Salon.com Privacy Policy

Salon.com respects your right to the privacy of the personal information you provide us on our Web sites. To that end, unless you designate otherwise or we state otherwise in this policy or at the time information is collected, any personal information you provide to Salon.com will be known only to two parties: you and Salon.com. The following policy is intended to explain how your personal information will be treated as you make use of our sites and their features. Personal information includes your name, street and e-mail addresses, billing information, click-through activity and any other personal information you may provide here. This policy may change from time to time, so please check back periodically.

Traffic data

Each time a visitor comes to a Salon.com Web site, our servers -- like most on the Web -- collect some basic technical information, including, for example, the visitor's domain name (e.g., whether the user is logged on from aol.com or whitehouse.gov), referral data (e.g., we record the address of the last URL a user visited prior to clicking through to a Salon.com Web site) and browser and platform type (e.g., a Netscape browser on a Macintosh platform).

We also count, track and aggregate the visitor's activity into our analysis of general traffic flows at our sites (e.g. tracking where traffic comes from, how traffic flows within the Salon.com sites, etc.). To these ends, we may merge information about visitors and visits into group data, which may then be shared on an aggregated basis with our advertisers; but we will not disclose your individual identity or personally identifiable data without your permission. When we do present aggregated information to outside companies, no one will be able to identify you or contact you.

Use of Salon.com cookies

A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a Web server and stored on your computer's hard drive. We use cookies in a limited way to help deliver advertisements, to identify unique browsers that visit us and to track usage throughout our site.

The information about readership and site usage that Salon collects through cookies is aggregated into general reports about readership and not tied to individual identities, with one exception. Salon saves usage information collected with cookies for Premium subscribers solely for the use of our customer support team to help resolve problems subscribers may have. This Premium readership information is not used for any other purpose, shared with any party, or correlated with any other information the subscriber may have provided to order the subscription.

Other companies which place advertising on our site also have the ability to assign their cookies to you in a process that Salon.com does not control. However, cookies cannot be used to identify individuals, only machines, so these advertisers will not know who you are.

Salon Premium

In order to subscribe, subscribers to our Salon Premium service provide Salon with personal information including name, address, e-mail address and credit card information. Salon keeps all such information strictly confidential and does not reuse, resell or redistribute it in any way.

At the time of registering for their subscription, Salon Premium subscribers are asked whether they wish to receive e-mail from Salon, such as notification of new Premium benefits. Salon does not reuse or resell the list of users who have "opted in" to such mailings.

In order to receive Salon Newsletters subscribers provide Salon with personal information including an e-mail address, zip code, gender, age range and income range. Salon collects this information so that we can effectively target advertisements. This information may be shared in aggregate form with our advertisers. When we present aggregated information to outside companies, no one will be able to identify or contact you.

If you select "yes" in response to the statement, " I would like to receive occasional offers or information from Salon and our marketing partners by e-mail" on the newsletter registration page, Salon may e-mail you occasional messages about our or our marketing partners' products. Your e-mail address will not be shared with anyone and no one except Salon will be able to contact you.

Our newsletter registration and confirmation pages may also contain other offers to receive messages from specific advertisers or other third parties. If you choose to opt in to receive such messages, your e-mail address will be shared with those specific advertisers or third parties, and Salon will have no control over the messages that you receive from them.

Letters to the editor

Salon asks senders of letters to the editor to include a phone number so we can make an effort to verify their identity should we need to in connection with publication of a letter. We do not retain this information for any other purpose, nor do we sell, trade or otherwise disclose it to third parties.

"E-mail to a friend" feature

Salon.com offers an "e-mail a friend about this story" feature, allowing site visitors to send e-mail to friends to inform them about an article they might be interested in reading. In order for this feature to function, we ask for e-mail addresses for the recipient (so we know who to mail the message to) and from the sender (so we can tell the recipient who sent the e-mail). We do not store or save these addresses and you will not receive e-mail or other communications from Salon or its partners as a result of having used this feature.

"E-mail a friend about this story" is a mail service that individual visitors to Salon.com make use of to send individual e-mails. While this tool cannot be used to send mass "spam" mailings, Salon.com has no control over how our visitors use it, and any e-mail sent through it originates with, and is the responsibility of, the sender, not Salon.com.

Table Talk

Salon.com visitors who register for our Table Talk community area provide us with a name, password and a working e-mail address. We use this information to set up your account. We do not sell or redistribute the Table Talk membership list and will not send you e-mail at the address you provide, except for infrequent announcements relating to Table Talk or as needed to resolve issues that may arise with your Table Talk account. The e-mail address you register with Salon.com will be posted in Table Talk if and when you post comments there, but you are free at any time to substitute an alternate e-mail address if you wish to keep the one you initially registered private. Participants in Table Talk are expected to comply with the rules governing the area, but we cannot control third parties' use of information you may choose to provide in such a public forum. For more information see the Table Talk registration page.

Promotion

From time to time, Salon.com may sponsor sweepstakes, contests or other events which require the collection, processing and storage of individual contact and demographic information (e.g., your age and state of residence) to be used for the event. Salon may also co-sponsor these events along with other companies, in which case the user's individual contact and demographic information is likely to be shared with other participating sponsors, who may use this information as they wish. A registrant's personal contact and demographic information will not be released to any third-party organization other than named sponsors without the user's consent, and Salon.com will request that such named sponsors uphold the privacy of the registrants' information by not distributing or sharing such information with any other businesses or organizations.

Surveys

Salon.com will from time to time conduct voluntary surveys of visitors to the site to obtain aggregate demographic information about them. Such information may be compiled and shared in the aggregate with advertisers and other third parties, but no personal details will be traceable or associated with specific individuals.

Our commitment to children's privacy

Protecting the privacy of the very young is important to us. For that reason, we do not collect or maintain information at our Web sites from those we actually know are under 13, and no part of our Web site is structured to attract anyone under 13.

Other disclosure of personal information

Salon.com will not otherwise use or disclose your personal information without your consent except (i) as described in this privacy policy, or (ii) as required by law, court order or as requested by other government or law enforcement authority. This policy does not protect information you post to any on-line bulletin board, chat room, newsgroup or other public forum within our Web sites.

Unsubscribe and data removal policies

If you would like to remove your name and e-mail address from our Table Talk registration database, you can send an e-mail requesting removal to tabletalk@salon.com.

Other sites

Salon.com contains many links to other sites on the Web. We cannot control and are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such other Web sites.

Who can I ask if I have any additional questions?

If you have any further questions or concerns about Salon's privacy policies and use of personal information, please send them to privacy@salon.com.