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    Privacy Policy

    U-T San Diego Privacy Policy

    Effective Date: July 4, 2013

    This Privacy Policy ("Policy") is intended to describe the kinds of information that The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC, d/b/a U-T San Diego, and its subsidiaries and affiliates ("U-T San Diego" "we," "us" or "our") may collect with respect to our Sites and Services (as defined below), how we use and share that information and your choices with respect to same, how we endeavor to protect that information, how we make changes to this Policy, and how you can contact us if you have any questions about this Policy.

    Click on one of the links below to jump directly to that section:

    Information We Collect

    We collect personal information (information that can be used to identify a specific individual) from:
    • Subscribers to the U-T San Diego newspaper and our other print publications;
    • Users, visitors and subscribers of www.UTSanDiego.com, www.discoversd.com, www.sandiegoclubs.com, www.vidalatinasd.com, deals.utsandiego.com, and utsandiego.premiumrewards.com, and their subdomains;
    • Users of U-T San Diego mobile applications and mobile messaging services operated by or on behalf of U-T San Diego, including those applications identified at http://apps.utsandiego.com;
    • Customers and others that attend U-T San Diego sponsored events who provide sign-in and registration information;
    • Persons that choose to participate in surveys, polls, panels, focus groups and other means of conducting market research online, over the phone, through the mail or in person; and
    • Persons enrolled in or that participate in events, contests, reward programs, daily deal services, sweepstakes and other promotions of ours or third parties, including individuals enrolled in or registered for U-T Rewards.
    Throughout this privacy policy, these sites, mobile applications, services and activities are collectively referred to as the "Sites and Services."
    We may collect certain personal information about you related to your visiting, enrollment in or use of the Sites and Services. We also may obtain information about you from our parent, affiliate or subsidiary companies, business partners and other third parties. The types of information we may collect that may be considered personal information include:
    • Your contact information (such as name, postal and email address, and phone number);
    • Username and password for any account(s) you may establish for any of our Sites and Services;
    • Payment card information (including payment card number, security code, expiration date, cardholder name and billing address);
    • Material you contribute using our Sites and Services, including comments, photos, recommendations, reviews, ratings or other items you submit;
    • Demographic information (such as age, date of birth and gender);
    • Information you provide by connecting our Sites and Services to, or interacting with us through, social media (such as Facebook, YouTube, GooglePlus, Pinterest or Twitter), including social media user name, recommendations, pictures, shared articles, ratings, information contained in your posts, the identities of your friends and profile information;
    • Location information, such as country, state, city, the real-time geographic location of the device used to access Sites and Services or on which you install our mobile applications, and the location of places and businesses you visit;
    • Offline and online shopping behavior and preferences, such as a record of the purchases you make on our websites and while visiting third party establishments;
    • Household or personal characteristics, behavior and preferences, such as might be provided in connection with voluntary surveys, panels, focus groups or other means of conducting market research in which you may participate;
    • With respect to text messages sent to U-T San Diego or via U-T San Diego's text services, your incoming phone number, the lists or campaigns users have responded to, the identity of your wireless provider, the date and time the text services were activated and deactivated, the date and time of the text, and the content of the messages sent between you and U-T San Diego;
    • The name and email address of another person provided by you in connection with a recommendation to, referral of, or purchase for or on behalf of such person through our Sites and Services;
    • Messages that you send to others, and records related to when and where such messages were sent, using messaging features provided by our online Sites and Services; and
    • Other details that you may submit to us or that may be included in the information provided to us by third parties.
      • In addition, when you visit or use our Sites and Services, we may collect certain information about you by automated means, such as cookies and web beacons. A "cookie" is a text file that websites send to a visitor's computer or other Internet-connected device to uniquely identify the visitor's browser or to store information or settings in the browser. A "web beacon," also known as an Internet tag, pixel tag or clear GIF, is used to transmit information back to a web server. We also may use third-party website analytics tools (such as Google Analytics, Anametrix and quantcast) that collect information about visitor traffic, browsing patterns and usage on our Sites and Services. The information we may collect by automated means includes:
    • Information about the computers, mobile devices or other devices our visitors use to access the Internet and our Sites and Services (such as website IP addresses, unique device identifiers, the device, browser and operating system type, domain names, and browser language);
    • Websites that refer users to our Sites and Services, and websites that users visit from our Sites and Services;
    • Dates and times of visits and uses of our Sites and Services;
    • Information on actions taken on or when using our Sites and Services (such as page views, landing pages, exit pages, "clicks", time spent on the website or pages, dates and times of actions taken on a website or page and site navigation patterns);
    • A general geographic location (such as country and city) from which a visitor accesses our Sites and Services;
    • Usage and volume statistics related to our Sites and Services; and
    • Search terms that visitors use to reach our sites.

    How We Use the Information We Collect

    We may use the information we obtain about you to:
    • Register you for membership for, or a subscription to, our Sites and Services and certain features, functions and activities related to our Sites and Services;
    • Provide you with, develop and enhance our products or services;
    • Process, validate, record, confirm, verify, deliver and track your purchases (including by processing payment card transactions, arranging shipping and handling returns and refunds, and contacting you about your orders, including by telephone);
    • Respond to your questions and comments and provide customer support;
    • Communicate with you about your account, subscription or use of our Sites and Services, including emails related to order confirmations, renewal/expiration notices, administering and troubleshooting of the Sites and Services, notices of credit card problems, other transactional e-mails and notifications about changes to the U-T San Diego Sites and Services and/or to our Privacy Policy;
    • Assist with administration, diagnosis of problems and troubleshooting related to our Sites and Services;
    • Communicate with you about products, services, transactions, offers, events and promotions of ours or third parties, and display or offer you content, deals, products and services we believe may be of interest to you, including targeting offers and advertisements to you that are more likely to be of interest and value to you;
    • Enable you to communicate with us through our blogs, social networks and other interactive media;
    • Enroll you in and manage your participation in our events, contests, reward programs, daily deal services, sweepstakes and other promotions;
    • Tailor and customize our Sites and Services, products, services and features to suit your personal interests and enhance your use of our Sites and Services;
    • Operate, evaluate and improve our business and the products and services we offer;
    • Conduct marketing analysis of our customers and users, including through surveys and polls, and analyze and enhance our marketing communications and strategies;
    • Combine it with other online or off-line information we possess or obtain from third parties to help us maintain a more complete profile about you so that we can offer you more personalized products, services, advertising and marketing and promotional communications;
    • Analyze trends, demographics and statistics regarding visitors' use of our Sites and Services, including the advertisements users click on and purchases they make using our Sites and Services;
    • Protect against and prevent, investigate, monitor for and mitigate fraud, physical harm, property damage, criminal activity, financial loss, violations of law, breach of contract, unauthorized transactions, unauthorized use of the U-T San Diego Sites and Services, claims and other liabilities, and manage risk exposure, including by identifying potential hackers and other unauthorized users;
    • Enforce our Terms of Use and other agreements;
    • Help us comply with applicable legal requirements, industry standards and our policies.

    Targeted Online Advertising

    You may see certain ads on our Sites and Services because we participate in advertising networks. Some ad networks allow us and other advertisers to target advertising to users through demographic, behavioral and contextual means. These networks track your online activities over time by collecting information through automated means when you visit our Sites and Services and third party sites, applications and services, including through the use of cookies, web server logs, web beacons and other methods. Some of these ad networks may place a persistent cookie on your computer. Doing this allows them to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement. We do not have access to or control over the cookies that may be placed by these parties on your computer, and have no control over these parties' privacy policies or information collection practices.

    The information our ad network vendors collect includes information about your use of our mobile applications and visits to websites that participate in the advertising networks, such as the pages or advertisements you have viewed, the location of your mobile device and the actions you take on the websites and mobile applications. The networks use this information to show you targeted advertisements on our Sites and Services, and on third party sites, applications and services, that they believe will be of most interest to you. This process also helps us track the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.

    For ad serving solutions we incorporate Doubleclick and Mixpo technologies.

    Social Media Interaction

    When you choose to participate in a third party application, social media site, feature or service offered within the Sites and Services (for example Facebook Connect, integrated Facebook comments or Twitter website widgets), you may be opting to link or share your activity on Sites and Services with that third party application, social media site, feature or service, which may then collect information about you and may publish that activity to your "profile," "timeline," "feedback" or similar feature with that third party. For example, if you choose to "like" or "share" content through our Sites and Services when a third party application, social media site, feature or service is enabled, or to otherwise post information from or via our Sites and Services to a third party application, social media site, feature or service, that information may be publicly displayed or displayed to your friends or followers and the third party may have access to information about you and your use of our Sites and Services. You may be able to disable ongoing sharing of information with us from third party applications, social media site and features. To do so visit the applicable section of the application, site or feature and adjust your privacy and sharing settings, or otherwise disassociate the application, site or feature from our Sites and Services.

    Information We Share

    We may share and disclose personal information we collect with our parent, affiliate and subsidiary companies, business partners, ad network vendors and their participants, and other third parties for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to communicate with you about products and services, offers, events and promotions that we believe may be of interest to you. We may also share and disclose information as follows:

    • Service Providers. We may use third parties to perform certain services on our behalf, such as hosting or analyzing certain data, performing administrative services, credit card billing and processing, delivery and shipping of products and services, email distribution, list processing and analytics, and survey and promotions management. These service providers are generally not authorized by us to use or disclose the information except as necessary to perform services on our behalf or comply with legal requirements.
    • Aggregated and De-Identified Information. We may disclose information in an aggregate or de-identified form (for example, personal information stripped of reference to a named individual) with third parties in our discretion, including advertisers, affiliates and business associates. Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to restrict U-T San Diego's use of aggregated or de-identified information in any way.
    • Legal Matters and Safety. We may disclose information about you, in our sole discretion: (i) if we are required to do so by law or legal process (such as a court order or subpoena); (ii) in response to a request or investigation by law enforcement authorities or regulators; (iii) to protect or defend our rights, business or property or protect the safety of any individual; (iv) protect against, investigate or mitigate the misuse or unauthorized use of the Sites and Services; or (v) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent, investigate or mitigate physical harm, property damage, violations of law, breach of contract, criminal activity or financial loss.
    • Third Parties and Affiliates for Marketing. We may exchange, sell, rent or otherwise disclose your personal information to third parties and our affiliates for their own direct marketing purposes. You may choose to opt-out of such disclosures (see "Your Choices" below).
    • Sweepstakes, Contests and Reward Programs. We may disclose your personal information to third parties that provide and manage events, contests, reward programs, sweepstakes and other promotions.
    • User Contributed Information. By contributing material on our Sites and Services (including for example material submitted on or using discussion boards, blogs, comment sections, reviewing and rating features and other features), you are electing to share and publicly display such material, including comments, posts, photos, recommendations, reviews, ratings or other material you submit. When you contribute such material, additional information about you may also be displayed and disclosed to others, including name, profile photo, username, email and other personal information. You should be aware that any such material you contribute is considered public information and can be read, collected, or used by others, including for the purposes of sending you unsolicited messages. U-T San Diego has no responsibility to publish, take down, remove or edit any of this material. However, U-T San Diego reserves the right to monitor, edit, or delete such material, in its discretion. Also, we may sell or otherwise make this material available to other persons and sites using RSS feeds, APIs and via other formats and means. As a result, personal information included in your public activities and user material you contribute may appear on other sites, applications, blogs, or feeds.
    • Gifts and Referral Programs. If you use our Sites and Services to make recommendations to, referrals of or buy a product or service for or on behalf of another person, an email identifying the relevant information, product or service will be sent to that person.
    • Corporate Events. We also reserve the right to transfer personal information we have about you if we sell, consolidate, merge or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets, or enter into a joint venture or undergo other corporate changes or reorganization, including, without limitation, in the event of bankruptcy or during the course of any due diligence process related to any such activities or events. Following such a sale, joint venture, merger, reorganization, bankruptcy or transfer, you may contact the entity to which we transferred your personal information with any inquiries concerning the handling of that information.

    Your Choices

    We offer you certain choices about what information we collect from you, how we use and disclose the information, and how we communicate with you, including the following:

    • Opt-Out of Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties and Affiliates for their Own Direct Marketing Purposes. If, at any time, you prefer that we do not share personal information with third parties or our affiliates for their own direct marketing purposes, please either e-mail us at [email protected] or send a letter to us by regular mail at: U-T San Diego, Attention: Customer Service, 350 Camino de la Reina, San Diego, California 92108. If you are a current newspaper subscriber, please remember to include your account number and phone number in the body of your e-mail, and if you choose to opt-out via e-mail, please put "Opt Out" in the subject line. We may still share your information with third parties and our affiliates for various other purposes, such as customer service, fulfillment and our own marketing. You cannot prevent sharing for these other purposes.
    • Unsubscribe From Marketing Emails Sent by Us. You may choose not to receive marketing email communications from us by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the marketing emails or by adjusting your email preferences using the online account you may establish for some of our Sites and Services. For some of our Sites and Services, you may have the ability to opt-out of receiving certain emails by changing your preferences in the "account" or "preferences" section of the Site and Service. In some cases you will have the choice to opt-in or opt-out of certain marketing emails prior to us sending those emails.
    • Unsubscribe From Text Messages Sent by Us. You may choose to stop our delivery of text messages to you that relate to the particular list that you subscribe to by texting "stop" in reply to any such text message. This will only prevent the sending of text messages from the relevant list, and will not stop text messages from other lists to which you have subscribed. You may also request that we stop delivery of text messages by sending an email to [email protected] with the subject line: "FULL TEXT MESSAGE UNSUBSCRIBE."
    • Targeted Advertising. To opt out of receiving marketing communications targeted to you based on tracking of your online activities through the advertising networks or our ad network vendors, please visit http://www.bluekai.com/consumers_optout.php, and follow the instructions for opting out. Certain advertising networks and exchanges may participate in the Digital Advertising Alliance ("DAA") AdChoices Program and may display an Advertising Option Icon for interest-based ads. You can learn more about the DAA AdChoices Program here: http://www.youradchoices.com/ . In addition, certain advertising networks and exchanges may participate in the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). The NAI has developed a tool that allows consumers to opt out of targeted advertising delivered by NAI members' ad networks. To learn more about opting out of targeted advertising or to use the tool, click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/. We may use other advertising networks that target marketing communications to you based on tracking your online activities, and if you want more information about the opt-out choices these networks may provide please email us at [email protected]
    • Geo-Location Information. When you use a U-T San Diego application on your mobile device, you may be able choose not to share your geo-location details with us by adjusting the device's location services settings. For instructions on changing the relevant settings, please contact your service provider or device manufacturer.
    • Cookies. Most web browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to be notified when you receive a new cookie and how to disable existing cookies. Please note, however, that without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the features of our Sites and Services.

    Your California Privacy Rights

    When California customers provide personal information to a business, they have the right to request certain disclosures if that business shares personal information with our affiliates or third parties for the third parties' or our affiliates' direct marketing purposes. Once per calendar year the customer may request that the business provide a list of companies with which it shares personal information for the third parties' or our affiliates' direct marketing purposes, and a list of the categories of personal information that the business shares. Instead of responding to such requests, however, a company may choose to comply with this law by establishing and publishing on its website a policy of not disclosing a customer's personal information to such third parties or our affiliates unless the customer affirmatively agrees to such disclosures, or a policy of not disclosing a customer's personal information to such third parties or our affiliates if the customer has exercised an option that prevents that information from being disclosed to third parties or our affiliates for those purposes. Thus, a company may comply with the law by notifying the customer of his or her right to prevent disclosure of personal information and providing a cost free means to exercise that right. As noted in the "Your Choices" section above, you may opt-out of our sharing of your personal information with third parties or our affiliates for their own direct marketing purposes.

    California customers may request information about our compliance with this law by sending an email to [email protected]. Any such inquiry must include "California Privacy Rights Request" in the first line of the description. Please note that we are only required to respond to one request per customer each year, and we are not required to respond to requests made by means other than through this email address.

    Access and Correction

    You may access certain personal information we maintain about you, or update or correct inaccuracies in that information, using the online account "profile" or "preferences" feature of our Sites and Services (if applicable). In addition, if you believe other personal information we maintain about you is inaccurate, you may request that we correct or amend the information by contacting us as indicated in the "How to Contact Us" section of this Privacy Policy. If we deny an access request, we will notify you of the reasons for the denial.

    Links to and Use of Other Websites and Services

    Our Sites and Services may contain links to other sites and services for your convenience and information and for advertising purposes. Linked sites may have their own privacy notices, which you should review if you visit those sites. We are not responsible for the content of any sites or services not operated by U-T San Diego, any use of those sites or services, or the privacy practices of those sites or services. When you visit or use our Sites and Services, visit linked sites, click on advertisements displayed in our Sites and Services, receive or participate in a service with a third party, or choose to share your information with third parties (including reward program providers and third party social media sites like Facebook and Twitter), your information may be collected and used by third parties and accessible by users of third party sites. The information collected by the third party is subject to the third party's privacy and other practices, policies, and agreements, including whether the third party continues to share information with us or with other third parties, the types of information shared and your choices with regard to the collection, use and disclosure of the information. We are not responsible for any use of those sites or services or the privacy practices of the third parties that operate those sites or provide those services.

    How We Endeavor to Protect Personal Information

    We maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards designed to assist us in protecting the personal information we collect against accidental, unlawful or unauthorized destruction, loss, alteration, access, disclosure or use. When you provide your credit or debit card information as payment for a transaction, the payment card information is encrypted while in transit to the payment processor that processes your transaction. Please note that no data storage or electronic transmission of information can be entirely secure. We cannot guarantee that the security measures we have in place to safeguard personal information will never be defeated or fail or that those measures will always be sufficient or effective.

    To further protect yourself, you should safeguard your user name and password for any Sites and Services and not share that information with anyone. You should also sign off your account and close your browser window when you have finished your visit to our sites. Please note that we will never ask for your U-T San Diego account user name or password via email.

    Children's Privacy

    U-T San Diego does not direct its websites to children under the age of thirteen. If we learn that a user is under thirteen years of age, we will promptly delete any personal information that the individual has provided to us.

    Updates to this Privacy Policy

    This Privacy Policy may be updated periodically and without prior notice to you to reflect changes in our personal information practices. We will post a prominent notice (and/or provide notice using other methods) with respect to our Sites and Services to notify you of any material changes to our Privacy Policy. The "Effective Date" at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when it was most recently updated. Your continued use of any of our Sites and Services once such changes are posted to this policy will mean you accept those changes.

    How to Contact Us

    If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or if you would like us to update information we have about you or your preferences, please contact us by email at [email protected]. You also may write to us at: U-T San Diego, Attention: Customer Service, 350 Camino de la Reina, San Diego, California 92108.