Privacy Policy
SOUTHERN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPERS INC. PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS
This Privacy Policy was last updated on June 30, 2020 and is effective immediately.
At Southern Community Newspapers Inc., we are committed to protecting the privacy, accuracy and reliability of any personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") you choose to provide and to safeguarding such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. This Privacy Policy applies to those web channels for Southern Community Newspapers Inc. newspapers ("Newspapers") that are part of the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Network. This Privacy Policy governs the collection of any Personal Information you provide to a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel that is part of the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Network and does not cover any such information collected by its corporate parent, affiliates, or any other company, unless specifically stated. This Privacy Policy is also incorporated into the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Legal Terms for Web Channel Usage Agreement ("Terms of Use") by reference. Any capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy will have the same meaning as defined in the Terms of Use.
Unless specified otherwise on the Service, all users must be at least 18 years of age and a legal resident of the United States to participate in any activity that requires the submission of Personal Information. This Service is designed and targeted to United States ("U.S.") audiences and is governed by and operated in accordance with the laws of the U.S. We make no representation that this Service is operated in accordance with the laws or governed by other nations. By your participation in our Service activities, you certify that you are at least 18 years of age and located in the U.S. If you are located in the European Union or elsewhere outside of the U.S. and you participate in activities on this Service contrary to our policy that only U.S. residents are eligible for certain activities, you do so at your own risk and initiative, and are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. Please be aware that any Personal Information you voluntarily submit to us will be transferred to the U.S and subject to U.S. law. By using this Service, participating in any Service activities, and/or providing us with your Personal Information, you consent to this collection, transfer and use of Personal Information to the U.S., and waive any claims that may arise under your own national laws. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time without notice to you, so please check back often. Certain revisions are effective to you as a user of this web channel immediately upon posting. When we revise the Privacy Policy, we will post a notice on the web channel’s home page. For revisions that are classified as significant changes in the use and disclosure of your information we will also send a notice to your email address currently on file with Southern Community Newspapers Inc., and meet any other requirement under applicable law. If you have any questions or comments regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us by sending an e-mail message to mike.gebhart@scompapers.com
What are "Your California Privacy Rights"? Under California law, California residents who have an established business relationship with us will have the right to receive information about our opt-out policy of sharing your Personal Information with Southern Community Newspapers Inc. corporate affiliated companies (collectively, "Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Affiliates") and with non-affiliated third parties, including Advertisers, for marketing purposes. If you wish to learn about our opt-out policies and your rights under California law, please send your written request to us using the email or postal mail address below. In an email request, you must state "Re: Your California Privacy Rights" in the subject line.
Southern Community Newspapers, Inc. Attn: Mike Gebhart, PO Box 603, Lawrenceville, Georgia, 30046.
For all requests, please include your name, street address, city, state and zip code. We will not accept requests via the telephone or by facsimile. We are not responsible for responding to requests that are not labeled or not sent properly, or do not have complete information. Your request to opt-out of our future sharing of your Personal Information with either Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Affiliates or third parties will be processed within ten (10) business days of the date it is received in accordance with the information below. Please note that non-affiliated third parties are independent from Southern Community Newspapers Inc. and if you wish to stop all communications from such third parties, you will need to address your request to the non-affiliated third parties directly.
Collection of Personal Information You do not need to provide any Personal Information (which is information that can identify you or can be used to contact you) to use a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel or to obtain information from most of the features and activities of a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel. In general, you can visit our web channels without telling us who you are or revealing any Personal Information. However, if you want to participate in certain online services, you may be asked to provide some Personal Information, such as your name, mailing address, business address, telephone, mobile phone, birth date or age, and/or e-mail address. You might be asked to choose a user name and password, and provide that information when accessing certain online features or services. If you do not want to give us any Personal Information, you can always choose not to participate. The choice is yours. We are only interested in offering you convenient online services that match your interests and needs. Unless stated otherwise, we do not purposefully request contact information for a mobile phone, text messaging or any wireless device that includes a domain name address (such as ".net" or ".com") as part of the contact information. Federal law prohibits the sending of commercial email messages directly to a wireless device that uses a domain name, unless you have first given your affirmative consent. We may inadvertently collect a wireless device number that includes a domain name when you send us an inquiry or register for a contest or membership club. However, we will not knowingly use that contact information for sending commercial email. We reserve the right to respond to user inquiries or requests sent via a wireless device that uses a domain name as such messages are not deemed to be commercial email and therefore, are not regulated by Federal law. However, when "computer to phone" commercial emails are prohibited by law, we may reject your wireless device contact information when such information is submitted for certain features or services. We will attempt to notify you if we will need new contact information. All users of the Service are required to provide true, current, complete and accurate Personal Information when prompted and we will reject and delete any entry that we believe in good faith to be false or fraudulent. Any prize or benefit shall be forfeited due to a rejected or disqualified entry. Your continued participation indicates your acceptance of this Privacy Policy and of the collection, use, disclosure, management and storage of your Personal Information as described below. We may from time to time, transfer or merge any Personal Information collected off-line to our online databases or store off-line information in an electronic format. We may also combine Personal Information we collect online with information available from other sources, including information received from Advertisers, or marketing companies. This Privacy Policy covers all such Personal Information and will remain in full force and effect as long as you are a user of the Service or a participant in Newspaper activities. The list below contains some of the instances when a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel, one of its operational service providers or vendors (third party companies that provide internal support to the Service) may collect your Personal Information. Please note that many of our web channels may offer additional online features and services and may ask you to provide some Personal Information before permitting you to access those areas.
To fill out a data information or deletion request, click here. (For California residents ONLY)
Automated News Services and Updates. This Service may offer you special subscription features for news and news-related topics via email. For the email updates, you are only required to submit an email address. The submission of other information such as your computer's operating system, ranges for household income and education, and a general description of your profession is voluntary.
Polls. Many Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels offer polling areas, which provide users with an opportunity to vote on local and national issues of concern. When you choose to participate in a poll, we may ask you to provide your name, gender, age or birth date, zip code and/or e-mail address. This information helps us to ensure the accuracy of our polling data.
Surveys. Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels also may allow users to complete surveys about products or services offered by Southern Community Newspapers Inc. or other companies. These surveys may ask for your name and e-mail address, and/or other information, such as your gender, age or birth date and income level. This information helps us to understand our survey results.
Contests/Trivia. Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels also afford users many opportunities to play contests or trivia games. When you enter into a contest, trivia game or any other promotional opportunity, we may ask for your name, password information, and telephone number and address (physical and electronic) so that we can contact you if you win. Sometimes we may require you to provide additional information, such as your birth date, gender and income level. Of course, if you do not want to provide such information, you do not need to participate in the online activity.
Purchases & Shopping. Some Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels enable users to purchase products. When you purchase products, we may request your name, billing and/or shipping address, email address, telephone number and credit card information. This information allows us to send you the items you ordered, to process payment information, and to respond to product and billing questions. Credit card or debit card account information will be collected via a secured transmission process and will be stored in a commercially reasonable secured manner. Alternatively, the Service may use a third party operational service provider to conduct the financial transaction in a secured manner; the third party payment website will be accessible via a hyperlink from the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Newspaper's web channel and will be solely responsible for all financial transactions and the collection, use, storage and disposal of your Personal Information.
Chat/Message Boards/Blogs. Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels also may offer users the chance to participate in public areas, such as chat rooms, message boards, blogs and/or news groups. When you choose to participate in any of these areas, we may request your name, password information and address (physical and electronic). This information helps us respond to questions or concerns about use of these public areas. We reserve the right to edit or delete any Personal Information disclosed to the public.
Comments/Questions. We afford users an opportunity to submit comments or questions online - You must be a verified registered user to submit a comment, ask a question or submit a blog post. If you choose to provide other Personal Information with, or in your comment or question, we may retain such information in our public correspondence files unless you are identified as a person less than 13 years of age. General correspondence received from children identified as being less than 13 years of age will be deleted and destroyed consistent with the requirements of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 ("COPPA"). However, Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Newspapers are obligated by the Federal Communications Commission to maintain certain public correspondence related to the operations of the Newspaper in its public inspection file, which may also be available via a Newspaper's web channel. Such correspondence will be maintained in the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Newspapers' public inspection file and made available for review by the general public as required by the FCC, even such correspondence knowingly received from children.
Use and Disclosure of Personal Information Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels use 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 web channels and to notify you about updates to one of our web channels or to send you marketing materials or promotional offers from the Service, Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Newspapers, or on behalf of our advertisers, sponsors, and promotional partners (collectively, "Advertisers") that may be of interest to you. 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 reserve the right to collect Personal Information using any new technology yet to be developed and to use such technology to provide new services and features to you, as well as for marketing and promotional purposes. Specific information regarding your choice to Opt-out to such use, or for sharing your Personal Information with Advertisers, will be provided once the new technology, service, or feature is introduced.
On occasion, Southern Community Newspapers Inc. or one of its Newspapers may share your Personal Information with our Advertisers. You will have an opportunity to "Opt-out" of such sharing at the time of registration for the event or feature or by contacting the Service at promotions@gwinnettdailypost.com.
We also provide you with an option to "Opt-out" of receiving advertising and promotional email from us about Southern Community Newspapers Inc., its Newspapers or our Advertisers in compliance with federal law by installing an Opt-out mechanism with all such commercial email messages. You must use the designated method in the email message to notify us of your Opt-out request, as we cannot guarantee that other methods of notification will be effective or timely. Please be aware that we may continue to contact you via email for administrative, transactional or informational purposes, including follow-up messages regarding contests you have entered or other transactions you have undertaken. By law, such messages are not considered to be commercial email.
We are not responsible for removing your Personal Information from third party lists or entities which you have previously authorized us to share your information. You will need to contact those entities directly. We may also share aggregate Personal Information and non-Personal Information about website usage with unaffiliated third parties, including, but not limited to, government agencies, Advertisers, and the media (i.e., % of Southern Community Newspapers Inc. users are female, % of users have visited certain sections, etc.). This aggregate information does not contain any Personal Information about a specific individual.
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 the Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Network and to store your Personal Information.
In the event that the assets or stock of the Service, Southern Community Newspapers Inc., its Network Newspapers, and Southern Community Newspapers Inc.'s parent company are sold or transferred, merged with a different company or entity, restructured, or subject to other fundamental corporate changes, we reserve the right to disclose any and all databases compiled from Personal Information. We will seek to obligate the company's successor to agree to the terms of the Privacy Policy, as it may hereafter be modified, but cannot guarantee that we will be able to do so or that the successor company will comply with this obligation.
Finally, we may be required to disclose Personal Information by law or legal process, to protect and defend the rights or property of a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel, to respond to or participate in a governmental inquiry or investigation, or to protect the personal safety of users of our web channels. We also reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities when activities that are illegal (or reasonably presumed to be illegal) or violate our policies is taking place on a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel. Except under the limited circumstances described above, we will not disclose any of your Personal Information to unaffiliated third parties.
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 are permitted to access Personal Information, and they only may do so for permitted business functions. Any employee who violates our privacy access policies will be subject to disciplinary action.
However, please note that this Service does not use a secured connection for the transmission of Personal Information except for the purchase of goods and services. When a user transmits Personal Information over an unsecured Internet connection, Personal Information during the transmission such as your email or registration could be copied or intercepted by unknown third parties. Therefore, you understand, acknowledge and agree that you transmit certain Personal Information over this Service at your own risk.
Accessing or Deleting Your Personal information If you have submitted Personal Information through a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel and you would like to access that information, please send an e-mail to webinfo@gwinnettdailypost.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 active databases. Given the limitations of our computer systems, corporate business policies, and federal or state laws, we may not be able to delete all of your Personal Information. We reserve the right to deny access to any user if we believe there is a question about his/her identity. And if the burden or expense of providing access to a user's Personal Information is disproportionate to the potential privacy risks to that user, or if the legitimate rights of others would be violated, we may chose to not provide access to such information. In such cases, we will provide you with an explanation and a contact person for further inquiries.
Collection, Use and Disclosure of Non-Personal Information Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel may collect and freely disclose information about you that is not personally identifiable, as described in the next two sections below. We reserve the right to merge any such information with your Personal Information but will do so only in accordance with Southern Community Newspapers Inc. guidelines and applicable law.
Internet Protocol Addresses An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. This number by itself does not identify your name, e-mail address or other Personal Information. If you request pages from any Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel, that web channel's server will enter your IP address into a log. To maintain user anonymity, Southern Community Newspapers Inc. does not associate or link IP addresses with records containing Personal Information unless it is necessary to enforce the law, our Terms of Use, protect Southern Community Newspapers Inc., its users, employees, operational service providers or Advertisers, or to defend against or investigate any charges or claims against Southern Community Newspapers Inc. We also do not permit IP addresses to be associated and viewed with posts to chat rooms, blogs and bulletin boards by other users. We store IP addresses for a period of time to help us to identify anyone who refuses to comply with our Terms of Service, applicable law, and to identify visitors who threaten our Service, web channel, customers or others. We also will use this information to measure web channel traffic for purposes of system administration and for our Advertisers. This aggregate data also helps us to understand how people are using the web channel and helps us improve your online experience.
Passive Collection of User Information via Cookies and Web Beacons Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels passively collect certain kinds of non-Personal information automatically through the use of "cookies." "Cookies" are small text files that recognize repeat visitors, facilitate ongoing access and personalization to some of our features and activities and other websites, and will allow us to understand how and when pages are visited and by how many people. Cookies can store a variety of information, including IP addresses, navigational data, server information, data transfer times, user preferences, shopping cart information and passwords needed to access our web channels and Service. We use cookies to make improvements and updates based on which areas are popular and which are not. We may also use cookies to serve customized advertising or content to you based on your geographic location, age, gender, or other demographics that you have provided to us and to ensure the accuracy of our polling data. You may configure your browser to warn you each time a cookie is being sent. If you do not want to allow our cookies on your computer, you must configure your browser to turn off all cookies used by Southern Community Newspapers Inc., our system does not allow you to opt-out to them individually. However, if you do so, you might not be able to access important functions or enjoy certain conveniences or customized features of our Service. A web beacon (also called a web bug, pixel tag or a clear GIF) is typically a small transparent graphic image that is placed on a web page or in an email and is used to monitor the activity of the user visiting the webpage or email. Web beacons are used for website traffic reporting, auditing and reporting user clicks on an ad, and tracking the number of unique visitors to a webpage or ad. Web beacons and cookies may also be used in combination to customize your experience on this web channel by monitoring your activity and interests.
Our Advertisers and third party network advertising servers, such as Google, will also place cookies and/or web beacons on your computer to personalize your experience on this web channel. Cookies and web beacons are standard in the Internet advertising industry. Google will use the DART Double Click Cookie to use non-Personal Information about your visits to and activities on this web channel and other websites within the ad serving network in order to provide advertisements and promotions about goods and services of interest to you. Such non-Personal Information includes your IP Address, search activity, website viewing history, purchase and transaction history, and/or advertising views. This information is not merged, linked or associated with your Personal Information, such as an email address. Please note that Southern Community Newspapers Inc. does not control Advertiser cookies or web beacons, and such technology is not subject to this Privacy Policy. Please see Google’s "Privacy Policy for Google Ads and the Google Content Network" for more information about this form of personalized advertising and learn about your opt-out choices. http://www.google.com/privacy_cookies.html
Please be aware that opting out of a network advertising server does not mean you will no longer receive online advertising. It does mean that the network from which you opted out will no longer deliver ads tailored to your web preferences and usage patterns. Additionally, the Google Opt-out Tool is cookie-based. In order for the Tool to work on your computer, your browser must be set to accept third party cookies. If you buy a new computer, change web browsers or delete this cookie, you will need to perform the opt-out task again.
Safeguarding Children's Privacy Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels will not knowingly collect Personal Information or any other identifying data from children under 13 years of age without first obtaining verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian. Requests for parental consent will explain how we collect, use, and disclose children's Personal Information, and will include an opportunity for parents to prevent use of their children's Personal Information, as well as to prevent their children from participating in features which involve the collection of Personal Information. In addition, if/when we request Personal Information from children less than 13 years of age with verifiable parental consent, we will not require the child to disclose more Personal Information than is necessary in order to participate in any online feature or service.
Should a child whom we know to be under 13 submit Personal Information to a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel without first obtaining verifiable parental consent, we will immediately reject any such entry and delete that information from our database, unless such information meets an exception under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act or pertains to the programming or operations of Southern Community Newspapers Inc. Network Newspapers and therefore, will be subject to the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). We are required by the FCC to post any such emailed comments on this web channel. (See above Comments/Question Section.)
Except to meet FCC, other regulatory and legal purposes, we will not use, distribute or disclose any child's Personal Information to third parties without prior parental consent. Unless we are required to retain any Personal Information for regulatory, tax or other legal purposes we will promptly remove such information from our database if a parent withdraws his or her consent to our use or maintenance of Personal Information collected from his or her child.
External Links Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channels may provide links to various external websites or services (collectively referred to as a "Linked Website"). (Please see the Service's Legal Terms for Web Channel Use Agreement for more information.) When you click on one of these links, you will be transferred from a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel and connected to the service or website of the third party organization or company that you selected. Even if an affiliation exists between Southern Community Newspapers Inc. and a third party Linked Website, you understand, acknowledge and agree that Southern Community Newspapers Inc. exercises no control and has no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or business practices of a Linked Website. Each of these Linked Websites (such as Second Street Media's contest "U-PickEm,” and photo gallery "My Capture") maintains its own independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. If you visit a website that is linked to a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel, you should consult that website's privacy policy before providing those websites with any of your Personal Information.
Framed Websites/Pages The Service may also include certain pages that are "framed" and link to third party websites ("Framed Pages"). We provide these Framed Pages as a convenience to our users. A Framed Page may have the same look and feel as other pages on the Service, with a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. or Newspaper logo and border, but Framed Pages are often merely gateways to other websites. Even if an affiliation exists between Southern Community Newspapers Inc. and a Framed Page, you understand, acknowledge and agree that Southern Community Newspapers Inc. exercises no control over Framed Pages, and Southern Community Newspapers Inc. is not responsible for any content or the privacy policies or data-collection practices of a Framed Page. The privacy policy of the Framed Page, if any, will control your use of, and provision of information to or through, the Framed Page. If you visit a Framed Page, you should consult the Framed Page's privacy policy before providing any Personal Information.
Terms, Changes and Questions By using a Southern Community Newspapers Inc. web channel, you signify your agreement to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not use the web channel or disclose any Personal Information. If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on the web channel's home page. We will also notify you of significant changes via email (if we have your current email address). If you do not agree to the changes in the Privacy Policy, you understand, acknowledge and agree that your only recourse is to stop using our Service, and your continued use of our Service constitutes acceptance of such changes in the Privacy Policy, except where further steps are required by applicable law. The effective date of this Privacy Policy is noted in the beginning of this Privacy Policy.
As described above, we and third parties may use cookies and other tracking technologies to facilitate serving relevant ads to you. For example, these technologies help us determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before, tailor ads to you if you have visited our site before, and avoid sending you duplicate advertisements. You can learn more about certain types of targeted advertising by visiting the Digital Advertising Alliance website or our Ad Choices page. In addition to disabling cookies and other tracking technologies as described above, you may opt-out of receiving targeted advertising from participating ad networks, audience segment providers, ad serving vendors, and other service providers by visiting websites operated by the Network Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance .
If you have any questions or comments about this policy or our use of Personal Information, you may send an e-mail to mike.gebhart@scompapers.com or send a letter to the following address:
Southern Community Newspapers, Inc. Attn: Mike Gebhart, PO Box 603, Lawrenceville, Georgia, 30046. We will use reasonable efforts to promptly investigate any complaint you may have regarding our use of Personal Information. Copyright © 2011 Southern Community Newspapers, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
