Privacy and Security Notice

Thank you for visiting Acquisition.gov

Our privacy policy is clear: Unless you choose to provide additional information to us, we will collect no personal information about you other than statistical information that can be used to make the site more effective for all our visitors.

Information We Gather

The only information that is automatically collected and stored is:

• 1) the name of the domain from which you access the Internet (i.e., DHS.gov if you are connecting from a DHS account, or GMU.edu if you are connecting from George Mason University’s domain);
• 2) the date and time of your visit;
• 3) the pages you visit on www.acquisition.gov;
• 4) the Internet address of the website you came from if it linked you directly to www.acquisition.gov; and
• 5) search terms that you enter into the acquisition.gov search tool.

If your browser accepts cookies, we may use a session cookie to lean how many different visitors come to www.acquisition.gov. We use this information for statistical purposes and to help us make our site more useful to you.

Cookies and acquisition.gov

What is a Cookie? Whenever you visit a website the website sends a small piece of information called a cookie along with the webpage. The main purpose of a cookie is to identify and customize webpages for you.

There are two kinds of cookies. A session cookie is a line of text that is stored temporarily in your computer’s random access memory (RAM). A session cookie is never written to a drive, and it is destroyed as soon as you close your browser. A persistent cookie from a website is saved to a file on your hard drive and is called up the next time you visit that website. This lets the website remember what you were interested in the last time you visited.

Like many websites, acquisition.gov uses "persistent cookie" technology. A persistent cookie is a small text file that this website places on your web browser so that it can gather anonymous summary demographic information, and remember your browser when it is used to visit our site again later—kind of like cookie crumbs! (Hence the name.) These cookies uniquely identify a browser on a computer, but never a person. In other words, if the same person uses Chrome and Internet Explorer, two unique browser cookies will be assigned, one for each browser, so that person will be counted as two different visitors because visits are based on browsers, not computers or persons. We use persistent cookies in two ways, both of which enhance your experience on acquisition.gov while also protecting your privacy:

• To remember you when you use our bookmark functions on the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and General Services Acquisition Manual (GSAM) pages.
• To get aggregate metrics on site usage to understand how people are using the site and how we can make it better. We use web metrics services to track activity on acquisition.gov. Government agencies only ever receive traffic statistics anonymously and in the aggregate.

Most Internet browsers automatically accept persistent cookies. Although using persistent cookies creates a much better experience, this site will also work without them. However, without enabling cookies, current and planned features that are designed to improve user experience (above and beyond the core site's functionality), may be hindered or unavailable. If you don't want to accept cookies, you can edit your browser's options to stop accepting persistent cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. Here's how you can disable cookies and/or Google Demographic and Interests reports.

For more information on privacy and security, see GSA’s Privacy and Security Policy. If you have any questions about these policies, please contact us.

Information You Send Us

When you send us personal information (e.g., in an electronic mail message containing a question or comment) or by filling out a form that email us this information, we only use this information to respond to your request. Such application information is carefully protected by the agency and not available in or retained by web tracking software. We may forward your email to the government employee who can best answer your questions. We do not disclose, give, sell, or transfer any personal information about our visitors, unless required for law enforcement or statute.

We want to make it clear that we will not obtain personally identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide that information to us. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, or as otherwise required by law, we do not share any information we receive with anyone else.

Security:

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, GSA web servers use industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on GSA servers are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986 and the National Information Infrastructure Protection Act.

Links to other sites:

The pages on www.acquisition.gov may include hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations. Check the Linking Policy for more information.

If you have any questions about these policies, contact us.