Privacy Policy - Channel Guide Magazine

Our Privacy Policy has recently changed. The current Privacy Policy is effective August 22, 2016. It replaces all previous privacy statements, but does not apply retroactively to online data collected via this website under any previous privacy statement.

Introduction

NTVB Custom Media LLC is a media company that, together with its Affiliates, provides printed and electronic magazines, digital entertainment content, directories, widgets, custom print services, and advertising and promotional services under the Channel Guide brand among others. In this Privacy Policy, “Affiliates” refers to subsidiaries and entities that NTVB Custom Media LLC or its subsidiaries own or in which they have an ownership interest. NTVB Custom Media LLC and its Affiliates are referred to herein collectively as “Channel Guide,” “we,” “us,” or “our.”

This Privacy Policy applies to information provided and collected via websites, interactive services, email programs and mobile device applications provided by Channel Guide (the “Services”). This Privacy Policy also applies to information you may provide to us offline.

By using any of our Services, you agree that this Privacy Policy governs your use of our Services and any dispute concerning the Services. Please take a few minutes to read the Privacy Policy before using or registering to access our Services.

1. Information Collected About You

The information Channel Guide gathers through the Services falls into two categories: (1) information users voluntarily supply when using the Services, and (2) information collected automatically through users’ use of the Services. Third-party providers and advertisers linked to or displayed on the Services may also gather information through processes that Channel Guide does not control. Such information is subject to those third parties’ privacy policies. Some of our Services also may participate in third-party advertising networks or similar services that collect information about your computer or device and your online and mobile activity to provide the interest-based advertising that you see on the Services and other third-party sites, mobile apps and marketing channels in their networks as well as first-party networks to provide interest-based advertising via the Services.

1.1 Information You Provide To Us

Channel Guide may collect information about you through your use of the Services, such as your name, postal address, email address, user name, password, phone number, mobile phone number, payment information, gender, birth year, age, and communications preferences, such as which newsletters, emails, text messages, or other notices you would like to receive. Channel Guide may also ask for information about your age, gender, hobbies, interests, preferences (such as your favorite television shows or movies), which cable or satellite television provider you may subscribe to, and the like. Depending on the nature of the service, you may be free to register for the service without providing this additional information. You may provide information to Channel Guide when you:

Make a purchase such as a subscription
Enter registration information for one or more of the Services
Enter a sweepstakes or contest
Sign up to receive email and/or text message notifications
Download a mobile application
Download a white paper or other information we provide
Connect with the Services via a social networking site
Post user-generated content (including comments) via the Services

Channel Guide may also collect contact information about other individuals when you use the sharing and referral tools available within some of our Services to forward content or offers to your friends and associates. Channel Guide uses this information to facilitate the communications you request. If you use any “send-to-a-friend” features of the Services, your email address may be included in the communication sent to your friend.

1.2 Information Collected Automatically When You Use the Services

As you use the Services, Channel Guide and third parties may use automatic data collection technologies to collect data about your equipment and browsing, including information about:

Your use of the Services, including traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use within the Services;
Your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking);
Your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, which can sometimes be used to locate your general geographic area, operating system and browser type;
Your device type, screen size, browser type, language and other settings, memory capacity, plug-ins, internet domain, TCP configuration parameters, operating system, carrier code, time zone and the names, versions and package IDs of software installed on your device;
Your interactions with email messages from Channel Guide, such as the links you click on and whether you open or forward a message, the date and time of these interactions and the device you use to read emails;
The sites you visited before and after you visited a Channel Guide website;
Search terms you enter using the Services or on a referral site;
Unique identifiers, including mobile device identification numbers, that can identify the physical location of devices in accordance with applicable law;
Standard server log information; and
Information collected through embedded scripts, cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies (see additional descriptions of these terms below).

1.2.1 Tracking Technologies

Channel Guide and our service providers or other third parties acting on our behalf or with our permission, may use embedded scripts, cookies, web beacons, device identifiers and other tracking technologies to operate, analyze and improve our Services and tailor content and advertising to user interests. Third-party companies that provide some of the tools and features accessible through our Services and advertisers and other companies involved in the delivery of advertisements you see on our Services and other websites also may use tracking technologies to collect information about your use of our Services. A “cookie” is a small text file (often containing a unique identifier) that helps us to make your use of our Services more enjoyable and meaningful to you. Cookies are accessed and recorded by the websites you visit, and by the companies that deliver the advertisements you see on our Services, so they can recognize the same browser navigating online. Cookies can also help you avoid having to log in every time you come back to use the Services. They also allow us to tailor a website, application or advertisement to better match your interests and preferences. There are a couple different types of cookies. A “session” cookie is stored only in your computer’s working memory (RAM) and only lasts for your browsing session. When you close all of your browser’s windows, or when you shut down your computer, the session cookie disappears forever. A “persistent” cookie is stored on your computer’s hard drive until a specified date, which could be tomorrow, next week, or 10 years from now. Persistent cookies stay on your computer until they either: a) expire; b) are overwritten with newer cookies; or c) you manually remove them. Most browsers can be configured not to accept cookies. This may, however, prevent you from having access to some site functions or features. Your browser can also notify you when a cookie is set. (Check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) Please be aware that certain browsers cannot block or delete so-called “Flash” cookies, which use a feature of the Adobe Flash video player to store information on your computer. For information about how to delete Flash cookies, please visit the Adobe website here. The Services may use spotlight ads/web beacons/GIF/pixel tags, which are site instrumentation tools that help us to determine, for instance, whether a page has been viewed or not; and if so, how many times. In general, any electronic image viewed as part of a webpage, including an ad banner, can act as a web beacon, which is a small string of code that embeds a small graphic image (usually invisible) on a web page or in an email or advertisement. When your browser downloads a web beacon, the server that sends the corresponding image to your browser can recognize and store certain types of information such as cookies previously set, the time and date that you viewed the page embedded with the beacon and a description of that page.

1.2.2 Mobile Device IDs and Location-Based Information

When you use a mobile device to access the Services, Channel Guide may collect different types of information about your location, including general information (e.g., IP address, zip code) and more specific information (e.g., GPS-based location information). Channel Guide may use that information to customize the Services with location-based information, advertising, and features. For example, if your IP address indicates an origin in Milwaukee, the Services may be customized with Milwaukee-specific information and advertisements. The ads in our apps may be targeted to you based on your current GPS location, or they may be targeted to you based on your zip code or device’s IP address. In order to do this, your location information may be shared with our agents, vendors or advertisers. If you access the Services through a mobile device and you do not want your device automatically to provide us with location-tracking information, you can disable the GPS or other location-tracking functions on your device, provided your device allows you to do this. See your device manufacturer’s instructions for further details. We may still ask for a zip code or other location information.

1.2.3 Social Network Posting Tools and “Share” Features

Channel Guide offers social network posting and sharing tools through the Services, including a “share” button that allows you to post links to content and features that you believe will be of interest to others on your social network pages. Those tools are operated by third parties. When you use one of those sharing tools, the third-party company that operates the tool may be collecting information about your browser, device and online activity through its own tracking technologies and subject to its own, separate privacy policy.

1.3 Information Collected From Other Sources

Channel Guide may combine any information collected through the Services with other information that we obtain about you, your computer, and/or device from other sources, such as data suppliers and public databases. The following are examples of information we may collect from other sources:

Name, postal address, email address and telephone number;
Demographic data, such as age, gender, and income level;
Interests and purchasing behavior;
Publicly visible data, such as your posts and submissions to blogs, video-sharing services, and other interactive fora; and
Other navigation data, such as websites visited and advertisements viewed or clicked on.

2. How We Use The Information We Collect

Channel Guide may use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information in the following ways:

To present our Services and their contents to you;
To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us;
To evaluate and improve Services, including content, layout, procedures, and navigation, and troubleshoot and perform analytics on the Services;
To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide it;
To provide you with notices about your account/subscription, including expiration and renewal notices;
To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us, including for billing and collection;
To notify you about changes to our website or any products or services we offer or provide through it;
To allow you to participate in interactive features on our website;
To administer sweepstakes and contests;
To send you alerts or other communications via email and/or text message or other media;
To contact you about our own and third-parties’ goods and services that may be of interest to you;
To enable us to display advertisements to our advertisers’ target audiences. Even though we do not disclose your personal information for these purposes without your consent, if you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement, the advertiser may assume that you meet its target criteria;
To allow us to personalize the content and advertising that you see on the Services and to understand how users interact with and use our advertisements and Services;
To enforce the legal terms that govern your use of the Services;
To perform analytics and research aimed at improving the accuracy, effectiveness, usability, or popularity of the Services; and
In any other way we may describe when you provide the information.

3. How We Share and Disclose Information

Except as otherwise expressly noted herein or within the Services, Channel Guide may share any information collected through the Services (and any other information we combine with that information) with other companies that are also owned by some or all of Channel Guide’s owners, our service providers, and with third-party organizations and marketers. Here are some of the circumstances in which Channel Guide may share information about our users:

3.1 Promotions

Channel Guide offers sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions. Participation in these promotions may require registration for our Services. We may also automatically enter our users in some promotions. If you provide information in connection with entry in a promotion, we may share this information with co-sponsors or other third parties involved in the promotion that we identify in the rules or entry materials, or you may provide your information to us via a third party that we are using to administer the promotion. We don’t control these third parties’ privacy practices, and our Privacy Policy does not apply to their use of your information. We may also share some of your entry information with third parties or the public in connection with the administration of the promotion, such as winner selection and prize fulfillment, and as permitted by the promotion’s official rules, such as on a winners’ list.

3.2 Email

In addition to other uses of email addresses described in this policy, Channel Guide may share users’ email addresses with service providers that send email messages and deliver targeted advertising on our behalf. These service providers may collect data about how you interact with those messages (including information about whether and when you opened a particular message or clicked on a link within a message and the device you used to do so) and analyze it in conjunction with similar information they collect when you respond to emails they send on behalf of their other clients who are not affiliated with Channel Guide. They use this email response information in combination with your email address to target and optimize the delivery of emails and email advertising they send on our behalf and for their other clients. We may also provide our service providers with lists of our user email addresses in a hashed, encrypted or anonymized form that they use to recognize our users as they navigate online or use third-party email services and enable the delivery of interest-based advertising to those users. We do not authorize our service providers to share your email address with their other clients. If you use our Services to sign up for special email offers from third-party advertisers, we will also share your email address and any other information you provided with your request with the advertisers you selected.

3.3 Service Providers

We may offer some features (such as social sharing tools and chat rooms) in conjunction with service providers that specialize in operating such services. We share with each of these service providers such information as is useful or necessary to provide you with the services we offer through that service provider. We may also contract with other service providers to provide specialized services to us, including but not limited to credit-card and billing processing, shipping, marketing, advertising optimization and interest-based targeting, email and text message distribution, data processing, mobile and website analytics, and promotions management. We reserve the right to share with these service providers any information we collect about you and/or authorize them to collect information from you directly for purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy. The service providers that have access to personally identifiable information are required to protect this information in a manner that is consistent with this Privacy Policy, for example, by not using the information for any purpose other than to carry out the services they are performing for Channel Guide.

3.4 Aggregated and Anonymous Information

Channel Guide and our service providers may render information anonymous by removing any information (such as your name) that makes the information personally identifying to you. We and our service providers may combine information about you with information that we or they collect about other users of our Services and share it in a form that does not identify you personally. We may use such aggregated information or other anonymous information and disclose it to third parties for any purpose.

3.5 Publicly Posted Information

If you post any information to blogs, discussion fora, or other community or social networking services that we offer, that information can be seen, collected and used by anyone who has access to the applicable service. Channel Guide is not responsible for any unauthorized third-party use of such information.

3.6 Legal Uses

We may disclose your personal information to comply with any court order, law or legal process, including in response to any government or regulatory request; to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes; or if we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Channel Guide, our customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

3.7 Transfers Among Businesses

We may disclose any information we collect to a buyer or other successor in the event of a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of Channel Guide’s assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by Channel Guide about users of our Services is among the assets transferred. We may also disclose any information we collect to other companies that are also owned by some or all of Channel Guide’s owners.

4. Your Opt-Out Choices

4.1 Email

If you want to opt out from a Channel Guide email newsletter or commercial email list, use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of each message or send us an email at privacy@ntvbmedia.com with the email address at which you no longer wish to receive newsletters or commercial emails. If you requested third-party email through our Services and no longer wish to receive the email, simply follow the advertiser’s unsubscribe link or opt-out instructions that should be included in every commercial message you receive. If you want to disable web beacons in our email messages, turn images “off” in your email system (e.g., Outlook or Outlook Express). Check the settings or options menu in your email system for more information.

4.2 Postal Mail

To remove your name and postal address from lists that we sell or rent to third parties for the purpose of marketing goods and services, please send your request to us in a letter addressed to Channel Guide, Postal Opt-Out, 9275 N 49th Street, Suite 100, Brown Deer, WI 53223-1495.

4.3 Interest-Based Advertising

Channel Guide follows the Digital Advertising Alliance’s (“DAA”) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising. To opt out of our use of your website viewing data to serve interest-based advertising on third-party websites and email newsletters, visit the DAA’s Consumer Choice Page. Use the same link to opt out of the delivery of interest-based advertising on our websites from the operators of the third-party ad networks we use. You must opt out separately from each computer or device and browser that you use to access our Services. If you clear your cookies, you will need to repeat the opt-out process. Also note that the preferences you select on the DAA’s Consumer Choice Page do not apply to the collection of cross-app data from your mobile device. The DAA offers a separate choice tool for the collection of cross-app data on a mobile device as described in the Mobile App Advertising and Tracking section below.

Most of the third-party advertising and data companies we work with, including DoubleClick and Google, also subscribe to the DAA Principles and/or are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”). To learn more about the information collection practices of NAI members and your related opt-out choices, please visit NAI’s website here.

You can opt out of interest-based advertising from Google or customize Google display network ads by visiting the About Google Ads page. You can permanently opt out of the DoubleClick cookie by installing the DoubleClick opt out extension. For information about Google Analytics’ information practices and opt-out choices for your web browser, click here.

Please note that even if you opt out of interest-based advertising, you may still receive advertisements. Those ads will just not be interest-based. Also, Channel Guide does not control opt-out links provided above and is not responsible for any choices you make using these opt-out links or their continued availability or effectiveness.

4.4 Mobile App Advertising and Tracking

We, our authorized service providers and/or other third parties involved in the delivery of advertising you receive through our mobile applications may collect information about your mobile device, including unique anonymous advertising identifiers and the names and IDs of apps you have installed, as well as information about how you use our mobile applications and other unaffiliated applications. This information is used in connection with interest-based advertising you receive through our Services and within third-party apps and other marketing channels. Depending on your device and operating system, you may be able to reset your mobile device’s advertising identifier to limit this data collection or prevent the collection of usage data across unaffiliated applications for interest-based advertising purposes by accessing the privacy settings on your mobile device. Each operating system, iOS for Apple devices, and Android for Android devices, provides its own instructions on how to turn off precise location sharing. Access the privacy settings for your mobile device or contact your platform operator for more information. To exercise choice over the companies participating in the DAA’s separate choice tool for the collection of cross-app data on a mobile device, download the DAA’s AppChoices app available here.

4.5 Precise Device Location Tracking

If you agreed to allow Channel Guide and/or our service providers to collect and/or share information about the precise location of your device by tracking a mobile application, you can withdraw your permission by accessing and changing your device’s location privacy settings. This will prevent further collection of your precise device location information. Each operating system, iOS for Apple devices, and Android for Android devices, provides its own instructions on how to turn off precise location sharing. Access the privacy settings for your mobile device or contact your platform operator for more information.

5. Information Security

We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect against the unauthorized access, destruction or alteration of your information. No security system is impenetrable, however. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases, nor can we guarantee that information you supply won’t be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the internet or that information we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

6. Correcting or Updating Your Information

You may update or access and edit certain personally identifying information that you have provided to us through our Services. To update this information, please send us an email at privacy@ntvbmedia.com.

7. Links to Other Sites

Channel Guide sites and applications provide links and advertisements that link to other websites. We encourage you to review the privacy statements of all sites that you visit, including those whose links are provided, so that you can understand how those sites collect, use and share your information. Channel Guide is not responsible for the privacy statements, content or data handling practices on other websites.

8. International Data

The Services are hosted in the United States. United States law governs the Services, and United States data protection laws may not be as protective as those in your country. If you are outside the United States and using the Services, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our databases are operated, and you consent to the use and storage of your information in the United States.

9. Children Under 13

The Services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and Channel Guide does not knowingly collect information from children under 13. If you are under the age of 13, do not: use, or provide any information on, the Services; make any purchases through the Services; use any of the interactive or public comment features of the Services; or otherwise provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address or any screen name or user name you may use. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any personal information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at privacy@ntvbmedia.com.

10. Your California Privacy Rights

10.1 Shine the Light

Under California’s “Shine the Light” law, California residents who provide personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us, once a calendar year, information about the customer information we shared, if any, with other businesses for their direct marketing uses. If applicable, this information would include the categories of customer information and the names and addresses of those businesses with which we shared customer information for the immediately prior calendar year (e.g., requests made in 2016 will receive information regarding 2015 sharing activities). To obtain this information on behalf of Channel Guide, please send an email message to privacy@ntvbmedia.com with “Request for California Privacy Information” in the subject line. We will provide the requested information to you at your email address in response. Please be aware that not all information sharing is covered by the “Shine the Light” requirements and only information on covered sharing will be included in our response.

10.2 Do Not Track

Channel Guide does not currently recognize or respond to browser do-not-track signals. Instead, we adhere to the standards set out in this Privacy Policy and offer the opt-out choices described above.

11. Changes to Our Privacy Policy

Channel Guide reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time to reflect changes in the law, our data collection and use practices, the features of our Services, or advances in technology. If we decide to change our Privacy Policy, we’ll post the changes here and indicate at the top of the Privacy Policy the last date on which it was updated. Please check the Privacy Policy periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Services following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean you accept those changes.