Privacy Policy Updated August 16, 2010

Welcome to goanacortes.com -- your source for Anacortes news, offering fresh and frequent stories, blog commentary, updates and calendar listings focused solely on Fidalgo Island and the greater Anacortes community.

Goanacortes.com is produced by the Anacortes Amercian and Skagit Publishing. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us. At Skagit Publishing, we want to make your experience online satisfying and safe.

Because we gather certain types of information about our visitors, we feel you should fully understand our policy and the terms and conditions surrounding the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses what information we gather and how we use it.

Skagit Publishing gathers three types of information about visitors:

1. Information that visitors provide through optional, voluntary submissions. These are voluntary submissions include: submissions to the events calendar, participation in article commenting or forums, use of “email story,” subscribing to an electronic newsletter and from participation in polls and surveys.

2. Information Skagit Publishing gathers through aggregated tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to readers' needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better understand the demographics of our audience. Because Skagit Publishing derives its revenue mainly from sponsorships and advertising, providing such aggregated demographic data is essential to keeping our service free to visitors. Under no circumstances does Skagit Publishing divulge any information about an individual visitor to a third party.

3. Visitors can subscribe to the Skagit Valley Herald or Anacortes American via an online subscription form. To subscribe visitors must submit personal and bank or credit card information in order for us to send the newspaper to you as well as collect the subscription fee. Skagit Publishing operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems.

Consistent with the Federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without requesting parental consent.

Skagit Publishing tracks visitor traffic patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this information with data about individual visitors. Skagit Publishing does break down overall usage statistics according to a visitor's domain name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the browser string (information contained in every visitor's browser).

Skagit Publishing sometimes tracks and catalogs the search terms that visitors enter in our Search function, but this tracking is never associated with individual visitors. We use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites visitors like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual visitors read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you.

We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Skagit Publishing uses cookies to track visitor traffic patterns (as described above). Our advertising system delivers a one-time cookie to better track ad impressions and click rates.

You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate actively in article commenting, forums, polling and surveys or to submit an event the events calendar.

Skagit Publishing uses any information voluntarily given by our visitors to enhance their experience in our network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the interests of our visitors.

As stated above, we use information that visitors voluntarily provide in order to send out electronic newsletters and to enable visitors to participate in polls, surveys, article commenting, and the events calendar. We send out newsletters to subscribers on a regular schedule (depending on the newsletter), and occasionally send out special editions when we think subscribers might be particularly interested in something we are doing. Skagit Publishing never shares newsletter mailing lists with any third parties, including advertisers, sponsors or partners.

When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our sites visitors like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual visitors read, but rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many measures of what interests our visitors. But we don't track which terms a particular visitor enters.

Skagit Publishing creates aggregate reports on visitor demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers, sponsors and partners. This allows our advertisers to advertise more effectively, and allows our visitors to receive advertisements that are pertinent to their needs. Because we don't track the usage patterns of individual visitors, an advertiser or sponsor will never know that a specific visitor clicked their ad. We will not disclose any information about any individual visitor except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our visitors or the public.

This Web site uses services provided by AP News Registry. AP News Registry collects content usage information and may use cookies in conjunction with this activity.Your continued readership of the Site means you accept the privacy policy of the AP News Registry. Please refer to the AP News Registry privacy policy at http://www.apnewsregistry.com/privacycenter/servicepolicy.aspx for further information.

Skagit Publishing uses the above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs and help our advertisers better understand our audience's demographics. This is essential to keeping our service free. We will not share information about individual visitors with any third party, except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our visitors or the public.

Skagit Publishing operates secure data networks protected by industry standard firewall and password protection systems. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers.

We give visitors options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:

- Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.

- Electronic newsletter subscribers may remove themselves from a mailing list by following the link provided in every newsletter that points visitors to the subscription management page.

- Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable information from our visitors.

By using this site, you consent to the collection and use of this information by Skagit Publishing. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it.