Tribune Publishing | Privacy Policy and Your Privacy Rights

Last updated on January 5, 2015.

Tribune Publishing Company is a diverse multimedia company and, together with its Affiliates, operates newspapers, and news, entertainment, and informational websites. In this Privacy Policy, “Affiliates” refers to subsidiaries and entities that Tribune Publishing Company or its subsidiaries operate or have an ownership interest.

This Privacy Policy applies only to the information Tribune Publishing Company and its Affiliates (collectively, “Tribune,” “we,” or “us” or “our”) collect through the websites, mobile applications, electronic devices, kiosks, and all other interactive services we provide (hereinafter “the Services”). This Privacy Policy governs the Services regardless of how you access them. Some Services may have a specific, separate Privacy Policy that will govern use of those Services. The Privacy Policy describes:

The information we collect and how we collect it;
What we do with the information we collect;
How we share and disclose user information with third parties;
Tribune’s use of online analytics and tailored advertising;
California Do-Not-Track disclosure requirements;
How you can access and update your information;
How we protect information;
Linked sites and advertisements;
Use of the Services by users from outside the United States;
Use of the Services by children;
How to contact us;
Your California privacy rights;
No rights of third parties; and
Changes to this Privacy Policy.

1. The information we collect and how we collect it.

How we collect and store information depends on the websites you visit, the activities in which you participate and the Services you use. You can use some of the Services without providing any information other than that automatically collected as described below.

1.1 Information you provide

We may collect information about you during your use of the Services, including your name, username, password, email address, postal address, phone number, mobile phone number, payment information, gender, birth year, and information you provide or post on our Services or allow us to access when you do certain things, such as:

Enter registration information for one or more of our Services;
Enter a sweepstakes or contest or register for a promotion;
Participate in voting or polling activities;
Make a purchase;
Request certain features (e.g., newsletters, updates, and other products);
Sign up to receive SMS (text message) notifications;
Download or use one of our mobile applications;
Connect with the Services or otherwise allow us to access certain information about you via a social networking site (“SNS”); or
Post user-generated content, including comments, to or on any of our Services.

We may collect and store your user ID associated with a SNS account that you use to sign in to your Tribune account or connect or use with the Services. When you sign in to your Tribune account or mobile application with your SNS account information or otherwise connect to your SNS account with the Services, you authorize Tribune to collect, store, and use in accordance with this Privacy Policy any and all information available to Tribune through the SNS interface, including without limitation any information that you have made public in connection with your SNS account, information that the SNS shares with us, or information that is disclosed as being shared during the sign-in process.

Please be careful and responsible whenever you are online. Should you choose to voluntarily disclose information through the Services, such as via a SNS, on message boards, chat areas or in advertising or notices you post, that information can be viewed publicly and can be collected and used by third parties without our knowledge and may result in unsolicited messages from other individuals or third parties.

1.2 Automatically-collected information

1.2.1 Device/usage information

We may automatically collect certain information about the computer or devices (including mobile devices) you use to access the Services. For example, we may collect and analyze information such as (a) IP addresses, geolocation information (as described in the next section below), unique device identifiers and other information about your mobile phone or other mobile device(s), browser types, browser language, operating system, the state or country from which you accessed the Services; and (b) information related to the ways in which you interact with the Services, such as: referring and exit pages and URLs, platform type, the number of clicks, domain names, landing pages, pages and content viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the date and time you used the Services, the frequency of your use of the Services, error logs, and other similar information. As described further below, we may use third-party analytics providers and technologies, including cookies and similar tools, to assist in collecting this information.

We may also capture other data, such as search criteria and results. In some cases, we will associate this information with a unique Tribune identifier (that is not intended to be used by itself to identify you) for our internal use, in which case your Tribune identifier will be considered Tribune information and nothing in this Privacy Policy restricts how Tribune may use this information.

1.2.2 Location information

We 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 functionality on mobile devices used to access the Services), and 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 Chicago, the Services may be customized with Chicago-specific information and advertisements. 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 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.

1.2.3 Cookies and other electronic technologies

When you use the Services, we use persistent and session cookies and other similar tracking technologies to: (a) store your username and password; (b) analyze the usage of our sites and Services by collecting the information discussed in section 1.2.1 above; (c) customize the Services to your preferences; and (d) control the advertising displayed by the Services, as well as advertisements that may be displayed on other websites or mobile applications. The cookies may reflect de-identified data linked to or derived from data you voluntarily have submitted to us, e.g., a hashed version of your email address that we may share with service providers, solely in non-human readable form. We and our vendors may also use other Internet technologies, such as Flash technologies, Web beacons or pixel tags, and other similar technologies, to deliver or communicate with cookies and track your use of the Services, as well as serve you ads when you are on other websites or the Internet when those cookies can be accessed. We also may include Web beacons in e-mail messages or newsletters to determine whether the message has been opened and for other analytics. As we adopt additional technologies, we may also gather additional information through other methods.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser setting to decline cookies by visiting the Help portion of your browser’s toolbar. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to sign in, customize, or use some of the interactive features of the Services. Flash cookies operate differently than browser cookies, and cookie management tools available in a web browser will not remove flash cookies. To learn more about how to manage flash cookies, you can visit the Adobe website and make changes at the Global Privacy Settings Panel.

1.3 Information from third parties

We may obtain additional information about you from third parties such as marketers, partners, researchers, and others. We may combine information that we collect from you with information about you that we obtain from such third parties and information derived from any other subscription, product, or service we provide.

1.4 Aggregate or de-identified data

We may aggregate and/or de-identify information collected by the Services or via other means so that the information is not intended to identify you. Our use and disclosure of aggregated and/or de-identified information is not subject to any restrictions under this Privacy Policy, and we may disclose it to others without limitation for any purpose.

2. What we do with the information we collect.

We use the information that we collect for the following purposes:

For the purposes for which you provided it;
To send you information about your relationship or transactions with us;
To send you alerts or other communications via SMS messages or other media or networks;
To notify you about new features of the Services, special events, or products, services, and special offers;
To administer sweepstakes and contests;
To process and respond to your inquiries;
To contact you with information that we believe will be of interest to you;
To attribute content that you make available through the Services;
To generate and review reports and data about our user base and Service usage patterns;
To perform analytics and research aimed at improving the accuracy, effectiveness, usability, or popularity of the Services;
To improve the content and features of the Services or develop new Services;
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; and
To administer and troubleshoot the Services.

The Services are supported by advertising revenue. We will send you commercial emails on behalf of ourselves, our Affiliates, and advertisers. Each such email we send you will have an opt-out that you can use to stop receiving such communications.

3. How we share and disclose user information with third parties.

We will make your information available to other companies, websites, applications or people in the circumstances described below:

We may rent, sell, or share your information with non-affiliated third parties: (a) in order to provide services or products that you have requested; (b) when we have your permission; or (c) as described in this Privacy Policy.

We may share your information with any agent or company that is part of the Tribune Publishing Company in order to provide the Services or advertising or to communicate with you on our behalf.

When you sign up to participate in a contest or sweepstakes, your information may also be provided to our sweepstakes or contest advertisers, operators, or sponsors and the use of that information will be also governed by those advertisers’, operators’, or sponsors’ privacy policies or practices.

We may disclose your information in response to any subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process we receive, or to establish or exercise our legal rights or to defend against legal claims.

We may share your information with third-party advertisers and advertising networks or others with whom we have a contractual relationship.

We may disclose your information when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is appropriate in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding possible illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of any person, violations of this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service for the Services you accessed, and/or to protect the rights and property of Tribune, our employees, users and the public. This may involve the sharing of your information with law enforcement, government agencies, courts, and/or other organizations.

We may share your information in connection with any merger, reorganization, a sale of some or all Tribune assets, or a financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company.

We may aggregate and/or de-identify your information so that the information no longer relates to you individually. Our use and disclosure of such aggregated or de-identified information is not subject to this Privacy Policy, and may be disclosed to others without limitation and for any purpose.

4. Tribune’s use of online analytics and tailored advertising.

4.1 Online analytics

We may use third-party web analytics services on our Services, such as those of Google Analytics. These service providers use the sort of technology described in Section 1.2 to help us analyze how users use the Services, including by noting the third-party website from which you arrive. The information (including your IP address) collected by the technology will be disclosed to or collected directly by these service providers, who use the information to evaluate your use of the Services. We also use Google Analytics for certain purposes related to advertising, as described in the following section. To prevent Google Analytics from using your information for analytics, you may install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on by clicking here.

4.2 Tailored advertising

When you use the Service, Tribune may serve you with ads based on various factors such as the content of the page you are visiting, information you provide such as your age or gender, your searches, demographic data, user-generated content and other information that you provide to us. These ads may be based on your current activity or your activity over time and may be tailored to your interests.

Also, third parties whose products or services are accessible or advertised via the Services may also place cookies or other tracking technologies on your computer, mobile phone, or other device to collect information about your use of the Services in order to (i) inform, optimize, and serve ads based on past visits to our websites and other sites and (ii) report how our ad impressions, other uses of ad services, and interactions with these ad impressions and ad services are related to visits to our websites and use of our Services. We also allow other third parties (e.g., ad networks and ad servers such as Google Analytics, DoubleClick and others) to serve tailored ads to you on the Services, and to access their own cookies or other tracking technologies on your computer, mobile phone, or other device you use to access the Services. We also may share with third-party advertisers a hashed version of your email address, solely in non-human readable form and content that you share publicly when using the services (e.g., user-generated content) for purposes of delivering tailored advertising. We neither have access to, nor does this Privacy Policy govern, the use of cookies or other tracking technologies that may be placed on your computer, mobile phone, or other device you use to access the Services by non-affiliated, third-party ad technology, ad servers, ad networks or any other non-affiliated third parties. Those parties that use these technologies may offer you a way to opt out of ad targeting as described below. You may receive tailored advertising on your computer through a web browser. If you are interested in more information about tailored browser advertising and how you can generally control cookies from being put on your computer to deliver tailored advertising, you may visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s Consumer Opt-Out link, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Opt-Out link or TRUSTe’s Advertising Choices Page to opt-out of receiving tailored advertising from companies that participate in those programs. You may also use the links available in advertisements that appear in the Services and learn more about our advertising practices through the About Our Ads link available through the Services.

To opt out of Google Analytics for display advertising or customize Google display network ads, you can visit the Google Ads Settings page. Please note that to the extent advertising technology is integrated into the Services, you may still receive advertisements even if you opt-out of tailored advertising. In that case, the ads will just not be tailored. Also, we do not control any of the above opt-out links and are not responsible for any choices you make using these mechanisms or the continued availability or accuracy of these mechanisms.

When using a mobile application you may also receive tailored in-application advertisements. Each operating system, iOS for Apple phones, Android for Android devices and Windows for Microsoft devices provides its own instructions on how to prevent the delivery of tailored in-application advertisements. You may review the support materials and/or the privacy settings for the respective operating systems in order to opt-out of tailored in-application advertisements. For any other devices and/or operating systems, please visit the privacy settings for the applicable device or contact the applicable platform operator. Tribune also may use a third-party vendor, Flurry, to deliver advertisements on mobile applications or for mobile application analytics. You can exercise your choices related to Flurry’s services here.

5. California Do-Not-Track disclosure requirements.

We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information collected on our Services for third-party purposes, and that is why we provide above the Network Advertising Initiative’s “Consumer Opt-out” link, Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Opt-Out Link, TRUSTe’s Advertising Choices page, the Google opt-out link, and Flurry opt-out information in Sections 4.1 and 4.2. However, we do not recognize or respond to browser-initiated Do Not Track signals, as the Internet industry is currently still working on Do Not Track standards, implementations and solutions.

6. How you can access and update your information.

To ensure that you have some control over the information we have about you, you may review and update certain user profile information by logging in to the relevant portions of the Services where such information may be updated (may be available on some Services and not others) or by contacting us at [email protected].

7. How we protect information.

We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect against the unauthorized access, destruction or alteration of your information. These safeguards vary based on the sensitivity of the information that we collect, process and store and the current state of technology.

Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot assure you that information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

8. Linked sites and advertisements.

The Services may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those third-party websites.

We have relationships with third-party providers to provide content, products, services, and functionality through the Services. When you visit sites or use any Services provided in conjunction with one or more of these third-party providers and the brands of those providers appear on the site or Services in connection with such content, products, services, or functionalities, we may share any information you provide or that is collected during your use of those Services with those providers. In some cases, the provider may collect information from you directly, in which case the provider’s privacy policy (which may differ from this Privacy Policy) would apply. If you have any questions regarding the privacy policy of any of our providers, you should contact the provider directly for more information.

9. Use of the Services by users from outside the United States.

The Services are hosted in the United States and are governed by United States law. If you are using the Services from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our databases are operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. By using the Services, you consent to your information being transferred to our facilities and to the facilities of those third parties with whom we share it as described in our Privacy Policy.

10. Use of the Services by children.

The Services are not intended for persons under the age of 13. We require that only persons 13 years of age or older use the Services. By using the Services, you hereby represent that you are at least 13 years old. Some third parties, such as platform providers like the iTunes Store or Google Play may provide age-based ratings on some of the Services. These ratings shall have no bearing on this limitation. Third parties may also provide content categories on some of the Services. These categories shall have no bearing on this limitation.

11. How to contact us.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy or practices, please send an email to [email protected].

12. Your California privacy rights.

California law permits users who are California residents to request and obtain from us once a year, free of charge, a list of the third parties to whom we have disclosed their personal information (if any) for their direct marketing purposes in the prior calendar year, as well as the type of personal information disclosed to those parties. If you are a California resident and would like to request this information, please submit your request in an email to [email protected].

13. No rights of third parties.

This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.

14. Changes to this Privacy Policy.

Tribune Publishing Company 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. Please check this page periodically for changes. Your continued use of the Services following the posting of changes to this Privacy Policy will mean you accept those changes.