Feedback, Commentary, Surveys, Message Boards, Chat Rooms: Those Web site users that choose to provide feedback or commentary, fill out surveys, engage in MediaNews chat rooms or use MediaNews message boards may be required to provide additional PIN such as demographic information, household/personal characteristics and purchase behavior.

If such information is gathered for a MediaNews survey, no PIN is released and is reported or used only in aggregate form.

Some chat room and message board forums may require registration and the sharing of PIN. Any information disclosed in chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups becomes public information. You should exercise caution when deciding to disclose personal information in public forums.

Forwarding: Forwarding an article found on a MediaNews Web site generally requires that you disclose the name and e-mail address of the person to whom you are forwarding the article. MediaNews will retain this information only to provide the forwarding services.

Special Circumstances: MediaNews may disclose and use the information collected where required to do so by law, or where MediaNews, in good faith, believes the use or disclosure of the information collected is necessary to (1) comply with the law or legal processes; (2) protect and defend MediaNews rights and property; (3) protect against misuse or unauthorized use of any MediaNews Web site; or to (4) protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public. MediaNews may also use the information collected when, in its sole discretion, it believes necessary or appropriate in connection with a sale or transfer of some or all of MediaNews’ assets in our Web site.

Computer Identifying Information (CIN)

The information personal to your computer and your computer use that is automatically collected through the use of electronic tools is referred to as Computer Identifying Information (CIN). The CIN gathered by MediaNews generally includes cookies, specific Web site page requests, the domain name (e.g., www.medianewsgroup.com) and Internet Provider (e.g., Comcast, American Online, NetZero) from which you access the Internet, the Internet Protocol address of your computer, the browser software (e.g. Internet Explorer or Netscape) and operating system (e.g., Windows XP, 2000, OS/2 or MacOS) you are using, your geographic location, the time and date you accessed the site, and the Internet address you visited prior to visiting the site.

Cookies and Web Beacons: Cookies are used to store and track information about you. A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from Web sites and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Cookies are used to deliver targeted advertising based on your behavior and demographics and to track your entries in promotions and contests. Cookies may be linked to PIN. In addition, MediaNews uses web beacons provided by third-party advertising companies to help manage our online advertising. Web beacons enable us to recognize a browser’s cookie when a browser visits a MediaNews Web site, and to learn which banner ads bring users to MediaNews Web sites. MediaNews websites have two third-party web advertising companies, Yahoo! and DoubleClick, which may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser. Yahoo! also may use information regarding its own users to select which ads to display. Click here to learn more about Yahoo!'s ad practices, including how to opt out of using anonymous information to select which ads to show you. For more information about DoubleClick, cookies, and how to “opt-out”, please click here.