User Agreement and Privacy Policy

Last updated on August 23, 2023 

At the Springfield Daily Citizen, our mission is to inform our community and be a catalyst for good. Informing our community extends to letting you know how we collect, use and disclose information we receive from our users. This User Agreement and Privacy Policy describes how we handle your information when you use our services, listed below:

  • Our website, sgfcitizen.org
  • Our app
  • Our email newsletters, like SGF A.M.
  • Our pages or ads on social media networks, like our Facebook and Instagram pages
  • Anywhere we gather information from you and refer you to this User Agreement and Privacy Policy

By using our services, you consent to the information practices outlined in, and agree to be legally bound by and comply with, this User Agreement and Privacy Policy.

If you have questions, please contact us at info@sgfcitizen.org. 

Collection, Use and Disclosure of Information 

We collect automatically, and ask you to provide voluntarily, information about you that will improve your experience using our site and our app, as well as our other services. When this information can personally identify you — either on its own or when combined with other information — it is called Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”). When it cannot identify you in any way, including when combined with other information, it is called Anonymous Information (“AI”).

We collect some information automatically about how our visitors use our site and our app, and how readers access our newsletters, so that we can see what people like and don’t like. We may use that information to improve our site, our app, and our other services, and for other general business purposes. We also collect some information automatically when our app experiences an error, and we use that data to fix those errors and others like them. We also analyze and aggregate information to monitor traffic and general use patterns and share aggregated, although not individually identifiable, data with our third-party consultants, our advertisers, and potential donors (for example, we keep track of how many users see and click on particular stories, and we inform advertisers of the usage habits or characteristics of our audience generally).

PII we collect automatically may include identifiers and device information such as your computer’s IP address, your device (MAC) address, your browser type, times and dates of your visits, your browser version, pages or screens that you visit, time spent on those pages or screens, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics. We collect other PII, including your name and email address, when you register on our site and/or in our app, create your account, subscribe to newsletters, become a paid Daily Citizen subscriber, turn on push notifications, complete a survey, or register for a contest. Where you have an opportunity to supply PII, you may choose not to provide it; if you don’t, you might not be able to use certain functions on our site or in our app (for example, you might not be able to access your account).

Some Daily Citizen staff members (although generally not reporters) have access to your PII, so that they can recommend ways to make our services better, help you with customer service requests, and otherwise improve our users’ experience. Some consultants also have access to certain PII; these include service contractors, third party agents, subsidiaries, affiliates, and joint ventures that perform functions on our behalf, including but not limited to credit card processing, email address data management, and website hosting. These consultants have access only to those pieces of PII needed to perform their functions, are restricted from using or altering that data in any way other than to provide the requested services to the Springfield Daily Citizen, and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of that data. For example, if you choose to provide PII for the purposes of a third-party contest or survey, your consent shall be deemed to be given for the release of your PII with regard to that third party only, in addition to the Daily Citizen.

Only authorized Daily Citizen employees or consultants are allowed access to PII. We will not release your name or email address, or any other PII, to anyone other than Springfield Daily Citizen employees or consultants without your consent, unless we are under a legal order to do so or there is an emergency involving imminent danger to person or property. We will not release your name or email address to our advertisers or partners under any circumstances. Any employee or consultant who violates this policy will be subject to disciplinary action, up to and including immediate termination of employment or contract.

Cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website’s servers and stored on your computer. Each website can send its own cookies to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) most browsers only permit a website to access the cookies that the same website has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

We may use cookies to identify you as a repeat visitor or customer of our services, to maintain session information for logged in users, and to track usage trends and patterns in order to better understand and improve our services. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, but if you don’t, you might not be able to use certain functions on our site or in our app.

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags to measure advertising effectiveness. In addition, our advertisers use cookies that originate from their websites. 

Certain pages on our site and in our app may also set third-party cookies. For example, we may embed content, such as videos, from another site that sets a cookie. While we try to minimize these third-party cookies, we can’t always control what cookies third-party content sets. Additionally, from time to time, we use third-party services — such as social media providers, data analytics firms, newsletter distributors, and payment processors — that may place cookies on your computer. 

Here are some examples of third-party providers who set cookies on our site and in our app:

  • Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube. These are social media services. They use standard scripts to create sharing buttons and embed links.
  • Google Analytics and Parse.ly. These services measure site traffic. Both gather information over time, such as your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, referring and exit pages, time stamp, and similar data.
  • Stripe. This is a payment processing service. We use this service to process payments and accept donations through our website and app.
  • Wallkit. This is an email management service. We use this service to manage newsletter subscriber, paid subscriber, and other identifiable user data.
  • ActiveCampaign. This is another email management service. We use this service to manage newsletter distribution.
  • Bloomerang. This is a donor data management service. We use this service to manage donor data.

We do not and cannot use cookies to retrieve any information, including PII, from your smartphone, tablet, or desktop computer.

Security

The Springfield Daily Citizen employs a number of security methods designed to prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure correct use of information. Your personal data will be stored within a database that is located behind a firewall for added security.

No data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be secure. As a result, while we try to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us; you do so at your own risk. We are not liable for the illegal acts of any third party.

We do not encrypt normal web sessions; however, any transmission to the Daily Citizen website or app of credit card information to be provided to a third-party payment processor uses SSL encryption to help protect your data.

Donor Information

The identities of most donors, and in some cases the amount that they have given to the Daily Citizen, will be listed on our website, in compliance with our Donor and Financial Transparency Policy. The Daily Citizen does not share, trade, sell, or otherwise release donors’ personal information to any third parties, with the exception of certain PII as outlined above.

Links to Other Sites

In certain cases, we provide links and pointers to sites, apps, and other platforms maintained by third-party organizations. We provide these links as a convenience to users, but we do not operate or control the sites, apps, and platforms that they link to. Accordingly, we disclaim any responsibility for the information on those sites, apps, and platforms, and any products or services offered there. We also cannot vouch for the privacy policies of any third party, and we encourage our users to review the privacy policies of these parties if they user their sites, apps, and other platforms. Finally, we make no warranties or representations that any linked sites, apps, or platforms — or our own services — will function without error or interruption, that defects will be corrected, or that these sites, apps, platforms, or services are free of viruses and/or other malware that can harm your electronic devices.

Email Unsubscribe Policy

We regularly send emails to registered users and subscribers of our services. If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include detailed unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email; to unsubscribe, you may also email us at info@sgfcitizen.org or call us at 417-837-3666.

Children

The Daily Citizen is not directed to children (defined here as persons under the age of 13), and we do not knowingly collect, either online or offline, personally identifiable information from children. If you believe that we have received information from a person under 13, please contact us by email at info@sgfcitizen.org or in writing at 901 S National Ave., Springfield, MO 65897, and we will take appropriate action.

Disclaimers and Limitations of Liability

Although we take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “Trojan Horses” or other destructive materials to our site and our app, we do not guarantee or warrant that our site or our app, or materials that may be downloaded from our site or our app, are free from such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. We are not liable for any claim, loss or injury based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies on our site or in our app, nor for any claim, loss or injury that results from your use of our services or your breach of any provision of this User Agreement.

We encourage users of our services to be cautious about what they disclose, and not to post any personal information that they expect to keep private. Remember that any information you share in public areas becomes public; therefore, this Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you choose to make public. In any case, we retain the right to share, disclose, and transfer any and all other personal and non-personal information we have collected to a successor entity in the case of the Daily Citizen’s dissolution, corporate reorganization, merger, change in control, or other similar transaction.

This User Agreement and Privacy Policy incorporates by reference the policies of the related sites provided by service contractors, third-party agents, subsidiaries, affiliates and joint ventures that perform functions on our behalf, including but not limited to credit card processing and website hosting. We don’t have any way of knowing how such services handle data obtained from users of our services internally, and so we make no claim, nor take any liability for, the insecure submission of information via these sites.

Governing Law

This User Agreement and Privacy Policy will be governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, applicable to contracts made and performed there without regard to its conflicts of law principles. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts sitting in Greene County, Missouri, and waive any jurisdictional, venue or inconvenient forum objections to such courts.

Termination

We reserve the right to terminate our services and this User Agreement at any time without notice for any reason, including, in the case of the User Agreement, for your violation of any of its provisions. The Limitation of Liability and Governing Law Sections of this User Agreement shall survive any such termination.

Changes to this User Agreement and Privacy Policy

This User Agreement and Privacy Policy is effective as of Feb. 1, 2022, and will be in effect immediately after being posted on this page. We reserve the right to update or change this User Agreement and Privacy Policy at any time; we will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page, and you are advised to review this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of our services after we post any modifications to this User Agreement and Privacy Policy will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications, and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified User Agreement.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this User Agreement and Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@sgfcitizen.org or by calling us at 417-837-3666.