User Agreement and Privacy Policy
This page informs you of the Springfield Daily Citizen policies regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of this site. It also 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.
By accessing this site, and/or signing up for services such as subscriptions or our newsletter, you agree to be legally bound by and comply with this user agreement and consent to information practices outlined in our Privacy Policy.
Information Collection
We track how our visitors use this site so that we can see what people like and don’t like. We also analyze and aggregate information about use patterns and share the aggregated data with our advertisers (for example, we keep track of how many users see and click on particular stories). We also may collect personal information about you via registration for newsletters, commenting, donations, subscription and other areas. Where you have an opportunity to supply information about yourself you may choose not to provide requested information but in such cases you may not be able to use certain functions on this website.
Data collected may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our site that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages and other statistics.
We will not release your name, email address or any other personal information to anyone outside the Springfield Daily Citizen without your consent, unless we are under a legal order to do so, or there is an emergency involving danger to a person or property. We will not provide our advertisers or anyone else outside the Daily Citizen with any information specific to you unless we have your consent.
If you chose to provide your personally identifiable information for the purposes of a third-party contest, survey or newsletter, your consent shall be deemed to be given for the release of your personally identifiable information with regard to that third party only, in addition to the Daily Citizen. Only authorized Daily Citizen employees or consultants are allowed access to personal information about you. Any employee or consultant who violates our privacy and security policies is subject to disciplinary action.
We occasionally have 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. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of the data. They are restricted from using or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services to the Springfield Daily Citizen. In addition, we may always share, disclose, and transfer all information, postings, and any and all other personal and non-personal information we have collected to a successor-entity in the case of the dissolution of the Daily Citizen, corporate reorganization, merger, change in control, or other similar transaction.
Remember that any information you share in public areas becomes public and therefore this Privacy Policy does not apply to any information you choose to make public. We encourage visitors to https://sgfcitizen.org to be cautious about what they disclose and that they do not post any personal information that they expect to keep private. Personally Identifiable Information is information that can be used to contact you or determine your specific identity. If other information is linked to this information, it also becomes Personally Identifiable Information.
Use and Disclosure of Anonymous Information
Anonymous Information is any information other than Personally Identifiable Information, including aggregate information derived from Personally Identifiable Information.
The Daily Citizen may use this information:
- To improve the Daily Citizen website and service, to monitor traffic and general usage patterns, and for other general business purposes.
- To inform publishers as to what content is appealing to readers, to inform advertisers of the usage habits or characteristics of the interested audience, and to advise potential donors so that they may better understand the Daily Citizen’s user base.
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.
The Springfield Daily Citizen may use cookies to identify you as a repeat visitor or customer of the website, to maintain session information for logged in users, and to track usage trends and patterns in order to better understand and improve areas of our website.
The Daily Citizen has no control over whether and how our advertisers use cookies that originate from their website. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, but you may not be able to take full advantage of our site’s features.
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf. These companies may employ cookies and action tags to measure advertising effectiveness. All computers and servers on the internet use IP addresses to recognize and communicate with each other. We collect IP addresses to administer and analyze our site and report aggregate, non-personal information (such as how many visitors we have). When you call up our site on your computer, our servers enter the IP address of that computer into a log. To maintain our users’ anonymity, we do not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information.
We do not and cannot use cookies or IP address tracking to retrieve personal information from your computer.
Certain pages on our site may set other 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 this third-party content sets.
Additionally, we may use third-party services — such as those that provide social media conveniences, measure traffic, send newsletters and facilitate donations — that may place cookies on your computer. We don’t have any way of knowing how such services handle the resulting data internally. The Daily Citizen makes no claim, nor takes liability for the insecure submission of information via these applications.
Here are examples of the services whose cookies you can find on sgfcitizen.org:
- Sharing buttons for Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. These use the standard scripts provided by each company.
- Google Analytics to measure site traffic. Google Analytics gathers certain non-personally identifying information over time, such as your IP address, browser type, internet service provider, referring and exit pages, time stamp, and similar data.
- Stripe to accept donations through our website.
- Pico to manage newsletter subscriber, donor, and other identifiable user data.
- ActiveCampaign to manage newsletter distributions.
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 ensure or guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and 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 service of credit card information uses SSL encryption to help protect the 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.
Links to Other Sites
The Daily Citizen provides links and pointers to websites maintained by other organizations. The Daily Citizen provides these links as a convenience to users, but it does not operate or control such sites. The Daily Citizen also disclaims any responsibility for the information on those sites and any products or services offered there, and cannot vouch for the privacy policies of such sites. The Daily Citizen does not make any warranties or representations that any linked sites, or this site, will function without error or interruption, that defects will be corrected, or that the sites and their servers are free of viruses and other problems that can harm your computer.
Opt Out
If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include detailed unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email. Or you may email us at info@sgfcitizen.org or call us at 417-837-3666.
Children
The Daily Citizen is not directed to children (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, we do not guarantee or warrant that our site or materials that may be downloaded from our site 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 injust based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies on our site, nor for any claim, loss or injust that results from your use of this site or your breach of any provision of this User Agreement.
Governing Law
This User Agreement 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 the site 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 our User Agreement at any time and you should check this User Agreement periodically. Your continued use of the site after we post any modifications to the User Agreement on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified User Agreement.
If we make any material changes to this User Agreement, we will notify you either through the email address you have provided us, or by placing a prominent notice on our website.
Contact Us
If you have any questions about this User Agreement, please contact us at info@sgfcitizen.org or by calling us at 417-837-3666.