Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. We want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.
Information We Gather and Track
We gather two types of information about users:
- Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions, for example – to receive our electronic newsletters, to submit content, etc.
- Information we gather through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our site. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers’ needs.
We Gather User Information In The Following Processes:
Optional Voluntary Information
We offer the following free services, which require some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
“Email this Post” Feature: Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by using an online form. The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used to let the recipient know who sent the email. The user’s IP address is also sent to the recipient for security purposes (Most of the online as well as offline email programs have the same behavior).
“Contact Author” Feature: Our site users can choose to electronically contact the content author by using an online form. The user must provide their email address. This information is used to let the recipient know who sent the email.
Children
We never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
Usage Tracking
We track user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. We do break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, refering page, MIME type, etc by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser).
We sometimes track and catalog the search terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.
Cookies
We may place a text file called a “cookie” in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. We use cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).
Social Buttons and their Privacy Policies:
Use/Sharing of Information
We use any information given by our users to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our users.
We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don’t like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our users. But we don’t track which terms a particular user enters.
We create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our users to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don’t track the usage patterns of individual users, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific user clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual user except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.
We may share limited aggregate reports with our site users so that they can know how their content is performing.
We may use third party advertisements on our site to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP, the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing San Francisco real estate ads to someone in San Francisco, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites). You can view their privacy policy by clicking here.
- Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s prior visits to our website.
- Google’s use of the DART cookie enables it and its partners to serve ads to users based on their visit to our site and/or other sites on the Internet.
- Users may opt out of the use of the DART cookie by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page and/or Network Advertising Initiative opt-out page.
We will comply with legal process served on us requiring the disclosure of user information and we may, at our discretion, disclose any user information requested by third parties as part of an investigation into the breach of our terms of service.
We don’t share any voluntary or non-voluntary information gathered by us by means other than explained above.
Security
Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.
Your Consent
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by us. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post the revised policy on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.