator or sponsor that a certain percentage of users are interested in weight loss or have enrolled in The PHD Network, or exhibit certain health conditions.

This Privacy Policy may be modified from time to time; notice of changes will appear on this page, so check back often. Any such changes will be prospective, never retroactive.

If you have concerns or questions about any aspect of this policy, please send us email. We welcome your feedback. You can also send us regular mail at the following address: