Barrington Broadcasting Privacy Policy
At Barrington Broadcasting Corporation, "Barrington," we are committed to protecting the privacy, accuracy and reliability of any 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 sites that are part of the Barrington Network.
Please read this privacy policy carefully. This privacy policy may change from time to time, so please check back often. If you have any questions or comments regarding this privacy policy, please contact us by sending an e-mail message.
Collection of Personal Information
You do not need to provide any information that identifies you ("personal information") to use a Barrington site or to obtain information from most of the features of a Barrington site. In general, you can visit our Web sites without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information.
However, if you want to use certain online services, you may be asked to provide some personal information, such as your name, mailing address or e-mail address. We also may ask you to choose a user name and password and provide that information when accessing certain online features. If you do not want to give us any personal information, you can always decide not to use the services. The choice is yours. We are only interested in offering you convenient online services that match your interests and needs.
Some examples of when we may request personal information include the following:
E-News
You can register to receive notifications from Barrington sites about issues of personal interest, such as local weather, traffic and sports information. In order to provide you with these e-mail notifications, we may ask you to provide certain personal information, such as your name and e-mail address.
Polls
Many Barrington sites 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 and e-mail address. This information helps us ensure the accuracy of our polling data.
Surveys
Barrington sites also may allow users to complete surveys about products or services offered by Barrington or other companies. These surveys may ask for your name and e-mail address, and/or other information, such as your gender and income level. This information helps us understand our survey results.
Contests/Trivia
Barrington sites also afford users many opportunities to play contests or trivia games. When you enter into a contest, trivia game or any other promotional item, we may ask for your name, password information 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 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
Some Barrington sites enable users to purchase products. When you purchase products, we may request your name, 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.
Chat/Message Boards
Barrington sites also may offer users the chance to participate in public forums, such as chat rooms, message boards and/or news groups. When you choose to participate in any of these forums, 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.
Comments/Questions
You may send us comments or questions about your use of a Barrington site. You need not identify yourself to send a comment or question, but we may collect your e-mail address so that we can send you a response. If you choose to provide other personal information in your comment or question, we may keep it in our correspondence files.
In certain instances, Barrington may be required to disclose to the public various communications sent to the main station email address or form mechanism regarding station operations (the “Public File”) as authorized by the Federal Communications Commission. If you do not wish your information to be included in the Public File, please indicate so.
The above list contains some of the instances when a Barrington Web site may collect your personal information. Please note that many of our Web sites may offer additional online features and services and may ask you to provide some personal information before permitting you to access those areas. This privacy policy governs the collection of any personal information you provide to a Barrington site that is part of the Barrington Network.
Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
Barrington sites 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 sites and to notify you about updates to one of our sites or to send you marketing materials or promotional offers that may be of interest. 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 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 Barrington Network and to store your personal information.
We may also share aggregate, non-personal information about Web site usage with unaffiliated third parties, including, but not limited to, government agencies, advertisers and the media (i.e., __% of Barrington users are female, __% of users have visited certain sections, etc.). This aggregate information does not contain any personal information about our users.
Finally, we may be required to disclose personal information by law or legal process, to protect and defend the rights or property of a Barrington site, or to protect the personal safety of users to one of our sites. We also reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities when activities that are illegal or violate our policies are taking place on a Barrington Web site.
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.
Accessing or Deleting Your Personal Information
If you have submitted personal information through a Barrington site and you would like to access that information, please send an email to David Buonfiglio at dbuonfiglio@barringtontv.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 databases.
Collection, Use and Disclosure of Non-Personal Information
In some cases, a Barrington site may collect information about you that is not personally identifiable, as described below.
Internet Protocol Addresses
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. This number does not identify your name, e-mail address or other personal information. If you request pages from any Barrington Web site, that site's server will enter your IP address into a log. To maintain user anonymity, Barrington does not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. We also do not permit IP addresses to be associated and viewed with posts to chat rooms and bulletin boards. We store IP addresses for a period of time to help us to identify anyone who refuses to comply with our in-house rules or terms of service, and to identify visitors who threaten our service, site, customers or others. We also will use this information to measure site traffic for purposes of system administration and for our sponsors. This aggregate data also helps us to understand how people are using the Web site and helps us improve your online experience.
Cookies
Barrington sites also automatically gather certain non-personal information through the use of "cookies." "Cookies" are small text files that recognize repeat visitors, facilitate ongoing access to some sites, and allow sites to understand how and when pages are visited and by how many people. We use cookies primarily to make improvements and updates based on which areas are popular and which are not. We also use cookies to ensure the accuracy of our polling data. Except for personal information voluntarily provided by you (i.e., during any registration process), we do not use information transferred through cookies for promotional or marketing purposes, and that information is not shared with third parties.
Our advertisers may occasionally place cookies on your computer, which is standard in the Internet industry. Please note that Barrington does not control these cookies, and these cookies are not subject to this privacy policy.
Safeguarding Children's Privacy
Barrington sites 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 information, as well as to prevent their children from participating in features which involve the collection of personal information. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 send personal information to a Barrington site without first obtaining parental consent, the site will immediately delete that information from its database.
We will not use, distribute or disclose any child's personal information to third parties without prior parental consent. If, at any time, a parent withdraws his or her consent to our use or maintenance of personal information collected from his or her child, we will promptly remove such information from our database. In addition, we will not require children under 13 years of age to disclose more personal information than is necessary in order to participate in any online feature or service.
External Links
Barrington sites may provide links to various Web sites. When you click on one of these links, you will be transferred from a Barrington Web sites and connected to the Web site of the organization or company that you selected. Even if an affiliation exists between Barrington and a third-party Web site, Barrington exercises no control over linked sites. Each of these linked sites maintains its own independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. If you visit a Web site that is linked to a Barrington site, you should consult that site's privacy policy before providing those sites with any of your personal information.
Terms, Changes and Questions
By using a Barrington Web site, you signify your agreement to the terms of our privacy policy. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not use or disclose any personal information through one of our sites.
If we decide to change this privacy policy, we will post those changes here so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose it to anyone.
If you have any questions or comments about this policy or our use of personal information, you may send an email or send a letter to the following address:
Barrington Interactive
Barrington Broadcasting Corporation
650 East Algonquin Road, Suite 300
Schaumburg, IL 60173
Send an Email Message
We will use reasonable efforts to promptly investigate any complaint you may have regarding our use of personal information.
Updated 12/2008.
