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Privacy Policy for e.Republic, Inc.

e.Republic, Inc. is the nation’s leading publishing, research, event and new media company focused on the state and local government and education markets. Serving both government and industry for over 20 years, e.Republic publishes the market’s leading periodicals and websites, runs the largest intergovernmental conferences in the nation and produces over 100 targeted and custom events annually. Information about e.Republic and its products and services can be obtained at www.erepublic.com.

e.Republic is comprised of four divisions:

  1. Government Technology
  2. Government Technology Events
  3. Center for Digital Government / Center for Digital Education
  4. GOVERNING

Our overall privacy statement

We believe personal privacy is a serious issue. Because we gather certain types of information about the users of our web sites, subscribers to our magazines or attendees of events we organize, we think it is important that you understand the terms and conditions surrounding the collection and use of that information. This privacy statement discloses the types of information we gather and how we use it. These privacy practices apply to the Web site that you were viewing when you clicked through to this policy, as well as all other e.Republic Inc. sites and activities.

We feel you should understand what personally identifiable information we collect when you visit our web sites, how we gather this information, how this information is used, instances when this information is shared and what choices are available to users regarding the collection, use and distribution of data. This statement also outlines what security procedures are in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under e.Republic's control.

What information does e.Republic collect?

Our primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with the best and most useful content and services. Several of the services and features that we offer on our web sites require you to provide us with information as a condition of usage. These include the ability to post opinions or other content, participation in sweepstakes or contests, subscriptions to print magazines and email newsletters, access to sponsored parts of our site and participation in any message boards and databases we may establish.

We collect personally identifiable information, such as your name, email address, postal address, phone number and credit card information when you provide it to us. From time to time, we may also collect other sensitive information such as your job title and job function.

Once you register using a form on one of our web sites you are no longer anonymous to us.

How does e.Republic use cookies?

Your Internet browser has a feature called cookies, which stores small amounts of data on your computer about your visit to any of our sites. You do not need to have cookies turned on to visit most of our sites, although active participation in certain areas of our sites may require cookies. Cookies alone tell us nothing about who you are unless you specifically give us personally identifiable information, in which case we use the information to enhance your services in the ways described below. By adjusting your settings on your browser, you may elect not to allow cookies to be collected.

We also use technologies, including electronic images known as Web bugs—sometimes called transparent GIFs, clear GIFs, or beacons—that allow us to track general user-traffic patterns. We also automatically receive and record information from our servers and from your browser, including your IP address, the time of your visit to pages on our site, and information about pages you visited. Unless you have registered for one of our products or services, the information we gather through the use of tracking technologies cannot be matched with any personally identifiable information about you.

We use cookies and tracking technologies in a variety of ways, including:

  1. Keeping count of return visits to our site or our advertisers' or partners' sites;
  2. Accumulating and reporting anonymous, aggregate (data collected in mass), statistical information on Web-site and advertisement usage;
  3. Determining which features our overall user population likes best;
  4. Saving your password or registration data so you don't have to re-enter it each time you visit our sites;
  5. Displaying the most appropriate advertising or content based on your interests.

We allow other companies that are presenting advertisements on our sites and, sometimes, in our newsletters to use tracking technology on your computer. We do not give any personally identifiable information to them as part of this relationship. Unless you visit the Web site of these companies and provide them with personally identifiable information about yourself, these tracking technologies tell those advertisers nothing about who you are. Our advertisers' use of tracking technology is subject to their own privacy policies.

How does e.Republic use this information?

We use the information we gather for four general purposes:

  1. To customize the advertising and the content you see;
  2. To enhance the user experience on our sites. We use tracking information to determine how well each page performs overall based on aggregate user demographics and traffic patterns to those pages. This helps us continue to build a better service for you;
  3. To fulfill your requests for certain products and services, such as sending out electronic newsletters and enabling you to participate in paid services and contests;
  4. To send you information you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.

Does e.Republic share this information?

For personally identifiable information:

We will make your personally identifiable information available to other companies or people when:

  1. You have elected to allow us to share that information at the time that you registered with us or provided us the information, or through a subsequent affirmative election through our web site.
  2. You volunteer information or create a public profile in the course of your participation in our community features such as forums, user opinions and comments, and other forms of public communication and interaction.
  3. You use cobranded services (i.e., sites or services that we offer to you in connection with a partner, who is identified on the site). When you use a cobranded service within our network of sites, you grant us permission to pass your registration information and applicable survey responses back to that service partner. Their use of your information is subject to their applicable privacy policies.
  4. We hire third-party vendors to provide specialized services such as customer support; email message deployment; suppression, merge and de-duplication services; data processing; and special products or services that you have requested. These companies are only allowed to use the information in order to help us fulfill our services to you. We do not provide your information to these companies for their own, permanent use.
  5. You unsubscribe for a mailing that we send to you on behalf of a third party. We may share your removal instruction with the third party so that it may be added to that person’s list of people to whom they may not send emails.
  6. You are the winner of a contest or a sweepstakes that is co-sponsored with a third party and that third party needs your information in order to manage the prize fulfillment process.
  7. When required by law, such as when we respond to subpoenas, court orders, or legal process.
  8. We believe that your actions violate applicable laws, e.Republic Terms of Use, or any usage guidelines for specific products or services, or threaten the rights, property, or safety of our company, our users, or others.

Magazine subscriptions

Visitors to our Web site are invited to subscribe to our various hard-copy magazines and e-mail newsletter services. Hard-copy subscribers are asked to include their email address, which is used for internal informational and promotional purposes only.

We hire third-party vendors to handle subscription fulfillment. These companies are only allowed to use the information in order to help us fulfill our services to you. We do not provide your information to these companies for their own, permanent use.

Logging traffic data

In order to better service the needs of those who visit our site, we use third parties to collect certain traffic data and may include the use of cookies or web beacons to colelct this data. These include the platform you are using (such as a Macintosh or PC), browser type (such as Firefox or Microsoft Internet Explorer), IP address (or Internet Protocol address, which identifies your service provider, but not you personally) and the previous URL (Uniform Resource Location, or Web address) visited by you before clicking through to our website. None of these disclose personal information about you, and what information they do reveal is used exclusively for internal administration purposes. Click here to learn more information about how we use a third party service to collect and use information on this Web site.

We monitor aggregate visitor activity on our sites and share this information with our advertisers, but at no stage are you personally identifiable, nor is any personal information about you divulged.

Links To Other Sites

This site also contains links to other sites. e.Republic is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

Special events

e.Republic Inc. is also involved in the business of organizing and staging conferences and may, from time to time, use the Web to promote these events, sell conference subscriptions and invite prospective attendees to supply certain information about themselves. This demographic data may then be used for pre- or post-conference marketing and could be shared with our event co-sponsors, but will not be disclosed to any other outside third parties without the consent of the individual or organization concerned. e.Republic will also prevail upon these co-sponsors to respect the privacy of those who entrust information to us.

Order forms

e.Republic also makes use of the Web to promote research papers and research services offered by any of its subsidiary or associate companies, including the Center for Digital Government or Center for Digital Education. These products and services may be downloaded or purchased online, at which point various personal information is requested. Other than financial data, this information may be shared with the company underwriting the document or research.

Conference attendees are asked to supply certain personal information, including name, contact information and credit card number. The contact information is used for communicating with you regarding the conference, while your billing information will only be used to bill you for that service. Other than the financial data, this information might be shared with our event co-sponsors, but will not be disclosed to any other outside third parties without the consent of the individual or organization concerned. Again, e.Republic urges these co-sponsors to respect the privacy of those who entrust information to us.

Security

When you place an order online, we scramble your personal information and credit card information using SSL encryption technology before any information is sent over the Internet. This makes it virtually impossible for your information to be stolen or intercepted while being transferred across the Internet. When we receive your order, it is encrypted until we are ready to process it. Once the order is processed we erase your credit card information from our Web site.

What if I don’t want to give personal information?

Users who would rather not provide any of the user data requested by any of our registration or subscription processes do not need to register with us or to subscribe. You can still view much of the content and use many of the services offered by our sites without registering. Opting not to provide certain personal information when requested means that you may not be able to access some areas of our web site.

Changes to this Web Site Privacy Statment

This Privacy Statement is effective as of January 1, 2010

If we decide to change this Web Site Privacy Statement, we will post the revised policy at this location, so that users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use Personal Information in a manner that is substantially different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will seek to notify users by way of an email.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at info@erepublic.com.

e.Republic, Inc.
100 Blue Ravine Road
Folsom, CA 95630
916-932-1300