Privacy Policy
Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At The Balboa Observer-Picayune ("The O.P."), 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 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 The O.P. gathers and tracks
The O.P. gathers two types of information about users:
Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys:
Information The O.P. gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers’ needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience. Because The O.P. derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping our service free to users.
The O.P. Gathers 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:
1. Forums
Users of the site’s Forums ("Talk Room") must register (free of charge) in order to post messages, although they need not register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.
2. "E-mail this to a friend" Service and Ecards
Our site users can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend" or using the Ecard service. The user must provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is not used for any other purpose.
3. Rating and Polling
Users may rate site content or participiate in interactive polls so they can easily share their opinions with other users on various topics. The O.P. may use a system to store users’ ratings or votes, so that they can vote only once on a particular question.
4. Surveys
The O.P. may occasionally conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this information about specific individuals with any third party.
Children
Consistent with the Federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.
Usage tracking
The O.P. tracks user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. The O.P. does break down overall usage statistics according to a user’s domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user’s browser).
The O.P. sometimes tracks and catalogs 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. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. The O.P. uses cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system delivers cookies to better track ad impressions and click rates.
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you’ve set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polls, surveys, and other services.
Use of Information
The O.P. uses any information voluntarily 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.
As stated above, we use information that users voluntarily provide in order to enable users to participate in polls, surveys, message boards, and forums. The O.P. never shares mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.
When 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.
The O.P. creates 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.
Sharing of the Information
The O.P. uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience’s demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual users with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our users or the public.
Security
The O.P. operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. 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.
Opt-Out Policy
Users may opt not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our users.
Your Consent
By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by The O.P.. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes 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.
