Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY IN RELATION TO ALL WEB SITE SERVICES OFFERED BY MIDLAND NEWSPAPERS LIMITED ON THIS WEB SITE

We are committed to:

• protecting the personal information you give us
• telling you how we use the information we gather about you
• getting your consent to our disclosure of your personal information

Our privacy policy is set out in detail below. Any changes to this policy will be posted here. Please also refer to the Terms and Conditions of this web site. When we refer to "we", "our" or "us" in this policy we mean the activities of Midland Newspapers Limited.

WHY WE COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

• We want to offer you a service, which you want to use. We may use information about you to help us customise our site to improve its usefulness to you. It can also help us to choose services we think will interest you.
• In addition to the services we provide on this web site we may want to offer you goods and services provided by us and others (with your consent), which are of interest to you.
• We compile anonymous records of user trends which we may make use of ourselves, or pass to our associated companies or to unconnected parties.

WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT FROM YOU?

• We may collect information from you when you fill in an online registration or entry form for any of our web site services, (e.g., information services or competitions etc). We may also collect information you give us over the telephone or in written or other communications. The type of information we will collect includes, for example, your name, mailing address, email address and telephone numbers.
• We collect information about your use of our web site services through "cookies". Cookies are blocks of text placed in files on your computer's hard drive when you visit a website which contain information to identify you. A cookie does not contain any personal information you have provided us with, except your user name or email address, unless the cookie is attached to personal information collected another way, such as by means of your online registration form. If you do not wish this to happen, you can either email us here to obtain opt-out details or you can use the cookie preference settings in your browser to help manage this process. More information on this can be found in the "Help" section of the browser that you are using.
• We gather non personal data regarding the visitors to this site using cookies code (java applet) which is embedded in the site. Both the cookies and the embedded code (java applet) provide non-personal statistical information about visits to pages on the site, the duration of individual's page view, paths taken by visitors through the site, data on visitors' screen settings and other general information. We use this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the service to its users.

YOUR CONSENT

* By giving us your details, you confirm that you consent to our sending you direct marketing or information, from us or our associated companies, about products or services that we believe may be of interest to you. * We will not supply your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing activities without their consent. * If you have already consented to us, (our associated companies or third parties), sending you direct marketing or information, but you subsequently decide you no longer wish to receive direct marketing or information from us or our associated companies, or no longer wish us to pass your information to third parties, please notify us by email here HOW WE ENSURE PRIVACY IS MAINTAINED

• We endeavour to ensure that your data is stored securely and to prevent unauthorised access. We have security measures in place to protect your information which we monitor regularly. Unfortunately, despite our measures, because of the nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that your information will remain at all times 100% secure. The continuing efforts of hackers to defeat even the newest of security systems means that we can never make this promise.
• Our policy is to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003, and all other legislation which governs the maintenance of privacy in your information.
• Our web sites provide a number of links to web sites not operated by us or by companies associated with us. We take no responsibility for the use of any information about you which is collected as a result of your use of these web sites and this privacy policy does not extend to any web site operated by anybody other than us.

DISCLOSING YOUR INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES

• The personal information you give us is only disclosed to other businesses if we have your permission. In particular, even where we have your consent we will only disclose your financial, credit card or bank details to our agents and/or third party suppliers of products or services on a need to know basis including, for example, in relation to the fulfilment of any e-commerce transactions.
• We may disclose details about use of our web sites to other businesses e.g. to demonstrate patterns of use to advertisers and other business partners. The information we pass on will not include any personal information by which you may be identified.
• We may forward your personal details to the Police or another regulatory body if we are asked to do so or wish to do so in order to comply with the law or in relation to any suspected misuse by you of our web site or any of our web site services.
• We endeavour to prevent unauthorised disclosures of your personal information by other people, but we are not responsible for any unauthorised disclosures or other breaches of security or for the actions of others if the information was passed to them with your authority or with the authority of anybody other than us or our associated companies.

REALMEDIA AD SERVING TECHNOLOGY

• We use ad serving technology to display the ads on our web pages. We use the cookie feature of this technology to anonymously manage and report on the effectiveness of the ads that you see. No personal data such as your name, address or email address are used during this process.
• If you do not wish this to happen, you can either Click Here to obtain opt-out details or you can use the cookie preference settings in your browser to manage this process.
• More information on this can be found in the "Help" section of the browser that you are using.

OMNITURE ANALYTICS

• Midlands Newspapers Limited engages Omniture, a third-party Web traffic analysis company, to log and aggregate information coming through our Web site on our behalf. Midlands Newspapers Limited controls how that data may and may not be used. When you visit our Web site, Omniture may use technical tracking methods such as cookies that will be listed under the domain 2o7.net, and web beacons, on our behalf, and may receive anonymous information about your browsing on our Web site. Omniture does not use these technical tracking methods to relate Web site visitors to any personally identifiable information. Information collected by Omniture on behalf of Midlands Newspapers Limited is unique to individual visitors but is not personally identifiable to Omniture. Such information provided by Omniture to Midlands Newspapers Limited may be reassociated by Midlands Newspapers Limited with previously collected information for internal purposes only, including but not limited to providing visitors with relevant content. We may also use these technical tracking methods in HTML e-mails to determine whether the recipients have opened such e-mails, clicked on links contained in those e-mails, and continued to browse our Web site. No personally identifiable information, such as your name, street address, e-mail address, etc. is shared with Omniture.
• Further information regarding Omniture's privacy statement can be found by clicking here.