H&A Media Group understands how important privacy is to our readers. We are committed to protecting your privacy and want to make sure that you understand how your readership information is used. We also want you to be aware that you have choices about how we use this information.
What Information We Collect.
When you create an account, we ask for basic information such as your name, contact information, and date of birth. We keep track of your participation in H&A Media Group activities and reader services so we can understand our readers' interests and evaluate the effectiveness of our offerings. We also collect demographic information from other sources to help us learn more about reader characteristics and needs. As explained in the Questions and Answers below, we may ask for additional information in your visits to www.hamediagroup.com. All of this information helps us better serve our readers and improve our programs.
Information Sharing.
We share your personal information only with companies we have selected to provide official H&A Media Group reader services or support H&A Media Group operations. Some of the providers of H&A Media Group reader services, including many of those advertising in our magazine, pay a for the privilege of interacting with our readers. Our agreements with these companies require them to keep the reader information strictly confidential, and allow them to use the information only to offer the contracted services to H&A Media Group and H&A Media Group readers.
Other H&A Media Group entities, such as owner AAA clubs, may also have access to reader information. Finally, we may release personal reader information on the rare occasions when we are required to do so by law, or when necessary or appropriate to comply with legal process or to protect or defend H&A Media Group and its readers. We do not sell or rent reader information to telemarketers, mailing list brokers, or any other companies that are not offering H&A Media Group-related services or benefits.
Your Choices.
We respect your choices. If you do not want us to share your information with providers of H&A Media Group reader services, you can contact us as specified below. You should then stop receiving H&A Media Group service provider mailings in about six to eight weeks. (Note: If you request services or information from an H&A Media Group service provider directly, we may still need to confirm to the provider that you are an eligible H&A Media Group reader). You may also elect not to receive information about H&A Media Group activities, such as legislative events and educational programs.
For More Information.
For more detailed information about our privacy practices, and about privacy on www.hamediagroup.com please review the frequently asked questions below. To exercise your choices, or ask questions about your readership information, please contact us at:
Online:
Contact H&A Media Group — here.
Phone or Mail:
H&A Media Group
Attn: Customer Service
10703 J Street, Suite 100
Omaha, NE 68127
info@hamediagroup.com
402.592.5000
Privacy and www.hamediagroup.com: Questions and Answers
The following Questions and Answers address H&A Media Group and www.hamediagroup.com privacy issues in more detail. We want to make sure that you understand the types of information that are collected at www.hamediagroup.com, the ways in which that information is used and protected, and the choices that you have about this collection and use. Specifically, this privacy policy answers the following frequently asked questions:
Do I have to submit any personal information in order to use www.hamediagroup.com?
Does www.hamediagroup.com collect non-personal information, using "cookies" or otherwise?
How is this information used, and can I control its use?
Is any information shared with other companies or organizations?
What privacy rules apply when I "click" over to other Websites?
Do privacy protections exist in discussion groups?
How does www.hamediagroup.com protect security and confidentiality?
Will this privacy policy ever change?
Who can I contact with questions or comments about privacy issues?
In this policy, we use the terms "H&A Media Group," "we," "our," and "us" to refer to H&A Media Group. We use the terms "you" and "your" to refer to www.hamediagroup.com visitors like yourself.
1. Do I have to submit any personal information in order to use www.hamediagroup.com?
You do not need to give us any information about yourself in order to access most of www.hamediagroup.com. You can visit our pages, read our publication, and learn about our reader services on a completely anonymous basis.
If you want to take advantage of some of the optional services available on www.hamediagroup.com, however, we will sometimes request information that allows us to identify you ("personal information"). If you use the online form to create a H&A Media Group account, we will ask for certain information to create your profile (name, mailing address, e-mail address and e-mail permissions). If you register to receive e-mail newsletters and/or updates, we will ask for your name, address, and e-mail address so that we can send you the newsletters and/or updates. We may also ask for personal information when you participate in other activities or services on www.hamediagroup.com, such as surveys and discussion groups.
We also have relationships with certain providers and vendors that we have selected and approved to offer services and benefits on linked sites. On some of these sites, you may be asked to enter personal information in order to take advantage of their services or programs. If you decide to purchase services on the Website of one of our reader benefits service providers, the contracted reader benefit provider offering the services may ask for your name, address, and e-mail in order to contact you about the services. These sites may also have their own unique privacy policies that you should review.
Again, regardless of whether you are visiting www.hamediagroup.com or an affiliated site, you do not have to disclose any personal information if you do not want to. You can always decide not to use the optional services that require the submission of such information. The choice is yours. We are only interested in offering you convenient online services that match your interests and needs.
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2. Does www.hamediagroup.com collect non-personal information, using "cookies" or otherwise?
We also collect other types of information that do not allow us to identify your name, e-mail address, or other personal characteristics. This "non-personal information" includes the number assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet ("IP address"), and the type of browser you use. None of this non-personal information allows us to identify or contact you. We use this information to help us evaluate how www.hamediagroup.com is being used. By gathering this information, we can learn, among other things, how many people visit www.hamediagroup.com, which www.hamediagroup.com pages are the most and least popular, and which other Websites are the most frequent referral sources for www.hamediagroup.com.
We may also assign a "cookie" to your computer in some situations. Like an IP address, a "cookie" is a kind of online identification tag that allows us to recognize your computer each time you visit www.hamediagroup.com.
Unless you have already provided us with personal information on www.hamediagroup.com or an affiliated site, cookies do not allow us to identify you by name, e-mail address, or other personal characteristics. We use cookies primarily to identify return visitors and make your www.hamediagroup.com experience more convenient. The www.hamediagroup.com discussion boards, for example, place a cookie on your computer so that the next time you visit the discussion board, messages posted since your last visit will be highlighted.
H&A Media Group also has software to manage banner advertisements on www.hamediagroup.com. The cookies allow H&A Media Group to manage the delivery of these ads — for example, by counting the number of times a visitor has viewed different banners. If a visitor has viewed the same banner a number of times, H&A Media Group can use our system to automatically display different banners in the next visit. H&A Media Group has complete control over the banners that are placed on www.hamediagroup.com through this system.
We use additional software to collect aggregate information about www.hamediagroup.com usage — such as the most visited pages and features. This software also uses cookies and transparent images called "web bugs" to collect this information. Like cookies, web bugs do not allow us or the vendor to identify you by name or other personal characteristics. This software does not collect any personal information from readers on www.hamediagroup.com.
If you are uncomfortable allowing cookies to be placed on your computer, there are settings which you can control on your computer which will prevent cookies from being used. If you choose not to accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use certain features of www.hamediagroup.com or linked sites. You will still be able to visit the general www.hamediagroup.com pages on an anonymous basis, just as you have in the past.
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3. How is this information used, and can I control the uses?
Our primary purpose in collecting this information is to provide you with the services you request, and to evaluate and improve other services that we offer. As explained above, for example, we ask for information so that we can process your requests, send you the e-mail newsletters and/or updates to which you have subscribed, and provide you with discounted shopping opportunities. We store your readership information in our computer files, and use this information to service your readership account, send you H&A Media Group and answer any questions you may have about readership.
We may also use this information for other purposes. For example, we may review demographic information, survey results, and statistical analyses of www.hamediagroup.com usage in order to help us evaluate, modify, and develop services that are likely to be of interest to our readers.
On occasion, we will also use your readership information to send you notices in the mail or by email about special reader benefits, discounts, and offers. If you do not want to receive these mailings, you can: E-mail us at info@hamediagroup.com, call us at 402.592.5000 or write to us at H&A Media Group Customer Service, 10703 J Street, Omaha, NE 68127
If you have subscribed to any of the www.hamediagroup.com e-mail newsletters and/or updates, and would like to stop receiving them, follow the instructions at the bottom of each of the newsletters that you receive. Some advertisers may also send you promotional e-mails if you asked to receive them when you registered for and/or requested their respective services. In addition, each issue of these e-mail newsletters or notices will always include instructions for unsubscribing. Again, these notices are designed to describe the benefits of H&A Media Group readership, but we do not want to send them to you if you are not interested in receiving them.
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4. Is any information shared with other companies or organizations, and can I "opt out"?
H&A Media Group takes very seriously its responsibility to keep your personal information confidential and private. We do not sell or rent any of our readers' personal information to telemarketers, mailing list brokers, or any other companies that are not offering H&A Media Group-endorsed services or benefits. Like most organizations, at times we also hire companies to provide certain administrative services that require access to reader information, such as sending mailings ("approved vendors").
We require all of these H&A Media Group Service Providers and approved vendors to hold reader information in strict confidence. These providers and vendors are contractually required to maintain the security and confidentiality of all reader information, and are prohibited from using that information for any purpose other than providing the services specified in their contracts with H&A Media Group. We audit and monitor these companies to ensure that the reader information is protected.
If you do not want us to share your personal information with H&A Media Group Service Providers, you can: E-mail us at info@hamediagroup.com, call us at 402.592.5000 or write to us at H&A Media Group Customer Service, 10703 J Street, Omaha, NE 68127
If you ask us not to share your personal information, you should then stop receiving H&A Media Group Service Provider mailings in about six to eight weeks. (Note: If you request services or information from an H&A Media Group Service Provider directly, we may still need to confirm to the provider that you are an eligible H&A Media Group reader).
We may also disclose personal information when required to do so by law or when such action is necessary or appropriate to comply with legal process served on H&A Media Group, to protect and defend the rights or property of H&A Media Group, or to protect the personal safety of users of www.hamediagroup.com. We reserve the right to contact the appropriate authorities in our discretion when visitors' activities appear to be illegal or inconsistent with our policies.
Finally, we may sometimes share aggregate statistics and non-personal information with the media, government agencies, advertisers, and other third-parties. For example, we may publish statistics on the number of readers in various states, or the number of visitors to www.hamediagroup.com. These aggregate statistics will not allow anyone to identify reader names or other personal information.
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5. What privacy rules apply when I "click" over to other Websites?
www.hamediagroup.com includes links to other Websites, some of which are operated by H&A Media Group Service Providers or approved vendors, and some of which are not. Sites operated by H&A Media Group Service Providers and approved vendors may also collect personal information, and may have their own privacy policies that differ from, and are not covered by, this privacy policy. It is important that you review any privacy policies on these sites carefully before you use any services or programs offered.
When you click to unaffiliated third-party sites, H&A Media Group is not responsible for, and has no control over, the information collection or privacy practices of that site. It is important that you review and understand the privacy policies posted on any linked sites you visit before volunteering any of your personal information. These sites may also collect cookies, or allow third-party advertisers on their sites to collect cookies. You can often find information regarding a site and its privacy policy on the site's home page. If you cannot find or do not like a site's privacy policy, you may prefer not to do business with, or offer information to, that site.
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6. Do privacy protections exist in discussion groups?
It is important to understand that the information you submit in discussion groups, bulletin boards, and chat rooms is publicly displayed. Your messages will be seen by people and organizations not related to H&A Media Group, and may be used by these third parties to contact you. As a result, you should be very careful about the information that you include in these messages. Because these unrelated parties will also see your "User Name" on any postings that you make in the discussion groups, you may not want to use your full name. You can use your first name only, or use an assumed name, if you like.
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7. How does www.hamediagroup.com protect security and confidentiality?
In order to protect your personal information, we use technologies and processes such as encryption, access control procedures, network firewalls, physical security, and other measures. These measures increase the security and privacy of information traveling to, from, and within www.hamediagroup.com. Only our authorized employees or agents carrying out permitted business functions are allowed to access personal information. Employees who violate our privacy access policies may be subject to disciplinary actions, including termination when appropriate.
In order to receive some services, we may require you to use a password to protect your readership account from unauthorized access by others. If you do allow others, including family or household readers, to access H&A Media Group readers-only services through your personal password, please understand that you are responsible for the actions of those individuals.
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8. Will this privacy policy ever change?
This privacy policy describes the types of information we currently collect, and the ways we use and protect that information. If you are uncomfortable with our policies and practices, please do not provide any personal information to us through www.hamediagroup.com.
From time to time, we may collect different types of information and use that information in different ways — for example, when we add features or services to www.hamediagroup.com. In these cases, we may edit this policy to explain the new practices. Because protecting readers' privacy is very important to us, we do not expect major changes in policy. However, if we do make significant changes in our practices, we will include announcements on the www.hamediagroup.com home page so that you will know to review the revised policy.
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9. Whom can I contact with privacy questions?
If you have any questions or comments about your reader information or this privacy policy, please send an e-mail using our online form, or writing to info@hamediagroup.com, call us at 402.592.5000, or write us at the address listed above. We will do our best to investigate any complaint you may have and respond promptly to your concerns.
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For more information about online privacy issues generally, we encourage you to visit the Websites of the Federal Trade Commission, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
