How BPN Uses Your Email Address and Other Info

• We use your email address in order to mail newsletters to you, to verify membership when you post a message, and to contact you if we have a question about something you posted. We do not share, give away, sell or reveal email addresses on the BPN list. No one has access to your email address except the BPN moderators.

• When you subscribe to BPN, we ask for your neighborhood and the ages of your children in order to make sure that you are eligible to subscribe. This information may also appear in the "Welcome New Members" section of the weekly Announcements newsletter, which goes only to other subscribing parents in a one-time email. If you do not want your information to appear in the Welcome section, you have the option to request that on the subscription form.

Posting a Message to a BPN Newsletter

• Most of the newsletters allow you to specify how you want your posting to be signed, including simply "Anonymous". Exceptions to this are postings where a contact email/phone is needed, such as the Marketplace and Childcare newsletters. If you post anonymously, only the BPN moderators have access to your email address. See Can I post anonymously? for more information about this.

• When we archive advice and reviews to the website, we remove all identifying information first unless you have given us permission to post it (such as announcements from local tutors.) Full names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc., are never included, even if you included it in your original post to the newsletter. Please let us know immediately if you find that your name was accidentally included on a web page, and we'll remove it at once.

• Be aware that when you post a message to one of the newsletters, your post will be seen by thousands of people. There are 31,911 subscribers receiving the BPN newsletters, so it's very possible that your neighbor, your co-worker, your boss, or your child's teacher is on the list. Please keep this in mind. And, as always with any kind of written correspondence, please be prudent about what you put into your email if you are signing your name to it.

Mis-Using Other Subscribers' Email Addresses

Below are some of the actions that are prohibited by BPN's Privacy Policy. Subscribers who are unable to follow these policies will be unsubscribed from BPN.

• Sending unwanted email to other BPN subscribers
  1. Offering services that were not requested:
     You may not email people off list to offer goods or services that were not specifically requested in their post. For example, if you run a nanny agency, you may not contact people who posted to the Childcare newsletter looking for a nanny unless they specifically asked for an agency.

  2. Soliciting for a cause or business:
     You may not collect email addresses from BPN newsletters in order to promote or publicize a business, fund-raiser, political cause, community event, or any other product or service that was not specifically requested in the original post.

  3. Criticizing or commenting on a post:
     If you read a posting in the newsletter that you disapprove of, you may not contact the person who posted to comment or complain to them about the posting unless they specifically invited people to write them with comments. If you think the posting violated a BPN policy, please instead write to the moderator, whose email address appears at the top of the newsletter. See also Expressing your opinion in the Advice newsletter.

  Note: It is OK to send someone an email that answers the question they asked, or to say thanks, or to say hello to a friend. Most people are happy to receive email like this. But it is a violation of BPN's Privacy Policy to send another subscriber email that would be considered unwelcome by most people.

• Harvesting email addresses from BPN newsletters

  Several times over the years, a BPN subscriber has been hired by a parenting publication to collect email addresses "from friends" for the publication's mailing list. Unbeknownst to both BPN and the other publication, the subscriber instead collected email addresses from BPN newsletters, and those people were then signed up to mailing lists for publications such as Parents' Press and Red Tricycle. Please let these publications know if you are signed up without your permission, and also notify BPN so we can be aware when this is happening.

• Forwarding newsletters to people who don't subscribe

  Subscribers may not forward newsletters to non-subscribers without permission. The newsletters often contain personal information about subscribers such as their full names, childrens' names, phone numbers, home addresses, and email addresses. As with any other email you receive, you should never forward the words of, or personal information about, another person without their permission. It is OK to forward some good advice to a friend but please remove all the personal information first, or ask the permission of the people who posted.