Privacy Policy

Information Collection

The Magic City Morning Star is the sole owner of information collected on the Magic City Morning Star web site. The Magic City Morning Star collects information from our users at the following points on our web site:

General Registration

Registration is not required for access to the Magic City Morning Star news or column sections.

Forum Registration

  • The Katahdin Commons is operated separate from the Magic City Morning Star, on its own server and in its own domain. However:
    • The forum system uses cookies to store information on your local computer. These cookies do not contain any of the information you  have entered above. The e-mail address is used only for confirming your registration details and password (and for sending new passwords should you forget your current one). Passwords are never sold or otherwise distributed to third parties, nor will they be used to send unsolicited advertising.
    • The only information that is required for registration on our forum is the following:
      • Username (does not have to be your real name.
      • E-mail address, which must be valid.
        • You control whether or not it is displayed.
        • E-mail addresses are never sold or distributed to third-parties, nor will they be used to send unsoliciated advertising.
      • Password.
      • The following information is optional, and failure to provide this information will not affect your registration with our forum:
        • Sex
        • Birthdate
        • ICQ Number
        • AIM Address
        • MSN Messenger
        • Yahoo Messenger
        • Website URL
        • Location
        • Occupation
        • Interests
      • Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information, such as on our forum, that information can be collected and used by others. In short, by posting personal information online that is publicly accessible, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.
      • You do not have to display your e-mail address or other personal information in order to participate in our forum.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer, which is tied to information about the user. Usage of a cookie is in no way linked to any personally identifiable information while on our site. Our news site uses session ID cookies. With a session ID cookie, once the user closes the browser, the cookie simply terminates. The Katahdin Commons forum site uses both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user's hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following Internet browser help file directions.

By setting a cookie on the forum site, users do not have to log in a password more than once, thereby saving time and making the use of our forum easier for our users. If users reject the cookie, they will still be able to read and to participate in forum discussions.

The Katahdin Commons site does not use cookies for any other reasons. The Magic City Morning Star site does not use cookies at all.

Third Party Advertising

The ads appearing on the Magic City Morning Star web site are delivered to users by third party advertisers. Information about visits to this site, such as the number of times an advertisement is displayed (but not user name, address, or other personal information), is used to serve ads to users on our site.

When a user clicks on an advertisement, the user is moved to a third-party advertising site, over which we have no control. The Magic City Morning Star will not knowingly link to advertisers who use unethical sales tactics.

This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by the Magic City Morning Star only, as well as our companion forum, the Katahdin Commons; and does not cover the use of cookies by any of our advertisers.

Log Files

Like most standard web site servers, we use log files. This includes Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks, for the purpose of analyzing trends, administering the site, and gathering broad demographic information for aggregate use.

IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information. We use two tracking utilities, called AwStats and Urchin, which use log files to analyze user movement while on our site only. When a user leaves our site, our tracking ends.

Communications

The Magic City Morning Star does not send unsoliciated e-mail (spam) to our users.

Unless otherwise specified, we reserve the right but not the obligation to publish letters to the editor, opinion columns, or other information that is sent to us via e-mail, regular mail, or otherwise. We will honor requests to the contrary, and will sometimes publish letters to the editor or opinion columns anonymously, on request of the submitter.

Links

The Magic City Morning Star contains links to other web sites. Please be aware that we, the Magic City Morning Star, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other web sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site, and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by the Magic City Morning Star.

Notification of Changes

If we should decide to change our privacy policy, we will post these changes to this privacy statement and other places we deem appropriate so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

Contact Information

If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

Magic City Morning Star
146 Katahdin Avenue
Millinocket, ME 04462
910-587-7988
info@magic-city-news.com