Privacy Policies

At Gazette Communications Inc., we are committed to protecting the privacy, accuracy and reliability of any personal information you choose to provide and to safeguarding such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and distraction. This privacy policy applies to all news product websites that are a part of Gazette Communications, Inc.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time, so please check back often. If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by sending an e-mail message to news_online@thegazette.com.

Collection Of Personal Information

Gazette Communications Inc. news website uses your personal information for three general purposes. First, we use the information to provide you with the services you request and to respond to billing and/or other questions related to such service offerings. Second, we use the information to understand your use of our website and to notify you about updates to one of our sites or to send you marketing materials or promotional offers that may be of interest. Third, we may use this information in aggregate form to help us evaluate and modify existing services and to help us develop additional services that are likely to be of interest to our users.

We may share your personal information with unaffiliated third parties in limited instances. For example, we may share your personal information with unaffiliated third parties as is necessary to process or collect payments, or service registered-user accounts. We also may hire third-party technology providers to host Gazette Communications Inc.’s news website and to store your personal information.

We may also share aggregate, non-personal information about website usage with unaffiliated third parties, including, but not limited to, government agencies, advertisers and the media. This aggregate information does not contain any personal information about our users.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit Gazette Communications Inc. news website. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visit to our website in order to provide advertisements about goods and services that may be of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements to the our website, our third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique “cookie” on your browser. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by advertising companies, please send an e-mail to news_online@thegazette.com

Finally, we may be required to disclose personal information by law or legal process, to protect and defend the rights or property of a Gazette Communications Inc. news site, or to protect the personal safety of users to one of our sites. We also reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities when activities that are illegal or violate our policies are taking place on Gazette Communications Inc. news sites.

You do not need to provide any personally identifiable information to use a Gazette Communications Inc. news site. In general, you can visit our website without telling us who you are or revealing any personally identifiable information.

We may apply a “cookie” to your browser to track user patterns in order to understand what portions of our sites are receiving higher traffic than others, but that data is aggregate data and will not have uniquely identifying characteristics.

However, if you want to use certain online services, you may be asked to provide some personal information, such as your name, mailing address or e-mail address. We also may ask you to choose a user name and password and provide that information when accessing certain online features. If you do not want to give us any personal information, you can always decide not to use the services. The choice is yours. We are only interested in offering you convenient online services that match your interests and needs.

How We Protect Personal Information

We take reasonable measures to protect the privacy, accuracy, and reliability of any information you choose to provide and to protect such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. Only authorized employees and partners are permitted to access personal information, and they only may do so for permitted business functions. Any employee or partner who violates our privacy access policies will be subject to disciplinary action and/or termination.

Accessing Or Deleting Your Personal Information

If you have submitted personal information through a Gazette Communications Inc. news website and you would like to access that information, please send an e-mail to news_online@thegazette.com. We will use reasonable efforts to supply you with this information and to correct any factual inaccuracies that you identify. Upon your request, we also will remove your personal information from our databases.

Collection, Use And Disclosure Of Non-Personal Information

In some cases, a Gazette Communications Inc. news site may collect information about you that is not personally identifiable, as described below. An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. This number does not identify your name, e-mail address or other personal information. If you request pages from any Gazette Communications Inc. news website, that site’s server will enter your IP address into a log.

To maintain user anonymity, Gazette Communications Inc. news sites do not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. We also do not permit IP addresses to be associated and viewed with posts to chat rooms and bulletin boards. We store IP addresses for a period of time to help us to identify anyone who refuses to comply with our in-house rules or terms of service, and to identify visitors who threaten our service, site, customers or others. We also will use this information to measure site traffic for purposes of system administration and for our sponsors. This aggregate data also helps us to understand how people are using the website and helps us improve your online experience.

Cookies

Gazette Communications Inc. news sites also automatically gather certain non-personal information through the use of “cookies.” “Cookies” are small text files that recognize repeat visitors, facilitate ongoing access to some sites, and allow sites to understand how and when pages are visited.

Demographic Data

We may use demographic and profile data to tailor our users’ experience at our sites, showing them content that we think they might be interested in and displaying content according to their preferences. This information is shared with advertisers on an aggregate basis, to demonstrate facts about our overall audience. This helps facilitate their decision to advertise here, which is to our benefit and yours. Users may opt out of receiving future mailings; see the choice/opt-out section below.

Personal Information

When you are on a Gazette Communications Inc. news web site and are asked for personal information, you are sharing that information with Gazette Communications Inc. alone, unless it is specifically stated otherwise. Please be aware that Gazette Communications Inc. advertisers or web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those web sites. Gazette Communications Inc. is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites.

Public Forums

Gazette Communications Inc. allows text and video commenting in various areas of our sites, including live chats, polls, and other community interaction points. Please remember that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information.

Choice / Opt Out

You can opt-out of receiving communications from Gazette Communications Inc. at any time. To remove your information from our database and not receive future communications or to no longer receive our services send an email with your name, address, email address and telephone number to news_online@thegazette.com. This email should also provide specific communications you would like to no longer receive.

If you would like to opt out of Google Analytics tracking, you may visit this link to learn more about opting out.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of these sites, or your dealings with Gazette Communications Inc. news web sites you can contact us at news_online@thegazette.com