Privacy
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Trademarks
Last Updated: January 25, 2013
Grist Magazine, Inc. (“Grist,” “we” or “us”) respects your privacy and has adopted policies and procedures to ensure that information collected on our website about visitors (“you”) is handled responsibly. This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes the privacy practices of www.grist.org (“website”). Use of this website is also subject to our Terms of Use.
This Policy outlines:
- Does Grist collect information from children?
- What personally identifiable information does Grist collect?
- Does Grist collect anonymous website user information?
- Does Grist disclose information to third-parties?
- How do I update my communications preferences or update the information Grist has about me?
- What other information should I know about Grist’s data practices?
- How can I contact Grist?
This website is a general audience website that is not targeted to children under the age of 13. The website does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. In order to comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, we ask that you not provide personally identifiable information to us if you are under the age of 13. We urge parents and guardians to supervise their children’s website browsing.
2. Information Collection and Use – Personally Identifiable Information
The website only collects the personally identifiable information that you provide to us. Personally identifiable information includes data such as your name, street address, email address, or telephone number. For information about updating or requesting deletion of your personally identifiable information, click here.
Registration
Visitors must register in order to use certain features of our website. During registration, a visitor is required to provide contact information such as name, email address, and mailing address. We use this information to contact you about features and services that we believe may interest you. Registration data may also include demographic information such as your gender or age, and subject matter preferences, so that we can effectively tailor editorial content according to our visitors’ interests.
Requests, Orders and Customer Service
When a visitor asks us to provide information or a service, we request information to enable us to respond to the visitor. This information could include contact information such as name, email address, and mailing address and, if applicable, financial, payment, or billing information.
Email Addresses
If a visitor wishes to subscribe to an e-newsletter or make a donation, we collect registration information including the visitor’s name and email address. We occasionally send registered visitors email messages about features on our website, promotions, events, donation appeals, sponsored emails from other organizations, or other information that may be of interest to them. You may change your email preferences or unsubscribe from email communications at any time (please see the “Updating Your Communication Preferences and Personally Identifiable Information” section below).
3. Information Collection and Use – Anonymous or Aggregate Data
Profile
Each time you visit our website, our web server receives information from your computer such as your Internet protocol (IP) address, domain name, referral data (e.g., the address of the website you visited before clicking through to our website), and browser and platform type. We store this information using cookies, log files or user profiles administered by a third party for us. A profile consists of information we store about individual visitors that details their viewing preferences. These profiles do not contain information that individually identifies a visitor. Grist may use profile information to offer promotions to users, improve or customize the content of the site for a visitor, or direct certain types of information to a visitor. We may share aggregate profile information (without individually identifying information) with third parties.
Cookies
A cookie is a small data file stored on a visitor’s computer that contains information about the visitor. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A session ID cookie terminates once a visitor closes his or her browser. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the visitor’s hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies enable us to track and target the interests of our visitors so we can enhance the visitor experience on our site.
We use cookies to count the number of visitors to our website; the cookie enables us to distinguish repeat visitors from new visitors. Persistent cookies can be removed by following your browser help file directions. If visitors decline cookies, some portions of our site that depend on cookies may be inaccessible or slower to access.
Log Files
Like most websites, we use log files to track visitors’ access to our website. This log file includes IP addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks. We use this information to analyze trends, administer the site, track visitor movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. These anonymous data are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
We may employ software technology called “clear gifs” (also known as “web beacons” or “web bugs”) that help us better manage content on our site by informing us what content is most popular and most effective. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, and are used to track the online movements of website visitors. Clear gifs are invisible on the page and are about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Clear gifs are not tied to visitors’ personally identifiable information.
4. Information Disclosure to Third-Parties
We do not disclose information from or about you except as described in this Policy.
Legal Requirements
We may need to disclose information collected from or about you as required by law, if we have a good-faith belief that disclosure is necessary to comply with a judicial proceeding request, court order or legal process, to assert or defend our legal rights, to enforce our Terms of Use, to protect us or others from violation of legal rights, or to prevent harm to persons or property.
Non-Personal Aggregate Information
We may share aggregated demographic information with third parties such as foundations providing funding, charitable donors, or third parties with whom we have marketing alliances.
Service Providers
We share personally identifiable information on an as-needed basis with companies that provide services for us. For example, the companies that operate our website, maintain our computers, and prepare our Postal mailings need access to the information necessary to perform their tasks. Likewise, the companies that administer features on our website, or that provide professional or logistics services to us may receive information about visitors in order to perform their work for us.
Business Transitions
Your personally identifiable information and anonymized data collected about you may be transferred in connection with a business transition — for example, if Grist merges with another entity, is acquired by another entity, or sells a portion of its assets.
Public Postings
Our website provides numerous opportunities for visitors to express their opinions and views, which are subject to the standards of conduct in our Terms of Use. Content you submit to these forums will be made publicly available. For example, letters to the editor, letters to Grist’s advice columnist, statements made in an online discussion forum or comment thread will be made publicly available and attributed to you, subject to Grist’s sole discretion. You should be careful not to post anything that you do not wish to be publicly available, such as your personal contact information or sensitive information. Once information is made publicly available on our website (no matter how long it may remain available), it may be copied or downloaded by other persons, and Grist has no control over who may obtain the information or what they may do with it.
Surveys & Polls
We occasionally conduct surveys and polls. Participation in these is completely voluntary. Non-personal demographic information collected in surveys or polls will be used to monitor and improve the website. If a survey or poll requests personally identifiable information, that information will only be used for the purpose disclosed at the point of collection.
AdWords Remarketing
This website uses the Google AdWords remarketing service to advertise on third party websites (including Google) to previous visitors to our site. This could be in the form of an advertisement on the Google search results page, or a site in the Google Display Network. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on someone’s past visits to Grist. Of course, any data collected will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy.
You can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Preferences page, or you can
opt out of interest-based advertising entirely by cookie settings.
5. Updating Your Communications Preferences and Personally Identifiable Information
Visitors who no longer wish to receive promotional communications from us may opt-out by submitting a request to “Website and email help” on our contact form.
Security
We take physical, technical and administrative precautions to protect our visitors’ information from unauthorized access or use. Notwithstanding these measures, no transmission of data over the Internet or any other public network, or any online service, can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.
Links to Third Party Websites
This website contains links to third party websites that offer products, services, and features that may be of interest to Grist visitors. User-created content such as comments or profile pages also may include links to or addresses for third-party websites. Grist is not responsible for the privacy and security practices of those third party sites; this Policy does not govern those websites. We encourage our visitors to be aware when they leave our website and to read the privacy policies and terms of use of each website that they visit.
Third-Party or Co-branded Features
Grist periodically collaborates with other companies to offer special features through our website, such as our comment forums or jobs board. Because these offerings are not provided by Grist, they are subject to the third party’s privacy policies and procedures.
Notification of Changes
If we update our Privacy Policy, we will post those changes to this web page and revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page. We encourage our visitors to review this Policy each time they visit our website.
International Users and Jurisdiction
This website is published in the United States. Information collected on this website is subject to the laws of the United States, and US law shall govern in any and all disputes, including privacy or defamation issues. Your use of this website or submission of information to us constitutes your consent to the transfer of that information from your home country to the US.
7. Contact Information
If you have questions or concerns regarding this Policy, please contact us or send Postal mail to Webmaster, Grist, 710 Second Avenue, Suite 860, Seattle, WA 98104.
