The DCA's COMMITMENT TO YOUR PRIVACY
This site is owned and operated by the
Downtown Cedartown Association (the DCA).
Your privacy on the Internet is of the
utmost importance to us. At the DCA, 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 the DCA GATHERS AND
TRACKS
the DCA 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 message boards or forums, to email
a friend, and from participation in polls
and surveys:
Information the DCA 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
DCA derivesaportion of its revenue from
sponsorships and advertising, providing
such aggregated demographic data is essential
to keeping our service free to users.
Under no circumstances does the DCA divulge
any information about an individual user
to a third party.
The DCA 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. Electronic newsletters policy (Dispatches)
We will offer a free electronic newsletter
to users. The DCA gathers the email addresses
of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users
may remove themselves from this mailing
list by following the link provided in
every newsletter that points users to
the subscription management page. Users
can also subscribe to the newsletters
at the time of registration.
2. "E-mail this to a friend"
policy
Our site users can choose to electronically
forward a link, page, or documents to
someone else by clicking "e-mail
this to a friend". 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 . Polling
We may offer interactive polls to users
so they can easily share their opinions
with other users and see what our audience
thinks about important issues related
to downtown Cedartown. Opinions or other
responses to polls are aggregated and
are not identifiable to any particular
user. the DCA may use a system to "tag"
users after they have voted, so they can
vote only once on a particular question.
This tag is not correlated with information
about individual users.
4. Surveys
The DCA 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 DCA tracks user traffic patterns
throughout all of our sites. However,
we do not correlate this information with
data about individual users. the DCA 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 DCA 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 DCA uses cookies
to track user traffic patterns (as described
above).
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, polling and
surveys.
Privacy Policy Use
How the information you gather is used
if relevent.
USE OF INFORMATION
The DCA 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
send out electronic newsletters and to
enable users to participate in polls,
surveys, message boards, and forums. We
send out newsletters to subscribers on
a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter),
and occasionally send out special editions
when we think subscribers might be particularly
interested in something we are doing.
The DCA never shares newsletter 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 DCA 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 DCA uses the above-described information
to tailor our content to suit your needs
and help ourmembers and 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 DCA operates secure data networks
protected by industry standard firewall
and 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
We give users options wherever necessary
and practical. Such choices include:
Opting not to register to receive our
electronic newsletters.
Opting 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 DCA. 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.
Thank you for taking interest in the
DCA and rest assured that we are committed
to the privacy of our users.
