Privacy Policy

Our postal address is

PO Box 6158
Beverly Hills, CA 90212-6158
United States of America

You may also contact us by e-mail .

OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Your privacy on the Internet is important to us. As part of our operations, we gather certain types of information about our users. This Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") explains the types of information we gather, what we do with it and how you may correct or change information that we may collect.

Information Collected
We collect two types of information about users: personal information (such as name and e-mail address) and aggregate information (such as information about how many users log on to our sites on a daily basis).

Personal Information
Personal information is collected when users voluntarily register for membership services or sign up as authors. These services include receiving electronic newsletters, creating personal stock portfolios, using community and communication services, answering surveys, purchasing items, and entering contests and other promotional opportunities provided on our sites. We may collect personal information from you in other areas of our sites, but we will provide on-screen notification that we are doing so. We may receive personal usage and demographic information from our third-party partners, and we also collect e-mail addresses from users who send us support mail or request technical or other help. This information enables us to improve our sites to make your online visits more productive and enjoyable.

Aggregate Information
One method of collecting aggregate information about your activities online (such as the pages you access most frequently or the search terms you enter), and information volunteered by you (such as survey or registration information), is by tracking Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you surf the Web. The computers that deliver the Web pages to you automatically identify your computer by its IP address. When you request a page from one of our sites, our servers log your IP address.

Our sites record IP addresses for the purposes of system administration and to provide aggregate data to advertisers about the volume of use on our sites. We also create aggregate reports on user demographics and traffic patterns for advertisers and partners. This allows these parties to advertise more effectively, and allows you to receive advertisements that are most relevant to your personal interests. An advertiser will not know that you clicked its advertisement unless you voluntarily and explicitly permit us to provide such information.

Search Terms
As a measure of user interest, we track search terms that are entered into our sites' search features. Search data and user-provided information help to improve the relevancy of search results by learning user preferences and prioritizing search results accordingly. The intended result is a more efficient search feature for visitors to our sites.

Use of Cookies
Our sites use 'cookies' to record information. A cookie is a small data file that Web sites store on your hard drive when you visit them. Cookies allow us to measure activity on our sites and to improve your user experience by remembering your passwords and viewing preferences, and allowing you to visit various members-only parts of our sites without re-registering. Cookies allow us to determine which areas and features of our sites are most popular by measuring user activity. This information allows us to make improvements and updates to improve your California Chronicle experience. Our sites do not use cookies to retrieve any information from your computer.

Most browsers are set to accept cookies. If you prefer, you may set your browser to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. However, some parts of our sites, such as the members-only areas (i.e. shopping, contest and game areas) will not function properly if you choose not to accept cookies.

You may occasionally get cookies from our advertisers. We do not control these cookies, and they are not subject to our Privacy Policy.

Use of Information Collected
We use the personal information we collect to improve the content of our sites; to customize the content and/or layout of our sites for each individual user; to notify users about updates to our sites or promotional offers or opportunities that we believe will be of interest to users; and to investigate violations of our terms and conditions of use.

Sharing Data with Affiliates
We may share the personal and aggregate information we collect with our affiliates and other sites operated by or for Ultio LLC.

Sharing Data with Third Parties
Our organization shares aggregate information with third parties for advertising and promotional purposes. With user permission, we access personal information on behalf of pre-screened third parties for marketing or promotional purposes. We will always request permission to share such information on our sites. You may elect not to participate by clicking the appropriate on-screen button. We may also share personal information with consultants and affiliates for internal business purposes and may divulge personal information if such information is subpoenaed, or if we believe that membership has been used to commit unlawful acts, or acts that may endanger the health or safety of another user or of the general public. In some situations, we will share your personal information, on a confidential basis, with third parties who perform a particular service on our behalf, such as sending e-mails. These parties are not allowed to use personal information except for the limited purpose of providing the particular service on our behalf. In addition, we receive personal usage and demographic information from third parties and uses this information to improve our products and services.

Occasionally, we may post the name of a user (for example, a contest winner) on one of our sites. We will notify you of this possibility when you provide your information or, if possible, will notify you when the information is posted.

We use a third-party advertising company to serve ads when you visit our sites. This company may use information (not including your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number) about your visits to our and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements on this site and other sites about goods and services of interest to you. In addition, we share Web site usage information about visitors to our sites with such company for the purpose of managing and targeting advertisements on our sites. For this purpose, we and our third-party advertising company note some of the pages you visit on our sites through the use of pixel tags (also called clear gifs).

Membership Services and Service Providers
When you register to use membership services, we may share your registration information with content or service providers. For instance, the personal information that you provide to our e-mail, sports, discussion boards and gaming services is shared with the companies that provide those services in order to retrieve your password when necessary. You do not have to register your personal information with our sites, but if you choose not to, certain services, such as e-mail and sports, will not be available to you.

Electronic Newsletters
Some of our sites offer free, electronic newsletters as a service to our users. You will only receive a newsletter if you agree to receive it during registration to one of the areas of our sites or directly from our newsletter sign-up form. We will not divulge your membership in a newsletter mailing list to any third parties, including advertisers or partners, if you request that we not do so when you register.

If you have registered through our online registration system and have subscribed to one or more of our e-mail newsletters but do not want to continue receiving such e-mail newsletter(s), please deactivate your subscription.

Shopping
Our shopping services allow you to search merchant sites and make online purchases through our affiliated site, ReliableLinks.com. These purchases may require credit card and personal contact information. The ReliableLinks's shopping services store your information and send it to the merchant automatically when you make your purchase, using encryption technology to protect your information during this transfer.

We strive to make your shopping experience as worry-free as possible. We use secure server software (SSL), the industry standard for ensuring the security of your electronic commerce transactions. SSL encrypts all of your personal information transmitted over the Internet, including your credit card number and name and address. This technology is designed to protect your information by rendering it useless, should it ever be intercepted in transit. We will continue to provide the highest level of security by implementing improved technologies as they become available.

Note that each of our online merchants follows separate privacy policies. Ultio LLC is not responsible for policies other than our own. For more information about a merchant's policy, visit the merchant's home page and read carefully its privacy policy.

CHILDREN AND PRIVACY
We encourage parents and guardians to spend time with their children online, and to be familiar with the sites their children visit. At various places on our sites, we ask whether users are under the age of 18 or 13. We rely on our users to be truthful in responding to these questions.

Individuals Under 13
No information should be submitted to or posted on our sites by users under the age of 13. Individuals under the age of 13 are not allowed to become registered users of our sites.

Individuals 13 Through 17
We request that children under the age of 18 not submit or post information to our sites. If an individual between the ages of 13 and 17 does so, we may collect information (including personally identifying information). This information may be used for marketing and promotional purposes by Ultio LLC or one of our affiliated sites and may, with the user's permission, be shared with pre-screened third parties. If a user or his/her parent or guardian changes his/her mind with respect to such use, that user, parent or guardian may stop that use either by e-mail request or by modifying his/her registration information online.

Community and Public Areas
Information posted to message boards, chat areas, clubs and home pages is available to the general public. Please use caution when posting any such information. Users under the age of 18 should be particularly careful not to provide any personally identifying information while using chat rooms or message boards. Users of chat areas and message boards must follow acceptable standards of behavior when posting messages online. We reserve the right to, but are not obligated to, refuse or delete any content that in our sole discretion is considered inappropriate.

Links to Other Sites
Our sites contain links to sites other than our own. Those sites may not follow the same privacy policies as Ultio LLC. Such links may be to advertisers, content providers or partners who may use our logo and/or style as a result of a co-branding agreement. These sites may send their own cookies to you, and may collect information and use it in a way inconsistent with our privacy policy. We do not control the content that appears on these sites. Such sites may contain information that content providers independent of Ultio LLC have created, maintained, published, posted or otherwise made available.

The use of any information or materials that you may access at these external sites is purely voluntary. You should not rely on their contents without independent and thorough review of the accuracy, completeness, effectiveness, timeliness and correct sequencing. These external sites may also refer to specific commercial products, processes, or services by trade name, trademark, service mark, manufacturer or otherwise. Unless Ultio LLC has provided explicit authority, such references in no way indicate our endorsement, recommendation or preference.

This section should be read in conjunction with the full Terms of Service.

Additional Information
No transmission of data over the Internet is guaranteed to be completely secure. It may be possible for third parties not under the control of Ultio LLC to intercept or access transmissions or private communications unlawfully. While we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us. Any such transmission is done at your own risk.

Under no circumstances, including but not limited to negligence, shall Ultio LLC be liable for any special, incidental or consequential damages that result from the use of the information or materials on our sites, even if Ultio LLC or an authorized representative of Ultio LLC, has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This section also should be read in conjunction with the full Terms of Service.

Ultio LLC reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy at any time. Any such changes will be posted online. Questions should be directed to us by email .

USE OF THIS SITE SIGNIFIES YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND AGREEMENT TO COMPLY WITH THE ENTIRE PRIVACY POLICY.