Metro Silicon Valley and Metro Newspapers are published by Weeklys, a California local media group. This policy governs the manner in which we collect, use, store and share information about our readers, subscribers, advertisers, event attendees, website visitors and other consumers.

First Things First

Weeklys does not ever sell or rent your personal information.

During the course of our business we collect personal information for a variety of reasons — usually related to the needs of the customers who chose to provide us with the data. But we never sell or rent that information to third parties for any purpose.

Because we rely on various third-party technical platforms for tasks such as processing payments, hosting websites and sending email, some of the data that we collect is shared with one or more solutions providers. We only share data with other parties 1) to accomplish the tasks for which the consumer provided the data, 2) with the permission of the consumer who provided the data, 3) if we are under a court order to do so or 4) to prevent harm to the source of the data or a third party.

We are committed to keeping all our customers’ information confidential and secure. All financial information is encrypted, and our company databases are accessible only to Weeklys representatives with a professional need to access the data. Any employee or consultant who violates our privacy and security policies is subject to disciplinary action, including possible termination or prosecution. When we share information with third parties for processing credit cards or other payments, we require them to comply with appropriate security standards.

All our products and services are subject to this policy. Please read it carefully so that you understand fully all of our privacy policies and practices.

Table of Contents

• The Sources of Personal Information We Collect
• The Categories of Personal Information We Collect
• The Business or Commercial Purpose For Collecting Your Information
• How and With Whom We Share Personal Information
• How We Protect Information
• Customer Responsibilities
• Links to Other Sites
• Children
• Your California Privacy Rights
• How to Obtain Your Personal Information From Weeklys
• Deleting Your Personal Information
• Non-Discrimination Disclosure
• Governing Law
• Use of Our Services by Users Outside the United States
• You Agree to Our Rules
• Policy Changes

The Sources of Personal Information We Collect

All of our publications feature journalism that includes personal information about the people we have interviewed or written about. This information is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and is not subject to regulation under the California Consumer Privacy Act or the terms of this privacy policy.

Outside of our journalistic efforts, we collect information in two primary ways. 1) The vast majority of such information is provided voluntarily by our readers, subscribers, advertisers or other people who interact in some way with our company, publications, websites, newsletters, social media channels, events or other endeavors. 2) People who visit our websites or interact with one of our many online channels also passively provide information during their visits. The information about you that we collect and store depends entirely on the nature of your interaction with our products and services;

Readers who have purchased subscriptions, back issues or gift certificates provide contact and fulfillment information, plus payment information related to the transaction they were performing;

Subscribers to our email newsletters voluntarily provided us with email addresses, usually a name and other contact information, and their newsletter subscription preferences;

Consumers who have advertised with our company have provided us with contact information, business details and often payment information;

Readers who have commented on one or more stories on our websites — or readers who have complained about comments made by other people — provided a name or alias and/or email address, other contact and location information and comments or opinions regarding one or more stories;

Some readers have tagged stories, locations, events or other members as “favorites;”

Some readers have created accounts on some of our websites, to create a public profile that aggregates their comments and other actions, including favorites they may have selected;

Some readers have associated their website accounts with a social media account, so they can easily log on to our system and share stories with friends across other online channels;

Readers who forward an article or other information to a friend using our services will have provided their friend’s name and email address, although we do not keep this information;

Some readers have submitted events to our comprehensive online event listings, and as part of that process provided contact info and event-related information, including names, locations, and photographs;

Some readers have uploaded information designed to encourage people to buy their products;

Some readers have requested information from us via various online forms, seeking information about advertising, subscribing, solving a technical issue, submitting a letter to the editor or accomplishing some other goal;

People who have purchased tickets to one of our events have typically provided their names and contact information, and perhaps the names and contact info of friends or colleagues who attended the event with them;

Some members have responded to surveys or polls, providing contact info and personal preferences about goods or services, or demographic information about their buying habits. None of this information is ever associated with other records from the consumer, and none of this information is ever released in any form except as anonymous data with all names and personal identifiers removed;

Readers who ask us to delete some of the information that they have provided us will have to submit enough information to us so that we can verifiably identify them and fulfill their request.

The Categories of Personal Information We Collect

Consumers provide us with personal information in two ways.

Most such information is provided voluntarily at the time the consumer initiates their interaction with our products or services. However, like most companies with websites, we and our service providers also automatically collect certain technical information from people who visit our digital properties via computer, tablet or phone.

Information You Choose to Provide to Us:

Consumers typically provide a few of the following data types to Weeklys and its service providers when they interact with our products and services:

Name, alias, username, account name, account number, unique identifier, photo, avatar, password, date of birth, title that may suggest gender;

Contact information including email address, address, city, country, phone numbers, social media IDs;

Business information including work contact info, job title, websites, business name, business description, product inventory;

Information about events they are promoting, including names, locations, prices, descriptions, photographs, audio or video files;

Information about events they are attending, including names of friends who attend the event with them;

Questions about advertising, editorial, subscription or technical issues they asked an employee of Weeklys;

Purchase records including classified or display advertising, event attendance, print or email subscriptions, back issues and gift certificates, including company names, credit card numbers and expiration dates and other purchasing information;

Voluntary website interactions with stories, locations, events or other members tagged as favorites;

Editorial preferences among our newsletters or print publications.

Information You Leave Behind as You Use the Internet:

All computers and servers on the Internet use IP addresses to recognize and communicate with each other.

When you visit our website, we may place a “cookie,” a small text file, on your computer to allow our website to function properly. We also may use web beacons, pixels and other technologies to collect information when you use our services. All of these technologies help us remember you when you visit our services, personalize your experience, learn how you and others use our services, learn about the devices you use to do so and remember your preferences. Based on your interaction with our products, we may learn:

The amount of time spent on particular pages;

Your browser language and type;

Computer operating system;

Content and ads viewed;

Date and time you visited;

Device identifier, manufacturer and type;

Entry and exit pages and URLs;

Geolocation information;

Interaction with advertisements;

Internet Protocol address;

Name and location of your internet service provider;

Pages or links clicked;

Time spent and pages viewed on our sites,

Unique device and advertising identifiers;

Whether you open our emails and click the ads;

Which articles you forwarded; and similar information.

In most cases this information is collected without being connected to your name, username or alias. We do not and cannot use any of these technologies to retrieve personal information from your computer.

The Business or Commercial Purpose For Collecting Your Information

We primarily collect personal information to provide consumers with the goods and services they have purchased or inquired about;

We use contact info and mailing addresses to mail magazines or other products and to provide customer service;

We use the financial information we have collected to complete the transactions that consumers have authorized;

We use email addresses to send consumers one or more of the regular email newsletters they have asked us to send them;

We occasionally use email addresses to send dedicated messages on behalf of advertisers, but we never share consumers’ email addresses with the advertisers whose messages we deliver;

We use email addresses and IP addresses of survey voters to prevent people from voting more than once in our surveys or polls;

We use contest submissions to select winners of our contests and promotions;

We use survey answers to name winners in our Best Of contests and other polls and surveys, and to assess what is popular among consumers;

We use the names and contact info of consumers’ friends and acquaintances to enable our readers to share content and information from our publications via social media, email, and other means;

We use the contact info we collect online to review and approve user-generated content such as comments on stories;

We use the information gathered on our website contact forms to direct user feedback to the correct party and respond to such inquiries;

We use cookies to remember you when you visit our websites, personalize your experience, learn how you use our services, and what devices you use to do so, and help our websites load more quickly on those devices;

We use a third-party advertising server to display ads on our site, and its ads also may collect cookies from consumers;

We collect IP addresses to administer and analyze our site and report aggregate, non-personal information such as how many visitors we have;

We may use third-party analytics providers and technologies to assist in collecting and analyzing anonymous information about the users of our products;

We anonymously aggregate the demographic information that consumers provide in response to our survey questions to help our customers and potential customers better understand our users;

Our digital advertising-service providers use the online data collected by our websites to personalize the advertising that consumers receive;

Because our newsgathering efforts are supported by advertising revenue, we share anonymous, aggregated information with advertisers and potential customers so they can better understand the demographics and consumer habits of our audiences;

We may use information about the anonymized locations of our website visitors to provide more relevant location-based information, advertising or features;

The account information that users of our digital services provide to us are used to allow users to access or select from among the range of products and services that we offer;

We track how visitors use our websites, newsletters and social media accounts so that we can see what they like and don’t like, and to aggregate anonymous information about usage patterns and share that anonymous data with our advertisers;

We occasionally use this information to improve, maintain and troubleshoot our services.

We occasionally use this information to detect, prevent or respond to potential fraud, copyright infringement, violations of our Terms of Use, violations of law or other misuse of our services;

We conceivably could use any of this information to respond to legal demands such as subpoenas or warrants, but we would never disclose any information collected from journalistic sources to whom we have pledged confidentiality;

We will use the information that we collect from people seeking to learn what we have collected about them to answer their questions.

How and With Whom We Share Personal Information

Weeklys does not typically “share” consumers’ personal information with outside parties in the conventional sense of the word. Once you provide us with personal information, we will use it to perform the tasks described above, but will not subsequently transit it to outside parties except, 1) to provide you with the services, products or information you have requested, or 2) in those rare other instances that we disclose herein.

Rather, the personal information that Weeklys “shares” with various technology platforms was actually collected by Weeklys with their assistance. This includes our websites, payment services, email and social media platforms, contest or survey platforms, ticketing services, telephone systems and billing and sales software. When consumers interact with Weeklys through one of these platforms, they are actually providing their information simultaneously to both companies, via one or more technology platforms developed and maintained by the outside company. To the best of our knowledge, none of these companies ever uses any of this personal information in any way except to assist Weeklys in fulfilling the tasks for which the consumer first provided the data. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, and are contractually obligated to maintain the confidentiality and security of the data. They are restricted from using or altering this data in any way other than to provide the requested services.

The primary exception to this scenario involves the advertising on several of our websites. Like virtually every U.S. website, Weeklys uses an advertising server and other online ad services owned by a third party. Such advertising may contain cookies that we do not control or have access to. Although we are not privy to the exact way in which such information is used, such usage data is typically aggregated with data from other websites the consumer has visited for the general purpose of furnishing the consumer with advertising more specifically aligned with their interests and desires.

When we share information with third parties for processing credit card or other payments, we require those third parties to comply with applicable Payment Card Industry standards. All electronic payment transactions are processed through our secure server in order to make every reasonable effort to insure that your personal information is protected.

Weeklys does share the names and addresses of our print subscribers with the companies that send people our publications.

We may share anonymous Aggregated Information with customers and prospective customers so that they can better understand our audience.

In the future, we might share the names and email addresses of consumers who enter our contests with the sponsors of those contests, but only if the consumer agreed to that ahead of time. To the extent that such contests are governed by policies that conflict with the terms of this privacy policy, the terms of the contest shall govern;

As indicated above, Weeklys also would share information 1) with your consent; 2) if necessary to comply with a court order, protect our legal rights or, at our discretion, cooperate with a law enforcement investigation or report to law enforcement agencies activities that we believe to be unlawful; 3) to detect, prevent or respond to potential fraud, copyright infringement, violations of law or other misuse of our services; or 4) if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is necessary to prevent harm to coming to us, our employees, consumers, partners or members of the public.

Weeklys also would also share data in the event of a total or partial sale of the company or one or more of its assets. In the event that such as sale or transfer should occur, Weeklys would only sell to a company that agreed to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy.

How We Protect Information

We have implemented a variety of administrative, technical and physical security measures to protect against unauthorized access to your information. These safeguards vary based on the sensitivity of the information that we collect, process and store. Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard against unauthorized disclosures of information, we cannot guarantee that information that we collect will never be disclosed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

Customer Responsibilities

You are responsible for the security of your login and passwords. Make sure you keep them safe and do not share them with others. Always remember to logout after your session ends to ensure that other people cannot access your account information.

Please remember that any information you share in public areas such as message boards becomes public, and therefore this privacy policy does not apply to any information you choose to make public. Please be careful about what you disclose and do not post any personal information that you expect to keep private. When you voluntarily disclose personal information publicly via our platforms, that information may be collected and used by others and you may receive unsolicited communications from other people. When you share information via features offered on our online platforms by other companies, sometimes known as “third-party plugins,” the privacy settings of the other companies for those features govern how the information will be shared.

From time to time advertisers on our sites may post their own contests, surveys or requests for registration. If you respond in any way to an advertiser tile, banner, contest, giveaway, survey or link on any of our web or mobile sites, any information that you subsequently provide to that advertiser will not be governed by the terms of this or other Weeklys policies.

Links to Other Sites

Our websites provide links and pointers to websites maintained by other organizations. Weeklys provides these links as a convenience to users, but it does not operate, control or endorse such sites. Weeklys also disclaims any responsibility for the information on those sites and any products or services offered there, and cannot vouch for their privacy policies. Weeklys does not make any warranties or representations that any linked sites will function without error or interruption, that defects will be corrected or that the sites and their servers are free of viruses and other problems that can harm your computer. Any transactions that take place on other websites that have links from our site are not necessarily handled in this fashion. Weeklys disclaims any responsibility for transactions conducted on those sites and cannot vouch for the security of the information submitted in those transactions.

Children

Weeklys does not orient this site toward children under the age of 13 or target them as an audience, nor does it screen them from using the site. Some of the material on this site is for mature audiences, and parents and guardians should take responsibility for monitoring their children’s use. Children under the age of 13 should not use this site. Weeklys does not collect or distribute information indicating whether a user is a child.

Your California Privacy Rights

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, Sections 1798.110 and 1798.115, Weeklys is obligated to disclose some of the information in this Privacy Policy. If you are a California resident, you have the right to request access to your personal information. We are obligated to provide you with the following information:

The categories of sources from which we collect personal information;

The business or commercial purpose for collecting that information;

The categories of third parties with whom we share personal information for a business purpose;

The categories of personal information that we have collected about you;

The specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you;

The categories of your personal information disclosed for a business purpose in the last 12 months;

The categories of third parties to whom your personal information was sold, by category or categories of personal information for each third party to whom the information was sold. (Weeklys does not sell personal information);

The categories of your personal information that we have sold within the past 12 months. (Weeklys does not sell personal information.)

How to Obtain Your Personal Information From Weeklys

Weeklys stores a variety of consumer information in a variety of separate, disconnected databases. If you subscribe to an email newsletter we have your email address in one location, but we may not have your name or street address. If you have commented on our website, a separate database may know you only by your online alias or username. If you have visited our website, we may have saved your IP Address in a third database, but not know your name or your email address.

Thus, we are limited in our ability to conduct a thorough search for your personal information by the amount of information that you provide us. For instance, if you ask us to search for John Doe, we will provide you with all the information associated with that name, but that may not include personal information that we only know as belonging to 

JD****@em***.com











. In short, the rigorousness of our search will be based entirely upon the number of keywords that you ask us to search for.

The following website is our preferred method for receiving such requests. We have provided a form that provides you with detailed prompts about the types of keywords that you can ask us to search for. Click here to submit your request.

You also may call the following toll-free number to request your information: 866-754-5623. A staff representative will walk you through a survey designed to identify what keywords we should use for our search.

Deleting Your Personal Information

Recipients of our email newsletters may opt out of receiving future mailings at any time by clicking on the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every email.

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, users may request the deletion of their personal information. As with requests to inspect your personal information, our ability to delete your records is based entirely upon the quality of the keywords that you provide us to search for. If you ask us to search for just your name, we will delete all the information associated with your name, but that may not include personal information that we only associate with your email address.

Businesses are permitted to retain certain types of consumers’ personal data. Section 1798.105(d) of the California Consumer Privacy Act reads as follows:

“A business or a service provider shall not be required to comply with a consumer’s request to delete the consumer’s personal information if it is necessary for the business or service provider to maintain the consumer’s personal information in order to:

“(1) Complete the transaction for which the personal information was collected, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, provide a good or service requested by the consumer or reasonably anticipated within the context of a business’ ongoing business relationship with the consumer, or otherwise perform a contract between the business and the consumer.

“(2) Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity.

“(3) Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.

“(4) Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise that consumer’s right of free speech or exercise another right provided for by law.

“(5) Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act pursuant to Chapter 3.6 (commencing with Section 1546) of Title 12 of Part 2 of the Penal Code.

“(6) Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the business’ deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, if the consumer has provided informed consent.

“(7) To enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with the expectations of the consumer based on the consumer’s relationship with the business.

“(8) Comply with a legal obligation.

“(9) Otherwise use the consumer’s personal information, internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which the consumer provided the information.”

You already control several types of personal data that may be related to your use of our products or services.

When you visit our website, we may place a “cookie” on your computer to allow our website to function properly. If you do not wish to allow cookies to be placed on your computer or device, or wish to delete the cookies you have already downloaded, you can configure your web browser to control the use of cookies. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, but you may not be able to sign in, customize or use some of the interactive features of our website, and the advertisements you see may not be as relevant to you. We recommend that you leave them turned on.

We neither have access to, nor does this policy govern, the use of cookies or other tracking technologies that may be placed on your computer, phone or other device by non-affiliated, third-party ad technology, ad servers, ad networks or any other non-affiliated third parties. We have no control over whether and how our advertisers use cookies that originate from their website. You also can control those cookies from your browser.

If you access our online properties 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.

You can opt out of receiving interest-based advertising from some companies by visiting the following sites:

AboutAds.info/choices

NetworkAdvertising.org/choices

Preferences-Mgr.Truste.com

RubiconProject.com/Privacy/Consumer-Online-Profile-And-Opt-Out

Tools.Google.com/dlpage/GAOptOut

If you wish to opt out of receiving interest-based advertising on your mobile device, please see the advertising preferences information at Support.Google.com for Android devices, or Support.Apple.com for iOS devices, or Account.Microsoft.com/Privacy/Ad-Settings/Signedout for Windows devices.

If you are accessing our services from Europe, please see YourOnlineChoices.com.

If you are accessing our services from Canada, please see YourAdChoices.ca.

We do not respond to browser-initiated Do Not Track signals, as the industry is currently still working on these standards.

Non-Discrimination Disclosure

Section 1798.125 of the California Consumer Privacy Act states that businesses may not discriminate against consumers for exercising their rights under the law by A) denying them goods or services, B) charging them different prices or rates, C) providing them a different level or quality of goods or services and D) suggesting that the consumer will receive a different price or rate or level of quality. Confusingly, the act also states that businesses may charge a consumer a different price or rate or provide a different level or quality of goods or services to the consumer, if that difference is reasonably related to the value provided to the consumer by the consumer’s data. In fact, if you delete our cookies or delete your account on our website, your site experience will be degraded and the advertising that you are served will be less targeted to your specific interests.

Governing Law

Our business is located in the United States. The laws of the United States of America govern our site. U.S. law shall govern in any and all disputes, including privacy or defamation issues or otherwise. This Privacy Policy does not create rights enforceable by third parties.

Use of Our Services by Users Outside the United States

Our websites are hosted in the United States and governed by United States law. If you are visiting our websites from outside the United States, be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored and processed in the United States. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive or protective of certain rights as those in your country. Under United States law, your information may be subject to access requests from governments in the United States. By using our services, you consent to your information being handled as described in this policy.

You Agree to Our Rules

By visiting this site you agree that your visit, and any dispute over our online privacy practices, is governed by this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, posted rules governing contests or other interactions and any and all applicable laws set forth by the United States Government. The materials contained within our website may not be reposted, used, disseminated, copied, reprinted or otherwise used in any way, shape, form or context, wholly or partially, without our publisher’s expressed written permission.

Policy Changes

This Privacy Policy was updated on June 12, 2020. We will change it from time to time as technology and the nature of the web keep evolving. We will endeavor to post any changes to this policy as soon as they go into effect. By visiting the site, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms of this policy, please do not use the site and exit immediately. We reserve the right to modify or amend the terms of this policy from time to time without notice. Your continued use of the site following the posting of changes to these terms will mean that you accept those changes.