HGS respects the privacy of visitors to our online sites. HGS will only collect your personally identifiable information, such as your name, address, telephone number, or e-mail address, when you provide it to us at this website. HGS and/or the companies we hire will use this information to comply with your request for information or as otherwise disclosed to you on the web page when you submit your information to us. From time to time, we may refer to this information to better understand your needs and how we can improve our products and services. We may use this information to contact you. We will not sell or otherwise transfer the personally identifiable information you provide to us at this website to any third parties for their own use unless we tell you when you submit your information to us that we intend to do so.

Like many websites, some HGS websites use a technology called "cookies." A cookie is a small text file that a web server gives your browser to store on your computer when you access a website. Cookies are capable of storing many types of data and may be placed on your browser by HGS or by a third party. Cookies are used for a variety of purposes on HGS websites:

• Some HGS sites set cookies that keep you from having to enter a password more than once during visits to one or more of our sites. 
• We also use cookies to help us analyze usage of our sites and traffic among our sites more accurately and to provide you with information of interest to you. For example, cookies are used on some HGS websites to record the total number of hits received on the sites and web pages. 
• Cookies also allow HGS to determine whether you came to a HGS site from another HGS site or from an advertising banner or link on a non-HGS website, so that we can, for example, measure the effectiveness of the links among our sites and the effectiveness of our advertising on non-HGS websites. 
• Similarly, cookies allow us to determine whether you register on or visit any of our websites, which enables us to analyze how particular users use our sites and whether registered and unregistered users of our websites use our sites differently. 
• Cookies also allow us to maintain information about how particular visitors use our family of sites, which enables us to better provide such visitors with information relevant to their interests. This may include using information about your use of our sites in conjunction with personally identifiable information that you have volunteered to us on one of our sites.

This is not an exhaustive list of all uses of cookies on HGS’s websites. In all cases in which cookies are used, however, neither HGS nor any third party will use the cookie to collect personally identifiable information from our site unless you voluntarily agree to enter the information. Most web browsers are set up to accept cookies. You can, however, reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. Note, however, that some portions of our sites may not work properly if you refuse cookies.

In addition to cookies, HGS may collect non-personally identifiable information about how you use our websites using other analysis technologies. These analysis technologies may be provided by third parties. Information that might be collected using these technologies includes, for example, the pages you visit on our site, the paths you take within our sites and the length of time that you spend on our websites. We use this information in the aggregate in order to better understand how to improve the quality of our websites.

Some HGS websites use a third party adserving service to display advertising on other, non-HGS websites. In addition to placing advertisements on certain non-HGS web pages, these services and/or HGS may also place a segment of code called a clear pixel tag, also known as a "GIF," on certain HGS web pages that do not contain advertisements for the purpose of measuring the effectiveness of advertisements in bringing visitors to our web sites. GIFs may also be used with cookies to track the total number of visitors to our website, the number of visitors to various web pages, and the domain names of our visitors' Internet service providers. No personally identifiable information is collected in this process.

As is common among Internet site operators, HGS websites maintain web server logs. Web servers automatically identify your computer by its IP address and collect that information in its web server logs. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer by your Internet service provider (e.g., Comcast, Verizon, etc.) whenever you are connected to the Internet. HGS web server logs collect statistical data that is generated by your computer when it visits a HGS website, such as the type of web browser (e.g., Netscape, Internet Explorer) and operating system (e.g., Windows or Mac OS) used to access the site, the domain name of your Internet service provider, the date and time you access our site, and the pages you visit. HGS websites use this non-personally identifying web server log information for a variety of purposes. Some of these purposes include: system administration; to examine overall traffic trends on our sites; trouble shooting; and to gather broad demographic information about users of our sites. No personally identifiable information is contained in these web server logs.

We may target our marketing and product messaging depending on the information you provide us. For example, a user we know is a woman may receive information on products used mostly by women that a male user will not receive, or a user who we know is a health care professional who treats lupus may receive information for new lupus therapies. We may send information to you that we believe you may be interested in, including information about any HGS product.

We may also personalize our Web site based on your interests. For example, you may see different articles in different places on our Web site based on information you have shared with us, or information we have gained by reviewing your previous visits, or information we may have gained from your interactions with a third party that shares information with us.

This HGS website is not intended or designed to attract children under the age of 13. We do not collect personally identifiable information from any person we know to be under the age of 13.

As a convenience to our visitors, HGS's sites currently contain links to a number of websites that we believe may offer useful information. The privacy policy and provisions described here do not apply to those sites. We suggest contacting those sites directly for information on their data collection and distribution policies.

From time to time, HGS may decide to modify its practices and policies, and we reserve the right to revise this HGS Internet Privacy Policy as necessary to disclose such changes in our practices and policies. Any such changes to this HGS Internet Privacy Policy will be promptly communicated on this page. Any information that you submit before the change in policy will be used by HGS and/or the companies we hire in a manner that is consistent with the HGS Internet Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted your information. Continued use of our sites after receiving notice of a change in our Privacy Policy shall indicate your consent to the use of newly submitted information in accordance with the changed, amended, or updated HGS Internet Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions, comments, requests, or concerns related to this Privacy Policy or the information practices of this site, or if you would like to opt out of future communications, please contact us as follows:

Human Genome Sciences, Inc.
Attention: Corporate Communications
14200 Shady Grove Road
Rockville, Maryland U.S.A.
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© 2010 Human Genome Sciences, Inc. – All Rights Reserved – Updated August 6, 2010