Privacy Policy
Welcome to TEXAS MONTHLY (www.texasmonthly.com), which is owned by Texas Monthly, LLC. We recognize that many of you may be concerned about the information that you provide to us or that may be collected, and how we treat that information. In order to address those concerns we have developed this Privacy Statement.
This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) describes TEXAS MONTHLY’s privacy practices when you interact with TEXAS MONTHLY or its related brands (including, without limitation, TEXAS COUNTRY REPORTER) through its websites, mobile app, email communications and other platforms (our “Sites”), including what types of information we gather and track, how we use the information, and with whom we share the information. By using the Sites, you agree to be bound by the terms of this Privacy Policy and by the Terms of Use. We may change the Privacy Policy at any time by posting revisions, and your continued use of the Sites indicates your agreement to the revised terms. Accordingly, we urge you to frequently review this Privacy Policy, and, if you do not agree to the terms of this or any revised policy, please exit the Sites immediately.
Notice to California Customers – Your Privacy Rights
If you are a California consumer, for more information about your privacy rights, including your right to opt out of “sales” of Personally Identifiable Information, please see the section of this Privacy Policy called “California Consumer Privacy Statement” which you can access by clicking here.
PRIVACY OF CHILDREN
Children (persons under the age of 18) are not eligible to use the Sites without the supervision of their parents. If you are under the age of 18 please do not submit any personal information to us or use any function of the Sites, including the Forums, that require the disclosure of personal information. If you are under the age of 13 please only use the Sites under the supervision of your parents or guardian. If you are under 13, please do not provide us with any information about yourself. If we discover that we have collected any Personally Identifiable Information regarding a child 12 or under we will delete the information as soon as possible.
WHAT INFORMATION IS COLLECTED / ACQUIRED
TEXAS MONTHLY may collect two types of information about you: Personally Identifiable Information and Aggregate Information that is anonymous (such as your IP address – a number used to identify your computer when you are on the Internet – or the type of browser you are using).
Personally Identifiable Information: “Personally Identifiable Information” refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are and can be used to identify, contact or locate you (such as your name, address, telephone number and e-mail address). You can visit our Sites without telling us who you are and without revealing any information about yourself. You may be required to register or otherwise voluntarily provide Personally Identifiable Information to have access to some features of the Sites. You always may choose not to provide the Personally Identifiable Information, but this may lead to decreased functionality of the Sites for you and our inability to provide you with certain products or services. We also may request you to voluntarily provide Personally Identifiable Information that is not required to access features to the Sites. This information enables TEXAS MONTHLY to make general improvements to the Sites and better serve your specific interests. If you sign up for an account with us or place an order from the Sites, then we may use your Personally Identifiable Information to maintain your account and to correspond with you. We may also use it to send you materials that we think would be of interest to you. We may also provide your Personally Identifiable Information to advertisers or others. If you enter one of our contests, then we may use your Personally Identifiable Information for purposes of the contest (such as to notify you if you win) and/or in accordance with the contest rules. We may also provide your Personally Identifiable Information to the sponsor(s) of the contest, publish information concerning the winner of the contest, and/or for any other lawful purposes. If you email us or ask to be placed on a mailing list that we maintain, then we may contact you and send information to you. If you register to purchase merchandise through any of the Sites, then we may use your Personally Identifiable Information to maintain your account and/or process your order. If we receive your Personally Identifiable Information from a third party service provider, then we may use the information to contact you and to assist in performing the service for which you have registered with the third party. In addition to the uses listed above, we may use your Personally Identifiable Information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, as part of a statistical website usage analysis, and/or to improve the features and content of the Sites. We may also use your Personally Identifiable Information to assist in delivery of content that is customized to your interests. We do not collect personally identifiable information on an automatic basis, but we may combine non-personal information (which may be automatically collected) with your previously submitted Personally Identifiable Information. We may also use your personally identifiable information as set forth elsewhere in this Privacy Policy.
Aggregate Information: TEXAS MONTHLY may transparently collect Aggregate Information through the use of cookies or by other means. We use this information to assess general usage patterns, administer and make improvements to the Sites and collect demographic information useful in some way to TEXAS MONTHLY and our business partners. We hope that by using Aggregate Information, we can update the Sites to make them more useful to you and other users. We, and our business partners, reserve the right to use, maintain, update, disclose and/or sell Aggregate Information.
Personally Identifiable Information Acquired Elsewhere: TEXAS MONTHLY may also acquire your Personally Identifiable Information offline, from third parties, or otherwise outside of the Sites. For example, we may purchase or otherwise acquire Personally Identifiable Information from third party consumer data suppliers/resellers, data enrichment providers and aggregators, advertising networks, data analytics providers, internet service providers, operating systems and platforms, data brokers, business contact databases, government entities, and our affiliates and other related entities
WHAT WE WILL AND WILL NOT DO WITH THE PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
TEXAS MONTHLY uses information generally to compile statistical data, keep in contact with users and provide them with a better interactive experience.
We may use your information specifically for the following purposes: to provide easy access every time you return to the Sites without requiring re-entry of registration information; to keep you informed about products and services in which you may have interest; to complete business transactions; to contact you as part of a promotion; to allow you to make a posting on the Sites; to administer individual accounts; to provide customer support; to meet legal requirements; to provide Internet security; and/or to analyze the collected information. In the event of a merger, consolidation, or sale or transfer of all or substantially all of our assets or business, one of the assets transferred may include the information we collect about our users. We also reserve the right to collect Personally Identifiable Information about you when you sign up for our Forums. We will collect this information to ensure compliance with our Forum rules.
TEXAS MONTHLY works closely with our business partners and certain other third parties who may perform functions on our behalf, such as fulfilling orders, providing promotional materials to our users, sending e-mail, managing data, processing credit card payments or providing customer service. They have access to your Personally Identifiable Information only to the extent necessary to perform their functions and may not use it for any other purpose. Further, these business partners and other third parties may from time to time wish to extend special offers to you on their own behalf. We may use your Personally Identifiable Information to assist our business partners in offering you these products, services and information and may act as an intermediary (for instance, sending you e-mail on their behalf). We cooperate with law enforcement inquiries, as well as other efforts to enforce laws. We may also disclose Personally Identifiable Information in response to legal process, such as a court order or subpoena, or to protect the Sites, hosted sites or users of these sites. We may also disclose Personally Identifiable Information in response to a request by law enforcement if there is an investigation of criminal conduct or other illegal activity. In most cases you may not receive notice of this disclosure to law enforcement. Therefore, we cannot promise, nor should you expect that, communications you make will always remain private.
One of our business partners is Google Analytics. You can learn more about how Google Analytics uses data here. You can learn about how to opt out of Google Analytics here.
Other than for the specific purposes set forth in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to any third parties unless we obtain your prior consent or are legally compelled to do so. In addition, we will not contact you without your permission except as specified above or in connection with the registration process. On the Sites, you will be given the opportunity to opt out of receiving e-mails or other information from TEXAS MONTHLY. If you have questions about how your Personally Identifiable Information is used, please contact us.
Other uses. In addition to the uses set forth elsewhere in this Privacy Policy, TEXAS MONTHLY may use or disclose personal or non-personal information: (i) in cases where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to prevent a crime, an injury, or financial loss to ourselves or to third parties; (ii) to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of the Sites; (iii) pursuant to a court order, warrant, subpoena, discovery request, or as required by law; (iv) in conjunction with the sale or offering for sale of some or all of TEXAS MONTHLY; (v) in the event of TEXAS MONTHLY’s bankruptcy, assignment for the benefit of creditors, or similar financial circumstances; and/or (vi) when you have been made aware of the possibility of use or disclosure of the information at or prior to the time of collection.
ACCESS AND USE BY THIRD PARTIES OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Sites. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to these Sites and other sites in order to provide advertisements on these Sites and other sites about goods and services that may be of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please contact us here.
We allow access to your Personally Identifiable Information by third parties that perform services for us, but only for the purpose of and to the extent necessary to perform those services. For example, third party service providers help us with fraud prevention, technical maintenance, database management, market research, community and forums management, data coop management, and other advertising functionality, as well as credit/debit card and other payment processing, order fulfillment, credit pre-authorization, and address verification. While we may seek to require third party service providers to follow appropriate privacy policies and will not authorize them to use your Personally Identifiable Information except for the express purpose for which it is provided, we do not bear any responsibility for any actions or policies of third parties.
There are also times when you provide Personally Identifiable Information to us that may be managed or participated in by one or more third party business(es). Moreover, we rent, sell, share and transfer Personally Identifiable Information to (i) list buyers who market their goods and services; (ii) our advertising, marketing and sponsorship clients to market their goods and services; (iii) “data coops”, which are pooled databases containing the customer information of multiple publishers to enable the marketing use of such customer information by participating publishers; (iv) consumer data suppliers/resellers, data enrichment providers and aggregators, and other entities in the online behavioral advertising ecosystem for purposes of online behavioral advertising, data optimization, lead generation and other data driven projects; (v) social media and social networking services; and (vi) companies that help us with our products and product recommendations. In all such cases, the Personally Identifiable Information may be used by us and such third party business(es) for their own purpose, each pursuant to its own policies. While we may seek to require third party business(es) to follow appropriate privacy policies, we do not bear any responsibility for any actions or policies of third parties.
COOKIES
When you visit the Sites, we or a third-party advertiser may store or recognize some information on your computer in the form of a “cookie” or similar file that can help us in many ways. For example, cookies allow us to tailor the Sites to better match your interests and preferences. With most Internet browsers or other software, you can erase cookies from your computer hard drive, block all cookies or receive a warning before a cookie is stored. Please refer to your browser instructions or help screen to learn more about these functions. If you reject cookies, functionality of the Sites may be severely limited, and you may not be able to take advantage of many of the Sites’ best features.
ABOUT OUR FORUMS
Some of the Sites feature forums (such as message boards and chat rooms), which enable our users to communicate with each other. We do not moderate and are not responsible for the content which you or any user posts on any forum on the Sites. All Personally Identifiable Information you post in a forum may be viewed, collected and used by any visitor to the Sites and is beyond our control. Therefore, TEXAS MONTHLY strongly recommends that you do not post on any forum private information about yourself or other individuals.
LINKING TO OUR BUSINESS AFFILIATES’ AND THIRD PARTY WEB SITES
The Sites contain links to sites operated by our business partners and other third parties. Once you leave the Sites, you may or may not see a new URL in the location bar. Please review the linked site’s privacy policies, and if you do not agree to be bound by the terms of the policies governing that site, terminate your visit to that site. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the sites operated by our business partners or other third parties.
HOW SECURE IS YOUR INFORMATION
The security of your information is a top priority of us, and measures have been taken technically and managerially to ensure your information is safe. Please note that we cannot guarantee the security of our databases or Sites, nor can we guarantee that information will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the Internet. In order to use some of the features of some of the Sites, you may be required to create an account with us. For your protection, this account will only be accessible by means of a password or similar security measure. If you believe that your password or email address has been compromised, you should change your account with us immediately. If you forget your password, follow the instructions on the login page.
Any unauthorized use of the Sites may result in criminal and/or civil prosecution. We have reasonable policies and procedures in place to protect the privacy and confidentiality of your information that we collect and maintain. All Personally Identifiable Information is stored on our secured servers, behind a firewall at a data center with access to data strictly controlled or is stored securely through only a limited set of approved vendor and partner services.
HOW TO SUBMIT A REQUEST
If you have any concerns about privacy procedures at our any of our Sites, wish to access, delete or modify your Personally Identifiable Information collected at the Site and/or opt-out of the sale of your Personally Identifiable Information:
- Email us your privacy concerns by clicking here or email [email-hidden].
- Write us at: Attn: Privacy/TEXAS MONTHLY, PO Box 1569, Austin, TX 78767-1569.
- Call us at: 512-320-6990 or 1-866-901-8174.
- Fax us at: 512-476-9007.
Please make any communications as complete and descriptive as possible, and we will attempt to respond promptly.
Effective May 25, 2018
Last updated: May 25, 2023