Please read this entire notice. The purpose of our privacy policy is to inform you that we do collect certain kinds of information about your use of EastBayRI.com (for purposes of this Policy, these shall be called "the Site"); what kinds of information we gather; how we may use that information; whether we disclose it to anyone; and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to correct, the information. The Phoenix-Times Publishing Company (referred to as "East Bay Newspapers" in this policy) owns and operates the Site.

By using the Site, you signify your assent to our privacy policy. If you do not agree with any of the terms of this policy, please do not use our Site. This privacy policy is effective as of June 1, 2005. We reserve the right to change this policy at any time, and will post any changes to this policy when they go into effect.

I. Information That We Collect and What We Do With the Collected Information, Including Disclosures to Third Parties.
While visiting the Site, you can be assured that no personal information is collected, retained or used by East Bay Newspapers with one exception: East Bay Newspapers intends to collect certain personal information when you are using the interactive areas discussed below. By "personal information" we mean information that is uniquely identified to you, such as your name, e-mail address, postal address, telephone numbers, password and user ID.

a. Aggregate Information.

(1) East Bay Newspapers may keep track of user behavior by collecting information about (by way of illustration) the number of people who visit the Site and the number of people who visit each page of the Site, and perform statistical analyses of aggregate user behavior, but not based on personal information about you (see Section II below). East Bay Newspapers will not be using or collecting personal information to do that. These aggregate analyses allow us to measure the popularity of the Site and individual features of the Site for purposes of further development of the Site. All information that is collected is used for our own internal purposes to evaluate the content of the Site, to enhance users' experiences when visiting the Site, to customize the content and/or layout of our pages and to provide the services required by an individual user.
(2) East Bay Newspapers discloses in aggregate form our statistical analyses or demographics of users to third parties, such as advertisers or potential advertisers. Those disclosures do not include personal information.

b. Interactive Areas.

(1) Participation in the Site's interactive areas and subscriptions to premium content requires that you register for an account. The registration process requests that you voluntarily supply us with personal information, including your name, postal address, daytime and evening telephone numbers and e-mail address.
(2) If you choose to engage in other interactive activities via the Site, for example by making submissions, answering surveys, entering contests, or obtaining copies of articles and the like via e-mail, you may be asked for the same personal information as in the account registration process and/or may be assigned a unique identifier through the use of a cookie (see Section II about "cookies").
(3) Any and all personal information contained in the messages that you create and post to the Site's interactive activities may be accessible by the general public and will not be confidential. If you choose to include your name, address, e-mail address, telephone number, employer or any other information about yourself when posting to the Site's interactive activities, East Bay Newspapers make no representations, warranties or guarantees regarding anyone's use of that information.
(4) East Bay Newspapers may use information collected in connection with your participation in interactive activities, including account registration, for its own internal purposes, such as (by way of illustration) to respond to inquiries, conduct contests or surveys, to compare registered users with subscribers to the printed editions of East Bay Newspapers’ publications, to enforce the Terms of Use, or to defend itself in the event of litigation over a submission made by you.
(5) East Bay Newspapers also may supply the personal information to advertisers, potential advertisers, marketing firms, and others with a commercial or noncommercial interest in the information. Those third parties may provide information to you about other goods and services, unless you choose to opt-out of having your personal information shared with third parties through the opt-out opportunity provided as part of the registration process. The opt-out opportunity, however, does not apply in the circumstances described in part c. below.

c. Other Disclosures to Third Parties - subpoenas, court and government orders, our attorneys

By making a submission to the Site or registering for an account, you assume the risk that a court or government agency may order East Bay Newspapers to disclose your submission and/or personally identifying information about you, or that a litigant, a court, a grand jury, or government agency may subpoena that information. In all such circumstances, East Bay Newspapers reserves the sole discretion to decide how to respond to any such orders or subpoenas, including full compliance and disclosure without prior notice to you. In the course of responding to a subpoena or order, or in the course of other activities, such as (by way of illustration) defending a lawsuit, East Bay Newspapers may need to consult its own attorneys. In doing so, East Bay Newspapers may disclose personal information to its attorneys. The opt-out opportunity does not apply to disclosures made by East Bay Newspapers in response to subpoenas, orders, or to its own attorneys.

II. Use of Cookies.
Like many other commercial sites, the Site may utilize a standard technology called a "cookie" to collect information about how the Site is used. Cookies help a web site recognize a user's browser as a previous visitor and thus save and remember any preferences that may have been set while the user was browsing the site. A cookie cannot retrieve any other data from your hard drive, pass on a computer virus or capture your e-mail address. East Bay Newspapers uses cookies to see which areas are popular and which are not, and to ensure that users who participate in such activities as polls or surveys may not participate more than once. Many improvements and updates to our Site are based on the data collected through the cookies, such as total number of visitors and pages viewed. Cookies on our Site will not collect personal information of users who are only browsing the Site. Cookies may collect your domain name and track your selections through our web pages. When a user is interacting with one of our features, or interacting in some other way using our Site, cookies may collect the personal information of the user.

III. The Advertising On Our Sites.
The advertising contained on the Site is delivered to you by BITS and other third party services. In the course of delivering an ad to you, BITS does not collect any personal information about you. BITS may, however, use cookies to collect non-personally identifiable information about you (see Section II above for a discussion of cookies).

IV. Links
Our Site may contain links to other web sites, including web sites directed to children. We have no control over the privacy practices or the content of any other sites to which can be linked from our Site, and strongly recommend that you check the applicable privacy policy of the web site sponsor when linking to other web sites.

V. Disclaimer.
The Site's privacy policy does not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, and therefore beyond East Bay Newspapers' control, and East Bay Newspapers does not intend to apply it or to construe it in any manner contrary to applicable law or government regulation.

VI. Security of Information.

(1) We use our best efforts to ensure the security of personal information submitted by users. Unfortunately, no electronic communication over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. While we strive to take great care to protect your personal information, East Bay Newspapers cannot warrant the security of any information that you submit to us, and you do so at your own risk. We store personal information in an area to which the general public does not have permission to access with one exception: personal information that you include in messages posted to the Site's publicly available interactive areas is available to the general public.
(2) Remember to sign off the Site and close your browser window when you are finished. That ensures that others cannot pose as you online. This is especially important if you are at a terminal that is accessible to others, such as the library, at school, at the workplace or at an Internet cafe.

VII. Use of Materials.
The right to download and store or output the materials in our Site is granted for the user's personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without the express written permission of us is strictly prohibited. To link to the full Terms of Use Agreement pertaining to use of our Site, please click here.

VIII. Accuracy of User Information.
Questions regarding our privacy policy, the accuracy of your personal information or the use of the information collected should be directed to East Bay Newspapers' webmaster via e-mail at webmaster@eastbaynewspapers.com, or you can reach us by telephone at (401)253-6000 x136.

You can also write to us at:

East Bay Newspapers
Attn: Web Privacy Policy
PO Box 90
Bristol, RI 02809