Privacy Policy

This privacy policy was last updated on 02/01/06.

This policy describes how the web sites maintained by the Amherst Bullletin, including amherstbulletin.com, collect and utilize users' personal identifiable information. This policy is part of the Amherst Bulletin Terms of Use.

We will not intentionally disclose a user's personal identifiable information to a third party without the user's express permission, except as provided for herein.

Information we gather

We automatically gather users' IP addresses and track usage patterns on our web sites, breaking down overall statistics according to a user's browser type, domain name and time of day. We do not match these statistics with a user's personal identifiable information. This information , for example, helps to determine if a majority of our users are employing a recent enough browser version to support certain forms of coding.

Registration

We require that users who access editorial content online have a subscription to either the Amherst Bulletin or an online-only subscription. Information provided by the user in order to obtian a subscription is used for billing purposes and for Bulletin business use. This information may be used by us to determine what our audience demographic is.

Cookies

AmherstBulletin.com, GazetteNET.com, DailyHampshireGazette.com and Register.DailyHampshireGazette.com use cookies to verify subscribers who are registered to use our web site. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user. You can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for a subscription.

Children

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13 although certain third party sites that we link to may do so. These third-party sites have their own terms of use and privacy policies and we encourage parents and legal guardians to monitor their children's Internet usage and to help enforce our Privacy Policy by instructing their children to never provide information on the Bulletin Web Site without their permission.

"Send this article to a friend"

Users can forward a news story to someone else by clicking the link near the top of a story. The user must provide his email address to tell the recipient who sent the story. Users can also choose to include a message. None of this information is used for any other purpose.

Contests

AmherstBulletin may conduct surveys or offer contests in which participants must register. Required information may include name and email address. Sometimes more information may be required. The rules and terms of each contest can vary. Contests are often run in partnership with advertisers or businesses and registration information may be shared with those parties. Subscribing to the paper, buying a photo and/or placing a classified ad Personal information, including credit card numbers, is required to complete many of these transactions. The infor-mation is maintained in databases offline by the individual departments, and may be shared with third parties to the extent required to complete requested transactions.

Information we don't gather

Users can access our web site and use many of our services without providing any personal information. They can decline to participate in surveys. We don't follow a user's browsing path outside our web sites. We do develop summary reports of usage for our advertisers. This includes the numbers of times pages or adver-tisements are viewed. This information is used to determine the effectiveness of advertising strategies. We don't tell our advertisers the identity of individual users who saw or clicked on their advertisements.

Third Parties

Often, advertisers will employ a third-party service provider other than AmherstBulletin.com for serving the advertisements and for tracking the performance of an ad program. These companies may employ cookies and other technology to measure and improve the effectiveness of ads for their client. These companies may collect and use anonymous information about your visits to our member websites and other websites. The information collected can include: date/time of your visit, the banner ad that was shown, their cookie, your IP address, the URLs of sites you visit This information can also be used for online preference marketing purposes. In these instances, AmherstBulletin.com has no control over the information collected by the third-party, and may not be held responsible for the actions of the third-party measurement service where collected information is concerned. If you want to prevent a third-party advertiser from setting and/or reading cookies on your computer, you may either visit each ad server's web site individually and opt out or you may visit the Network Advertising Initiative's ("NAI") site to opt-out of many of the third-party advertising companies' cookies. Click here for the NAI gateway opt-out site.

Other circumstances

We may disclose and use personally identifiable information in special circumstances where it is necessary to en-force our Terms of Use (for example, when necessary to protect our intellectual property rights). We may also dis-close personally identifiable information when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires us to do so. In the de-velopment of our business, we might sell or buy businesses or assets. In transactions such as these, customer infor-mation is generally one of the transferred business assets.

Exclusions

Any information that you submit to any public areas of the Bulletin web site including, but not limited to, comments areas, bulletin boards, reviews and letters to the editor ("Public Areas") will be public and will not come under the provisions of this Privacy Policy. We do not control, and are not responsible for, the actions of other users of the Bulletin Web Sites with respect to any information you post in Public Areas. In addition, information that you sub-mit to Public Areas may be collected and used by us and by others to send you unsolicited messages and for other purposes.

Changes

We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted here; you may wish to check this page regularly.