This Privacy Policy sets forth the general privacy practices for Forum Communications Company-owned newspapers, websites (including, without limitation, advertising.forumcomm.com), social media pages, mobile and other applications, and to any other services that display this notice (collectively, our “Services”, and as applicable, sometimes also referred to as the “Site” or “Sites”).
If you have any inquiry about our privacy policy, please contact:
Forum Communications Company
Address: 101 5th Street North, Fargo, ND 58102
Phone: 701-235-7311
Fax: 701-451-5633
email: legal@forumcomm.com
Forum Communications Company is committed to respecting your privacy rights when visiting and using our Services. To protect your personally-identifiable information, Forum Communications Company has adopted the guidelines outlined below.
If you are a user in the European Economic Area (“EEA”) and Switzerland, please see the Users in the EEA and Switzerland section of this Privacy Policy for additional provisions that are applicable to your use of the Services.
When you use our Services, we may ask you to register and/or provide information that personally identifies you for purposes of interacting with our Services. Such personal information may include, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, street address, and e-mail address. On any page that collects personal information, we will specifically describe what information is required in order to provide you with the product or service or enter you in the promotion you have requested, as well as to respond to your inquiry or comment.
To subscribe to a Service or enable payment via our Services, we collect and use your name, address, telephone number, email address, credit or debit card information and other billing information.
We believe in protecting your privacy and will not share personally-identifiable information with third parties outside of Forum Communications Company except as described in this Privacy Policy. We believe that we can enhance your experience with our Services with the information you share with us. We use personally-identifiable information about you to identify you when you use our Services, to provide products and services, to improve our advertising and marketing efforts, to statistically analyze Site usage, to improve our content and product offerings, and to personalize the Sites’ content, layout, and services. We may also use your personally-identifiable information, such as your e-mail address or mailing address, to contact you regarding products and/or services that may be of interest to you, to respond to an inquiry from you regarding the information that we have collected, or respond to your comments and suggestions.
Forum Communications Company will not sell your personally-identifiable information to third parties, however, we may facilitate delivery of special offers or promotions from local businesses which are relevant to our users. All e-mails generated from user registration will come from an @forumcomm.com or other company owned email address. Forum Communications Company may match specific and/or aggregated personally-identifiable information with third party data to provide you with product and content offerings that interest you and improve our advertising and marketing efforts. Forum Communications Company also may disclose aggregated user statistics in order to describe our Services to potential advertisers, partners, other third parties, our affiliate companies, and for other lawful purposes. As part of your experience with our Services, you may receive communications from us related to products and services that might interest you. While we believe these services will enhance your user experience with our Services, you will at all times be able to opt out from receiving these communications, either by specifically opting out of these services as provided herein, not using the Services, or by deleting your profile from our database (in each case, as applicable).
We have today, and will in the future have, arrangements with third party service providers, such as credit card processors, shipping companies, and fulfillment services. When you sign up for a service we offer on the Site, we may be required to share personally-identifiable information with that service provider in order to provide the service. Unless you otherwise consent in connection with signing up for or obtaining the applicable service, these third party providers are not permitted to retain or use personally-identifiable information for any purpose unrelated to providing the service, except as necessary to comply with applicable law or any lawful request or legal process, cooperate with investigations (including, by governmental authorities) of purported unlawful activities, to identify persons violating the law, or protect the property or rights of such third party provider, the public or others.
Forum Communications Company may also offer other services as a part of or via our Services (e.g., car buying service, personalized finance and weather information alerts, contests, sweepstakes and other promotions with unaffiliated third parties). If you choose to use these optional services or opportunities, we may provide some of your personally-identifiable information to third parties, such as service providers and other parties assisting us in providing the service, and by choosing to use these optional services or opportunities, you are consenting to our provision of your personally-identifiable information to such third parties in connection therewith. You can avoid having us make such disclosures by choosing not to use these services or features of the Sites or Services.
We reserve the right to disclose personally-identifiable information when needed to comply with applicable law or any lawful request or legal process, cooperate with investigations (including, by governmental authorities) of purported unlawful activities, to identify persons violating the law, to protect the property or rights of Forum Communications Company, third parties, the public or others, or in connection with the sale of part or all of Forum Communications Company.
What are Cookies?
A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your system. This element of data is a piece of text, not a program. The Site can only access the information from a cookie sent by the Site. We cannot access other cookies sent by other websites or the information contained therein. Additionally, we cannot learn your e-mail address or any other information about you through the use of a cookie. The only way we would learn such information is if you specifically and voluntarily submit that information to us, for example, through a registration system, by entering a sweepstakes or promotion, etc.
Why does the Site use cookies?
Forum Communications Company uses cookies to track usage of the Site and further personalize your experience when you are visiting and using our Services. By tracking usage, we can best determine what features of the Site best serve the users.
What benefits do I receive from cookies?
Overall, the use of cookies helps to give you a more personalized experience with our Services. The information is used to keep our Services fresh and relevant to you, the user. Cookies also allow you to avoid retyping your e-mail address and password each time you access our Services (if applicable).
What happens with the information collected in a cookie?
The information stored in a cookie is used to identify you to our server, to allow us to personalize your experience, and to serve content and communications that may be of interest to you.
May I decline to accept a cookie?
BY USING FORUM COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY’S SITES, YOU CONSENT TO THE PLACEMENT AND USE OF COOKIES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY. You may decline to accept cookies by selecting an option on your browser to reject cookies. However, some portions of our Services may not be usable or optimized without cookies, or may require registration in order to access those areas. In such cases, we ask that you register and provide us with basic information on our registration page, or sign in if previously registered. Cookies enable our server to know that you are a registered user and will eliminate the need for you to log in each time you access our Services. In addition, our registration system may require that you accept the cookies in order to access that portion of our Services. Advertisers and other websites linked to or from the Sites may also send cookies; however, we do not control such activities, and Forum Communications Company disclaims any liability with respect to the use of such cookies Advertisers on the Sites and other websites linked to or from the Sites.
Forum Communications Company does log IP addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes and to determine Site usage and for other purposes permitted pursuant to this Privacy Policy. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, IP addresses are not considered part of your personally-identifiable information, regardless of whether IP addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, may potentially be personally identifiable.
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Services. These companies may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please see:
http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp
We also may use third-party service providers, to target and serve some of the advertisements you see on the pages of our Services. We may share technical or aggregate information about your interaction with our Services, such as type of pages viewed and categories of interest, from our Services with these service providers for their use in displaying ads on our Services. These providers may use their own cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect similar information from our Services. These service providers may use that information, sometimes in conjunction with similar information gathered through other websites, to deliver advertisements, and on other websites that participate in our service providers’ advertising networks, that are tailored to match the perceived interests of consumers. The information obtained by our third-party service providers also may be used to help measure and research an advertisement’s effectiveness, or for other purposes.
Unless you affirmatively provide information, the data collected in connection with the ad serving and ad targeting on our Services does not identify you personally and does not include your name, address, email address or telephone number, but it may include device identifying information such as the IP address, MAC address, cookie or other device-specific unique alphanumerical ID of your computer.
For more information about opting out of targeted ads, please visit: http://aboutads.info/choices
This Privacy Policy only addresses the use and dissemination of information that Forum Communications Company collects from you. To the extent that you disclose any information to other parties, whether through, for example, comments or posting sections, on-line auctions, forums, social media or networking sites, chat rooms, personal ads, or the like, through third party services or promotions offered on or through the Site and/or through other websites throughout the Internet, different policies may apply and Forum Communications Company shall not be responsible for the use or dissemination of such information whatsoever. In addition to, and without limitation of the foregoing, with respect to any information (including any personally-identifiable information) you post, publish or disclose on the Services or Site, whether through, for example, comments or posting sections, on-line auctions, forums, social media or networking sites, chat rooms, personal ads, or the like, such information will be available to other users and the public and will no longer be private or confidential and Forum Communications shall not be responsible for the use or dissemination of such information whatsoever and such information shall no longer constitute personally-identifiable information subject to this Privacy Policy.
Our Services may operate as part of a larger group and may carry co-branded pages. In addition, other websites may use the Forum Communications Company’s name. Since we do not control the privacy policies of third parties, you are subject to the privacy customs and policies, if any, of such third parties, and we shall not be responsible for the use or dissemination of your private information by such parties. Therefore, we encourage you to ask questions and review those parties’ privacy policies before you disclose your personally-identifiable information to others.
Third-party websites linked to and from our Services are not under the control of Forum Communications Company. We shall have no responsibilities or liabilities whatsoever for the content or privacy practices of any such linked website or any link or linking program at any time. We do not endorse companies (or related products or services) to or from which the Site is linked merely by reason of the existence of any such link. If you decide to access any of the third party websites linked to our Services, you do so entirely at your own risk.
We care about the safety of children and their use of the Internet. Therefore, in accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, we will never knowingly request or solicit personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without verifiable parental consent. In the event that we receive actual knowledge that we have collected such personally-identifiable information without the requisite and verifiable parental consent, we will delete that information from our database as quickly as is practical.
If you are a resident of the EEA or Switzerland, the following information applies with respect to personal data collected through your use of the Forum Communications Company Site.
Purposes of processing and legal basis for processing
We collect personal data in various ways depending upon your use of our Services. We process personal data on the following legal bases: (1) with your consent; (2) as necessary to provide our Services; and (3) as necessary for our legitimate interests in providing our Services where those interests do not override your fundamental rights and freedom related to data privacy.Withdrawing Consent
If you wish to withdraw your consent to the use of technologies, such as cookies, to deliver relevant advertising on our Services and across the internet, personalize content and perform Site analytics, you should disable cookies on your browser by following your web browser’s instructions. Once you do so, you will not be able to access our Services unless you subsequently provide your consent for the use of such technologies.
Transfers
Personal information we collect may be transferred to, and stored and processed in, the United States or any other country in which we or our affiliates or subcontractors maintain facilities. We will ensure that transfers of personal information to a non-EEA country or an international organization are subject to appropriate safeguards.
Your Rights
You are entitled to the rights under Chapter III of the EU General Data Protection Regulation or Section 2 of the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection with respect to the processing of your personal data, which include the right to access and rectify your personal data and to request erasure of your personal data. To exercise these rights, contact us at Forum Communications Company, 101 5th Street North, Fargo, ND 58102 or by emailing us at: legal@forumcomm.com.
We respect your privacy and ability to choose whether to share information with us and any third party. You may choose to “opt-out” altogether from providing personally-identifiable information to us by not registering with our Services and thereby not providing personally-identifiable information. You may also choose at a later date to have your name removed from our database. To do so, please email legal@forumcomm.com.
Certain portions of our Services, however, do require registration. If you choose not to register or provide certain information, these areas will not be accessible to you.
If you’d like to opt out of retargeted marketing, please click here and follow the instructions.
California Residents
Under California law, California residents may opt-out of our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. As noted above, you may choose to opt-out of the sharing of your personally-identifiable information with third parties for marketing purposes at any time by submitting a request in writing to: Forum Communications Company, 101 5th Street North, Fargo, ND 58102 or by emailing us at: legal@forumcomm.com. We will comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.
Forum Communications Company maintains reasonable industry standard safeguards to protect the security, integrity, and privacy of the personally-identifiable information that you provide to Forum Communications Company; however no transmission or storage system, and no transmissions of information, involving the Internet are completely secure, and therefore Forum Communications Company provides no warranty or guaranty as to the security, integrity, or privacy of the personally-identifiable information that you provide to us, and you do so at your own risk.
Forum Communications Company may change this Privacy Policy at any time and from time to time in Forum Communications Company’s sole discretion. Forum Communications Company encourages you to frequently check this page for any changes to this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of the Services and/or Site(s) after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of any such change.
If you have any questions or comments about our Privacy Policy, please contact us at:
Forum Communications Company
Address: 101 5th Street North, Fargo, ND 58102
Phone: 701-235-7311
Fax: 701-451-5633
email: legal@forumcomm.com
As the largest media organization in the Upper Midwest, Forum Communications has helped thousands of businesses reach more customers and increase their revenue.
