Privacy Policy

Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

Information collected

We gather two types of information about users:

• Information that users provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic newsletters, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a friend, and from participation in polls and surveys
• Information gathered through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to the needs of our users and to better understand the demographics of our audience. Under no circumstances is any collected information about an individual user divulged to any third party.

Electronic newsletters policy

We offer a free electronic newsletter to users. We gather the email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page. Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.

Message boards/forums policy

Users of the site's Message Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to supply a username, password, and email address.

Usage tracking

We track user traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual users. Overall usage statistics are determined according to a user's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every user's browser).

Search terms that users enter in our Search function are tracked, but this tracking is never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

Cookies

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Cookies are used to track user traffic patterns (as described above).

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.