Last updated: Wednesday, November 1, 2023

Privacy Policy

Welcome! We are  Embarcadero Media (" Embarcadero ", " we ", " us ", " our "), a media company and source of news and local information. This Privacy Notice explains how Embarcadero Media, its subsidiaries and affiliates, collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information (as defined below) in connection with our websites (the " Sites ") and other websites we own and operate that link to this Privacy Notice, and the related content, platform, services, products, and other functionality offered on or through our services or the events we host (collectively, the " Services "). It does not address our privacy practices relating to  Embarcadero's job applicants, employees, and other personnel. 

Embarcadero is the controller of the personal information we hold about you in connection with your use of the Services. This means that we determine and are responsible for how your personal information is used.  

The Privacy Notice covers the personal information collected in connection with the following Services and Sites:

The Almanac, DanvilleSanRamon.com, Express, Livermore Vine, Mountain View Online, Mountain View Voice, Palo Alto Online, Palo Alto Weekly, The Peninsula Foodist, Peninsula Restaurant Week, Pleasanton Weekly, Pleasanton Weekly Online, Redwood City Pulse, The Six Fifty, Tri-Valley Preps Playbook, and Weekend Express.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

When we use the term " personal information " in this Privacy Notice, we mean any data or information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked to, directly or indirectly, a particular natural person or household or any other data or information that constitutes "personal data," "personal information," or "personally identifiable information."

I. OUR COLLECTION AND USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information in a variety of ways. For example, you may provide us your personal information when you place an order, register for an account or loyalty membership, make an online purchase, post a review, send us messages, subscribe to our mailing lists, newsletters, or other forms of marketing communications, submit a job application, participate in a survey, contest, or sweepstakes, redeem a promotion, or use some other feature of our Services.

We may link or combine your activities and information collected from you on our Sites and mobile apps with information we receive from third parties, as well as information we collect automatically through tracking technologies (defined below). This allows us to provide you with a personalized experience regardless of how you interact with us.

Personal Information Collected from You

We may collect the following categories of personal information submitted to us by you through the Services:

  • Contact Information,  including first and last name, business email address, business postal address, employer, job title, your area of responsibility, company name, phone number, your country or region and communication preferences. We use this information to fulfill your request or transaction, to communicate with you directly, and to send you marketing communications in accordance with your preferences.
  • Account Information , including first and last name, company name, employer, job title, business email address, user ID and password, profile information, affiliations, account balances, payment and purchase history information, and any other information you provide to us. We use this information to administer your account, provide you with the relevant service and information, communicate with you regarding your account and your use of the Services, and for customer support purposes.
  • Payment Information . If you sign up for one of our Services requiring payment (i.e., membership), we collect the information provided in connection with such payment. Depending on your membership type, you may be able to pay via wire transfer, credit card, or check and we may collect the financial information associated with such payment (e.g., routing and account number, wire transfer information details). Please note that we use third-party payment processors, including Stripe and  Braintree (a service of PayPal) , to process credit card payments made to us. As such, we do not retain any personally identifiable financial information in connection with credit card payments, such as credit card numbers. Rather, all such information is provided directly by you to our third-party processor. The payment processor's use of your personal information is governed by their privacy notice. To view Stripe's privacy policy, please click  here , for Braintree's policy, click  here . 
  • Inquiry and Communications Information , including information provided in custom messages sent through the forms, in chat messages, to one of our email addresses, or via phone. This also includes contact information provided on our Services. We use this information to investigate and respond to your inquiries, to communicate with you, to enhance the services we offer to our users, and to manage and grow our organization.
  • Newsletter, Marketing Emails, and Blog Information , including   email address and applicable interests and communication preferences. We use this information to manage our communications with you and send you information about products and services we think may be of interest to you.  If you wish to stop receiving email messages from us, simply click the "unsubscribe link" provided at the bottom of the email communication. Note that you cannot unsubscribe from certain services-related email communications (e.g., account verification, confirmations of transactions, technical or legal notices).
  • Contests, Sweepstakes, and Survey Information , including information provided when you enter a contest or sweepstakes, or information included in any questions submitted through surveys or content of any testimonials. We use this information to administer and facilitate the Services, to respond to your submission, to communicate with you, to conduct market research, to inform our marketing and advertising activities, and to improve and grow our business.
  • Information Collected Through the Use of the Services , including any files, documents, videos, images, data, or information you choose to upload or transmit through your communications with us or your use of the Site (collectively, "User Content"). User Content and any information contained in the User Content, including personal information and metadata you may have included, is stored and collected as part of the Service. We use the User Content to provide you with the Service. 

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

  • Feedback Information.   We may collect feedback and ratings you provide relating to our services or products. We use this information to communicate with you, to conduct market research, to inform our marketing and advertising activities, and to improve and grow our business.
  • Other Information  that you provide to us online, by phone, or in person. We may use this information to respond to your request, provide you the requested services, and to inform our marketing and advertising campaigns.

Personal Information from Third Parties

We also obtain personal information from third parties, which we often combine with personal information we collect either automatically or directly from an individual.

We may receive the same categories of personal information as described above from the following third parties:

  • Embarcadero Entities:  We may receive personal information from other companies and brands owned or controlled by Embarcadero, and other companies under common ownership with Embarcadero.  
  • Your Employer / Company : If you interact with our Services through your employer or company, we may receive your information from your employer or company, including another representative of your employer or company. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services.
  • Other Users or Individuals Who Interact with Our Services : We may receive your information from other users or other individuals who interact with our Services. For example, if you engage in one of our communications hosted on third-party platforms, we will be able to see any public communications made within that platform.
  • Social Media : When an individual interacts with our Services through various social media networks, such as when someone "Likes" us on Facebook or follows us or shares our content on Google, Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks, we may receive some information about individuals that they permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon an individual's privacy settings with the social network and may include your profile information, profile picture, gender, username, user ID associated with your social media account, age range, language, country, and any other information you permit the social network to share with third parties. Individuals should always review and, if necessary, adjust their privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before sharing information and/or linking or connecting them to other services. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages about products and services that may be of interest to you.
  • Service Providers : Our service providers that perform services solely on our behalf, such as survey and marketing providers and third-party payment processors, collect personal information and often share some or all of this information with us. The information may include contact information, demographic information, payment information, information about your communications and related activities, and information about your orders. We may use this information to administer and facilitate our services, your orders, and our marketing activities.
  • Business Partners : We may receive your information from our business partners, such as companies that offer their products and/or services on our Services. We may use this information to administer and facilitate our services, your orders, and our marketing activities.
  • Information We Receive from Authentication Services You Connect to Our Services : Some parts of our Services may allow you to login through a third-party social network or authentication service such as Facebook or Google. These services will authenticate your identity and provide you the option to share certain personal information with us, which could include your name, email address, address book and contacts, or other information. The data we receive is dependent on that third party's policies and your privacy settings on that third-party site. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services.  We may also send you service-related emails or messages (e.g., account verification, purchase confirmation, customer support, changes, or updates to features of the Sites, technical and security notices).
  • Other Sources :   We may collect personal information about individuals that we do not otherwise obtain, such as from publicly available sources, third-party data providers, brand partnerships, or through transactions such as mergers and acquisitions. We use this information to operate, maintain, and provide to you the features and functionality of the Services, as well as to communicate directly with you, such as to send you email messages about products and services that may be of interest to you.   

Personal Information Automatically Collected

We, and our third-party partners, use tracking technologies to automatically collect usage and device information, such as:

  • Information About the Computer, Tablet, Smartphone, or Other Device You Use , such as your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, device type/model/manufacturer, operating system, date and time stamp, and a unique ID that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, mobile device, or your account (including, for example, a persistent device identifier or an Ad ID), and other such information. We may also work with third-party partners to employ technologies, including the application of statistical modeling tools, which permit us to recognize and contact you across multiple devices. 
  • Information About the Way You Access and Use Our Services , for example, the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our Services, how frequently you access the Services, whether you open emails or click the links contained in emails, whether you access the Services from multiple devices, and other browsing behavior and actions you take on the Sites.
  • Information About How You Use the Services , such as the pages you visit, the links you click, the ads you view and click on, the videos you watch, and other similar actions. We may also use third-party tools to collect information you provide to us or information about how you use the Services and may record your mouse movements, scrolling, clicks, and keystroke activity on the Services and other browsing, search, or purchasing behavior. These tools may also record information you enter when you interact with our Services or engage in chat features through our Services. 
  • Information About Your Location , such as general geographic location that we or our third-party providers may derive from your IP address. 
  • Analytics Information.  We may collect analytics data or use third-party analytics tools such as Google Analytics to help us measure traffic and usage trends for the Services and to understand more about the demographics of our users. You can learn more about Google's practices at  http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners  and view its opt-out options at  https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout .

All of the information collected automatically through these tools allows us to improve your customer experience. For example, we may use this information to enhance and personalize your user experience, to monitor and improve our Sites and Services, and to improve the effectiveness of our Services, offers, advertising, communications, and customer service.  We may also use this information and the data collected through tracking technologies to:  (a) remember information so that you will not have to re-enter it during your visit or the next time you visit the site; (b) provide custom, personalized content and information, including targeted content and advertising; (c) identify you across multiple devices; (d) provide and monitor the effectiveness of our Services; (e) monitor aggregate metrics such as total number of visitors, traffic, usage, and demographic patterns on our website; (f) diagnose or fix technology problems; and (g) otherwise to plan for and enhance our Services. 

If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies; however, doing so may negatively impact your experience using the Services, as some features and services may not work properly. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.

We and our third-party partners may also use cookies and tracking technologies for advertising purposes.  For more information about tracking technologies, please see  Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising  below.

Additional Uses of Personal Information

We may use personal information we collect to: 

  • Fulfill or meet the reason the information was provided, such as to fulfill our contractual obligations, to deliver the Services you have requested, and to process transactions, including providing you with a white paper you have requested or an online product demonstration;
  • Manage our organization and its day-to-day operations; 
  • Verify your identity and entitlement to products or Services when you contact us or access our Services;
  • Register you for and provide you access to events and webcasts;
  • Communicate with individuals, including via email, text message, social media, and/or telephone calls;
  • Request that individuals complete surveys about our organization, organizations we partner with, and Services; 
  • For marketing and advertising purposes, including to market to you or offer you through email, phone, or text message information and updates on products or services we think that you may be interested in (where applicable, we may send you marketing messages if you have given us your consent to do so);
  • Administer, improve, and personalize our Services, including by recognizing an individual and remembering their information when they return to our Services;
  • Process payment for our Services;
  • Facilitate customer benefits and services, including customer support through our command center services; 
  • Identify and analyze how individuals use our Services;
  • Conduct research and analytics on our customer and user base and our Services;  
  • Improve and customize our Services to address the needs and interests of our user base and other individuals we interact with;
  • Test, enhance, update, and monitor the Services, or diagnose or fix technology problems; 
  • Help maintain the safety, security, and integrity of our property and Services, technology assets, and business;
  • Enforce our  Terms of Use  to resolve disputes, to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests and the interests and rights of third parties;
  • Prevent, investigate, or provide notice of fraud or unlawful or criminal activity;
  • Comply with contractual and legal obligations and requirements; 
  • Fulfill any other purpose for which you provide personal information; and
  • For any other lawful purpose, or other purpose that you consent to.

Where you choose to contact us, we may need additional information to fulfill the request or respond to inquiries. We may provide you with additional privacy-related information where the scope of the inquiry/request and/or personal information we require fall outside the scope of this Privacy Notice. In that case, the additional privacy notice will govern how we may process the information provided at that time. 

II. OUR DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may share, transmit, disclose, grant access to, make available, and provide personal information with and to third parties, as follows: 

  • Embarcadero Entities : We may share personal information with other companies owned or controlled by Embarcadero, and other companies under common ownership with Embarcadero, which also includes our subsidiaries (i.e., any organization we own or control) or our ultimate holding company (i.e., any organization that owns or controls us) and any subsidiaries it owns, particularly when we collaborate in providing the Services.
  • Marketing Providers:  We coordinate and share personal information with our marketing providers in order to communicate with individuals about the Services we make available. 
  • Customer Service and Communication Providers:  We share personal information with third parties who assist us in providing our customer services and facilitating our communications with individuals that submit inquiries.
  • Other Service Providers:  In addition to the third parties identified above, we engage other third-party service providers that perform business or operational services for us or on our behalf, such as website hosting, infrastructure provisioning, IT services, analytics services, employment application-related services, payment processing services, and administrative services. 
  • Ad Networks and Advertising Partners:  We work with third-party ad networks and advertising partners to deliver advertising and personalized content on our Services, on other websites and services, and across other devices. These parties may collect information directly from a browser or device when an individual visits our Services through cookies or other data collection technologies. This information is used to provide and inform targeted advertising, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics and market research. Please see the  Third-Party Data Collection and Online Advertising  section below.
  • Business Transaction or Reorganization:  We may take part in or be involved with a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets. We may disclose personal information to a third party during negotiation of, in connection with or as an asset in such a corporate business transaction. Personal information may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership.  
  • Legal Obligations and Rights:  We may disclose personal information to third parties, such as legal advisors and law enforcement: 
    • in connection with the establishment, exercise, or defense of legal claims; 
    • to comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process; 
    • to protect our rights and property and the rights and property of others, including to enforce our agreements and policies;
    • to detect, suppress, or prevent fraud; 
    • to protect the health and safety of us and others; or 
    • as otherwise required by applicable law.
  •   With Your Consent:  We may disclose personal information about an individual to certain other third parties or publicly with their consent or direction. For example, with an individual's consent or direction we may post their testimonial on our Sites or service-related publications. 

III. THIRD-PARTY DATA COLLECTION AND ONLINE ADVERTISING

We may participate in interest-based advertising and use third-party advertising companies to serve you targeted advertisements based on your browsing history. We permit third-party online advertising networks, social media companies, and other third-party services, to collect information about your use of our online services over time so that they may play or display ads on our Services, on other websites or services you may use, and on other devices you may use. Typically, though not always, the information used for interest-based advertising is collected through tracking technologies, such as cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, and similar technology, which recognize the device you are using and collect information, including click stream information, browser type, time and date you visited the Sites, AdID, precise geolocation, and other information. We may share a common account identifier (such as a hashed email address or user ID) with our third-party advertising partners to help identify you across devices. We and our third-party partners use this information to make the advertisements you see online more relevant to your interests, as well as to provide advertising-related services such as reporting, attribution, analytics, and market research. We may also use services provided by third parties (such as social media platforms) to serve targeted ads to you and others on such platforms. We may do this by providing a hashed version of your email address or other information to the platform provider. 

We may engage in the following:

  • Social Media Widgets and Advertising .  Our Services may include social media features, such as the Facebook "Like" button, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter or other widgets. These social media companies may recognize you and collect information about your visit to our Services, and they may set a cookie or employ other tracking technologies. Your interactions with those features are governed by the privacy policies of those companies.
  • Social Media Platforms.  We may display targeted advertising to you through social media platforms, such as Facebook, X, Instagram, LinkedIn, and other social media forums. These companies have interest-based advertising programs that allow us to direct advertisements to users who have shown interest in our services while those users are on the social media platform, or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely commercial interests and demographics. We may share a unique identifier, such as a user ID or hashed email address, with these platform providers or they may collect information from our website visitors through a first-party pixel, in order to direct targeted advertising to you or to a custom audience on the social media platform. These advertisements are governed by the privacy policies of those social media companies that provide them. If you do not want to receive targeted ads on your social networks, you may be able to adjust your advertising preferences through your settings on those networks. 
  • Third Party Partners .  We work with a variety of third-party partners to provide advertising services. For example, we use Google Analytics to recognize you and link the devices you use when you visit our Services on your browser or mobile device, log in to your account on our Services, or otherwise engage with us.  We share a unique identifier, like a user ID or hashed email address, with Google to facilitate the service. Google Analytics allows us to better understand how our users interact with our Services and to tailor our advertisements and content to you.  For information on how Google Analytics collects and processes data, as well as how you can control information sent to Google, review Google’s website, "How Google uses data when you use our partners' sites or apps" located at  www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ . You can learn about Google Analytics' currently available opt-outs, including the Google Analytics Browser Ad-On here:  https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/ .

We may also utilize certain forms of display advertising and other advanced features through Google Analytics. These features enable us to use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick advertising cookie) or other third-party cookies together to inform, optimize, and display ads based on your past visits to the Services.  You may control your advertising preferences or opt-out of certain Google advertising products by visiting the Google Ads Preferences Manager, currently available at   https://google.com/ads/preferences , or by visiting NAI's online resources at   http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices .]

For more information about these practices and your choices regarding cookies, please see the  Control Over Your Information section below. 

IV. CONTROL OVER YOUR INFORMATION

You may control your information in the following ways:

  • Access to Your Device Information . You may control the Services' access to your device information through your "Settings" app on your device.  For instance, you can withdraw permission for the Services to access your network devices and geolocation and to integrate with your other applications.
  • Email Communications Preferences.   You can stop receiving promotional email communications from us by clicking on the "unsubscribe" link provided in such communications.  You may not opt-out of service-related communications (e.g., account verification, transactional communications, changes/updates to features of the Services, technical and security notices).
  • Push Notifications.  You can stop receiving push notifications from us by changing your preferences in the iOS or Android notifications settings menu. 
  • SMS Text Messaging . You may opt-out of receiving promotional SMS text messages at any time. Please note that unsubscribing from promotional text messages will not prevent you from receiving SMS texts from Embarcadero directly relating to your use of the Services, such as for account login (e.g., we may send you a security verification code). To unsubscribe from promotional SMS texts, you can reply STOP to any one of our promotional text messages. For more information, see our  Terms of Use .
  • Modifying or Deleting Your Information.   If you have any questions about reviewing, modifying, or deleting your information, you can contact us directly at [email protected]. We may not be able to modify or delete your information in all circumstances.
  • Cookies:  If you would prefer not to accept cookies, most browsers will allow you to: (i) change your browser settings to notify you when you receive a cookie, which lets you choose whether or not to accept it; (ii) disable existing cookies; or (iii) set your browser to automatically reject cookies; however, doing so may negatively impact your experience using the services, as some features and services may not work properly. You may also set your email options to prevent the automatic downloading of images that may contain technologies that would allow us to know whether you have accessed our email and performed certain functions with it.
  • Online Ads:  To learn more about interest-based advertising and how you may be able to opt-out of some of this advertising, you may wish to visit the Digital Advertising Alliance's (DAA) resources and/or the Network Advertising Initiative's (NAI) online resources, at  www.aboutads.info/choices   or  http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ . You may also be able to limit interest-based advertising through the settings menu on your mobile device by selecting "limit ad tracking" (iOS) or "opt-out of interest-based ads" (Android).  You may also be able to opt-out of some — but not all — interest-based advertising served by mobile ad networks by visiting  http://youradchoices.com/appchoices  and downloading the mobile AppChoices app. 

Please note that when you opt out of receiving interest-based advertisements, this does not mean you will no longer see advertisements from us or on our online services.  It means that the online ads that you do see from DAA program participants should not be based on your interests.  We are not responsible for the effectiveness of, or compliance with, any third parties' opt-out options or programs or the accuracy of their statements regarding their programs. In addition, third parties may still use cookies to collect information about your use of our online services, including for analytics and fraud prevention as well as any other purpose permitted under the DAA's Principles.

V. CHILDREN'S PERSONAL INFORMATION

Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13. If an individual is under the age of 13, they should not use our Services or otherwise provide us with any personal information either directly or by other means. If a child under the age of 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child's parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the personal information from our systems. If we learn that any personal information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will promptly delete that personal information.

VI. EMBEDDED LINKS TO THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES OR SERVICES

Articles on our Sites may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.  These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Our Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Except where we post, link to, or expressly adopt or refer to this Privacy Notice, this Privacy Notice does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, any personal information practices of third-party websites and online services or the practices of other third parties. To learn about the personal information practices of third parties, please visit their respective privacy notices. 

VII. UPDATES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. When we make changes to this Privacy Notice, we will change the date at the beginning of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we will notify individuals by email to their registered email address, by prominent posting on our Services, or through other appropriate communication channels. All changes shall be effective from the date of publication unless otherwise provided.

VIII. CONTACT US

If you have any questions or requests in connection with this Privacy Notice or other privacy-related matters, please send an email to [email protected].

IX. REGION-SPECIFIC DISCLOSURES 

We may choose or be required by law to provide different or additional information relating to the processing of personal information (as defined below) about residents of certain countries, regions or states. Please refer below for additional information that may be applicable to you:

CALIFORNIA 

Shine the Light Disclosure

The California "Shine the Light" law gives residents of California the right under certain circumstances to request information from us regarding the manner in which we share certain categories of personal information (as defined in the Shine the Light law) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.