About This Site

The mission of the Congressional Office for International Leadership (COIL) is to establish a program to enable emerging political leaders of eligible foreign states at all levels of government to gain significant, firsthand exposure to the American free market economic system and the operation of American democratic institutions through visits to governments and communities at comparable levels in the United States and to establish and administer a program to enable cultural leaders of Russia to gain significant, firsthand exposure to the operation of American cultural institutions. Through its website, COIL offers public access to a range of information regarding the Open World program and cooperative endeavors between the United States and participating countries.

General Disclaimer

COIL website has links to other federal agencies. We also link to other organizations' Web sites when there is a business reason to do so. This linking does not constitute COIL's endorsement of the content of external Web sites or of their policies or products.

The standard disclaimer for external links:  These links are being provided as a convenience and for informational purposes only; they do not constitute an endorsement or an approval by the Congressional Office for International Leadership of any of the products, services or opinions of the corporation or organization or individual. COIL bears no responsibility for the accuracy, legality or content of the external site or for that of subsequent links. Contact openworld@coil.gov (link sends e-mail) for answers to questions regarding its content.

Security

For site security and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, this government computer system employs software programs to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, deny service, otherwise cause damage or access non-public information. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information are strictly prohibited and may be punishable under the United States criminal code (18 U.S.C. 1030). Information regarding possible violations of law may be provided to law enforcement officials.

COIL reserves the right to block IP addresses that fail to honor COIL's robots.txt files.

Use of Website Content

Generally, materials produced by Federal agencies such as COIL are in the public domain; however, not all materials appearing on this website may be in the public domain.  Photographs or other images or materials on this website protected by copyright laws and other restrictions may require users to obtain permission from and possibly to pay fees to the copyright owner independently of COIL. It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found on COIL’s website. Transmission or reproduction of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Users must make their own assessments of rights in light of their intended use.

Privacy and publicity rights reflect separate and distinct interests from copyright interests. Users desiring to use materials from this website bear the responsibility of making individualized determinations as to whether privacy and publicity rights are implicated by the nature of the materials and how they use such materials.

If you have any more information about an item you've seen on our website or if you are the copyright owner and believe our website has not properly attributed your work to you or has used it without permission, please contact openworld@coil.gov (link sends e-mail) with your contact information and a link to the relevant content.

Types of Information Collected

COIL collects several types of information, although never for commercial marketing use. COIL will not collect personal information about you when visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us. COIL has implemented safeguards to protect this information, including only providing access to designated COIL staff members that require this access to perform their duties. 

Automatically Collected Information

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through our website, read pages, or download information, COIL will gather and store certain information about your visit automatically. This information does not identify you personally. We automatically collect and store only the following information about your visit:

• The name of the domain from which you access the Internet,
• The Internet Protocol address of your Internet provider’s gateway, or in some cases, the computer you are using,
• The date and time you access COIL site,
• The URL of the pages you visit and files you download,
• The Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our site,
• Characteristics of your system, and
• Search terms used to come to the site and while on the site (in aggregate only).

This information allows us to improve our website design, presentation and system performance.

Information Collected for Measurement and Customization (Cookies)

COIL wants to provide our users with the best online experience possible. As such, we use commercial software products to analyze and report on aggregated web metrics data. This data is generally retained indefinitely to support the mission of COIL web properties.

COIL uses session cookies and persistent cookies on its website. "Cookies" are small files that a Web site transfers to your computer to allow the site to remember specific information. If you do not want cookies to be transferred to your computer, you may choose to opt out of their use by modifying your browser options. While you will still be able to access most features of COIL’s Web sites, certain features may not work as well or may be unavailable to you.

Session cookies do not contain personal information and once you close your browser, the cookies disappear.  COIL uses session cookies on our site for technical purposes such as to enable you to more easily navigate throughout COIL’s website. Session cookies only collect non-personally identifiable data.

Persistent cookies store information on your computer for longer periods of time and across multiple sessions.  COIL never uses persistent cookies to collect personal identifiable information about our website visitors. COIL uses persistent cookies to improve web metrics by distinguishing between new and returning visitors, to anonymously aggregate data on how visitors use our sites, and to “remember” preferences that you voluntarily provide in order to create a more seamless experience.

Personal Information

If you submit personal information via e-mail or our website, COIL will inform you what information we require and will use it only for the purpose stated at the point of collection, such as to send you information, respond to your questions or comments, or obtain clarification on the questions or comments received. By providing the information, you are giving consent to COIL to use the information for the stated purpose.

We also may share information you give us with another government agency if your inquiry relates to that agency. In other limited circumstances, such as responses to requests from Congress and private individuals, we may be required by law to disclose information you submit.

Children’s Privacy Policy

This website is not targeted towards children under the age of thirteen (13) nor do we knowingly collect personal information about children.

Linking to COIL's Website

COIL requests that your link to COIL’s website be presented in a manner that does not give the impression that COIL is making an express or implied endorsement of any good or service provided on your Web site and that the link is presented in a manner that clearly indicates that the user is leaving one site and accessing another.