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We welcome you to our site. We ask that you review these Terms
and Conditions, which are intended to constitute a binding license
agreement that conditions your use of this site ("Agreement").
We have tried to avoid unnecessary legal verbiage and hope that
you understand that we are simply trying to protect our rights
in order to provide you with access to the free content available
at this site. If you do not wish to be bound by this Agreement
after you have read it, please leave the site. If you remain at
this site, or return thereafter, you agree to be bound by this
Agreement.
1. Responsible conduct.
You agree to act responsibly at this site and to treat other visitors
with respect.
2. Limited License/
Copyright and Intellectual Property Law Restrictions. Except for
public domain material, the content on this site is protected
by intellectual property laws, including U.S. copyright laws.
You are hereby granted a non-exclusive license to use the material
at this site ("Content") while connected to this site (including,
where available, to email individual stories to friends directly
from this site). You are also granted a limited license to print
copies of any Content posted at the site, but only for your personal
use. Except as expressly provided above, all rights are reserved.
Among other things, except to the extent required for the limited
purpose of reviewing material on our site, electronic reproduction,
adaptation, distribution, performance or display is prohibited.
Changes to or deletion of author attribution or copyright notices
are prohibited. Commercial use of any of the Content is strictly
prohibited. Use of any of our trademarks as metatags on other
web sites also is strictly prohibited. You may not display this
website in frames (or any of the Content via in-line links) without
our express written permission, which may be requested by contacting
us at rcfeedback@realcities.com.
You may, however, establish ordinary links to our site without
our written permission.
3. Links. We may provide links
from our site as a convenience to our visitors. We have no control over
linked sites and make no representations about any content or material
available at these locations. Links are not intended to imply sponsorship,
affiliation or endorsement. If you believe that we have provided a link
to a site that contains infringing or illegal content or which makes
available cracker tools or other circumvention devices, we ask that
you notify us so that we may evaluate whether (in our sole discretion)
to disable it.
4. Discussion Boards. Although
we do not have any obligation to monitor this board, we reserve the
right at all times to check this board and to remove any information
or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory,
obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable
to us in our sole discretion and to disclose any information necessary
to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We also reserve
the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and
conditions.
5. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES.
YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT USE OF THIS WEB SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.
THERE IS NO WARRANTY THAT YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF THIS SITE WILL BE
UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE; OR THAT ANY PARTICULAR RESULTS MAY BE OBTAINED
BY USE OF THIS SITE. THIS SITE IS MADE AVAILABLE ON AN "AS IS" BASIS
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING
BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT OR OTHERWISE, OTHER
THAN THOSE WHICH ARE IMPLIED BY AND INCAPABLE OF EXCLUSION, RESTRICTION,
OR MODIFICATION UNDER THE LAWS APPLICABLE TO THIS AGREEMENT. NEITHER
WE NOR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY PROVIDING CONTENT VIA THIS SITE SHALL
BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES.
6. Modifications/ Termination.
Our employees are not authorized to vary the terms of this Agreement.
You agree that we may modify the terms of this Agreement (or discontinue
this site) in our sole discretion, without advance notice, and that
your right to access this site is conditioned on an ongoing basis with
your compliance with the then-current version of these Terms and Conditions.
You should therefore visit this page frequently.
7. Jurisdiction. This Web
site is hosted on servers located in Virginia and is intended to be
viewed by residents of the United States. In the event of any dispute
arising out of or relating to this site, you agree that the exclusive
venue for litigating disputes shall be in state or federal court in
San Jose, California.
Real Cities Network Privacy Statement |
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The Real Cities
Network (or "RCN") is a national network of Internet site and services
serving geographic and common interest communities across the United
States. The privacy policies described below are applicable to each
site in the Real Cities Network. You can view the sites included
in the Real Cities Network at http://www.realcities.com/rc/cityoptions/cities.htm.
When
does the RCN collect my personally identifiable information?
When you
register at one of the RCN sites or services, we collect personally
identifying information from you. The more information you provide,
the better we are able to customize our services and your experience
to suit your needs and preferences. For example, if you utilize
the "Passport" registration feature offered at many of the RCN
sites, we will ask you for a username, password, e-mail address
and zip code. Other sites and specific services (e.g. free e-mail)
will have different registration processes, and may require you
to provide additional personally identifying information such
as your address, phone number and gender. In addition to registration,
we may collect personally identifiable information from you when
you enter contests, and sweepstakes, participate in promotions
and special programs, register for premium or customized services,
make a purchase at one of our merchants or partners, subscribe
to one our print papers or magazines, or download a software product
or plug-in. If you are making a purchase or enrolling in a premium
service for which there is a fee, we will collect your credit
card, billing address, and other verifying information. In addition,
we may collect personally identifiable information from you when
you provide content to us for display or use on one or more of
the sites in the RCN, including but limited to, when you participate
in user surveys, post messages to bulletin boards or chat areas,
submit personals or other classified listings, build a home page,
report a problem with one of our sites or services, or submit
a letter to the editor.
How is
my personally identifiable information used?
Our main
goal is to provide you with a customized and targeted user experience
within the Real Cities Network. For instance, your personally
identifiable information enables us to greet you when you return
to a Real Cities site or service, and provide you with news and
services we think will be of interest to you. We review our users'
preferences, demographics, traffic patterns, and other information
in the aggregate so that we can better understand who our audience
is and what it is you want. Tracking user preferences also helps
us serve you targeted advertising. Targeted advertisements are
probably more interesting for you, and are definitely more productive
for our advertisers. If a local grocery market wants to advertise
an upcoming sale, we can target the ad to registered users who
live near that grocery market. Please note that we do not share
your personally identifying information with the advertiser. We
or third party ad servers acting on our behalf act as the middleman
between you and the advertisers that want to reach you.(Third
party ad servers are not entitled to collect or use your personally
identifying information). We use the information we collect in
non-intrusive common sense ways, like using your credit card number
to provide you with products and/or services that you request.
All credit card information is transmitted in an encrypted form,
using SSL (secure socket layer) encryption, the industry-standard.
Although, we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard the
privacy of your personal information, transmissions made by means
of the Internet cannot be made absolutely secure. The RCN assumes
no liability for disclosure of data due to errors in transmission
or unauthorized third parties.
Finally,
if you register for one or more of our sites or services, from
time to time, we will send information to you via e-mail about
our products and services, or third party products and services
we believe may be of interest to you. If you do not wish to receive
these mailings, you can simply check off the appropriate box when
you register, or update your profile at any time after registration
so you no longer receive such offers and mailings. Please check
the registration screens applicable to the service, promotion,
or product offering for which you are signing-up for specific
instructions on how to update your user profile and/or opt out
of receiving offers and mailings. Also, please remember that third
party vendors also sell products and services on the Real Cities
network, and their policies may differ from ours.
What
other information does RCN collect and how is it used?
Cookies.
The RCN uses cookies to store and track your preferences to provide
you with a more personalized user experience. A cookie is a message
that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your
computer's hard drive. Most Internet sites use cookies. You can
set your browser preferences to reject all cookies (see below)
but then you will not be able to participate in most customized
services, and you may be required to repeatedly type in your personally
identifying information in order to participate in various services,
promotions, or product offerings. Cookies make your experience
easier by saving your preferences, purchases, and passwords. For
example if you choose "Automatic Login" during registration, the
RCN will store a scrambled version of your username in a permanent
"cookie" file on your hard drive so that we can track your personalized
services and preferences from one visit to the next. We also use
cookies that contain no personal information at all. These cookies,
help us estimate our audience size, determine which areas of the
RCN are the most popular, and serve targeted advertising.
IP Address.
The RCN may also collect IP addresses for the purposes of systems
administration or to report information in aggregate form to our
advertisers (e.g. how many visitors logged in to a RCN site).
An IP address is a number that is assigned to your computer automatically
when you use the Internet. When you visit a particular web page
in the Real Cities Network, our servers log your IP address. Your
IP address is not linked to anything personally identifiable.
Who does
RCN share information with?
User information
is shared by the RCN sites in order to provide you with a more
integrated and customized user experience within the Real Cities
Network. In general, we will not disclose your personally identifiable
information to third parties except to the extent necessary to
provide you with a requested product or service, or under circumstances
required by law. However, many of the services available through
the Real Cities Network are offered in conjunction with third
parties (e.g. personalized stock quotes or online e-mail). We
may disclose some or your personal information (such as an email
address) to these third parties, but we will notify you of such
disclosure prior to transferring the data. If you make a purchase
from a Real Cities Network merchant, the information you provide
in connection with that purchase is provided to that merchant
in order to facilitate that transaction. Any personally identifiable
information you provide online as part of an advertiser promotion
(e.g. online coupons) may be provided directly to advertisers.
In general
we will only disclose your personally identifiable information
to the extent necessary to complete the transaction, administer
the promotion, or fulfill the request. However, specific uses
of personal information that vary from this Privacy Statement
may be found the in the Terms of Service or privacy policies applicable
to that particular service or offering. In addition, third party
sponsors may administer sweepstakes, contests, promotions, and
other programs. To the extent you are notified of uses of your
personal information which are different from those described
in this Policy Statement during your enrollment in any particular
service, sweepstakes, contest or promotion, the uses of which
you are specifically notified will govern that service, sweepstakes,
contest or promotion. Please be on the look-out for terms of service
and privacy statements applicable to the services for which you
sign-up or participate in. In general, third parties that receive
information about you from the Real Cities Network will be obligated
to notify you and provide you with an opt-out method before sending
you direct communications. Please note, however, that we do not
control the privacy policies of our advertisers and other third
party sites to which we provide banner ads and links. We assume
no responsibility or liability for these third party policies
or the actions of non-affiliated third parties.
We will
disclose your personal information when we believe in good faith
that any applicable law, regulation, or legal process requires
it, or where we believe disclosure is necessary to protect or
enforce our rights or the rights of another user.
We disclose
aggregated user statistics (for example, the percentage of our
users who access our Service from work) in order to describe our
services and reach to prospective partners, advertisers, and other
third parties. However aggregate data is not traceable to you
specifically.
What
are my options to control the use of my personal information?
Most browsers
can be configured to reject cookies or alert you when cookies
or being sent. Keep in mind that if you refuse cookies, it is
possible that some portions of the Real Cities Network, such as
contests, shopping, or personalized stock quotes may not work
properly.
You may
cancel your registration to any Real Cities Network service (e.g.
Passport") and/or request the removal of your personal information
from our user records by sending e-mail to passport_feedback@realcities.com.
We will send an email to confirm your request. After you respond,
we will remove your information from our database. Residual information
may remain in our archives and records, but this information will
not be used for a commercial purpose (however we may notify you
of major changes to our service from time to time). We reserve
the right to maintain information on registered users who have
violated our Terms of Service or who have had their access to
the Real Cities Network blocked in order to detect repeat offenders.
What
else should I know about my privacy?
You should
be aware that if you voluntarily disclose personal information
online in a public area, that information may be collected and
used by others. We do not control the actions of our visitors
and registered users. If you disclose personal information in
a chat room, forum, on your home page, or any other publicly accessible
place in the RCN, you do so at your own risk and you understand
that your submitted information may be collected and used by others
to send you unsolicited messages, advertisements, or for other
purposes.
Please remember
that protection of your privacy begins with you. You are solely
responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any password you use
to register, and you should always be careful and responsible
whenever disclosing information online.
What
about kids' personally identifiable information?
We feel
strongly about protecting the privacy of children. We encourage
kids to involve their parents in any interactive activity they
participate in online. Except where otherwise disclosed, we will
not collect or use any personal information from children we know
to be under the age of thirteen without obtaining express parental
consent. All general information collected from users under the
age of thirteen is used only for aggregate statistical analysis.
Where users under the age of 13 are permitted to participate in
contests, they may be required to provide the e-mail address of
their parent or guardian so that we can send notification and
prices to the parent or guardian.
Acceptance
of Privacy Policy. By using the Real Cities Network sites
and services, you signify your acceptance of this Privacy Statement.
If you do not agree or are not comfortable with any policy described
in this Privacy statement, your only remedy is to discontinue
use of the Real Cities Network. We reserve the right, to modify
this Privacy Statement at any time. Your continued use of any
portion of the Real Cities Network following notification or posting
of such changes, will constitute your accept of those changes.
If you have questions or concerns about our specific policies,
please send e-mail to privacy@realcities.com.
Knight Ridder Digital is a member of the Engage LocalNet and 24/7 Media Network. For information on the privacy policies of our ad network partners please follow the links below:
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