Privacy Policy

The Chronicle is committed to protecting the privacy of its subscribers and other users of its online services. The following policies apply to chronicle.com and any other Chronicle of Higher Education Web sites.

Our Web site may contain links to other Web sites for your convenience and information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any company before submitting your personal information.

Personally Identifiable Information

Registration for our Web sites

Anyone can view our site, but free registration is required for access to the full range of information and services.

Chronicle.com requires that you supply an e-mail address to register. You will also be asked for demographic information, which is optional. By using Chronicle.com, you are agreeing to the terms of our User Agreement.

Subscribing to The Chronicle requires that you supply your name, postal address, e-mail address, and credit-card number or other billing information to process your subscription request, as well as to manage your online account.

Paid products and services

While much of our Web site is free, we do charge fees for select premium content, products, and services. To enable the purchase of these products, we collect and store billing and encrypted credit-card information. This information will only be shared with third parties who perform tasks required to complete the purchase transaction. Examples of this include fulfilling orders and processing credit-card payments.

Contests and special offers

On occasion, The Chronicle collects personal information from readers in connection with optional contests or special offers. If this information is to be shared with a third party other than The Chronicle, we will notify you at the time of collection. If you do not want any personal information shared, you may always decline to participate in the contest or special offer.

Reader surveys and market research

The Chronicle may collect personal information from readers in connection with voluntary surveys. Data may be collected on our Web site, on a survey company's Web site, on the phone, or through the mail. The information you provide in answer to optional survey questions may be shared, but only in the aggregate, with advertisers and partners unless we notify you otherwise at the time of collection.

Aggregate Information Collected Through Technology

Cookies and other technologies

As is standard practice on many Web sites, The Chronicle uses “cookies” and other technologies to recognize you and provide personalization, as well as to help us understand which parts of our Web site is the most popular, where our visitors are going, and how much time they spend there. Users who do not accept cookies from the domain “chronicle.com” cannot access most areas of our site.

We reserve the right to place a cookie on your computer with a unique, anonymous number to ensure that your browser does not see the same advertisement repeatedly, to sequence ads in a series, and to measure the number of unique visitors who have viewed a particular ad or visited a particular Web page.

In addition, advertisers may elect to use third-party advertising companies to serve ads onto our Web site. In the course of serving these advertisements, the third-party advertisers may place or recognize a unique “cookie” on your browser. We do not have access to these cookies or any information that they may contain. Acceptance of cookies from domains other than chronicle.com is optional.

IP addresses

The Chronicle logs IP (Internet protocol) addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. We use the IP address log in an aggregate fashion to track access to our site.

Log files

Log data is only used in aggregate to analyze usage of our Web site.

What Do We Do With the Information We Gather About You?

Statistical analysis

The Chronicle may perform statistical, demographic, and marketing analyses of subscribers and their subscribing and purchasing patterns, for product development purposes and to generally inform advertisers about the nature of our subscriber base. We also use such information to allow advertising to be targeted, in aggregate, to readers for whom such advertising is most pertinent.

Products and services from The Chronicle

From time to time, we may provide subscribers with information and offers about other products and services offered by The Chronicle, including subscriptions, products, and services. If you do not wish to receive such information and offers, you may opt out.

Banner advertising

We may use demographic and preference information to allow advertising on our Web sites to be targeted, in aggregate, to the users for whom they are most pertinent. This means users see advertising that is most likely to interest them, and advertisers send their messages to people who are most likely to be receptive, improving both the viewer's experience and the effectiveness of the ads. We will disclose information to third parties only in aggregate form.

User-generated content (comments, forums, and discussions)

We offer the ability for readers to post content in a number of areas on our Web site. Any information you disclose when posting on our site, along with your user name, becomes public and may be used by The Chronicle for online and off-line promotional or commercial uses in any and all media. Any posting becomes public as soon as it is published online. For more information, please refer to the User Agreement.

E-Mail Communication and Addresses

If you choose to receive them, The Chronicle will periodically send you e-mail newsletters or promotional e-mail about services offered by The Chronicle and its advertisers.

What is our e-mail policy?

We will not share, sell, rent, swap, or authorize any third party to use your e-mail address without your permission. If you feel you have received an e-mail message from us in error, please contact help@chronicle.com.

Account and service-related e-mail: The Chronicle reserves the right to send you e-mail about your account status. This includes order confirmations, renewal and expiration notices, notices of credit-card problems, other transactional e-mails, and notifications about major changes in our Web sites or to our Privacy Policy. If you have registered for online discussions or other services, you may receive e-mail specific to your participation in those activities.

E-mail newsletters: The Chronicle offers several e-mail newsletters. If you no longer wish to receive a specific newsletter, follow the “unsubscribe” instructions located near the bottom of each newsletter. To manage your Chronicle.com e-mail preferences, please click here.

Promotional e-mail: If you choose to receive them, The Chronicle may periodically e-mail you messages about products and services that we think may be of interest to you. You can choose not to receive messages in the future by either (1) following the “unsubscribe” instructions located near the bottom of each e-mail, or (2) opting out.

Survey e-mail: We may send you an e-mail inviting you to participate in user surveys, asking for feedback about The Chronicle or chronicle.com and and about existing or prospective products and services, as well as information to better understand our readers. Reader surveys greatly help us to improve our Web site, and any information we obtain in such surveys will not be shared with third parties, except in aggregate form. Occasionally, we may send you an e-mail message inviting you to participate in a third-party sponsored survey. We recommend that you review the third party's privacy policy if you have any questions about how your responses might be used.

HTML e-mail: We may include coding to determine whether or not readers have viewed the message. This process does not leave any information on your computer, nor does it collect information from your computer. The Chronicle will share this data with others in aggregate only.

E-mail from you: If you send us e-mail messages, you should be aware that information disclosed in those messages may not be secure or encrypted and thus may be available to others. We suggest that you exercise caution when deciding to disclose any personal or confidential information in e-mail. We will use your e-mail address to respond directly to your questions or comments.

E-mail this article/ad/topic feature: Chronicle.com readers may use these features to send links to articles (or ads or forum topics). The e-mail address(es) that you supply to these service will only be used to send the requested material.

With Whom Do We Share the Information We Gather?

If you have registered with us, The Chronicle will not sell, rent, swap, or authorize any third party to use your e-mail address or any information that personally identifies you without your permission. We do, however, share information about our audience in aggregate form.

If you are a print subscriber to The Chronicle, we may exchange or rent your name and postal address (but not your e-mail address) with other reputable companies that offer marketing information or products through direct mail. If you do not wish to receive such mailings, please send an e-mail message to circulation@chronicle.com. Please include your online account number or your name and address as they appear on your mailing label. That will help us to expedite your request.

Service providers

We contract with other companies to provide services on our behalf, including credit-card and billing processing, shipping, e-mail distribution, list processing and analytics or promotions management. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services. These service providers are restricted from using this data in any way other than to provide services for The Chronicle, and they may not share or resell this data.

We reserve the right to disclose your opt-out information to third parties so they can suppress your name from future solicitations, in accordance with applicable laws. We may occasionally release personal information as required by law, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena. (For more information, see the “Compliance with legal process” section of this policy.)

How Do I Change or Update My Information?

You may review and update your chronicle.com account information and gain access to your transaction history in the Manage Your Account area of our site.

There are a number of things you can do in Manage Your Account area to ensure your personal information is accurate and current. You may update the information you provided during the free registration process. You may opt in or out of our e-mail newsletters. If you do not remember your password, you can reset your password here. If you need further assistance, please contact Customer Service.

E-mail promotions

If, at any time, you prefer not to receive e-mail marketing information from us, simply follow the unsubscribe options at the bottom of each e-mail. Or log into Manage Your Account and change your e-mail settings.

If you experience difficulty with the process, feel free to contact us at help@chronicle.com and provide your e-mail address along with the name of the newsletter from which you would like to unsubscribe.

Data Security

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online.

Compliance With Legal Process

We may disclose personal information if we are required to do so by law or we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to (1) comply with the law or with legal process, (2) protect and defend our rights and property, (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Web site, or (4) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public. (Among other things, this means that if you provide false information or attempt to pose as someone else, information about you may be disclosed as part of any investigation into your actions.)

Changes in This Policy

This Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time. Any such changes will be posted on this page.

Contacting The Chronicle

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of The Chronicle or its online service, or any other aspects of this Web site, please contact:

Philip W. Semas
Editor in Chief
The Chronicle of Higher Education
1255 23rd St., N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20037
phil.semas@chronicle.com

Or see our complete information on contacting The Chronicle.