Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

 

Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy

These Terms and Conditions of Use and Privacy Policy apply to individuals and institutions (“you”) visiting the Website, and, by downloading, printing, distributing or otherwise using or exploiting materials or content (“use”) on the Website, you hereby agree to comply with the Terms and Conditions detailed here. Independence Public Media of Philadelphia, Inc. (“IPMF”) does not warrant that use of any materials or content displayed on its Website will not infringe the rights of third parties. 

If IPMF decides to change the Terms and Conditions of Use or Privacy Policy for its Website, we will post those changes here. 

Terms and Conditions of Use

Trademarks 

IPMF’s trademarks, service marks, logos, and design elements displayed on the Website are owned by Philadelphia Global Identity Project. (collectively, the “Trademarks”). The Trademarks may not be used except to provide attribution as specified above. Nothing contained on the Website should be construed as granting, by implication or otherwise, any license or right to use any trademarks, service marks, logos or design elements displayed on the Website without the express written permission of IPMF or any third party that may own such marks displayed on the Website.

Disclaimer 

The Website and the content made available through this site are for educational and informational purposes only.

IPMF makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, as to the Website’s operation or the information, content or materials included on the Website; all of which are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the full extent permissible by applicable law, IPMF hereby disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for any particular purpose. IPMF will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from your use of or inability to use the Website. You expressly agree that you use the Website, or any materials or content from the Website, solely at your own risk. You also hereby agree to indemnify IPMF, its employees, agents, and affiliates from any and all claims and/or damages (including but not limited to reasonable attorneys' fees) resulting from any claim brought by any third party relating to your use of the Website or any materials or content obtained from the Website.

The site may contain copyrighted material owned by a third party, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Notwithstanding a copyright owner’s rights under the Copyright Act, Section 107 of the Copyright Act allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, for purposes such as education, criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing.

If you wish to use or submit copyrighted material published on this site for your own purposes that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. All copyrighted material submitted with explicit permission of the copyright owner will be credited accordingly. In some instances, copyrighted material may be linked back to the original source as posted. We recommend that you seek the advice of legal counsel if you have any questions on this point.

Privacy Policy

Last updated: December 22, 2022

Thank you for using Independence Public Media of Philadelphia, Inc. (“IPMF”).  We are committed to protecting your privacy and, for that reason, we have adopted this Privacy Policy to explain our data collection, use, and disclosure practices for the IPMF services (including the https://independencemedia.org/ website, and mobile and web-based applications, and any other tools, products, or services provided by Independence Public Media of Philadelphia, Inc. that link to or reference this Privacy Policy) (collectively, the “Services”).  The Services are owned and operated by IPMF, a Pennsylvania corporation (“we”, “us” or “our”).

IPMF is committed to protecting the privacy of visitors to its Services. Your privacy concerns are important to IPMF. This Privacy Policy is designed to inform you about our privacy principles and policy regarding collected data. This Privacy Policy applies to information IPMF collects through the Services, as well as other information provided to us online or offline by third parties, when we associate that information with customers or users of the Services; however, it does not apply to information collected from our employees, contractors, or vendors.  It also does not apply to information that you ask us to share with third parties or that is collected by certain other third parties whose software or services are featured or included in the Services (as further described below).

This Privacy Policy describes, among other things:

• Personal and other information we collect about you;
• How we use your information;
• How we may share your information with third parties; and
• Your choices regarding the personal information we collect about you.

The only information IPMF obtains about individual visitors to its Services is that supplied voluntarily. Personal Information provided by a visitor (name, email or home address, etc.) to the Services will not be disclosed to anyone except as expressly provided herein or if the visitor expressly permits IPMF to do so.

The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices:

1. Consent

By accessing or using the Services, you consent to this Privacy Policy.  If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy, please do not access or use the Services.  Information gathered through the Services may be transferred, used, and stored in the United States or in other countries where our service providers or we are located.  If you use the Services, you agree to the transfer, use, and storage of your Personal Information (as defined below) in those countries. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. You agree that all transactions relating to the Services or IPMF are deemed to occur in the United States, where our servers are located.

2. Collection of Your Personal and Other Information

IPMF does not require you to register or furnish any Personal Information as a condition of using our Services. We collect Personal Information only if you voluntarily provide it to us. When you register for or use our Services, we may collect Personal Information.  By “Personal Information” we mean information that can identify or reasonably be linked to an individual, such as:

• Names;
• Personal or business addresses;
• Email addresses;
• Phone numbers; and
• Information contained in any inquiry or other message you submit to us.

Our Services may integrate with social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.  When you connect a social media account to our Services, then we may collect information about that social media account and share information with that social media account as described in the connection process. This collected information may include, but is not limited to, your name, email address, demographic information from your profile, friend lists, postings or other content, and your profile picture.  You acknowledge and agree that IPMF is not responsible for the data collection or use practices of any such connected social media platform.  You should read each social media platform’s privacy policy before connecting that social media account.

You may choose not to provide Personal Information, but this may prevent you from receiving certain features of the Services.

We also collect non-Personal Information relating to the Services, that is, information that does not personally identify an individual.  The non-Personal Information we collect includes how you interact with the Services, information generally collected or “logged” by Internet websites or Internet services when accessed or used by users, and information about your web browser or device accessing or using the Services. 

Examples of the non-Personal Information we collect are:

• The pages of our website that you viewed during a visit;
• What information, content or advertisements you view or interact with using the Services;
• Language preferences;
• The city and state in which you are located (but not your precise geographic location); and
• Unique identifiers that are not connected and cannot reasonably be connected to your identity. 

We will not use non-Personal Information to try to identify you, and if we associate any non-Personal Information with information that personally identifies you, then we will treat it as Personal Information. As discussed in more detail below, we sometimes use cookies and other automatic information gathering technologies to gather Personal Information and non-Personal Information.

Information collected by the Services may be collected by us or one of the third parties we utilize in providing the Services (as further described below).

3. Use of Your Information

We may use the information we collect to:

• Assist us in providing, maintaining, and protecting the Services;
• Set up, maintain, and protect accounts to use the Services;
• Improve our online operations;
• Communicate with you, such as provide you with account- or transaction-related communications, or other newsletters, RSS feeds, and/or other communications relating to the Services;
• Perform research and analysis aimed at improving our products and services and developing new products or services; and
• Manage and maintain the systems that provide the Services.

4. Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose your Personal Information to third parties as described below.

We may disclose Personal Information to provide the Services, or when you authorize or instruct us to do so, for example, when you use the Services to submit content or profile information. We may also disclose Personal Information and non-Personal Information to Service Providers.  By “Service Providers” we mean companies, agents, contractors, service providers, or others engaged to perform functions on our behalf (such as processing of payments, provision of data storage, hosting of our website, marketing of our products and services, and conducting audits).   When we use a Service Provider, we require that the Service Provider use and disclose the Personal Information received from us only to provide their services to us or as required by applicable law.

We may also disclose your Personal Information to third parties when we believe, in good faith and in our sole discretion, that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) enforce or apply the terms and conditions of the Services, including investigation of potential violations thereof, (b) comply with legal or regulatory requirements or an enforceable governmental request, (c) protect the rights, property or safety of us, our users or other third parties, (d) prevent a crime or protect national security, or (e) detect, prevent or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues. 

Finally, we reserve the right to transfer information (including your Personal Information) to a third party in the event of a sale, merger, or transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of our company relating to the Services, or in the unlikely event of a bankruptcy, liquidation, or receivership of our business. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify you of such transfer, for example, via email or by posting notice on our website.

Lastly, we may also disclose non-Personal Information, aggregated with information about our other users, to our clients, business partners, merchants, advertisers, investors, potential buyers and other third parties if we deem such disclosure, in our sole discretion, to have sound business reasons or justifications. 

5. Cookies and Automatic Information Gathering Technologies

Every time you use the Services (e.g., access a Service webpage), we collect Personal Information and non-Personal Information (discussed above in Section 2) regarding that use.  For example, to improve our Services, we collect how, when, and which parts of the Services or their features you use.  Also, we may use your device’s unique identifier (UDID) or other unique identifiers to assist us in collecting and analyzing this data.

To assist us in collecting and storing this non-Personal Information, we may employ a variety of technologies, including “Cookies,” local browser storage, and “web beacons,” “pixels,” or “tags.”  A “Cookie” is a small amount of data a website operator, or a third party whose content is embedded in that website, may store in your web browser and that the website operator or, as applicable, the third party, can access when you visit the website.  A web beacon, pixel or tag is a small, usually-transparent image placed on a web page that allows the operator of that image, which may be the operator of the website you visit or a third party, to read or write a Cookie.

Your operating system and web browser may allow you to erase information stored in Cookies and local browser storage. But if you do so, you may be forced to login to the Services again, and you may lose some preferences or settings.  

An Online Tool Provider may collect information automatically, in which case Personal Information and non-Personal Information it receives are subject to the Online Tool Provider’s privacy policy.  Some Online Tool Providers may allow you to opt out of certain collection and/or uses of your information.  You can read more here:

• Google Analytics

6. Transparency and Choice; Do Not Track Signals

You may request access to your Personal Information by sending an email to info@independencemedia.org . We will try to locate and provide you with your Personal Information and give you the opportunity to correct this data, if it is inaccurate, or to delete it, at your request.   But, in either case, we may need to retain it for legal reasons or for legitimate business purposes. You may also remove any content that you post to the Services using the deletion or removal options within the Services.  However, we (and you) are not able to control information that you have already shared with other users or made available to third parties through the Services.

If you need further assistance with removing any content you posted through the Services, you can email us at info@independencemedia.org . Removal of your posted content may not ensure complete or comprehensive removal from our computer systems.

We ask individual users to identify themselves and the information requested to be accessed, corrected, or removed before processing such requests.  We reserve the right to decline to process requests that are unreasonably repetitive or systematic, require disproportionate technical effort, jeopardize the privacy of others, would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backups), or relate to information that is not associated with your Personal Information.  In any case, where we provide information access and correction, we perform this service free of charge, except if doing so would require a disproportionate effort.   We may also require you to verify your identity to our satisfaction before providing you with access to Personal Information. 

We may use third-party service providers that collect information for interest-based advertising purposes (advertisements that are tailored to your likely interests, based on categories in which you have shown an interest).  To learn more about these third parties and the choices they offer users, please visit the Network Advertising Initiative’s choices page or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s choices page. If you are reading this Privacy Policy from a mobile device, you can learn more about the DAA's mobile choices program here.

Please be aware that if you request us to delete your Personal Information, you may not be able to continue to use the Services.  Also, even if you request that we delete your Personal Information, we may need to retain certain information for a limited period of time to satisfy our legal, audit and/or dispute resolution requirements.

We support the development and implementation of a standard "do not track" browser feature that provides customers with control over the collection and use of information about their web-browsing activities. Once a standardized "do not track" feature is released, we intend to adhere to the browser settings accordingly.

You can opt out of receiving marketing e-mails from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link in the e-mails.  Please note that it may take up to ten (10) business days for your opt-out request to be processed.  Also, even if you opt out of marketing e-mails, we may continue to send you certain account-related e-mails, such as notices about your account and confirmations of transactions you have requested.

7. Certain State Residents

You may have heard of certain state laws including the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), and Connecticut Data Privacy Act (CTDPA) which provide certain rights to California, Virginia, Colorado, Utah, and Connecticut residents in connection with their Personal Information.  Our Services are not currently subject to any state laws providing rights in connection with Personal Information.  However, we do provide notice and transparency about our collection and use of Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy.

8. Residents of Canada

If you have an objection to the use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy, you may file a complaint by sending an email to info@independencemedia.org. We will attempt to accommodate your objection or complaint, but you understand that, to the extent you object to our processing of Personal Information that is necessary for us to provide the Services to you, certain features and functionalities of the Services may no longer be available to you.  Nothing in this Privacy Policy prejudices your rights to file a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and/or with any other applicable data protection authorities.

9. Residents of Nevada

We do not sell your Personal Information.  However, you may contact us at info@independencemedia.org with questions.

10. Children

The Services are not intended for users under 18 years of age.  We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from users under 18 years of age.  We do not authorize users under 18 years of age to use the Services. 

11. Information Security

Our Services have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. We utilize reasonable information security measures to safeguard your Personal Information against unauthorized access, modification, or destruction. Any Personal Information that is furnished to us is stored in a secured database. For example, we utilize Secure Socket Layer (SSL), Transport Layer Security (TLS), or similar encryption technology when sensitive data is transmitted over the Internet, and use firewalls to help prevent external access into our network.  However, no data transmission over the Internet and no method of data storage can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Information, we cannot guarantee its security.

We restrict access to Personal Information in our possession to our employees, Service Providers, and Online Tool Providers who need to know that information in order to operate, develop, improve or support our Services.

12. Third Party Websites

Please note that the Services may link or integrate with third-party sites, services or apps. In order to provide visitors with greater value, we may provide links to various third-party websites. However, even if an affiliation exists between IPMF and that third-party site, IPMF exercises no control over linked sites, each of which maintains independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. We are not responsible for the privacy or security policies or practices or the content of such third parties.  Accordingly, we encourage you to review the privacy and security policies and terms of service of those third parties so that you understand how they collect, use, share and protect your information.

13. Changes to this Policy

We may modify or update this Privacy Policy periodically with or without prior notice by posting the updated policy on this page. You can always check the “Last Updated” date at the top of this document to see when the Privacy Policy was last changed.  If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by reasonable means, which may be by e-mail or posting a notice of the changes on our website prior to the changes becoming effective.  We encourage you to check this Privacy Policy from time to time.  IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOU MUST STOP USING THE SERVICES AFTER THE EFFECTIVE DATE OF SUCH CHANGES (WHICH IS THE “LAST UPDATED” DATE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY).

14. Questions

If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, or would like to lodge a complaint, please use the contact form on this Website to contact us, or contact us at:

Independence Public Media of Philadelphia, Inc.

                        1800 JFK Blvd, Ste 300, PMB 95002

                        Philadelphia, PA 19103

                        Email:  info@independencemedia.org