HamptonRoads.com, PilotOnline.com & HamptonRoads.tv Privacy Policy
Last Updated on July 23, 2009
This Privacy Policy discloses the privacy practices for HamptonRoads.com, PilotOnline.com & HamptonRoads.tv. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to “HamptonRoads.com” include HamptonRoads.com, PilotOnline.com, HamptonRoads.tv, and all of the channels found on these sites.
In this Privacy Policy, you will find answers to the following questions:
- Which sites are covered by this policy?
- What information do we gather from you, how and why?
- What do we do with the information we collect?
- What should you know about user submitted content?
- How do you change or update your personal information?
- How is your information protected?
- Other information: Children's Online Privacy
- Other information: Compliance with Legal Process
- Other information: Changes to this Privacy Policy
OUR COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
HamptonRoads.com is committed to protecting your privacy online. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect and use online. The information below is intended to demonstrate that commitment and provide insight into how we do that.
We understand that your confidence in our processes is critical as you participate more in online activities. We seek to provide you with as much control as possible over your personal information. The purpose of our policy is to inform you about the types of information we gather about you when you visit our site(s), how we may use that information, whether we disclose it to anyone, and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to correct, the information.
We reevaluate both our Privacy Policy and our Posting Policy on an ongoing basis. We will post the new policies on this page in a timely manner, and, if the changes allow us to use personally identifying information in ways that are different from the ways specified at the time the information was originally collected, HamptonRoads.com will contain a special notice about the changes. Each version of this privacy policy will be identified by its effective date, which you can find at the top and the bottom of the page. This statement and the policies outlined here are not intended to and do not give you any contractual or other legal rights.
If you have questions or concerns regarding these policies, we ask that you contact us:
By Web: Privacy Policy feedback
By Phone: (757) 446-2727
By Fax: (757) 627-2175, Attention: Online Privacy Manager
By Mail:
HamptonRoads.com
Attention: Online Privacy Manager
150 W. Brambleton Ave.
Norfolk, VA 23510
WHICH SITES ARE COVERED BY THIS POLICY?
This Privacy Policy applies to the following HamptonRoads.com web sites:
• HamptonRoads.com
• PilotOnline.com
• HamptonRoads.tv
• 757Teamz.com
• ODUBlitz.com
• CareerConnection.com (jobs.hamptonroads.com)
• DealSpotter (deals.hamptonroads.com)
• Drive (drive.hamptonroads.com)
• ePilot, the electronic edition of The Virginian-Pilot
• Real Estate (homes.hamptonroads.com)
• Apartments (apartments.hamptonroads.com)
• Business Directory (find.hamptonroads.com)
Please note, HamptonRoads.com may contain links to other web sites for your convenience and information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any company before submitting your personal information.
HOW AND WHY WE GATHER INFORMATION FROM USERS
We collect limited amounts and types of personal information from users of our sites. The information we gather falls into two categories: 1) personal information you voluntarily supply when you subscribe, order, complete a survey, register for an online discussion, enter a contest or provide your e-mail address and 2) tracking information collected as you navigate through our sites.
Personal information:
How we collect and store user personal information depends on the page you are visiting, the activities in which you elect to participate and the services provided. You can visit many pages on our sites without providing any information. Other pages may prompt you to provide information, such as when you register for services or access to portions of our sites, sign up for membership, request certain features (e.g., newsletters, news updates and other products), sign up for a newspaper subscription, complete a survey or make a purchase. You may also provide information when you participate in a promotion, sweepstake or contest, voting and polling activities, post comments to blogs, message boards and chat rooms and other interactive areas of our sites. We and/or our third party partners may use this information to process and maintain your account and compile demographic statistics about our users.
E-Mail Newsletters
If you choose to receive them, HamptonRoads.com will periodically send you e-mail newsletters or promotional e-mail about services offered by HamptonRoads.com and our advertisers. For details about our email newsletters, please click here.
Mobile Messaging Service
HamptonRoads.com uses the information collected from your interaction with our sites by Text Messaging Service (SMS) (“SMS Service”) solely for the purposes of improving the SMS Service. The information will not be provided, sold, licensed, rented, assigned or disclosed to Third Parties, except as required by law, nor will we use your phone number to initiate a call or SMS text message to you without your express prior consent. Your wireless carrier and other service providers also collect data about your SMS Service usage, and their practices are governed by their own privacy policies.
HamptonRoads.com collects the mobile phone number you use to send us a text message and the content of the messages sent between you and HamptonRoads.com. When you send a text message to HamptonRoads.com, we log the incoming phone number, the wireless provider associated with the number, and the date and time of the transaction. The only information we automatically collect is that related to the use of our Mobile Services. HamptonRoads.com uses this data to analyze the message traffic in order to operate, develop and improve our SMS Service.
Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. Should you choose to voluntarily disclose personal information on our sites, such as in message boards, chat areas or in advertising or notices you post, that information can be viewed publicly and can be collected and used by third parties without our knowledge and may result in unsolicited messages from other individuals or third parties. Such activities are beyond the control of HamptonRoads.com and this policy.
Aggregate Information Collected Through Technology:
Like most web sites, we also collect and aggregate information automatically and through the use of electronic tools that may be transparent to our visitors. For example, we may log the name of your Internet Service Provider or use “cookie” technology. Among other things, the cookie may store your user name and password, sparing you from having to re-enter that information each time you visit, or may control the number of times you encounter a particular advertisement while visiting our sites. As we adopt additional technology, we may also gather information through other means. In certain cases, you can choose not to provide us with information, for example by setting your browser to refuse to accept cookies, but doing so may limit your ability to access certain portions of the sites and to take advantage of most personalized services offered. Additionally we may not be able to customize the sites’ features according to your preferences.
Third-party advertising companies: We use a proprietary advertising server to display ads on HamptonRoads.com. In addition, advertisers may elect to use third-party advertising companies to serve ads onto our web sites. In the course of serving these advertisements, the third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. We do not have access to these cookies or any information that they may contain. We do not control the placement or the acceptance of cookies from domains other than HamptonRoads.com. To learn more about advertising targeting technology and opt-out from being tracked by participating advertising companies, visit http://www.aboutads.info.
Third-party analytic systems: HamptonRoads.com is currently using and has contracted with Omniture, a third party, to track and analyze aggregated usage and volume statistical information from our visitors and customers to help us administer our web sites and constantly improve their quality. All data collected by Omniture on behalf of HamptonRoads.com is owned and used by HamptonRoads.com. HamptonRoads.com reserves the right to publish non-personally identifiable, summary information regarding its web site visitors for promotional purposes and as a representative audience for advertisers. For more information about Omniture privacy policy, including how to opt out, go to http://www.omniture.com/en/privacy/policy. We reserve the right to change the vendors who provide us with usage data.
Credit card information will be provided to third parties only to provide products and services that you order. We may use the contact information you provide to contact you about your account and/or to send you necessary information directly related to the product(s) or service(s) for which you have registered. With your permission, we may use your contact information to inform you of new features and special offers from us. We will not provide your contact information to unaffiliated third parties without your express permission. As part of the registration process, you have the option to inform us that you do not wish to receive information about other special offers and promotions.
Affiliated sites, linked sites and advertisements
We expect our partners, advertisers and third-party affiliates to respect the privacy of our users. However, third parties, including our partners, advertisers, affiliates and other content providers accessible through our sites may have their own privacy and data collection policies and practices with terms that differ from the terms in our Privacy Policy, and that we do not control. For example, during your visit to our sites you may link to, or view as part of a frame on a page, certain content that is actually created or hosted by a third party. Also, through HamptonRoads.com you may be introduced to, or be able to access, information, web sites, advertisements, features, contests or sweepstakes offered by other parties. HamptonRoads.com is not responsible for such third party content or for the actions or policies of the third parties providing such content. You should check the applicable terms of use and privacy policies of those third parties before providing information on a feature or page operated by a third party.
While on our sites, our advertisers, promotional partners or other third parties may use cookies or other technology to attempt to identify some of your preferences or retrieve information about you. For example, some of our advertising is served by third parties and may include cookies that enable the advertiser to determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before. Through features available on our sites, third parties may use cookies or other technology to gather information. HamptonRoads.com does not control the use of this technology or the resulting information and is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties.
WHAT WE DO WITH THE INFORMATION WE COLLECT
The aggregated information we collect is used for a number of purposes including the following:
1. To recognize you, provide personalization and deliver more individualized content and advertising.
2. To improve the content and design of our sites, including by allowing HamptonRoads.com's editors to consult with readers.
3. To communicate with users about our sites, registration and other customer service issues, our Terms of Service and privacy policy, products and services offered by HamptonRoads.com, the administration of sweepstakes and contests, processing of e-commerce transactions and other topics we think you might find of interest.
4. To conduct research surveys on behalf of the HamptonRoads.com, and its subsidiaries and affiliates.
5. To help us understand usage of our sites, including where our users are going and how much time they are spending.
6. To learn more about the interests of our users, so that we can offer goods and services we believe may be of interest.
7. To enable audit bureaus and third party advertisers to verify our claims of traffic to our sites.
8. To help advertisers, potential advertisers or marketers assess the suitability of the sites for their ad campaigns.
9. To allow advertising to be targeted, based on aggregated, non-personally identifiable usage information, to the users for whom such advertising is most pertinent.
10. HamptonRoads.com may share personal information with Virginian-Pilot Media Companies for analysis purposes, including analysis to improve customer relationships.
Future uses
As we continue to develop our business, we may sell, buy, merge or partner with other companies or businesses. In such transactions, user information may be among the transferred assets. We may also disclose your information in response to a court order, at other times when we believe we are reasonably required to do so by law, in connection with the collection of amounts you may owe to us, and/or whenever we deem it appropriate or necessary to give such information to law enforcement authorities. Please note we may not provide you with notice prior to disclosure in such cases.
WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT USER SUBMITTED CONTENT
HamptonRoads.com makes available to its users tools which allow them to publish content on our web sites, such as (but not limited to) message boards, blogs, comments, forums, reader reviews, chats and interactive tools. In that connection, we are a community forum and are not responsible for reviewing or editing any user-submitted content. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information contained in any third party content on our sites, including, without limitation, user-submitted content, are those of their respective authors or producers of such content, and we do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of any such content.
You may submit content to certain sections of our sites provided you do so in accordance with the Posting Guidelines set forth below.
• HamptonRoads.com reserves the right to remove or not to publish any individual or individual’s content on our sites for any reason without explanation.
• We reserve the right to, but do not assume the obligation, to restrict or prohibit the use of our sites as we see fit whether for legal or other reasons.
• User submitted content remains the intellectual property of the individual user, however by posting content on our sites, you grant HamptonRoads.com a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide, fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media, whether now known or hereafter discovered.
• You represent and warrant that you own or otherwise have all necessary rights, including but not limited to copyrights, in all content that you submit to our sites, that you have secured all third party consents, licenses, waivers and permissions necessary to submit such content, including, without limitation, waivers of third party “moral rights” in the content, that you have secured waivers of rights of privacy, publicity and personality from any third parties whose names, likenesses, photographs, animated portrayals, or actual or imitated voices are depicted in the content, and that no content you submit could reasonably be regarded as obscene, defamatory, abusive or otherwise inappropriate..
• On occasion user-published content is repurposed in The Virginian-Pilot. The editor may contact the user for more information if necessary.
• Any posting becomes public as soon as they are published online.
• You should be aware that when you disclose personal information such as your name or e-mail address in a comment, blog, posting or other area that is publicly accessible by others, that information can be collected and used by others. HamptonRoads.com is not responsible for any information that you provide in the above areas.
• For more information, see the Posting Guidelines.
HOW DO I CHANGE OR UPDATE MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Your Virginian-Pilot Home Delivery account: You may update and/or edit your Home Delivery account information online by clicking on the “Manage Account” link on our home pages, under The Virginian-Pilot. Should you require assistance, please call our toll free number, 1-800-446-9000; locally, you may call 446-2000.
Manage your HamptonRoads.com account: You may review and update your HamptonRoads.com account information and access your site comments and participation history in your User Account area. There are a number of things you can do to ensure your personal information is accurate and up to date. You can update the information you provided during the free registration process. You can sign up for our e-mail newsletters and manage your delivery options. To gain access to the areas of the Member Center containing personal information, you will be asked to re-enter your password. If you do not remember your password, you can reset your password here. If you need further assistance, please use our online feedback form.
Manage your ePilot account: You may update and/or edit your ePilot account information online by logging in at virginianpilot.hamptonroads.com. You may update your registered credit card information, address, communication preferences and the e-mail address and password registered to the account. Should you require assistance, please click here.
The security of the information you provide to us is important to us. We use encryption software and other security measures to prevent the loss, misuse, and alteration of sensitive information under our control. However, we include links to other sites, and when you choose to visit those sites, we are not responsible for their privacy policies or how they treat user information. In addition, we may permit third parties to offer registration-based services through our sites. We are not responsible for the actions and policies of these third parties, and you should review the privacy policies of these parties when supplying personal information to them.
CHILDREN'S ONLINE PRIVACY
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) provides that web site operators cannot knowingly collect or store personal information, even in the aggregate, from children under age 13 except as permitted by law. While we offer information that is useful to many children, we do not seek children's participation in services that require registration.
You must be 18 years or older to participate in the following services:
• Contests
• Registering for free Hampton Roads Group Pages
You must be 13 years or older to participate in the following services:
• Registering for free HamptonRoads.com newsletters
• Posting comments for stories and blogs
• Rating movies in the Movie Guide
• Posting events in our Community Calendar
By visiting our web sites or by submitting any information to our sites, you are representing to us that you are age 13 or older (or, as applicable per the statements above, age 18 or older).
COMPLIANCE WITH LEGAL PROCESS
We may disclose personal information if we are required to do so by law or we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to (1) comply with the law or with legal process; (2) protect and defend our rights and property; (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our web sites; or (4) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public (among other things, this means that if you provide false information or attempt to pose as someone else, information about you may be disclosed as part of any investigation into your actions).
CHANGES TO THIS POLICY
We reevaluate both our Privacy Policy and our Posting Policy on an ongoing basis. We will post the new policies on this page in a timely manner, and, if the changes allow us to use personally identifying information in ways that are different from the ways specified at the time the information was originally collected, HamptonRoads.com will contain a special notice about the changes. Each version of this privacy policy will be identified by its effective date, which you can find at the top and the bottom of the page.
Last Updated on July 23, 2009
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