Privacy Policy
Time Out Chicago, Time Out Chicago Kids (together, “Time Out”) have always endeavored to serve its audience with integrity and honesty. The same is true online. Time Out has developed this Privacy Policy to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy and to disclose our information-gathering and -sharing practices for www.timeoutchicagokids.com, and www.timeoutchicago.com (together, the “Site”). By visiting the Site, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. Our Site will develop and evolve over time, and this Privacy Policy may change to reflect that. Your continued use of this Site following reasonable notice of any such changes means you accept the changes. You agree that notices we may provide on the Site itself shall be deemed reasonable notice for this purpose. It is your responsibility to check periodically for any changes we may make to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy was last updated on April 2, 2012.
In addition, Time Out supports the Consumer Reports WebWatch guidelines to promote credible information practices on the web. For more information, click here.
1. Collected and Disclosed Information
Time Out may request information from you in order to grant you access to selected content of our Site. Time Out may use this information to contact you regarding your relationship with the Site and to provide services that you have requested. Time Out may share your information with vendors we select as necessary to provide products or services you have requested or to provide information about products or services that may be of interest to you. For example, Time Out Chicago subscriptions are managed by Palm Coast Data, Inc. (“PCD”). Whether you have subscribed to the magazine via phone, mail or online, your account information can be accessed from PCD’s web site via Time Out Chicago's Subscriber Services page. New subscribers link from our Site to PCD’s website to sign up for a subscription via a secure server. In addition, Time Out Chicago may make available the names and mailing addresses of our magazine subscribers to carefully screened third-party organizations whose products and services might prove interesting to you. If you do not wish to receive mailings from such organizations, please let us know by writing to Time Out Chicago, PO Box 433017, Palm Coast, FL 32143.
Other than as stated in this Privacy Policy, your personal information will not be used for promotional purposes without your consent. However, if you choose to fill out any reader surveys, order items from the Time Out Store, or participate in a contest, demographic information that you submit about yourself may be shared with associated sponsors and business partners in aggregate form.
Information collected in aggregate form includes the number of visitors to the Site, the pages they visit, and how long they stay. We collect these kinds of aggregate user information to help us continually improve our services and to sell sponsorships on the Site to appropriate advertisers. Time Out discloses this aggregate user information to advertisers. Note that advertisers do not have any influence over the editorial content or reviews that appear on the Site. In addition, Time Out collects information from visitors who click on advertisements so that we are able to measure interest in the various areas of our Site and inform advertisers as to how many visitors have seen or clicked on their ads. Time Out also uses demographic and preference information only in aggregate form to allow advertising banners on our Site to be targeted to the readers for whom they are most pertinent.
Time Out cooperates with all law-enforcement inquiries and reserves the right to disclose personally identifying and/or aggregate information in connection with a subpoena or other court-sanctioned demand for such information.
Nothing in this Privacy Policy is meant to impede Time Out’s right or ability to transfer, sell or otherwise dispose of any of its assets. Time Out reserves the right to share your information with any successor to Time Out’s business.
2. IP Addresses; Cookies and Other Tracking Technology : Time Out logs IP (Internet Protocol) addresses, or the location of your computer on the Internet, for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes. We use the IP address log in an aggregate fashion to track access to our Site.
As is standard practice on many web sites, the Site uses “cookies” and other similar technologies such as clear gifs to recognize you and provide personalization, as well as to help us understand which parts of our Site are the most popular, where our visitors are going, and how much time they spend there. We reserve the right to place cookies on your computer with unique anonymous numbers for purposes such as 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. You may decline cookies by using the appropriate feature of your web software, if available; however, declining to use cookies may impede the ability of the Site to function properly.
In addition, we use a third-party advertising company to serve ads when you visit our Site. This company may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address, or telephone number) about your visit to this Site, including IP address, in order to provide advertisements about products and services that may be of interest to you. In the course of serving advertisements to this Site, our third-party advertiser may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by this company, please click here. www.doubleclick.net/us/corporate/privacy or http://www.networkadvertising.org/consumer/opt_out.asp.
3. User Generated Content (Message Boards, Forums, Reader Reviews and Chats): Please remember that any personal information you disclose in the message boards, forums, reader reviews, and chats becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information. If you send us e-mails, you should be aware that information disclosed in e-mails may not be secure or encrypted and, thus, may be available to others. We suggest that you exercise caution when deciding to disclose any personal or confidential information in e-mails or via the Internet. By commenting on content on Time Out Chicago's websites (http://www.timeoutchicago.com and http://www.timeoutchicagokids.com) or via any of Time Out Chicago's social media platforms, you hereby authorize and consent for your credited comments to be used in, but not limited to, any promotional materials or print, digital edition and online publications produced by Time Out Chicago.
4. E-mails : We will use your e-mail address to respond directly to your questions or comments. Except to provide you with products and services you have requested, we will not share, sell, rent, swap or authorize any third party to use your e-mail address without providing you the opportunity to opt-out of such use. If we ever request that you volunteer additional information, such as age (e.g., in an online survey), your response will always be voluntary. In addition, there will always be a box for you to check if you choose to enable us to disclose such information to a third party. You can unsubscribe to any e-mail you receive from Time Out Chicago by following the instructions in the e-mail. If you feel you have received an e-mail from us in error, please contact onlinedirector@timeoutchicago.com.
(a) Account and Service-Related e-mail: Time Out Chicago reserves the right to send you e-mails relating to your account status. This includes order confirmations, renewal/expiration notices, notices of credit-card problems, other transactional e-mails and notifications about major changes to our Site and/or to our Privacy Policy. If you have registered for online discussions or other services, you may receive e-mails specific to your participation in those activities. If you place an order in our online store, purchase a subscription to Time Out Chicago, participate in an online survey, or submit a sweepstakes or contest entry, you may receive an e-mail confirming your transaction or interaction with our Site.
(b) E-mail newsletters: Time Out Chicago offers several e-mail newsletters. When you subscribe to our magazines and give us your e-mail address, you will automatically receive our e-mail newsletters. You can opt out of this at any point by following the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the e-mail or by e-mailing onlinedirector@timeoutchicago.com.
Online users who are otherwise not subscribers of our magazines may opt to receive regular e-mail newsletters that contains information we believe to be of value to our users, specifically special discounts and offers selected by our marketing department and provided by our advertisers. Visit timeoutchicago.com/newsletter for Time Out Chicago and Time Out Chicago Kids e-mail newsletters. We respect that your receiving the e-mail newsletter is a choice, and you may choose to remove your name from the list at any time by following the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the e-mail or by e-mailing onlinedirector@timeoutchicago.com.
By subscribing to our magazines and/or receiving Time Out Chicago e-mail newsletters, you also agree to receive editorial previews, and details about special offers and discounts from commercial participants by e-mail on a regular basis. Time Out Chicago is not responsible for the satisfaction of the special offers and discounts as announced in the e-mail newsletters. If for any reason you are not satisfied with an offer or discount, contact the commercial participant making the offer. You agree that Time Out Chicago will not be liable to you for anything connected with your participation in the e-mail newsletter program.
(c) Promotional e-mail: Certain parts of the Site may give you the option to receive periodic e-mails from Time Out Chicago about products and services that we think may be of interest to you. If you opt-in to receive these e-mails, you can choose not to receive additional messages in the future by following the instructions in the e-mails.
Working from time to time with a specific sponsor (or sponsors), Time Out Chicago may create stand-alone promotional web sites for the purpose of collecting sweepstakes registrations. In these instances it will be communicated to registrants via opt-in that their contact information will be shared by Time Out Chicago with the sponsor (or sponsors) for the purpose of sending marketing e-mails. By opting into these promotional web sites, you will also be opting-in to receive weekly e-mail newsletters.
(d) Survey e-mail: We may send you an e-mail inviting you to participate in user surveys, asking for feedback on our Site and existing or prospective products and services, as well as information to better understand our users. User surveys greatly help us to improve our Site, and any information we obtain in such surveys will not be shared with third parties, except in aggregate form.
(e) E-mail This Article Feature: You may use this feature to send links to articles and other information from our Site to others through e-mail. The e-mail address(es) that you supply to Time Out Chicago through this service will only be used to send the requested article or other information.
5. Third-Party Web Sites: Our Site contains links to other web sites that are not under our control, even though some of them may feature the Time Out Chicago logo through a marketing agreement with us. Time Out Chicago cannot be held responsible for the privacy practices of third parties. We recommend that you review the privacy policy of any web site you visit. Time Out Chicago may receive a commission from member transactions on these partner sites. Without limiting the foregoing, the Time Out Chicago restaurant reservations section is operated by OpenTable. OpenTable’s privacy policy, viewable at http://www.opentable.com/info/helpindex.asp, governs the use of personal information you provide at the OpenTable site. Time Out Chicago receives a commission for transactions processed via this Site. In addition, links within the Time Out Store, and elsewhere on the Site, may link to online retailers including Amazon.com, bn.com and booksense.com which handle the orders and distribution.
On occasion, Time Out Chicago sponsors special promotions, sweepstakes and contests that are hosted by partner web sites, which may require that your browser accept cookies, or that you agree to receive information from such sponsors. Such requirements are clearly noted.
6. Security: Time Out Chicago has invested, and will continue to invest, in high-quality security measures designed to guard access to information, data quality, and physical security of servers where information is stored. Our Site has security measures in place to help protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control and uses encryption technology where appropriate. We cannot, however, guarantee the confidentiality of any communication transmitted to or from Time Out Chicago via the Site or e-mails. Accordingly, Time Out Chicago is not responsible for the security of information transmitted via the Internet.
7. Collection of Personal Data from Children: Our Site is not directed to users under the age of 18. Time Out Chicago will not knowingly collect information from individuals under the age of 18 (“children”) or provide any personally identifying information of children, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever. No information provided by users self-identified as children will knowingly be used for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever.
8. Accessing Your Information; Time Out Chicago Contact: You can contact Time Out regarding this Privacy Policy either by mail, at Time Out Chicago, 247 S. State Street, 17th floor, Chicago, IL, 60604, Attention: Webmaster], or by e-mail at privacy@timeoutchicago.com. If you would like to review and/or change the information about you that we have collected via our Site, please mail your request and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the above address or e-mail privacy@timeoutchicago.com.
Time Out Chicago and Time Out Chicago Kids are published by Time Out Chicago Partners LLLP, a privately-held company.
