| Merrimack Online Privacy Policy |
Merrimack Online is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. Please
read the following policy to understand how your personal information will
be treated as you make full use of our many offerings. This policy may
change from time to time so please check back periodically.
This policy will let you know:
1. What personally identifiable information of yours
is collected;
2. What cookies are and how they are used;
3. How your information is used;
4. Who is collecting your information;
5. With whom your information may be shared;
6. What choices are available to you regarding collection,
use, and distribution of your information;
7. How you can access or update your information;
8. How Merrimack Online treats your personal financial
information;
9. The kind of security precautions that are in
place to protect the loss, misuse, or alteration of your information;
10. How Merrimack Online protects children's privacy;
and
11. What else you should know about your online privacy.
Merrimack Online collects minimal personal information from various online forms, from email, and from conventional conversations about the events shown on the site.
Some personal information is gathered when you fill out an online form. Merrimack Online asks for your name, email address, and other personal information such as your address and phone number. The more information you volunteer (and the more accurate it is), the better we are able to assure our online content is useful and accurate. Phone numbers, addresses, and email addresses are NEVER posted on the the internet unless specifically submitted to us for that purpose. For instance, such information MAY be posted for members of a Merrimack organization for the purpose of making that information readily accessible to the public.
We can think of no reason for personal information collected from children (under the age of 18) to ever be posted on the internet, so we WON'T do that.
Some of our forms are registration forms for various organizations in Merrimack, such as Merrimack Babe Ruth Baseball. That information is kept completely private, in the same manner you would expect paper registration forms completed and submitted at the MYA building. The information for registration forms is released only to the league organizers, kept in strict confidence, and NEVER released to any other agency.
We post many photographs of Merrimack kids playing sports. We
like to be able to identify the participants in the same manner as a newspaper
or television station would. In fact, many of our pictures are submitted
to the local newspapers, and they won't accept them for print WITHOUT the
players identified. So from time to time you will see players names
alongside a picture. If any person objects to their name, their child's
name, their picture, or any item on a picture page, we will immediately
remove the item from the site.
A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser
from a Web server and stored on your computer's hard drive.
We don't use cookies, so you don't have to worry about them from us!
Merrimack Online's web server collects IP addresses to report
aggregate information to our advertisers. This just lets us know how many
different visitors come to the various pages on the web site. We're
not smart enough to do anything else with that information, and it is periodically
deleted.
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Merrimack Online's primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide users, with accurate information (that doesn't include personal information). Since we depend on users to submit notices about events in town, classified ads, calendar information, etc, it helps if we get to know and trust the people that are submitting information.
When you are on a Merrimack Online site and are asked for personal information, you are sharing that information with Merrimack Online alone, unless it is specifically stated otherwise.
Please be aware that Merrimack Online advertisers or Web sites that
have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information
about you. The information practices of those Web sites linked to Merrimack
Online are not covered by this privacy statement.
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As a general rule, Merrimack Online will not disclose any of your personally identifiable information except when we have your permission or under special circumstances, such as when we believe in good faith that the law requires it or under the circumstances described below.
Merrimack Online may also disclose user information in special cases
when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary
to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be causing
injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally)
Merrimack Online's rights or property, other Merrimack Online users, or
anyone else that could be harmed by such activities. Merrimack Online may
disclose user information when we believe in good faith that the law requires
it.
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Merrimack Online does not sell or rent user information to anyone. If you object to the small amount of information that we do collect, then don't submit it! If after you have submitted information you wish to retract it, simply send an email to webmstr@merrimackonline.com and request the information be deleted.
You may update any personal information at any time by resubmitting the original form or by sending email to webmstr@merrimackonline.com
How does Merrimack Online protect my personal financial information?
Merrimack Online protects your personal financial information by NOT COLLECTING ANY! If you are an advertiser with Merrimack Online, we simply take your check to the bank.
Any personal information collected from you is stored and backed up on hard disk or CD ROM media that is not accessible to anyone online.
Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, Merrimack Online cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
Naturally, the safety of children is very important to us. Merrimack Online does not intentionally collect personally identifiable information from children, except perhaps for the purpose of facilitating a Merrimack organization registration. As stated above, any such information is kept in strictest confidence, and only released to verifyable officials of the organization for which it is collected.
Children should always ask a parent for permission before sending personal information to Merrimack Online, or to anyone online for that matter. Merrimack Online does not share personal information about users under the age of 18 with third parties and we do not sell or rent personal information about any of our users, regardless of age.
Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example on message boards, through email, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, if you post personal information online that is accessible to the public, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.
Ultimately, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of your passwords and/or any account information. Please be careful and responsible whenever you're online.
Questions regarding this statement should be directed to privacypolicy@merrimackonline.com.