The Dorchester Reporter/dotnews.com site and associated sites are maintained by
Boston Neighborhood News, Inc.
150 Mt. Vernon St.
Dorchester MA 02125
The Dorchester Reporter collects personally identifying information and data about individuals and their demographics ("personally identifying information and data") (i) when you provide information to the Dorchester Reporter, such as when you register or sign up for any of our products such as publications, subscriptions, e-mails, contests, newsletters, memberships, content delivery via SMS text or other communications with the Dorchester Reporter or Boston Neighborhood News, (ii) when you register or sign up on the Dorchester Reporter site or when you register for any other Boston Neighborhood News products and (iii) From time to time we may add other information that we collect from third party sources to enhance the information that you provide to Boston Neighborhood News.
Below is the current policy regarding the usage of personally identifying information and data collected by Boston Neighborhood News. We reevaluate this policy on an ongoing basis based on feedback from readers. Boston Neighborhood News reserves the right to change its privacy policy. However, if there are any changes to the use of personally identifying information and data that is different from that stated at the time of collection, we will notify you by posting a notice on our Web site.
Boston Neighborhood News or one of our affiliated publications, or third party partners may place a "cookie" in the browser files of a user's computer. The cookie itself does not contain any personally identifying information, except when such information has been supplied by a subscriber or registered user.
If you have registered with the Dorchester Reporter site, the information in your "cookie" is used to provide a more personalized experience on our Web site and allows you to interact directly with other users, via forums and comments on articles.
If you haven't registered with our site, we may place a cookie on your system to help provide a more personalized experience on dotnews.com. This cookie identifies you as a unique user by means of a tracking ID. However, if you have not registered on our site, we cannot link that user ID with personal identifying information and data about you such as your name or e-mail address.
Other cookies without personally identifying information and data are used to enable Boston Neighborhood News to manage the banner advertisements presented or personalized information to the user.
Boston Neighborhood News uses Facebook's commenting system to let users comment on individual articles on our sites. The system requires you to have a valid Facebook account.
Browsers or third-party software can allow you to block the use of cookies while you surf our site. Or, you can use third-party "anonymizer" services to mask information in your cookies, or even general data such as your IP address. In such cases you would not be able to take advantage of most of the personalization services offered by dotnews.com.
The aggregated information we collect is used for a number of purposes including the following: (i) To improve the content and design of the Boston Neighborhood News Web site; (ii) To enable us to verify the number and types of users of the site; (iii) To help advertisers, potential advertisers or marketers assess the suitability of the site for their ad campaigns; (iv) As clear GIFs, also known as pixel tags, provided by our ad-serving company to help manage online advertising. These clear GIFs let our ad-serving company recognize a browser's cookie when a user visits our site. The information we collect and share through this technology is not personally identifiable (It does not include your name, address, telephone number or e-mail address); (v) We may create and use aggregate customer data to understand more about the interests of our customers and may use the data to offer goods and services we believe may be of interest to our customers, on behalf of the Dorchester Reporter, its sister publications or select third-party partners.
Personally identifying information, such as your name and phone number, may be required to send a Neighborhood Notables or calendar listing to our editors for possible publication on the Web site or in the print edition of the Dorchester Reporter. Such information is used to verify your identity or to seek additional information on your submission. However, it is not used for other purposes nor shared with third parties, except insofar as you provide this information in the "public contact" area of the submission forms.
Users who later decide they want to change their preferences may do so by through their My Account page on dotnews.com.
Personal identifying information submitted on portions of our site developed with outside third parties may be shared with those third parties, and the information will be governed by those parties' privacy policies as well as Boston Neighborhood News's. Boston Neighborhood News, nor any of its subsidiaries or affiliates do not bear any responsibility for any actions or policies of such third parties.
Boston Neighborhood News users should be aware that when they disclose personal identifying information (e.g., user name, address, company name, telephone number, demographic information, buying information, other data and E-mail address) in discussion forums, chat rooms or other areas that are publicly accessible by others, that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from other posters or parties. Boston Neighborhood News nor its parent company or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates are not responsible for any information that you provide in the above areas.
In the event that the ownership of Boston Neighborhood News or any of its products are sold or transferred, all lists and data which contains personally identifying information and data including for example user name, address, company name, telephone number, demographic information, buying information, other data and e-mail address, will be transferred to the new owner.
To access restricted content on any Boston Neighborhood News site (for example, the page that lets you post comments to forums), you must register on one of our sites and provide certain information about yourself, in particular, your first and last name and your e-mail address. Any of the Boston Neighborhood News sites may use this identifying information for internal analytical and business development purposes and to send you e-mail, such as Breaking News alerts.
You can opt out of receiving further e-mail by clicking the appropriate links that appear at the bottom of any e-mail you receive, or by clicking on the Edit link on your My Account page.
Boston Neighborhood News sites are intended for individuals over the age of 13 years old. Personal information may not be provided by anyone under 13 years of age. Further no one under 13 years old may participate in the forums or chat rooms or any other areas where public discussions may take place. In addition no one under that age of 18 may conduct any transactions for the purposes or purchasing or selling any items. Parents should be sure that their children are not conducting any of the above activities on Boston Neighborhood News sites.
If you have any questions or comments regarding our sites or our use of information please send email to news@dotnews.com or write to us at Boston Neighborhood News, Inc., 150 Mt. Vernon St., Dorchester MA 02125
Last updated: May 13, 2009.
