Your
personal information should always remain private, and we understand that. As
an internet user, you should understand what types of personal information we
and other websites receive and collect when you surf the internet, as well as
how to keep your information safe. We will never sell your information to a
third party.
Log
Files
As with
most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The
information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your
ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used
to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited
our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We do
use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you
visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit,
or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.
We also
use third party advertisements so support our site. Some of these advertisers
may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our
site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google
AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser
you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash
installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing Virginia
real estate ads to someone in Virginia, for example) or showing certain ads
based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who
frequents cooking sites).
DoubleClick DART cookies
We also
may use DART cookies for ad serving through Google’s DoubleClick, which places a
cookie on your computer when you are browsing the web and visit a site using
DoubleClick advertising (including some Google AdSense advertisements). This
cookie is used to serve ads specific to you and your interests (”interest based
targeting”). The ads served will be targeted based on your previous browsing
history (For example, if you have been viewing sites about visiting St. Croix,
you may see St. Croix hotel advertisements when viewing a non-related site, such
as on a site about cooking). DART uses “non-personally identifiable
information”. It does NOT track personal information about you, such as your
name, email address, physical address, telephone number, social security
numbers, bank account numbers or credit card numbers. You can opt-out of this
ad serving on all sites using this advertising by visiting http://www.doubleclick.com/privacy/dart_adserving.aspx
You can
chosoe to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in
your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton
Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with
our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login
to services or programs, such as logging into forums or accounts.
Deleting cookies does not mean you are permanently opted out of any advertising
program. Unless you have settings that disallow cookies, the next time you
visit a site running the advertisements, a new cookie will be added.
