Thursday, November 16, 2006

Caution. This Privacy Policy contains humor

I am confident that I would not suggest that a client put this on its website, but I found it to be the funniest website privacy policy I've ever read. (I am also confident that the words "funny" and "privacy policy" don't hang out together all that often. Like ever.)

SoutheastTexasLive.com - Southeast Texas' ONLY online entertainment page

Southeast Texas Live Privacy Policy

I. Privacy Policy:

Subsection z: Caution. This Privacy Policy contains humor and is actually pretty funny. If you have been told you have a lousy sense of humor or you do not appreciate simple (my mom calls it potty) humor please CLICK HERE for our serious (and legal) privacy policy. By continuing to read past this point and not reading the serious privacy policy, you agree not complain if you are offended in any way and agree to the legality of our legal privacy policy (which is the exact same, just not funny. At all.) And just so you know, by accessing and using this website, you agree to abide by our privacy policy and furthermore hold SoutheastTexasLive.com, its parent companies, shareholders, investors, and business partners blameless for any disagreement you may have over content, opinions, photos, headlines, or anything else contained within this website or on the websites of our partners and advertisers. Cool?

A. Personal Information We will only collect the personally identifiable information you willingly provide to us, such as your name, address and email address. If you choose not to provide us with information we ask for when filling out forms, forums, contests, and anything else you may encounter we ask you not give us intentionally fake information. For instance, do not give us your friends or neighbor's phone numbers as a substitute for your own. This way, if we call you at 4 o'clock in the morning, we know we are bothering the right person. Your personal information is used by us to respond to your requests, to process your transactions, for administrative purposes, to process prizes, and to send you information about SoutheastTexasLive.com's programs and, occasionally, advertising/promotional material from some of its advertising and strategic partners. You are more than welcome to give us nicknames, pseudonym, alias, tag, street name, handle, stage name, Christian name, affectionate name, or title. Just make sure that if we call you at 4 o'clock in the morning that you will know it is you with whom we are asking to speak. We may also use your personal information for internal business purposes, such as analyzing and managing our businesses.

B. Financial Information We will only collect your financial information such as account or credit card numbers, from you when you make purchases on this site. We will use your financial information to process your transactions. We will never store this information online or use it to buy our girlfriend something pretty. By making a purchase on this site, you consent to our providing your financial information to our service providers and to such third parties as we determine is necessary to process your transactions. These third parties may include the credit card companies and banking institutions used to process the transaction. They may also include the U.S. Government if subpeoned because they need to study terrorist purchasing t-shirts, music, and newspapers. For this, we apologize on behalf of our government.

C. Demographic Information We may also collect demographic data, such as your date of birth, gender, and zip code. Demographic data may be used to tailor your experience at this site, such as showing you content including special events and advertising that you might be interested in, and displaying the content according to your zip code. We're not really this advanced yet, but it helps to have all our ducks in a row. We promise not to tell your friends if you happen to like visiting our children's area or wearing women's clothing. We mean you John.

On occasion, aggregate information that does not identify any particular user may be compiled and shared with strategic partners, merchants and advertisers. We had to look up aggregate on dictionary.com too. Don't feel bad.

D. Passive Collection of Non-Personal Information. This site often requires the use of encrypted or non-encrypted cookies, pieces of information that a web site places in a file on your computer associated with your browser that may be used to deliver content specific to your interests and for other purposes, such as security and other account administrative functions, and which may track personal identifying information. This information is processed passively by your browser as you surf through this site. You CANNOT dunk these cookies in milk. Nor can you reheat them in the oven. Attempting to do so may result in complete equipment failure and possibly void your manufacturer's warranty. IF you were lucky enough to get one without paying an arm and leg for it.

II. Disclosure of Information to Third Parties

A. Strategic Partners From time to time we may enter into a special relationship with another company that is not owned by or affiliated with SoutheastTexasLive.com to provide additional features on this site. We assure you this is merely a plutonic relationship and you will never see us kissing in public. These special relationships may include business partners, sponsors, and co-branded sites (referred to here as “co-branded sites”). Any information, including personal information, that you provide on one of these co-branded sites will be shared with these third party partners. Don't worry, they have been tested for virus' and have had their shots. By participating in activities or providing your information on these co-branded sites, you also consent to our providing your personal information to those third parties. Since these third parties will use your information in accordance with their own privacy practices, you should check their Web sites for information regarding their individual privacy policies. We doubt their policies will be as entertaining as ours, but you already knew that.

B. Service Providers We may use third party service providers to help us operate our business and this site or administer activities on our behalf, such as authorization of credit card transactions, order fulfillment, and sweepstakes administration. We may share your information with these third parties for those limited purposes. For instance, if you participate in a sweepstakes, game, or loyalty program resulting in a prize or award, we will share personally identifiable information about you to our games and merchandise fulfillment and management agencies. This may include your name, physical description, baby photos of you, embarassing morning "candids", pet names (like 'Snookie' or 'Cuddly-Bear'), or the ever popular "look how far I'm sticking my finger up my nose" shot.

C. Other Disclosures Unless specified in this Privacy Statement or another activity-specific privacy statement, personally identifiable information of any individual user is never shared with other companies outside SoutheastTexasLive.com, except as follows: (i) as permitted by law, (ii) in the event of a transfer of ownership, assets or a bankruptcy of SoutheastTexasLive.com, (iii) where we determine that disclosure of specific information is necessary to comply with the request of a law enforcement or regulatory agency, (iv) to protect the interests or safety of SoutheastTexasLive.com or other visitors to this site (v) . We will never use your information to ask you on a date, blackmail you, or locate your home to toilet paper it.

III. LINKS AND THIRD PARTIES' PRIVACY PRACTICES

This site may contain links to other sites which are not operated by SoutheastTexasLive.com. SOUTHEASTTEXASLIVE.COM IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OR THE CONTENT OF SUCH OTHER WEB SITES. SoutheastTexasLive.com recommends that you review the privacy policy of third party Web sites arrived at from links on this site. You agree to hold us blameless for any naughty words, naughty content, offensive imagery, or other questionable things you may come across in your web travels. This includes seeing your mother or teacher naked. Yes, we said naked. Naked. We mean nude, though.

IV. OPT-IN/CHOICE

This site provides you with the opportunity to opt-in to receive weekend updates and partner notices from SoutheastTexasLive.com. If you do not opt-in, SoutheastTexasLive.com will not send you its promotional offers or someone to your house to break your legs. We're just not that way. However, regardless of your opt-in preferences, sexual bias, religious choices, and whether you really do like long walks on the beach at sunset, SoutheastTexasLive.com may still at times need to send program emails for administrative reasons. Note: Your opt-out preference may not be retroactive in certain instances where you agreed to receive brand-specific communications. SoutheastTexasLive.com also gives you convenient methods for removing your information from our database so as not to receive future communications or to close your account:

• Email us @ TakeMyNameOffYourList@southeasttexaslive.com Please put "I still love you" as the headline to make our webmaster feel better. • You may send mail to the following postal address:

SoutheastTexasLive.com Website Customer Care 380 Main Street Beaumont, TX 77701

• Or just cry and whine about it to your friends and family and hope something gets done.

V. UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT

SoutheastTexasLive.com reserves the right to make changes in this Privacy Statement. In the event that SoutheastTexasLive.com makes a material change to this Privacy Statement, it will be posted here. We encourage you to check this page regularly since your continued use of this site following any changes to this Privacy Statement will be deemed to constitute your acceptance of such change. This includes your agreeance to fork over your first born upon demand and the transferance of any inheritance to us should we decide to put that in. And you may have to take us out for dinner one night. Or a movie. We haven't decided.

VI. REVIEWING/CORRECTING/UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION

This site gives you several options for reviewing, correcting, updating or otherwise modifying information you have previously provided:

• Email us @ ChangeMyInfo@southeasttexaslive.com Please put "please" as the headline to make our webmaster feel wanted. • You may send mail to the following postal address:

SoutheastTexasLive.com Website Customer Care 380 Main Street Beaumont, TX 77701 Please note, changes may not be effective immediately if at all. And it's not our fault. It's your mother's.

VII. CONTACTING SOUTHEASTTEXASLIVE.COM

If you have any questions about this Privacy Statement, the practices of the this site, you may contact:

SoutheastTexasLive.com Website Customer Care 380 Main Street Beaumont, TX 77701 Telephone # 409-880-0718 http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/contactUs.html

When writing, please include your name, the problem, pie (or cake), and a return address (so if it's a nasty letter we can toilet paper your house).

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