Privacy Policy

This policy discloses the online privacy practices for members of The Gainesville Sun (defined in this case as Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, and The Gainesville Sun). For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to The Gainesville Sun will include Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, and The Gainesville Sun. Additionally, Gainesville Sun is part of the New York Times Regional Media Group(NYTRMG)– a division of the New York Times Company.

We have adopted a set of information management guidelines that serve as the basis for our customer and advertiser relationships. These guidelines have been developed with the recognition that Internet technologies are rapidly evolving, and that underlying business models are still not established. Accordingly, guidelines are subject to change. Any such changes will be posted on this page.

For further information, you can view our Member Agreement and read our Frequently Asked Questions about Cookies.

Third party sites that are linked to Gainesville.com and Gatorsports.com, such as

jobs.gainesville.com, cars.gainesville.com and homes.gainesville.com, are governed by their own privacy policies. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies of websites to which Gainesville.com or Gatorsports.com may link.

In this Privacy Policy, you will find the answers to the following questions:

• What information do we gather/track about you?

• What do we do with the information we gather/track?

• With whom do we share the information we gather/track?

• How do I change or update my personal information?

• Other information: Compliance with Legal Process

What information do we gather/track about you?

Registration for our websites:

There is a free registration process required to access the full range of information and services offered across our different websites (Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, jobs.gainesville.com, cars.gainesville.com and homes.gainesville.com).

Gainesville.com requires that you supply a unique e-mail address and demographic information in order to register. You must also agree to the terms of our Member Agreement at http://www.gainesville.com/tos">http://www.gainesville.com/tos.

We reserve the right to publish non-personally identifiable summary information culled from our registration data for promotional purposes and as a representative audience for advertisers. Please note that this is not personal information, only general summaries of the activities of our visitors and customers in aggregate.

The Gainesville Sun newspaper subscriber information:

We generally obtain your name, address, telephone number, credit card number or other billing information in order to process your subscription request. As a subscriber, we request that you also provide us with your e-mail address.

We may share your contact information with third party telemarketing firms offering further subscription products on our behalf. To request removal from our calling list, you may contact us at 352-374-5097 between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. EST. We also delete information from our list in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s national Do Not Call list. To sign up or for more information about the Do Not Call registry, visit

http://www.donotcall.gov">http://www.donotcall.gov.

Jobs.gainesville.com has optional registration. All of the content on the site is available for all users regardless of membership status. Optional registration is required for users who would like to set up job alerts and post and send resumes and/or cover letters. Information required to register includes your e-mail address and first and last name. Additional information (such as city, state, education and job title) may be supplied in conjunction with posting a resume and/or creating a job application.

We also collect and store billing and credit card information where required for certain purchase transactions (such as paying for a newspaper subscription or purchasing a reprint of a Sun photo). This information will only be shared with third parties who perform tasks required to complete the purchase transaction and agree to otherwise keep the information confidential. Examples of this include fulfilling orders and processing credit card payments.

Contests, Sweepstakes and Special Offers:

On occasion, The Gainesville Sun collects personal information from registered members or subscribers in connection with optional sweepstakes, contests or special offers. If this information is to be shared with a third party other than The Gainesville Sun we will notify you on the contest Web page at the time of collection. If you do not want any personal information shared, you may always decline to participate in the sweepstakes, contest or special offer.

Special Events and Promotions:

We often receive information regarding customers who may also attend Special Events and Promotions. Such information will be used as indicated at the time of collection.

Reader Surveys and Market Research:

Reader surveys and market research are valuable tools that help us better respond to consumer needs and opinions and help shape our product offerings.

Online Customer Panels:

Online Customer Panels: We offer readers and customers the opportunity to participate in online research panels. These customers agree to participate in periodic surveys about their usage of products produced by The Gainesville Sun their household/personal characteristics and their purchase behavior. Panel members are primarily contacted via e-mail, but may occasionally be contacted by telephone or postal mail. All survey data is reported/used in aggregate form only, and no personally identifiable information is released. As a panel member, we require that you supply us with your e-mail address only; name, home address and telephone number are optional.

Online surveys:

Our websites may collect additional personal information from members in connection with optional reader surveys and market research activities. Information that you provide in answer to optional reader survey or market research questions may be shared, but only in the aggregate, with advertisers and partners unless we notify you otherwise on the survey Web page at the time of collection.

Cookies:

Our websites employ cookies to recognize you and your access privileges on

(Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, jobs.gainesville.com, cars.gainesville.com and homes.gainesville.com), as well as to track site usage. For detailed information about our use of cookies see our Frequently Asked Questions about Cookies.

Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, jobs.gainesville.com, cars.gainesville.com, homes.gainesville.com

use a commercial advertising server to display ads on our site.

In addition, advertisers may elect to use third-party advertising companies to serve ads onto our websites. In the course of serving these advertisements, the third party advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. We do not have access to these cookies or any information that they may contain.

In addition, advertisers may elect to use third-party advertising companies to serve ads onto our websites. In the course of serving these advertisements, the third party advertisers may place or recognize a unique "cookie" on your browser. We do not have access to these cookies or any information that they may contain.

We also reserve the right to place a Gainesville.com cookie on your computer with a unique anonymous number to ensure that your browser does not see the same ad over and over again, to sequence ads in a series, and to measure the number of unique visitors that have viewed a particular ad or visited a particular Web page.

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs):

Third party advertisers may also use a software technology called clear gifs (a.k.a. Web Beacons/Web Bugs/action tags) to help better manage advertising on our site. Clear gifs are tiny graphics with a unique identifier, similar in function to cookies. Clear gifs may ping or alert the advertiser's server about the online movements of Web users. For instance, advertisers may place a clear gif allowing them to recognize an existing cookie on your browser if from the same service. The main difference between cookies and clear gifs is that clear gifs are invisible on the page and are much smaller, about the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Please keep in mind that we do not have access to any information collected by these clear gifs nor additional information they may be tied to by the advertiser.

Usage Data:

Our websites have currently contracted with Omniture, a third party, to track and analyze non-personally identifiable usage and volume statistical information from our visitors. We use this information to track the site's traffic, usability, performance, and effectiveness. All data collected by Omniture on behalf of our websites is owned and used by

NYTRMG. We reserve the right to publish non-personally identifiable, summary information regarding our online visitors for promotional purposes and as a representative audience for advertisers. Please note that this is not personal information, only general summaries of the activities of our visitors and customers in aggregate. Omniture uses cookies to help track visitor behavior and sets cookies on behalf of our websites, which will be listed under the nytrgainesville.2o7.net. For more information about Omniture's privacy policy, including how to opt out, go to http://www.omniture.com/policy.html">http://www.omniture.com/policy.html

IP Addresses:

Our websites log IP addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. We use IP address logs in an aggregate fashion to track access to our site (by domain type, for example), but we do not use IP address logs to track your session or your behavior on our site.

Mobile Messaging Service:

The New York Times Regional Media Group uses the information collected from your interaction with The New York Times Regional Media Group by Text Messaging Service (SMS) (“SMS Service”) solely for the purposes of improving the SMS Service. The information will not be provided, sold, licensed, rented, assigned or disclosed to Third Parties, except as required by law, nor will we use your phone number to initiate a call or SMS text message to you without your express prior consent. Your wireless carrier and other service providers also collect data about your SMS Service usage, and their practices are governed by their own privacy policies.

The New York Times Regional Media Group collects the mobile phone number you use to send us a text message and the content of the messages sent between you and The New York Times Regional Media Group. When you send a text message to The New York Times Regional Media Group or via The New York Times Regional Media Group, we log the incoming phone number, the wireless provider associated with the number, and the date and time of the transaction. The only information we automatically collect is that related to the use of our Mobile Services. The New York Times Regional Media Group uses this data to analyze the message traffic in order to operate, develop and improve our SMS Service.

Log Files:

Log data is only used in aggregate to analyze usage of our websites.

What do we do with the information we gather/track?

Site Login:

Your e-mail address acts as your member login, and together with the password that you create during the registration process your e-mail address allows you to access many of the features and services available on our websites.

Gainesville.com, Gatorsports.com, jobs.gainesville.com, cars.gainesville.com, homes.gainesville.com and The Gainesville Sun will share your e-mail address and password with each other in order to allow you to use the same login and password on each of our sites, whenever possible. This means that you will be able to move back and forth on our websites without having to create a new membership account or remember a separate password for each site.

Statistical Analysis and Banner Advertising:

Our websites may perform statistical analyses of user behavior in order to measure interest in the various areas of our site (for product development purposes) and to inform advertisers as to how many consumers have seen or "clicked" their advertising banners.

E-Mail Newsletters:

During the registration process, you will have the opportunity to choose to receive periodic e-mails. You may also sign up to receive e-mails at any time by accessing your profile in the Member Center section. We send both editorial e-mail newsletters (news headlines, breaking news alerts, etc.) and e-mail about services offered by

The Gainesville Sun and its partners and advertisers.

The Gainesville Sun offers direct mail marketing services to its advertisers and employs direct mail marketing for subscription promotions. The Gainesville Sun may combine Web registration data with newspaper subscriber data and marketing database information we purchase to create lists for targeted postal mail campaigns. Doing so means that you receive offers and advertising that are most likely to interest you, and advertisers send their messages to people who are most likely to be receptive, improving both your experience and the effectiveness of the mail campaigns.

Targeted mailing lists may be shared with other departments at The Gainesville Sun

and with marketing staff at NYTRMG, of which The Gainesville Sun is a part and which coordinates mailing efforts for The Gainesville Sun. We share demographic information about our audience in aggregate form with direct mail advertisers. We never share or sell personally identifiable information or our mailing lists.

Programs From Our Partners:

During the registration process, new users who select to register for certain featured offers from our partners will begin receiving e-mail from these companies. You will only receive e-mail messages from these companies if you elect this opt-in service. If you elect to opt-out of an e-mail from a partner, you must do so through that partner directly.

The Gainesville Sun may use this information as set forth in this privacy policy.

Other Communications from The Gainesville Sun:

The Gainesville Sun may use the e-mail address provided by you at registration to contact you regarding (1) account status (including confirmation of registration or newspaper subscription); (2) major changes to the websites and or to the Member Agreement and Privacy Policy; (3) participation in user surveys, asking for feedback about the websites and existing or prospective products and services, as well as information to better understand our users*; and (4) a limited number of messages as specified in the Member Agreement regarding The Gainesville Sun products and services that may be of interest (including subscriptions, online archives, newsletters and other premium products). You may opt-out at any time from any primarily commercial messages by following the opt-out instructions in the e-mail.

* User surveys greatly help us to improve our websites, and any information we obtain in such surveys will not be shared with third parties, except in aggregate form.

E-mail This Article:

The e-mail this article feature is an easy way for users of our websites to send articles through e-mail. The e-mail address(es) that you supply to use this service will only be used to send the requested article.

Message boards and chats:

We offer message boards for readers in a number of areas throughout our websites. Any information you disclose when posting to a message board, along with your message board screen name or ID, becomes public and may be used by

Gainesville.com for online and offline promotional or commercial uses in any and all media.

With whom do we share the information we gather/track?

We do not share personally identifiable information with advertisers or partners. We do, however, share information about our audience in aggregate form. Credit card, billing and financial information is never disclosed, except as needed to process the transaction, under strict confidentiality requirements.

NYTRNG may perform statistical, demographic and marketing analyses of customers and their buying and purchasing patterns for product development purposes and to generally inform advertisers about the nature of our customer base. We also use such information to allow advertising to be targeted, in aggregate, to the users for whom such advertising is the most pertinent. Personal information about you as an individual will not be disclosed without your consent.

From time to time, we may offer you the opportunity to receive information and offers about products or services from our advertisers, partners or other third parties. You will have the opportunity to opt-out of all e-mails that are sent by The Gainesville Sun. If you sign up to receive information directly from an advertiser, partner or third party you may contact that advertiser, partner or third party directly in order to opt-out out of future messages from them.

The Gainesville Sun subscriptions:

The Gainesville Sun reserves the right to contact you to discuss your account or to renew your subscription, in accordance with applicable laws. We also reserve the right to disclose your opt-out information to third parties so that they can "suppress" your name from future solicitations, in accordance with applicable laws.

If you are a print subscriber to The Gainesville Sun, or have registered at Gainesville.com, then The Gainesville Sun may opt to share your e-mail address and other personally identifiable information with a third party service provider that sends e-mail on behalf of the newspaper. Any third party service provider will not share your e-mail address or personally identifiable information with any other company and will only send you e-mail on behalf of the newspaper. All such e-mails will provide you with the opportunity to opt out of receiving future e-mails.

How do I change or update my personal information?

Member Center:

You may review and update your membership or account information and access your transactions history in the Member Center area for each of our websites.

The Member Center is a centralized area where you can manage your relationship with

The Gainesville Sun. There are a number of things you can do in the Member Center to ensure your personal information is accurate and up to date. For one, you can gain secure access to update the information you provided during the free registration process.

In order to gain access to the areas of the Member Center containing personal information, you will be asked to re-enter your password. If you do not remember your password, you can reset your password http://www.gainesville.com/getpassword">here. If you need further assistance, please contact Customer Service.

How do I opt out from receiving promotional offers?

If, at any time you wish to discontinue receiving any specific e-mail, sent by our marketing partners or us, simply follow the unsubscribe options at the bottom of the e-mail. If, at any time, you wish to opt-out of receiving any direct mail and/or telephone solicitations from The Gainesville Sun, please notify us by calling 374-5097 between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm eastern standard time.

Previously created membership accounts:

It is possible that you may have previously created an account with one of our websites using your current e-mail address. If this is the case, you will be able to login using your e-mail address and password, but you may be asked to answer some of the questions that are required to complete the registration process (see the full list of questions above). If you don't remember your password, you can retrieve your password here

http://www.gainesville.com/getpasword">http://www.gainesville.com/getpasword. In some cases, you may want to consider creating a new account, using a current e-mail address and a new password.

OPPA Compliance:

In accordance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA),

The Gainesville Sun

does not collect or store any personal information, even in aggregate, about children under the age of 13.

Data Security:

To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the appropriate use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online.

Compliance with Legal Process:

We may disclose personal information if we are required to do so by law or we in good faith believe that such action is necessary to (1) comply with the law or with legal process; (2) protect and defend our rights and property; (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our websites; or (4) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public (among other things, this means that if you provide false information or attempt to pose as someone else, information about you may be disclosed as part of any investigation into your actions).