This site is owned and operated by The Village of Bellevue. Your privacy on the Internet is of the utmost importance to us.
Because we gather certain types of information about our users, we
feel you should fully understand the terms and conditions surrounding
the capture and use of that information. This privacy statement
discloses what information we gather and how we use it.
Definitions of the information The Village of Bellevue gathers and keeps track of:
The Village of Bellevue gathers two types of information about users:
- Information that users provide through optional, voluntary
submissions. These are voluntary submissions to receive our electronic
information, to participate in our message boards or forums, to email a
friend, and from participation in polls and surveys.
- Information The Village of Bellevue gathers through aggregated
tracking information derived mainly by tallying page views throughout
our sites. This information allows us to better tailor our content to
readers' needs and to help our advertisers and sponsors better
understand the demographics of our audience.
We offer one or more of the following free services, which require
some type of voluntary submission of personal information by users:
- Electronic newsletters. We will offer a free
electronic newsletter to users. The Village of Bellevue gathers the
email addresses of users who voluntarily subscribe. Users may remove
themselves from this mailing list by following the link provided in
every newsletter that points users to the subscription management page.
Users can also subscribe to the newsletters at the time of registration.
- Message boards/forum. Users of the site's Message
Boards and Forums must register separately for these services (both are
free of charge) in order to post messages, although they needn't
register to visit the site. During registration the user is required to
supply a username, password, and email address.
- "E-mail this to a friend" Service. Our site users
can choose to electronically forward a link, page, or documents to
someone else by clicking "e-mail this to a friend". The user must
provide their email address, as well as that of the recipient. This
information is used only in the case of transmission errors and, of
course, to let the recipient know who sent the email. The information is
not used for any other purpose.
- Polling. We may offer interactive polls to users so
they can easily share their opinions with other users and see what our
audience thinks about important issues. Opinions or other responses to
polls are aggregated and are not identifiable to any particular user.
The Village of Bellevue may use a system to "tag" users after they have
voted, so they can vote only once on a particular question. This tag is
not correlated with information about individual users.
- Surveys. The Village of Bellevue may occasionally
conduct user surveys to better target our content to our audience. We
sometimes share the aggregated demographic information in these surveys
with our sponsors, advertisers and partners. We never share any of this
information about specific individuals with any third party.
USAGE TRACKING
The Village of Bellevue tracks user traffic
patterns throughout all of our sites. However, we do not correlate this
information with data about individual users. The Village of Bellevue
does break down overall usage statistics according to a user's domain
name, browser type, and MIME type by reading this information from the
browser string (information contained in every user's browser).
The Village of Bellevue sometimes tracks and catalogs the search
terms that users enter in our Search function, but this tracking is
never associated with individual users. We use tracking information to
determine which areas of our sites users like and don't like based on
traffic to those areas. We do not track what individual users read, but
rather how well each page performs overall. This helps us continue to
build a better service for you.
COOKIES
We may place a text file called a "cookie" in the browser
files of your computer. The cookie itself does not contain Personal
Information although it will enable us to relate your use of this site
to information that you have specifically and knowingly provided. But
the only personal information a cookie can contain is information you
supply yourself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read
cookie files created by other sites. The Village of Bellevue uses
cookies to track user traffic patterns (as described above).
You can refuse cookies by turning them off in your browser. If you've
set your browser to warn you before accepting cookies, you will receive
the warning message with each cookie. You do not need to have cookies
turned on to use this site. However, you do need cookies to participate
actively in message boards, forums, polling and surveys.
USE OF INFORMATION
The Village of Bellevue uses any information
voluntarily given by our users to enhance their experience in our
network of sites, whether to provide interactive or personalized
elements on the sites or to better prepare future content based on the
interests of our users.
When we use tracking information to determine which areas of our
sites users like and don't like based on traffic to those areas. We do
not track what individual users read, but rather how well each page
performs overall. This helps us continue to build a better service for
you. We track search terms entered in Search function as one of many
measures of what interests our users. But we don't track which terms a
particular user enters.
The Village of Bellevue creates aggregate reports on user
demographics and traffic patterns however this information is not
associated with individual user information. We will not disclose any
information about any individual user except to comply with applicable
law or valid legal process or to protect the personal safety of our
users or the public.
SHARING OF THE INFORMATION
The Village of Bellevue uses the
above-described information to tailor our content to suit your needs. We
will not share information about individual users with any third party,
except to comply with applicable law or valid legal process or to
protect the personal safety of our users or the public.
OPT-OUT POLICY
We give users options wherever necessary and practical. Such choices include:
- Opting not to register to receive our electronic newsletters.
- Opting not to participate in certain interactive areas, which
completely alleviates the need to gather any personally identifiable
information from our users
YOUR CONSENT
By using this site, you consent to the collection
and use of this information by The Village of Bellevue. If we decide to
change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page so
that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it,
and under what circumstances we disclose it.