Privacy Policy

Protecting your private information is our priority. This Statement of Privacy governs each website, mobile site, application, and/or other services, regardless of how distributed, transmitted, published or broadcast (each, a “Service”) provided by Lesbian News, its parent, subsidiaries and/or affiliates that link to this Privacy Policy. The LN is a news and information Service. By using the LN, you consent to the data practices described in this statement.

This policy is effective as of March 30, 2013.

1. The Type of Information the Service Collects

1. The following Privacy Policy summarizes the various ways we treat personally identifiable and other information about you and your computer, mobile or other device when you access, visit and/or use the Service. This Privacy Policy does not cover information collected elsewhere, including without limitation offline and on sites, applications, destinations, or services linked to from the Service.
2. The Service generally collects personally identifiable information with your specific knowledge and consent. For instance, when you enter a sweepstakes or contest, complete a survey, make a purchase, subscribe to our publication(s), register for certain services, or register and/or set up an account/profile to access, visit and/or use certain portions of the Service, or the Service as a whole, you may be provided, or required to choose, a password and/or User ID, and you may provide a credit, debit, or charge card number, or other payment information, as well as your name, telephone number(s), email and/or street address, and other personally identifiable information. Other information such as your age, gender, an avatar, and the number for your mobile or other device may also be requested. In addition, you may be asked to send us similar information via messaging (e.g., email, SMS, MMS, or other technologies). All such information shall be referred to in this Privacy Policy as your “Registration Information”.
3. Our servers may also automatically collect information about you, your online behavior and your computer, mobile or other device. The information collected may include, without limitation, the make, model, settings, specifications (e.g., CPU speed, connection speed, browser type, operating system, device identifier) and geographic location of you and/or your computer, mobile or other device, as well as date/time stamp, IP address, pages visited, time of visits, content viewed, ads viewed, the site(s), application(s), destination(s), and/or service(s) you arrived from, and other clickstream data.
4. If you choose to access, visit and/or use any third party social networking service(s) that may be integrated with the Service, we may receive personally identifiable information and other information about you and your computer, mobile or other device that you have made available to those services, including information about your contacts on those services. For example, some social networking services allow you to push content from our Service to your contacts or to pull information about your contacts so you can connect with them on or through our Service. Some social networking services also will facilitate your registration for our Service or enhance or personalize your experience on our Service. Your decision to use a social networking service in connection with our Service is voluntary. However, you should make sure you are comfortable with the information your third party social networking services may make available to our Service by visiting those services’ privacy policies and/or modifying your privacy settings directly with those services. We reserve the right to use, transfer, assign, sell, share, and provide access to all personally identifiable information and other information about you and your computer, mobile or other device that we receive through third-party social networking services in the same ways described in this Agreement as all of your other information.

2. How the Service Uses and Shares Information About You

1. We use personally identifiable information you supply through the Service to provide you with the merchandise, product, service, and/or Content you have requested. For example, if you subscribe to any of our publications, we may use your e-mail address to send you a confirmation notice and your mailing address to send you the publication. Similarly, if you enter an online sweepstakes, we will use this information to notify you if you are a winner. We may also use the information to communicate with you about new features, products or services, and/or to improve the services that we offer by tailoring them to your needs.
2. Unless otherwise specified on the Service, we may sell or share information about you and your computer, mobile or other device, including without limitation your Registration Information and other personally identifiable information, with our parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates and with carefully selected companies who we think may offer services and/or products that may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to have your personally identifiable information shared with third parties, contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator as described at the end of this document. If you do not wish to receive future commercial messages from us, simply follow the unsubscribe instructions contained within the message you receive. (But note that you may continue to receive certain communications from us, such as transactional or relationship messages, and/or messages about your account/profile). If you’ve registered on any part of the Service, please use the mechanism or contact information on the Service that allows you to change or update your member preferences or information, if available, to keep all such data accurate and up-to-date. If no such mechanism or contact information is available on the Service, contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator as described below with your changes.
3. We may also allow access to our database by third parties that provide us with services, such as technical maintenance, market research, community and forums management, auction services, and shopping, personal/job search and other classified ads functionality, but only for the purpose of and to the extent necessary to provide those services. And if you choose to purchase merchandise, products and/or services, including without limitation Content, on or through features on the Service, we may forward your information to third parties for services such as credit card or other payment processing, order fulfillment, credit pre-authorization, and address verification. There are also times when you provide information about yourself to us in areas of the Service that may be managed or participated in by third parties. In such cases, the information may be used by us and by such third party(ies), each pursuant to its own policies. We may also provide your information to our advertisers, so that they can serve ads to you that meet your needs or match your interests. While we may seek to require such third parties to follow appropriate privacy policies and will not authorize them to use this information except for the express purpose for which it is provided, we do not bear any responsibility for any actions or policies of third parties.
4. We reserve the right to access, use, and share with others your personally identifiable information for purposes of health, safety and other matters in the public interest.
5. We may also provide access to our database in order to cooperate with official investigations or legal proceedings initiated by governmental and/or law enforcement officials, as well as private parties, including, for example, in response to subpoenas, search warrants, court orders, or other legal process.
6. In addition, we reserve the right to use the information we collect about your computer, mobile or other device (including its geographic location), which may at times be able to identify you, for any lawful business purpose, including without limitation to help diagnose problems with our servers, to gather broad demographic information, analyze trends, track users’ movements around the Service, and to otherwise administer the Service. Geographic location information about you and/or your computer, mobile or other device may specifically be used to show you content and sponsored messaging based on geographic location.
7. We reserve the right to use, transfer, sell, and share aggregated, anonymous data about our users as a group for any lawful business purpose, such as analyzing usage trends and seeking compatible advertisers, sponsors, clients and customers.
8. In addition, as our business changes, we may buy or sell various assets. In the event all or a portion of the assets owned or controlled by us, our parent or any subsidiary or affiliated entity are sold, assigned, transferred or acquired by another company, the information from and/or about our Service users may be among the transferred assets.
9. We reserve the right to identify you from your Registration Information and/or to merge or co-mingle anonymous or non-personally identifiable data about you, your offline and online behavior, and/or your computer, mobile or other device (including its geographic location), with your Registration Information and/or other personally identifiable data for any lawful business purpose.

3. Local Device Storage and other Tracking Technologies

1. The Service may place and/or store code or other types of information and/or devices (e.g., “cookies”) on your computer, mobile or other device (“Local Device Storage”). We may use Local Device Storage for any lawful business purpose, including without limitation to determine which of our messages have been opened by recipients so we can gauge the effectiveness of marketing campaigns, to control the display of ads, to track usage patterns, the movements of individual users, and your geographic location, to help diagnose problems with our servers, to gather broad demographic information, to analyze trends, to conduct research, to deliver editorial content, to record registration and personalization information, and to otherwise administer the Service. For example, if you register on any part of the Service and are given the option to save your user name and password, we may provide this convenience to you via Local Device Storage. Local Device Storage may also collect and store your personally identifiable information, which may be shared with our parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates and other companies.
2. If you do not want Local Device Storage, your computer, mobile or other device may include an option that allows you to not accept it. However, if you disable Local Device Storage, some portions of the Service may not function properly.
3. In addition to Local Device Storage, we may use web beacons, web bugs, clear gifs, and similar technologies (collectively, together with Local Device Storage, the “Tracking Technologies”). We use Tracking Technologies for all or some of the same lawful business purposes we describe above for use of Local Device Storage.

4. How to Opt-Out of Third Party Tracking Technologies

Our advertising service vendors and other third parties may also use Tracking Technologies to serve you advertisements tailored to interests you have shown by browsing on this Service and other sites, applications, destinations, and services you have visited, and to determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before to avoid sending you duplicate advertisements, and for other lawful business purposes. In doing so, these third parties may collect non-personally identifiable data including for example the make, model, settings, specifications (e.g., CPU speed, connection speed, browser type, operating system, device identifier) and geographic location of your computer, mobile or other device, as well as date/time stamp, IP address, pages visited, time of visits, content viewed, ads viewed, the site(s), application(s), destination(s), and/or service(s) you arrived from, and other clickstream data. The use of Tracking Technologies by third parties is subject to their own privacy policies, not this Privacy Policy, and we have no responsibility or liability in connection therewith. If you do not want the services that Tracking Technologies provide, you may be able to opt-out by visiting www.aboutads.info.

5. Transfer of Information

Your information may be transferred to, and maintained on, servers and databases located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as your jurisdiction. Please be advised that we may transfer your information to and from any state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction, and process it in the United States or elsewhere. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to any such transfer.

6. Information Security and Notification

1. Because no data transmission is completely secure, and no system of physical or electronic security is impenetrable, we cannot guarantee the security of the information you send to us or the security of our servers, networks or databases, and by using the Service you agree to assume all risk in connection with the information sent to us or collected by us when you access, visit and/or use the Service, including without limitation your personally identifiable information or other Registration Information, and we are not responsible for any loss of such information or the consequences thereof.
2. Moreover, if you elect to store information, such as your personally identifiable information or other Registration Information, where others may access it, we are not responsible for any loss of such information or the consequences thereof. If you lose a computer, mobile or other device, or it is stolen, that contains your personally identifiable information or other Registration Information, it is up to you to take all the steps necessary to protect yourself.
3. In the unlikely event that we believe that the security of your information in our possession or control may have been compromised, we may seek to notify you. If notification is appropriate, we may notify you via your computer, mobile or other device.

7. Children under 13

1. This Service is not intended for use by children, especially those under age 13. No one under age 13 is allowed to register for the Service or provide any personally identifiable information or use our social, community and public discussion areas, photo and video galleries, bulletin boards, forums, chats, blogs, personal/job search and other classified ads, and elsewhere. Minors between the ages of 13 and 17, inclusive, must get the permission of their parent(s) or legal guardian(s) before making purchases, including subscriptions, on this Service.
2. If your children disclose information about themselves in publicly accessible areas of the Service, they may get unsolicited messages from other parties. Accordingly, you should tell them not to do so.
3. If you’re worried about your children’s activities or their privacy on the Service, we encourage you to contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator as described below.

8. Notice to California Customers – Your California Privacy Rights

California’s “Shine the Light” law, Civil Code section 1798.83, requires certain businesses to respond to requests from California customers asking about the business’ practices related to disclosing personal information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Alternately, such businesses may have in place a policy not to disclose personal information of customers to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes if the customer has exercised an option to opt-out of such information-sharing. We have such a policy in place. As discussed above in Section 2(B), if you wish to opt-out of our sharing of your information with third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes or to find out more about your opt-out rights, please contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator as described below.

9. Changes to this Statement

The LN will occasionally update this Statement of Privacy to reflect company and customer feedback. The LN encourages you to periodically review this Statement to be informed of how the LN is protecting your information. The date of the most recent revisions will appear on this page.

If you have any concerns or questions about any aspect of this policy, please feel free to contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator as follows:

Privacy Policy Coordinator
Lesbian News
P.O. Box 55
Torrence, California 90507

Email Address:
admin@lesbiannews.com

As discussed above in Section 2(B) and 8, you may opt-out of having your personally identifiable information shared with third parties for their marketing purposes. If you wish to exercise this right, please contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator and state that you want to opt-out of our sharing with third parties.

Also as discussed above in Section 2(B), if you wish to request updates or changes to your information or your preferences regarding receiving future promotional messages from us, you may contact our Privacy Policy Coordinator.

If you don’t agree to the terms contained in this Privacy Policy, you must immediately exit the Service