SHORE COMMUNICATIONS INC. PRIVACY STATEMENT
Shore Communications Inc. ("Shore") recognizes the
importance of protecting the privacy of all information
provided by users of our web sites, subscribers to our
publications, registrants for our events, recipients of our
e-mail newsletters and all of our customers. Our strong aim is
to respect our users’ right to privacy; therefore we have
developed the following privacy statement to guide our
relationships with our customers and users. This privacy
statement discloses the privacy practices for all products and
services owned and delivered by Shore.
INFORMATION COLLECTION AND USE
Shore collects information from our website users,
subscribers and customers. The following paragraphs describe
the type of information that we collect and how we use it to
provide better services to our customers:
Registration and Ordering. When using some of our
websites and signing up for certain selected services (such as
free and paid subscriptions, attending our live events,
participating in our webcasts), users must first register.
During registration, users are required to give their contact
information (such as name, e-mail address, mailing address and
phone number). We also may collect demographic information
(such as job title and purchasing responsibilities, company
information and professional certification). For internal
purposes, we use this information to communicate with users and
provide requested services, and, for our website visitors, to
provide a more personalized experience on our sites. We use
aggregate demographic information about our audience to improve
our service, for marketing purposes and/or industry reporting
purposes. Some of our products and services may be free to
subscribers who meet certain demographic criteria. Independent
auditors may need to certify the eligibility of these
subscribers. In order to do that, we may collect unique
identifiers (such as mother’s maiden name) that we disclose to
the auditors strictly for industry reporting and audit
verification purposes. For our services that require payment
(such as certain events, products and subscriptions), we also
collect credit card information (such as account name, number
and expiration date), which is used for billing purposes only,
and is not otherwise shared.
E-mail Newsletters. If users wish to subscribe to our
e-mail newsletters, we ask for contact information (such as
name, e-mail address and, occasionally, demographic
information). We use this information in the same manner as we
use contact information in the registration and ordering
process described above. Recipients of our newsletters can
unsubscribe using the instructions listed at the end of the
e-mail newsletter.
Surveys and Contests. From time to time we invite
users to provide information via surveys or contests.
Participation in these surveys or contests is completely
voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether to
disclose requested contact information (such as name and
mailing address) and demographic information (such as zip code
or job title). In addition to other uses set forth in this
policy, contact information collected in connection with
surveys and contests is used to notify the winners and award
prizes, to monitor or improve the use and satisfaction of the
site, and may be shared with sponsors of such surveys or
contests.
Interactive Features. At some of our sites, we offer
interactive and community features such as discussion boards,
webcasts and user profiles. Note that all personal information
sent or posted via such features to public audiences becomes
public information for which we are not responsible.
Referral Contacts. If users elect to use our referral
service for informing a friend about our sites and services, we
may ask them for the friend's name, job title and e-mail
address. Shore will store and use this information to send the
friend an invitation. This information may also be used to
provide information about our company and related products and
services. The friend may contact us as specified in the
referral contact message to request that no further
communications be sent.
Communications with Shore. We have features where
users can submit information to us (such as our feedback
forms). Letters to the editor and similar submissions may be
made public. Requests for service, support or information may
be forwarded as needed to best respond to a specific request.
We may retain e-mails and other information sent to us for our
internal administrative purposes, and to help us to serve
customers better.
Communications from Us (Service Updates, Special Offers).
In order to best serve our customers, we may send updates that
contain important information about our sites and services. For
example, we send new members a welcoming message, and verify
password and username for our password-protected sites. We may
also communicate with a user to provide requested services and
for account-related issues via e-mail, phone or regular mail.
We offer our users the option to receive information about our
company, related products, services and special deals. Users
can choose not to receive these communications, as set forth in
our Permission section below.
Automatic Data Collection. Some of our web sites have
features that automatically collect information from users, to
deliver content specific to users' interests and to honor their
preferences. This information assists us in creating sites that
will serve the needs of our users. We use "cookies," a piece of
data stored on the user's hard drive containing information
about the user. Cookies benefit the user by requiring login
only once, thereby saving time while on our site. If users
reject the cookies, they may be limited in the use of some
areas of our site. For example, the user may not be able to
participate in sweepstakes, contests or drawings. Additionally,
we may note some of the pages the user visits on our site
through the use of pixel tags (also called clear gifs). The use
of cookies and pixels enable us to track and target the
interests of our users to enhance the experience on our sites.
Some of our business affiliates may use cookies on our sites in
ads or promotions. However, we have no access to or control
over these business affiliates' cookies; we urge users to read
their privacy policies for information. For our internal
purposes, we gather date, time, browser type, navigation
history and IP address of all visitors to our site. This
information does not contain anything that can identify users
personally. We use this information for our internal security
audit log, trend analysis and system administration, and to
gather broad demographic information about our user base for
aggregate use. We may combine demographic information supplied
by a subscriber at registration with site usage data to provide
general profiles, in aggregate non-personally identifiable
form, about our users and their preferences in the content of
the site and advertising. We may share this composite
information with our advertisers and business affiliates to
help them better understand our services.
HOW WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION
Confidential Information, Products and Services. Many of
Shore's products and services are provided on a confidential
basis, and we strive to ensure that those products and services
are designed to protect the confidentiality of your use of them
and of your confidential contacts with Shore. Personal and
corporate information collected on a confidential basis from
our clients and users is never revealed to outside parties
without the advance and express consent of those clients and
users.
Public Information, Products and Services. When Shore
has developed co-branded, customized, private label, "powered
by" or sponsored products and services, or when we join with
other parties to provide specific services, we may share
(provide and receive) personal information with them if that
information was not provided as part of a confidential product
and service. We do not share credit card information with such
third parties. In particular, please note that information
collected in connection with publicly available online webcasts
may be shared with the sponsor of the particular webcast(s)/seminar(s).
These sponsors will use the information according to their own
privacy policies, and we urge participants to read those
policies and be aware of their privacy practices before
registering. At Westport Online(TM), The Fairfield County
Bee(TM) and related sites, information may be shared with
selected advertisers if a user affirmatively clicks through on
a link/ad to such advertiser at those sites or in e-mails. On
occasion, we may provide targeted lists of names and offline
and online contact information for marketing purposes collected
via non-confidential products and services to third parties,
subject to our Permission policies. We give users the option of
not having their name or contact information disclosed to third
parties, as set forth in the Permission section. Other than as
set forth above, we do not share personally identifiable
information with other companies, apart from those acting as
our agents in providing our product(s)/service(s), and which
agree to use it only for that purpose and to keep the
information secure and confidential. Also, subsidiary and
affiliate companies, entities into which our company may be
merged, or entities to which any of our assets, products, sites
or operations may be transferred, will be able to use personal
information collected via non-confidential products and
services. We will also disclose information we maintain when
required to do so by law, for example, in response to a court
order or a subpoena or other legal obligation, in response to a
law enforcement agency's request, or in special cases when we
have reason to believe that disclosing this information is
necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against
someone who may be causing injury to or interference with
(either intentionally or unintentionally) our rights or
property. Users should also be aware that courts of equity,
such as U.S. Bankruptcy Courts, might have the authority under
certain circumstances to permit personal information to be
shared or transferred to third parties without permission. We
may share aggregate information, which is not personally
identifiable, with others. This information may include usage
and demographic data, but it will not include personal
information.
CORRECTION/UPDATING PERSONAL INFORMATION
If a user's personally identifiable information changes
(such as zip code), or if a user no longer desires our
product(s)/service(s), we provide a way to correct or update
that user's personal data. The user should contact inquiries@shore.com
for requests to change such information..
PERMISSION
Our users may be given the opportunity to choose whether to
receive information from our affiliates and us not directly
related to the registered services. Users also may have the
opportunity to choose whether to have personal information
shared with third parties for marketing purposes. Instructions
for how to exercise this choice are contained in e-mails sent
by us, on our product websites and in each of our publications.
In addition, users may be able to change their options via our
website facilities. Please note that we will endeavor to
implement requests within a reasonable time, although for a
time users may continue to receive mailings, etc., transmitted
based on information released prior to the implementation of
the request. Users will continue to receive information
directly related to their registered services, so they always
are kept informed.
SECURITY
We use reasonable precautions to protect our users' personal
information and to store it securely. Sensitive information
that is transmitted to us online (such as credit card number)
is encrypted and is transmitted to us securely. In addition,
access to all of our users' information, not just the sensitive
information mentioned above, is restricted. Only employees who
need the information to perform a specific job (for example, a
billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted
access to personally identifiable information. Finally, the
servers on which we store personally identifiable information
are kept in a secure environment.
LINKS
Our web sites contain links to other sites. Shore is not
responsible for the privacy practices or content of such other
sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our
site and to read the privacy statements of each web site to
which we may link that may collect personally identifiable
information.
NOTIFICATION and CHANGES
If we change our privacy policy, we will post those changes
on this page so our users are aware of what information we
collect, how we use it and under which circumstances, if any,
we disclose it. Users should check this policy frequently to
keep abreast of any changes.