This "Web Site" is sponsored and hosted by Independent Critics Inc. ("Independent Critics" or "we" or "us"). Click here for a list of the Web Sites governed by this Privacy Policy (each, a “Web Site” and together, the " Web Sites"). This Privacy Policy explains what information is collected on the Web Sites, how we use your information, and your choices. This Privacy Policy only covers information collected at the Web Sites, and does not cover any information collected offline or elsewhere by Independent Critics (unless specifically stated), its or their affiliates or subsidiaries or any other company. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. In addition, please review our Terms of Use, which governs your use of the Web Sites. Your use of our Web Site indicates to us that you have read and accept our privacy practices, as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Information Independent Critics Collects

Personally Identifiable Information: We may ask you to provide us with personal information about yourself, which is information that could reasonably be used to identify you personally (such as your name, address, or e-mail address), which we refer to as "PII," at various times and at various places on this Web Site, such as when you register for newsletters, subscribe for home delivery, or choose to participate in a contest, sweepstakes or survey. We may also ask you to provide us with demographic information or information regarding your interests, hobbies or similar information. In addition, as part of our current and planned services, we may, at any time, add features to our Web Site that require you to register or otherwise provide PII, including credit card information, or we may require registration or a subscription fee to gain access to any portion of our Web Site. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in many of the Web Site's features. If you provide us with PII of a friend, such as name or e-mail address, (for example, in order to e-mail an article to a friend), or a friend has provided such information about you, we will not use such PII to send other e-mail communications unless otherwise disclosed at the time such information is provided.

Independent Critics does not knowingly collect information from children under thirteen (13) years of age: This is not a web site directed to children under the age of 13, and Independent Critics does not knowingly collect PII from children under 13 years of age. If you are under 13 years of age, do not send any information about yourself to Independent Critics. If Independent Critics discovers that a child under the age of 13 has provided Independent Critics with PII, Independent Critics will delete that child's PII from its system.

Non-Personally Identifiable Information: When you visit this Web Site, our servers automatically collect certain web site usage information. Web site usage information is non-identifying information that describes how our visitors use and navigate our Web Site, and it includes the number and frequency of visitors to each web page and the length of their stays. We also collect the information automatically sent to us by your browser, such as browser type, referrer data that identifies the web page visited prior and subsequent to visiting our Web Site, and IP address. We also may determine the technology available through your browser in order to serve you the most appropriate version of a web page. Independent Critics may disclose non-identifying, aggregated user statistics to third parties for a variety of purposes, including describing Independent Critics's services, marketing, and providing a better user experience on the Web Site.

Cookies: Like most web sites, this Web Site sometimes makes use of browser "cookies." We may use cookies for a number of purposes, such as tracking usage patterns on the Web Site, measuring the effectiveness of advertising, limiting multiple responses and registrations, facilitating your ability to navigate the Web Site and as part of a verification or screening process.  Independent Critics does not save PII in cookies, but we may link the cookie to any PII or other information we collect. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. You can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent by indicating this in the preferences or options menu in your browser.  However, it is possible that some parts of this Web Site will not operate correctly if you disable cookies and you may not be able to take advantage of some of this Web Site’s features. You should consult with your browser's provider/manufacturer if you have any questions regarding disabling cookies.

Web Beacons. Our web pages or e-mail messages may contain a small graphic image called a web beacon, which is sometimes also called a "web bug" or "clear gif", and which allows the party that set the web beacon to monitor and collect certain limited information about the viewer of the web page or e-mail message (such as the type of browser downloading the web beacon, the IP address of the computer that the web beacon is sent to and the time the web beacon was viewed, as well as the URL of the page the web beacon comes from). Web beacons are typically very small (generally 1-by-1 pixel) and invisible to the user, but, in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page or e-mail message, including an advertisement or HTML content, can act as a web beacon. Independent Critics may use web beacons for a number of purposes, such as to count visitors to our web pages or to monitor how our users navigate our site, and we may include web beacons in HTML-formatted e-mail newsletters in order to count how many newsletters (or particular articles, links, etc.) we sent were actually opened. Independent Critics does not link the information collected by its web beacons to your PII. In addition, third parties that serve ads or content onto this Web Site or within our e-mails may use web beacons. Independent Critics does not have control over web beacons used by such third parties and does not have access to whatever information they may collect.

Advertisements and Third Party Advertising Companies

We may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other web sites in order to provide advertisements to you. We may also use a third party advertising company to serve ads to you.  We or our third party advertising companies may note some of the pages you visit on this Web Site through the use of web beacons or cookies placed on your computer to manage and target advertisements and for market research analysis.  We may share non-personally identifying web site usage information about visitors to this Web Site with third party advertising companies for the same purposes. Our third-party advertisers’, if any, use of cookies is subject to their own privacy policies, which may differ from this one. We do not have access to cookies set by third parties.

In addition, third party advertising companies may be able to place a unique cookie on your computer via this Web Site for the purpose of targeting advertisements to you when you are visiting other web sites. These cookies are used only to anonymously recognize you and aggregate historical behaviors in order to deliver ads to you that are likely to be more relevant to you based on the types of web sites visited. As with other cookies on the Web Site, these cookies do not store any PII. You may choose not to receive the cookies referred to in this paragraph by following the relevant browser instructions.

Our advertising and marketing partners may change periodically.  Therefore, we encourage you to check this section of our Privacy Policy frequently, so that  you can take advantage of any opt-out choices offered to you by our third party advertising and marketing partners.

Third Party Content

When you are on our Web Site, certain content, in addition to advertisements, may be served by a third party. These third parties may also drop their own cookies and/or use web beacons, which may be used to identify some of your preferences or to recognize you if you have previously had contact with them. We do not control the use of such technology by third parties, the information they collect, or how they use such information.

Use and Disclosure of Collected Information and Your Choices

Use by Independent Critics:

Independent Critics may use your PII to provide you with requested goods, services or content, to contact you in connection with a sweepstakes or promotion, or for other purposes disclosed when you provide your PII. In addition, we will send you special offers via e-mail if you indicate that you would like to receive such information when you register with us. If you wish to unsubscribe from our e-mail newsletter or change the information you receive from us, click here.

We may also contact you regarding any problems or questions we have relating to your use of our Web Site, or, in our discretion, notify you of changes to our Privacy Policy, Terms of Use or other policy or terms that affect you and your use of our Web Site. Independent Critics may also use information collected about our users to provide customized content, advertising, products and services, or to improve the content and navigation of our Web Site, or for other internal purposes. If you submit a letter to the editor or other content to be published in one of our publications, whether such publication originates online or offline, we may publish your name or other information in connection with publishing the letter to the editor or other content.

We may combine the information about you that we collect at our Web Sites with information available to us from other sources, including information received from promotional partners or other third parties. We may also combine any PII with other information we collect on our Web Site, including cookies and search terms users enter on our Web Site, which we may use for reporting and monitoring, improving our Web Site and products, or to target advertising.

Sharing and Disclosure of PII to Third Parties:

Unless otherwise disclosed in this Privacy Policy or at the time you provide your information, Independent Critics will only share your PII with third parties under the following limited circumstances:

Affiliates. Independent Critics reserves the right to share your information with and among the Web Sites, as well as with our parent and affiliated companies (the "Affiliated Parties"). You may tell us not to share your PII with the Affiliated Parties for the Affiliated Parties' direct marketing purposes by sending notification to: Independent Critics via email.

Sweepstakes, Contests and Promotions. If you choose to enter a sweepstakes, contest or other promotion, your PII may be disclosed to third parties in connection with such promotion at least as required by law, including, without limitation, on a winners list. Also, by entering a sweepstakes, contest or other promotion, we may require you to consent to the use of your PII or other information, such as name, voice or likeness, in advertising, promotional and marketing materials. In addition, we may offer certain promotional content, such as a sweepstakes, sponsored by or co-branded with a third party, who may obtain the PII that you submit, but only where specifically stated on the registration page for such promotion. Please note that Independent Critics has no control over such a third party's use of this information, and any such third party is not subject to this Privacy Policy.

Third parties providing services on our behalf. Independent Critics may employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on its behalf. Examples include, without limitation, fulfilling orders, sending communications on our behalf (including our e-mail editions), analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, creating, hosting and/or running contests/sweepstakes/games and providing customer service. These third parties may have access to our users' PII in order to provide these services to us or on our behalf.

Legal action. Independent Critics may disclose information about its users, including PII, when legally required to do so, at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation, or to verify or enforce compliance with the policies governing our Web Site and applicable laws. Independent Critics may also disclose user information whenever we believe disclosure is necessary to limit our legal liability or to protect or enforce the rights, interests or safety of the Web Site, our users or others.

Corporate change. Independent Critics may sell, transfer or otherwise disclose user information, including PII, in connection with a corporate merger, consolidation, the sale of substantially all assets, or other fundamental corporate change.

Security

We store the information we collect from you on limited access servers, and we take steps to maintain the security of our servers and to protect your PII from unauthorized disclosure. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Independent Critics cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to Independent Critics and you do so at your own risk.

Links

Please be aware that when you are on our Web Site or viewing an e-mail from Independent Critics, you could be directed to other web pages or online content through links that take you outside our service and are beyond our control. For example, you may encounter links from sponsors or partners, which may include Independent Critics's logo or that of one of the Affiliated Parties as part of a co-branding agreement. If you "click" on a link to such a third party, the "click" takes you to a third party's web site. These other web sites may set their own cookies, collect data, and/or have their own privacy policies. This Privacy Policy only covers information collected by Independent Critics on the Web Sites, and we encourage you to review the privacy policy of any other web site you visit.

Consent to Transfer

This Web Site is operated in the United States & UK. By using our Web Site, participating in any of our services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to this overseas transfer of information.

Acceptance Of Terms

By using this Web Site, you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy. Independent Critics reserves the right to modify, alter or otherwise update this Privacy Policy at any time. We will post any changes here, so be sure to check back from time to time. Of course, unless you consent otherwise, Independent Critics will use your PII consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted your PII.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments or concerns about our Privacy Policy, please contact us.

The effective date of this Privacy Policy is Jan. 11, 2006.

© 2005 Independent Critics, Inc. All rights reserved.