Privacy Policy

Capital City Press, LLC, d/b/a "The Advocate," and its affiliates, successors, and assigns ("Capital City," "The Advocate," "us," "our," and "we") want our valued readers to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose information from and about you because we understand you are concerned about your privacy, and we want to maintain your trust. This Privacy Policy discloses the privacy practices of our websites and mobile applications, whether accessed through a computer, tablet, smartphone, or other device ("device" or "devices"). We believe it is your right to know what information is collected during your visit to our websites, mobile sites, mobile applications, and other applications ("site," "website," or "Services"), and how that information is used. Please read this Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. By accessing or using our website, you agree to this Privacy Policy. This Policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of this website after we make changes is deemed to be an acceptance of those changes. We encourage you to periodically check this Policy for updates.

Information Automatically Gathered About All Visitors

We collect aggregate and user-specific information on which pages our readers access or visit. This information is used to generate reports that help us assess the value of an interest in the various websites and Services we provide. We use the information we collect to improve the content of our Services. We can build a better site and provide better Services if we know which pages our users are visiting, how often they visit, and how long they stay on a page. Our web servers automatically collect limited information about your device's connection to the Internet, including your Internet Protocol (IP) address (but not your e-mail address) when you utilize our Services. Your IP address does not contain personally identifiable information, nor does it identify you personally. We also may collect information on the type of internet browser you are using, the type of computer operating system you are using, the domain name of the web site from which you linked to our affiliated website, location information, demographic information, and information on the time you spend on our website. We use this information to deliver our Services to you upon request, to tailor our sites and Services to the interests of our users, and to measure traffic within our sites.

Cookies and Web Beacons

To help make our Services more responsive to the needs of our visitors, we may utilize a standard feature of browser software called a "cookie." A cookie is a small piece of computer code that is deposited on your hard drive by our site. Browsers typically recognize when a cookie has been sent to your computer and give you the option to refuse or allow it. A cookie does not actually identify you, just the computer or device that you are using to access our Services. A cookie cannot read data off your hard drive. Our advertisers, content partners, and other services that are reached from links on our website may also assign their own cookies to your browser, a process that we cannot control. We use cookies to help us tailor our Services to your needs so we can deliver a better and more personalized service to you. It is a cookie, for example, that allows us to deliver to you personalized information each time you visit our website. In addition, we can access cookies later in your current session or in a later session on our Services in order to improve your visit to our Services. Our Services may utilize an electronic file called a web beacon to count users who have visited a page or to recognize users by accessing certain cookies. Our Services and/or our partner websites use web beacons for auditing purposes and to collect information from the websites and Services of certain partners. Information recorded through these web beacons is used to report anonymous individual and/or aggregate information about our users from our partners. Aggregate information may include demographic and usage information. No personally identifiable information about you is shared with our partners.

Opt-Out of Cookies

You may be able to download an opt-out cookie from the third-party advertiser's website allowing you to opt-out of cookies. Please visit the third-party advertisers' websites for more information.
Your web browser may allow you to manage what cookies are accepted or declined. These settings can usually be found in the preferences or options menus of your web browser.
Your web browser may also allow you to manually view cookies and delete the cookies you don't want or need. Check your web browser's settings for more information.
Websites that require registration may allow you to opt-out of cookies. Check the account settings or preferences section of the website for more information.
For more information, please visit http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/.

Do-Not-Track Signals and Similar Mechanisms

Some browsers or other tools include "Do Not Track" (DNT) features which, when turned on, send a signal to websites you visit indicating that you do not wish to be tracked across websites over time. The Worldwide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working with industry groups and regulators to develop a DNT browser technology standard to provide a common understanding as to how to interpret the DNT signals, but to date no standard has been adopted. Since there is no standard at this time, we do not currently respond to DNT signals. We will follow the progress of the W3C in developing the standard. If and when a final standard is established and accepted, we will reassess how to respond to these signals.

Your Voluntary Providing of Personal Information

We will not through our website collect any personally-identifiable information about you (for example, your name, address, telephone number, or email address) ("personal data") unless you have provided it to us voluntarily. If you do not want your personal data collected, please do not submit it to us. To make use of certain features on our Services (such as contests, story comments, letters to the editor, personalized web pages, and other interactive forums and blogs), you may need to register and to provide certain information as part of the registration or participation process. We may ask, for example, for your name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, gender, age, income, news subscription preferences, subscription history, and other categories. We might also request information on your interest in sports, personal finance, the performing arts, and other topics.

The information you supply will help us offer you more personalized features, to tailor our Services to your interests and make them more useful to you. The more you tell us about yourself, the more value we can offer you. Supplying such information is entirely voluntary. But if you do not supply the information we need, we may be unable to provide you with services and content we make available to other visitors to our Services. Of course, even if you want to remain completely anonymous, you are still free to take advantage of the wealth of content that is otherwise available, without registration, in using our Services.

About Third Party Advertising

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you use our Services. If so, a list of these ad serving companies can be provided upon request. These companies receive and may use information (generally, not including your name, address, e-mail address or telephone number) about your visits to our sites or use of our Services and to other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. These companies may employ cookies and clear GIFs to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and clear GIFs is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or e-mail message). We encourage you to read these businesses' respective privacy policies if you should have any concerns about how they will care for your personal information. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, see the Network Advertising Initiative's consumer website.

E-mails from Us

Upon registering with our Services, you may begin receiving communications from us. Sometimes these emails are sent from our advertising partners. In addition, if you have signed up for any of our automated account services, we may send you transactional e-mails regarding the status of your account, including confirmations, notices of expiration and renewal and other related electronic correspondence. If you have signed up for any of our e-mail newsletters, you may stop receiving them if you follow the "unsubscribe" instructions located near the bottom of each newsletter. We may send you an e-mail inviting you to participate in subscriber or website user surveys. Such surveys greatly help us improve our Services and the value of our websites. Any information you give us in those surveys will not be shared with any third parties except in aggregate form.

What We Do With the Information We Gather About You

We, or one of our affiliated companies or partners, may perform statistical, marketing and demographic analyses of our delivery subscribers and their subscription patterns. In addition, we may generally inform our advertisers about our subscriber base. When we present information to our advertisers -- to help them understand our audience and confirm the value of advertising on our websites -- it is usually in the form of aggregated statistics on traffic to various pages within our sites. We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information; however, in some cases, we may provide information to legal officials as described in "Compliance with Legal Process" below. Further, please note that if The Advocate or any of its subsidiaries or lines of business are merged, acquired, divested, financed, sold, disposed of or dissolved, including through merger of, consolidation, sale, or divestiture of assets, the relevant customer database, including personally identifiable information we may possess about you, may, in whole or in part, be sold, disposed of, transferred, divested, or otherwise disclosed as part of that transaction or proceeding. In addition, in some cases, we contract with third parties to provide services on our behalf, including credit-card and bill processing, shipping, e-mail distribution, list processing and analytics, advertising, and promotions management. We provide these third parties only with the information necessary for them to perform their specific services. These service providers are restricted from using this information in any way other than to provide services to us, and they may not share this information with anyone else nor may they resell this data.

Your California Privacy Rights

California residents are entitled once a year, free of charge, to request and obtain certain information regarding our disclosure, if any, of certain categories of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year. We do not share personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes; however, California residents may direct such requests to Ashley Whitcher at privacypolicy@theadvocate.com. California residents who are registered users of the Services and are under the age of 18 are entitled, in accordance with California law, to request and obtain removal of content and information that they themselves post on the Services. You may request such removal by emailing us at privacypolicy@theadvocate.com.

In your request, please provide a description of the material that you want removed and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material, and include your name, email address and/or website user name, year of birth, mailing address (including city, state, and zip code), and the subject line "California Removal Request" so that we can process your request. Please note that your request does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the material. For example, materials that you have posted may be republished or reposted by another user or third party.

European Union Residents and GDPR Compliance

The Advocate and its partners are committed to making our Services accessible access to our affiliated websites for all persons located within the European Economic Area (EEA)/European Union (EU). We are actively taking steps to ensure that we are able to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for visitors accessing our page or otherwise utilizing our Services from the EU.

1. The Advocate collects personal data to help us tailor our Services to your needs so we can deliver a better and more personalized service to you. This includes the delivery of advertisements and other personalized information each time you visit our site. The Advocate also collects personal data so that we can advise advertisers and other third parties about the geographic and demographic ranges of our readers.
2. Your personal data will be stored with us for as long as we may choose. You have the right to object to the processing of your information, request access to your information, that we fix incorrect information, request that we complete incomplete information, that we erase your information, that we restrict the processing of your information, and to receive a copy of your information.
3. You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority as defined in Article 51 of the GDPR. You are under no obligation to provide personal data and there is no penalty for your failing to provide personal data.
4. Various automated decisions may occur using your personal data, including the processing and delivery of certain kinds of advertisements and the tailoring of certain news to you based on the information we receive.
5. You have the right to withdraw your consent from our data processing terms at any time. Your withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of the processing of data based on your consent before it was withdrawn.
6. To access our Services, we require that you must be of 16 years of age or older. If you are younger than 16 years of age, your use of our Services means that your ability to use this site has been authorized by an individual with parental responsibility.
7. By accessing our Services, you consent to the automatic processing of your personal data.

For questions or concerns relating to your data, or to exercise your rights under the GDPR, please contact our designated Data Protection Officer:

Ashley Whitcher Capital City Press / The Advocate 10705 Rieger Road. Baton Rouge, LA 70810 e-mail: privacypolicy@theadvocate.com

For more contact emails and telephone directory, visit http://www.theadvocate.com/help/contact.

Children Under the Age of 13

If you are under the age of 13, do not send us any information about yourself such as your name, address, or e-mail address. You may only send us personally identifiable information if your parents have verified to us their consent to the collection of the information.

Includes our contact information.
Explains the types of personal information we collect, and how we use it.
Explains our practices in terms of sharing personal information with third parties.
Allows parents to consent to the collection and use of their children's personal information, without consenting to disclosure to third parties.
Does not condition a child's participation in an activity on the child's providing more personal information than is reasonably necessary for the activity.
Allows parents to review their child's information, have it deleted, or refuse to permit any further collection, by contacting us.

We make a special effort to encourage children under the age of 13 to consult with their parents before furnishing any personal data. However, we also believe that parents should supervise their children's online activities and consider using parental control tools available from online services and software manufacturers that help provide a child-friendly online environment. These tools can also prevent children from disclosing their name, address, and other personal information online without parental permission. For additional information about parental control tools, please consult http://www.icra.org/_en/parents.

Use of AP News Services

This Website uses services provided by AP News Registry. AP News Registry collects content usage information and may use cookies in conjunction with this activity. Your continued readership of the site and use of the Services means you accept the privacy policy of the AP News Registry. Please refer to the AP News Registry privacy policy for further information.

Compliance with Legal Process

We may disclose personal information if we or one of our affiliated companies is required by law to disclose personal information, or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to comply with a law or some legal process, to protect or defend our rights and property, to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our Services, or to protect the personal safety or property of our users or the public.

Affiliated Companies' Websites

We are affiliated with other online companies, some of which feature our branding. Our website may provide links to various third parties. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to those companies' websites, so you should refer to each of those sites to obtain information on their privacy policies. If you cannot find the privacy policy on any of these sites once you have arrived at their site via a link from our site, you should contact that site directly for more information.

A Final Note:

The internet is an evolving world, as are the laws and regulations concerning the use and retention of personal data. We may change this Privacy Policy at some point in the future to best reflect The Advocate's policies as they too may change. Our use of information gathered while the current policy is in effect will be consistent with the current policy, even if we later change that policy. Please visit this page at any time to review our current Privacy Policy.