Forum Privacy | Russia Travel

Russia.com Forum Privacy Statement

This privacy statement is applicable to Paley Media and all country sites.

Russia.com and Your Privacy: At Russia.com it is our intent to give you as much control as possible over your privacy in regard to your personal information and the use we make of it in the course of our business. In general, you can visit Russia.com on the Web without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself.

Russia.com does not collect personally identifiable information about individuals except when such individuals specifically provide such information on a voluntary basis. For example, such personally identifiable information may be gathered from a contest or sweepstakes registration, the registration process for subscription sites or services and in connection with content submissions, community postings (e.g., chat and bulletin boards), suggestions, voting/polling activities, and transactional areas. Personally identifiable information on individual users will not be sold or otherwise transferred to unaffiliated third parties without the approval of the user at the time of collection. At such points of collection, the user will have the opportunity to indicate whether he or she would like to "opt out" of receiving promotional and/or marketing information about other products, services, and offerings from Russia.com and/or any third parties. Further, notwithstanding any opt out of promotional information by the user, Russia.com eserves the right to contact a subscriber regarding account status, changes to the subscriber agreement, and other matters relevant to the underlying serice and/or the information collected. Russia.com reserves the right to perform statistical analyses of user behavior and characteristics in order to measure interest in and use of the various areas of the site and to inform advertisers of such information as well as the number of users that have been exposed to or clicked on their advertising banners. Russia.com will provide only aggregated data from these analyses to third parties. Also, users should be aware that Russia.com might sometimes permit third parties to offer subscription and/or registration-based services through some Russia.com site. Russia.com is not responsible for any actions or policies of such third parties and users should check the applicable privacy policy of such party when providing personally identifiable information. Additionally, users should be aware that when they voluntarily disclose personally identifiable information (e.g., username, e-mail address) on the bulletin boards or in the chat areas of the Russia.com sites, that information, along with any substantive information disclosed in the user's communication, can be collected and correlated and used by third parties and may result in unsolicited messages from other posters or third parties. Such activities are beyond the control of Russia.com.

Users also should be aware that non-personal information and data may be automatically collected through the standard operation of Russia.com's Internet servers or through the use of "cookies." "Cookies" are small text files a Web site can use to recognize repeat users, facilitate the user's ongoing access to and use of the site and allow a site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements and targeted advertising. Cookies are not programs that come onto a user's system and damage files. Generally, cookies work by assigning a unique number to the user that has no meaning outside the assigning site. Users should be aware that Russia.com cannot control the use of cookies or the resulting information by advertisers or third parties hosting data for Russia.com. If a user does not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the user to deny or accept the cookie feature; however, users should note that cookies may be necessary to provide the user with certain features (e.g., customized delivery of information) available on the Russia.com site.

Upon request, Russia.com will allow any user to "opt out" of further promotional contacts at any time. Additionally upon request, Russia.com will use reasonable efforts to allow users to update/correct personal information previously submitted which the user states is erroneous to the extent such activities will not compromise privacy or security interests. Also, upon a user's request, Russia.com will use commercially reasonable efforts to functionally delete the user and his or her personal information from its database; however, it may be impossible to delete a user's entry without some residual information because of backups and records of deletions.

The foregoing policies are effective as of October 15, 1998.

Russia.com reserves the right to change this policy at any time by notifying users of the existence of a new privacy statement. This statement and the policies outlined herein are not intended to and do not create any contractual or other legal rights in or on behalf of any party. What Information We Gather and Track: There are times when we may need information from you. This generally involves filling out forms so you can download a product or order some Russia.com service. When you download e-mail and other products or services, we require you to fill out a form with your name and e-mail address. During this process, you are given the opportunity to decline further notification of important news and events. When you submit an order on-line, your credit card number is submitted to the credit institution for normal, routine processing. Russia.com does not collect your personal credit history information, and Russia.com does not share credit or credit card information with other companies or third parties, unless compelled by law or court order to do so.

What We Do With the Information We Gather & Track
The information gathered from the forms you fill out is used in one of three ways:

• To provide you with information about products, services, news, and events;
• To allow you to purchase and download products; and
• To gather broad demographic information about user trends.

How We Gather and Track Information
Russia.com uses various methods to collect certain other kinds of information including "cookies"; "referrer", IP addresses, and environmentals. Here is how we use those methods.

A "cookie" is an element of data that a Web site like Russia.com can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system. It can be used to provide you with tailored information from the Web site you have visited. Some Russia.com pages use cookies, so that we can better serve you when you visit our site by providing you with information tailored to your interests. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. Russia.com does not require that you accept cookies.

A "Referrer" is the information passed along by a Web browser that references the Web URL you linked from, and our Web server automatically gathers it. This information is used by Russia.com in identifying broad demographic trends and may be used to provide information tailored to your interests.

Our Web server automatically gathers IP addresses. Your IP address is a number that is used by computers on the network to identify your computer so that data (such as the Web pages you request) can be sent to you.

Environment variables we gather include time, type of Web browser being used, the operating system/platform, and CPU speed. This information is used only for broad demographic information. This information is used by Russia.com in identifying broad Demographic trends and may be used to provide information tailored to your interests.

Additionally, the Russia.com site contains links to other Web sites, however, Russia.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such Web sites.

What Sites This Covers
VirtualCountries.com owns and maintains a variety of Web sites including Russia.com. Each of these sites may have their own mailing lists or other methods of contacting customers. All of the sites follow this policy for privacy and sharing of information with third parties. A list of the sites and the URL you can use for removing yourself from any mailing lists they may maintain is available here. Information collected at Russia.com is co-owned by VirtualCountries.com; however, it is only located in the Russia.com database located at the Russia.com facility. This information is collected and used as described above by Russia.com. It cannot be used by any third parties without our permission and may then only be used in the ways described above.

What We Do with Information Gathered When You Acquire Our Partners' Products
Russia.com will never sell or share personal information collected from the distribution of Russia.com products or gathered on any Russia.com Web site with third parties, except if the product or service in question is developed or owned by a Russia.com partner or licensor.

Advertising
If you have questions regarding our advertising partners' privacy policy please review the Sonar Network Privacy policy. The Sonar Network is solely responsible for the implementation of their privacy policy. If you have any questions regarding their policy please contact them directly.

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