Skip to Navigation Skip to Content

Website Accessibility Statement

The Cape Cod Commission ("the Commission") is committed to achieving meaningful accessibility to this online environment for all users, including users with disabilities. We do this based on standards used by the federal government for technology accessibility for people with disabilities, as well as web content accessibility guidelines developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). You can find additional information on the following websites:

About Portable Document Format (PDF)

Some documents on this website are produced in Portable Document Format (PDF). Efforts are currently underway to ensure that all files are produced using the latest version of Acrobat (file conversion software for PDFs), which is the most accessible technology currently available for these types of files. In order to improve viewing of these files, please download the latest free version of Adobe Reader.

However, recognizing that even this version does not always work for all users, alternative accessible formats are provided wherever possible, most commonly through a text or an HTML file.

Contact information

If any file format prevents you from accessing the information, please contact us for assistance. In order to respond in a manner most helpful to you, please note the nature of your accessibility concern, the format in which you prefer to receive the material, the webpage address of the requested material, and the best way to contact you.

We also welcome your questions about this accessibility statement and comments on how to improve the site's accessibility.

There are 2 ways to contact us.

By phone

(508) 362-3828

 Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m.

By email

frontdesk@capecodcommission.org

Please provide us with details regarding the nature of your accessibility concern, the format in which you prefer to receive the material, the webpage address of the requested material, and the best way to contact you.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Policy

The Cape Cod Commission adopted this policy in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, including the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (the "DMCA"). 

Infringement Policy

The Commission will respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with or substantially comply with the requirements set forth in this DMCA Policy. The Commission does not act as an arbiter or judge of disputes about intellectual property rights. It is our policy to disable access to or remove text and other material ("Content") posted by users on www.capecodcommission.org ("the Website"), when the Content we believe in good faith is infringing a copyrighted work. By disabling access to or removing Content, as a prudential matter, Cape Cod Commission is not endorsing or validating a claim of infringement. If we disable access to or remove Content from the Website, we will make a good faith attempt to contact the party responsible for posting or displaying the Content so the owner may make a counter-notification as provided for below. It is our policy to suspend and/or terminate access of users of the Website who we believe are repeat copyright infringers. We will document notices of alleged infringement and counter-notifications. 

Designated Agent

In accordance with the DMCA, the Commission has a Designated Agent to handle copyright infringement notices and counter-notifications: 

Cape Cod Commission
Attn: DMCA Agenct
Address: 3225 Main Street, PO Box 226, Barnstable, MA 02630
Email: frontdesk@capecodcommission.org 
Phone: (508) 362+-3828

Infringement Notification 

If you believe your work has been displayed or otherwise used on one or more of the Websites in a manner that infringes your copyright, you must provide written notification of same to our Designated Agent via mail and/or e-mail. Please note that you may be liable for damages, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, if you materially misrepresent that your work has been infringed by Content on one or more of the Websites. If you are unsure whether your work has been infringed, we recommend that you contact an attorney before sending notice to our Designated Agent.

You must use the following format for your written notification:

(a) Identify in sufficient detail your copyrighted work that you believe has been infringed by Content on one or more of the Websites;

(b) Identify the Content on the Website(s) that you claim infringes your copyrighted work. You must identify all Content that you believe infringes, describe how the Content infringes your work, and describe where the Content is located on the Website(s) with sufficient detail so that we can verify its existence and remove it if we believe in good faith that it infringes your copyrighted work. In the event that the allegedly-infringing Content is located in more than one place on the Website(s), identify each location;

(c) Provide your contact information, including your full name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address, if any;

(d) You must include a statement that, under the penalty of perjury, you have a good-faith belief that use of the Content in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;

(e) You must include a statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed; and

(f) You must sign the written notification physically or electronically.

In addition to the foregoing, it would help if you included a copy of the copyright Certificate of Registration for your work, if any, or other information that supports your claim that your work is protected by copyright and that you are the owner of that copyright or are authorized to act on behalf of the owner.

Review of Infringement Notices

After the Designated Agent receives your infringement notice, Cape Cod Commission will review it. If your notice contains the required information, as explained above, and if we have a good-faith belief that the Content is infringing your copyright, we will remove or disable access to the infringing Content.

Counter Notification

The provider of affected Content may make a counter notification pursuant to the DMCA. To file a counter notification, you must provide written notification to our Designated Agent via mail and/or e-mail. Please note that you may be liable for damages, including without limitation attorneys' fees and costs, if you materially misrepresent that your Content is not infringing the copyright of a third party. If you are unsure whether your Content infringes the work of a third party, we recommend that you contact an attorney before sending notice to our Designated Agent.

You must use the following format for your written notification:

(a) Identify the Content that has been removed or to which access was disabled, including a description of where the Content was located on the Website(s) before it was removed or before access to it was disabled. In the event that the Content was located in more than one place on the Website(s), you should identify each location;

(b) Provide your contact information, including your full name, mailing address, telephone number, and e-mail address, if any;

(c) You must include a statement that, under the penalty of perjury, you have a good-faith belief that the Content was removed or blocked as a result of mistake or misidentification of the Content to be removed or blocked;

(d) You must include a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located, or, if your address is outside the United States, in the Federal District Court of Massachusetts, and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement or an agent of such person; and

(e) You must sign the written notification physically or electronically.

Review of Counter Notification

After the Designated Agent receives your counter notification, Cape Cod Commission will review it. We may determine that the Content is not infringing and may reinstate the Content or access to the Content on the applicable Website(s).

Notice of Repeat Infringement and Account Termination

Cape Cod Commission will, if appropriate, terminate repeat infringers' access to the Websites. If you believe a user of one or more of the Websites is a repeat infringer, please follow the instructions above to contact our Designated Agent and provide sufficient information so we can verify that the user is a repeat infringer.

Website Privacy Policy 

Effective: 9/30/2019

Welcome to the Cape Cod Commission's website, www.capecodcommission.org (“the website”). Your privacy is one of our top priorities. The following policy applies only to the use of the website.  As you navigate the website, you will see links that, when clicked, will take you to other websites. In particular, please note that although some of the social media pages used by the website might appear to be part of the website or at a web page under control of the website, some of these sites are actually hosted by a third party provider. Thus, when visiting these third party social media sites, you are subject to different privacy policies and terms of service. Please review this policy and the Cape Cod Commission Social Media Guidelines  to review more detailed information on how the website uses specific social media sites and for links to the relevant terms of service and privacy policies for those sites. We strongly suggest that you read the site policies, including the privacy policies, for each website that you visit and any external site that you visit through a link appearing at the website.

A privacy partnership

Your privacy with respect to the use of the website results from a partnership between the Barnstable County and you, the user. On the website, we attempt to protect your privacy to the maximum extent possible. However, because some of the information that we receive through the website is subject to the Public Records Law, Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66, Section 10, we cannot ensure absolute privacy. Information that you provide to us through the website may be made available to members of the public under that law. This policy informs you of the information that we collect from you at the website, what we do with it, to whom it may be disseminated, and how you can access it. Based on this information, you can make an informed decision about your use of the website. You can maximize the benefits of your privacy partnership by making informed decisions about whether to share personally identifiable information with us through the website.

Personally identifiable information

We use the term “personally identifiable information” to mean any information that could reasonably be used to identify you, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, Social Security number, birth date, bank account information, credit card information, or any combination of information that could be used to identify you.

Information voluntarily provided by you

The website collects voluntary information from you through surveys, online forms, any emails sent to the website and comments posted on pages hosted by the website (such as blogs or wikis). All such information, including comments and emails sent by you to the website may contain personally identifiable information.

Information automatically collected and stored by the website 

The website does not employ the use of “Persistent Cookies”; however, third party sites that may be linked through the website may employ persistent cookies.

The purpose of these Persistent Cookies is to collect and aggregate data regarding these third-party website’s visitor activity to continuously evaluate and improve their website services. You may elect to disable the Persistent Cookies. Please be advised that disabling the Persistent Cookies may affect your ability to view or interact with these third-party website.

The website does collect and store your “Internet Protocol (“IP”) address,” (which does not identify you as an individual) indefinitely, as well as information about the date and time of your visit, whether a file you have requested exists, and how many “bytes” of information were transmitted to you over the Web from the website. We use your IP address to assess the frequency of visits to the website and the popularity of its various pages and functions. We will not attempt to match any personally identifiable information that you provide to us with your IP address, unless there are reasonable grounds to believe that doing so would provide information that is relevant and material to a criminal investigation. The one exception is that when you fill out information in a form on the website, we do receive your IP address along with this submission. We do not use this form-related IP address information unless it may be relevant and material to a criminal investigation.

Usage data and known persistent cookies

The website uses (or may use) the following tools (each a “Tool” and collectively, the “Tools”):

Tool name: Google Analytics™

Purpose: Collect information about use of the website.

Data collected: Google Analytics collects information such as how often users visit the website, what pages they visit when they do so, and what other sites they used prior to coming to the website.

Privacy policy: www.google.com/privacypolicy.html

Terms of use: www.google.com/analytics/tos.html

Express opt out: N/A

Special notes: N/A

Tool Name: Google Site Search™

Purpose: Allows for better search results for users of the website.

Data collected: Google Site Search may collect and store certain information related to your searches of the website including: your search queries, links that you clicked on in search results, IP addresses, location information, and cookies.

Privacy policy: www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Terms of Use: www.google.com/policies/terms/

Express opt out: Visitors can opt out by not using the search function on the website. They can also go to the Transparency and choice section of Google’s Privacy Policy for additional information on opting out.

Special notes: If you have a Google account (such as Gmail), Google may be able to link the information that it collects from Google Site Search with personally identifiable information from your Google account (such as your name or mobile phone number).

Tool name: SurveyMonkey

Purpose: SurveyMonkey is an online survey tool that collects voluntary information from you through surveys linked to or posted at the website.

Data collected: Surveys may collect personally identifiable information you voluntarily submit, such as name, email address or phone number, so that we may contact you for follow up to your question, concern or recommendation.

If you take the survey from a mobile device, you will be asked to provide your phone number or email address so that a link to the survey can be sent to you after your visit.  This contact information is discarded after 30 days and is not used in conjunction with your survey response.

Privacy policy: https://www.surveymonkey.com/

Terms of use: https://www.surveymonkey.com/

Express opt out: You can opt out of SurveyMonkey collecting information via the survey by declining to participate in the survey. If you do opt out of completing the survey or you have completed a survey, SurveyMonkey uses persistent cookie so that it does not offer the survey to you again when you revisit the website. (For more information on SurveyMonkey’s use of cookies, please visit https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy-policy/#pp-section-6).

Additional general information related to tools

We use the information we get from the Tools only to improve our offerings. The Tools may also collect data such as browser information, operating system, and page views through the implementation of session cookies or persistent cookies. Except as set forth in this privacy policy (e.g., possibly in response to a public records request), we do not combine the information collected through the use of any Tool with personally identifiable information.

Although each of the Tools plants a persistent cookie on your web browser to identify you as a unique user the next time you visit the website, the cookie cannot be used by anyone but the website and/or the software publisher of the respective Tool (the “Software Publisher”). The Software Publisher’s ability to use and share information collected by the Software Publisher about your visits to the website is restricted by the Software Publisher’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, links to which have been provided above.

 You may prevent the Tools from using persistent cookies by disabling cookies on your browser. Some of the Tools permit you to opt-out of the Tool by allowing that Tool to plant a persistent cookie on your web browser indicating that you have opted out. If you disable cookies on your browser or use a different browser, different computer, different user account, etc., you will need to opt-out again. If you allow persistent cookies in your web browser, Software Publishers have the technical ability to track your activity, even if you change your IP address, so long as you are using the web browser where the persistent cookie was planted. You should refer to the Software Publisher’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use to determine whether they do, in fact, track you via the persistent cookie.

Links to social media sites

Certain links on the website (whether integrated with Tools or otherwise) facilitate interaction with third-party social media sites. Accessing third-party social media functions (whether through a Tool or otherwise) may require you to log in to your social media provider, and that social media provider may plant a persistent cookie on your web browser to keep you logged in. Any interaction with any such social media provider (whether through a Tool or otherwise) is subject to such social media provider’s site policies, and such provider may plant one or more additional persistent cookies on your web browser as a result of your interaction with it.

Online forms on the website

Online forms may be provided by a third party service SurveyMonkey or Constant Contact. When you use this service, your form submission is securely made to SurveyMonkey or Constant Contact and stored there. Form submissions are then transmitted to county government staff. County government staff will delete form submissions from SurveyMonkey or Constant Contact when there is no longer any administrative need to retain them there. These websites only uses your form submissions for internal purposes and the data is considered private. These websites will not distribute or sell your information to a third party unless required by law or a valid government request. These websites may also share information if it is acquired by or merged with another company. Please see the individual websites for their privacy policy at https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/legal/privacy-policy/; https://knowledgebase.constantcontact.com/articles/KnowledgeBase/5536-constant-contact-privacy-policies-for-protecting-customers.

Dissemination of your personally identifiable information

We do not sell any personally identifiable information collected through the website in conjunction with using functions on the website, and there is no direct or online public access to the information. However, once you voluntarily submit personally identifiable information to us related to your use of the website, its dissemination is governed by the “Public Records Law,” the “Fair Information Practices Act” (Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 66A), and other applicable laws and regulations. For this reason, part or all of the information you send us may be provided to a member of the public in response to a public records request. There are pieces of information, such as credit card numbers, TIN, username, or password that are not considered public for the purposes of a public records request. For more information on types of data exempted from disclosure under the Public Records Law, please read the Secretary of the Commonwealth’s Public Records Law.

In addition, the information that you voluntarily submit will be disclosed only to County employees or officials, or those under contract with the Commission, with a “need to know” for purposes of fulfilling their job responsibilities. The information will be used for such purposes as: answering your questions, responding to any requests for assistance, generating summary statistics about usage, aiding in the planning, design and development of the website, and fulfilling the Commission’s legal obligations.

We will collect and aggregate the information you provide through surveys and through the website collection of non-personally identifying analytics data for purposes of market research to improve the offerings by making them more responsive to your needs. Where appropriate, we may provide the information you submitted voluntarily through an email to the person or company that is the subject of your inquiry, or to a government agency responsible for the matters referred to in your communication.

Your access and opportunity to correct

The “Public Records Law” (http://www.sec.state.ma.us/pre/preidx.htm)and the “Fair Information Practices Act” (https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleX/Chapter66A) provide you certain rights to get information about you that is in our records. To learn more about the circumstances under which you can get and correct this information, please click on the above references to these laws.

Security

Because information sent to the Commission is not encrypted, you should not send messages containing information that you consider highly sensitive to the website. We use standard security measures to ensure that information provided by you, including your personally identifiable information, is not lost, misused, altered, or unintentionally destroyed.

Policy changes

We will post substantive changes to this policy at least 30 days before they take effect. Any information we collect under the current privacy policy will remain subject to the terms of this policy. After any changes take effect, all new information we collect, if any, will be subject to the new policy.

Contact Information

For questions about your privacy while using the website, please contact (insert email address).

Definitions

Cookies are files that a website can place on your computer. A cookie file contains unique information that a website can use to track such things as your password, lists of Web pages you have visited, and the date when you last looked at a specific Web page, or to identify your session at a particular website. A cookie file allows the website to recognize you as you click through pages on the site and when you later revisit the site. A website can use cookies to “remember” your preferences, and to record your browsing behavior on the Web. Although you can prevent websites from placing cookies on your computer by using your browser’s preference menu, disabling cookies may affect your ability to view or interact with some websites.

An “Internet Protocol Address” or “IP Address” is a series of numbers that identifies each computer and machine connected to the Internet. An IP address enables a server on a computer network to send you the file that you have requested on the Internet. The IP address disclosed to us may identify the computer from which you are accessing the Internet, or a server owned by your Internet Service Provider. Because it is machine-specific, rather than person-specific, an IP address is not, in and of itself, personally identifiable information.

Social Media: A social media website is a website or a social media application that is usually maintained by an individual and has regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. A social media identity is a specific user identity that has been registered on a third party social media site and is associated with the Agency. Government social media sites or identities typically provide forums for commentary or news on topics related to the government agency that hosts the social media site or has secured the social media identity. A typical social media site (whether hosted by the Agency or a third party) combines text, images, and links to other websites including blogs, wikis, and other media related to the topic and enables readers to leave comments in an interactive format.

“Weblog” or “Blog”: A weblog or blog is a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Government blogs typically provide commentary and news on topics related to the government agency hosting the blog. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, Web pages, and other media related to the topic, and enables readers to leave comments in an interactive format.

“Wiki”: A wiki is a website that uses collaboration software to enable the creation of a number of interlinked web pages. Many authors can contribute to the website and upload content to the site. Government wikis typically provide a venue for commentary and discussion regarding topics related to the government agency hosting the wiki. A typical wiki combines text, images, and links to other web pages outside the wiki also related to the topic, and enables readers to leave comments in an interactive format.

Google Translate Disclaimer

Some pages of the Commission's website have been translated for your convenience using translation software powered by Google Translate. Google requires that the Commission provide the following disclaimer relating to these translations: 

"This service may contain translations powered by Google. Google disclaims all warranties related to the translations, expressed or implied, including any warranties of accuracy, reliability, and any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and noninfringement.

"For these translations, reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace human translators. These translations are provided as a service to users of [the Cape Cod Commission] website, and are provided as is. No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, or correctness of any of these translations made from English into any other language. Some content (such as images, videos, Flash, etc.) may not be accurately translated due to the limitations of the translation software. 

"Any discrepancies or differences created in translating this content from English into another language are not binding and have no legal effect for compliance, enforcement, or any other purpose. If any questions arise related to the accuracy of the information contained in these translations, please refer to the English version of the website."

Search Circle Icon Search Icon Document Icon Video Icon PDF Icon CSV/XLS Icon