PRIVACY POLICY


Columbia University Press is committed to preserving your privacy online and on the Columbia Gazetteer of the World web site located at http://www.columbiagazetter.org/main/Home.html (the ?Web site?).  We collect non-personally identifiable information about your session only to provide you with the service of the Web site and to improve Gazetteer features and functionality.  We also collect certain personally identifiable information from you, via optional sections of the Web site that require you to provide personally identifiable information (e.g., My Gaz login).

By your use of this Web site you agree to this privacy policy.  This policy may be updated from time to time without prior notice, so please check back periodically.  If you continue to visit this Web site and use the services made available to you after such changes have been made, you hereby provide your consent to the changes.

What information about you do we collect?

Non-Personally Identifiable Information.  In order to provide you with access to the Web site, we collect certain information about your computer and session, including without limitation, information normally sent by your browser in regular operation, including your IP address, operating system information, browser configuration, and referring URL  (collectively, ?Non-Personally Identifiable Data?).

We will collect Non-Personally Identifiable Data solely for the purpose of providing usage statistics to the subscribing institution with which you are associated (?Institution?) and for internal editorial development purposes.  We do not share your Non-Personally Identifiable Data with any other party, except as required by law, or as is necessary to provide you with the service.

Personally Identifiable Information.  Pursuant to the information provided in the section below labeled ?Optional Services,? we collect certain personally identifiable information (?Personally Identifiable Data?) about you.  Information about how we use and share such Personally Identifiable Information is set forth below.


Optional Services.

This Web site offers the ?My Gazetteer? or ?My Gaz? personalization tool that allows users to collect and store links to a variety of content on the site.  In order to provide you with this optional service, we ask for certain Personally Identifiable Information, including, without limitation, your valid email address and an account password you select.  We collect this information to establish your personal ?My Gaz? pages and to keep them secure.  We offer users the option to share their own ?My Gaz? pages by making them ?public,? where they can be viewed by any Gazetteer subscribing user who knows the page?s URL. 

We collect your email address as a username and store your account password for your retrieval in the event you forget it.  We do not share this information with any third party, except as required by law or as is necessary to provide you with the service

You agree that you are responsible for all access and uses of your account and agree not to disclose your account password to any other person.


When do we share information?

We do not sell or share your Personally Identifiable Information to others, except as strictly necessary to provide you with our service.  We reserve the right to disclose your information pursuant to any court order or request of any other governing authority, or as otherwise required by law, rule or regulation.

This Web site is hosted by a third party but such third party agrees to keep your Personally Identifiable Information secure and not use it for other purposes other than as necessary to administer the Web site.

If we believe that your use of the Web site is unlawful or damaging to others, we reserve the right to disclose the information we have obtained through the site about you to the extent that it is reasonably necessary in our opinion to prevent, remedy, or take action in relation to such conduct.


Use of Cookies.

Cookies are small files that are sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer?s hard drive for the purpose of facilitating and enhancing your communication and interaction with the Web site. Cookies contain information regarding your authorization to use this site and may contain information about your account preferences.  You may, at any time, stop or restrict the placement of cookies on your computer or delete them from your browser by adjusting your web browser preferences, in which case you may still use the Web site, but it may interfere with some of its functionality, including remote access to the Web site.

Cookies are required by subscribers who have concurrent user licenses to The Columbia Gazetteer of the World in order to control concurrency-based access to the service.

When you access the Web site and are recognized as an authorized user either by username and password login, IP address recognition, referring URL recognition, or library card login, we set on your browser a temporary cookie with a session ID number that we use to continue to recognize you as an authorized user during your session.  We also use the session ID to record information on your use of the Web site for the purpose of improving our service and providing aggregate usage statistics to the Institution. This session ID cookie is not associated with any personally identifying information and expires after approximately 20 minutes of inactivity. 


Third Party Links.

This Web site may contain links to third party Web sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such Web sites.  We encourage you to be aware when you access any such third party links and to read the privacy policies of each Web site that you access.  This Privacy Policy only applies to information collected by us.


Changes in this Policy.

Columbia University Press reserves the right to alter or change this privacy policy at any time by posting a new copy of the policy on the Privacy Policy page of the Web site.  Because by your use of the site and our service, you are agreeing to this policy, we encourage users to check the Privacy Policy page of the site on a regular basis.


Contact Us.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy and/or the practices described herein, please email us at columbiaonline@columbia.edu or write us at Columbia Gazetteer Privacy Policy, Columbia University Press, 61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023


Governing Law.

This Privacy Policy and our legal obligations hereunder are subject to the laws of New York and the U.S.A., regardless of the location of any user.  You hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of and venue in the federal and state courts located in New York County, New York, U.S.A. in all disputes arising out of or relating to the Services.

Use of the Web site is governed by, and subject to, the legal notices and disclaimers located at http://www.columbiagazetteer.org/static/tos. Your use or access of the Web site is subject at all times to all such legal notices and disclaimers and your use or access of the Web site constitutes your agreement to be bound by the provisions contained therein and in this Privacy Policy.


This Privacy Policy is effective and was last updated on September 24, 2008.