SPRIG USER AGREEMENT AND PRIVACY POLICY:
Please read the user agreement (effective as of April 6, 2007) before using this service. By continuing to use Sprig.com, you agree to abide by the conditions of this agreement.
SPRIG (TM) SERVICE USER AGREEMENT
© 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
1. Welcome to Sprig ("Sprig", "Service" or "we"), a division of Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive, LLC ("WPNI"), a subsidiary of The Washington Post Company. By using this Service, you agree to be bound by all of the terms of this Agreement ("User Agreement"). The Service is currently free to all users, however, we reserve the right to charge for this Service in the future. In such event, we will notify you in advance, and give you an opportunity to subscribe to this Service. We reserve the right to change the terms of this Agreement or to modify any features of this Service at any time. By registering for this Service and/or continuing to use this Service after the posting of Notices regarding such changes, you agree to be bound by such changes.
2. This Service (including, but not limited to, text, photographs, graphics, video and audio content) is protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. All individual articles, content and other elements comprising this Service are also copyrighted works. You must abide by all additional copyright notices or restrictions contained in this Service. By posting content on the Service, a user is giving Sprig the right to display such content on the Service and its affiliated publications and to distribute such content and use such content for promotional and marketing purposes.
3. (a) Except for content you have posted on the Service, or unless expressly permitted, you may not copy, reproduce, distribute, publish, enter into a database, display, perform, modify, create derivative works, transmit, or in any way exploit any part of this Service, except that you may download material from this Service for your own personal use as follows: you may make one machine readable copy and/or one print copy that is limited to occasional articles of personal interest only. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you may not distribute any part of this Service over any network, including a local area network, nor sell or offer it for sale. Please e-mail permissions@wpni.com for more information on distribution. In addition, these files may not be used to construct any kind of database.
(b) We are concerned about the integrity of our Service when it is viewed in a setting created by a third party that includes advertising or other materials that we have not authorized to be displayed with our Service. Without limiting the provisions of (5a), neither you nor any third party shall make use of the contents of the Service in any manner that constitutes an infringement of our rights, including copyright or that has not been authorized by us.
(c) Just as Sprig requires users to respect our copyrights, and those of our affiliates and partners, we respect the copyrights of others. If you believe in good faith that your copyrighted work has been reproduced on our site without authorization in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, you may notify our designated copyright agent either by mail to Copyright Agent, c/o Legal Department, WPNI, PO BOX 17370, Arlington, VA 22201-7370 or by email to copyrightagent@wpni.com. This contact information is only for suspected copyright infringement. Contact information for other matters is provided elsewhere on this site. Any personal information you provide in your email will be used only for purposes related to your email.
4. You will be responsible for all charges incurred while your account is being used, if any, including charges for any goods or services. You are also responsible for all statements made or materials posted under your account, including liability for harm caused by such statements or materials. You may not transfer, sell, or otherwise assign your rights or obligations under this Agreement.
5. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company, and its divisions and affiliates, and their directors, officers, managers, employees, shareholders, agents, and licensors, from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorneys' fees, resulting from any violation of this Agreement or the failure to fulfill any obligations relating to your account incurred by you or any other person using your account. We reserve the right to take over the exclusive defense of any claim for which we are entitled to indemnification under this Section. In such event, you shall provide us with such cooperation as is reasonably requested by us.
6. This Service is available "as is." We do not warrant that this Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. There may be delays, omissions, interruptions and inaccuracies in the news, information or other materials available through this Service. We are not responsible for the availability or content of other services that may be linked to this Service. We do not make any warranties, express or implied, including without limitation, those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, with respect to this Service or any information or goods that are available or advertised or sold through this Service. We do not make any representations, nor do we endorse the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or reliability of any advice, opinion, statement or other material or database displayed, uploaded or distributed in this Service or available though links in this Service. We reserve the right to correct any errors or omissions in this Service. Although we intend to take reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, "Trojan horses" or other destructive materials to this Service, we do not guarantee or warrant that this Service or materials that may be downloaded from this Service do not contain such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features. If you rely on this Service and any materials available through this Service, you do so solely at your own risk.
7. Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company, and its divisions and affiliates, and their directors, officers, managers, employees, shareholders, agents and licensors are not liable for incidental, indirect, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages of any kind, including lost revenues or profits, loss of business or loss of data, in any way related to this Service or for any claim, loss or injury based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies in this Service (including without limitation as a result of breach of any warranty or other term of this Agreement). Any claim against us shall be limited to the amount you paid, if any, for use of this Service.
8. This Agreement may be terminated by either party for any reason at any time. Sections two (2) and five (5) through nine (9) of this Agreement shall survive such termination.
9. This Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia. BY CONTINUING TO USE SPRIG, YOU AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.
SPRIG PRIVACY POLICY
(effective as of April 6, 2007)
This Privacy Policy governs Sprig's data collection practices. At the same time that Sprig and WPNI are committed to bringing you information tailored to your individual needs, we recognize the importance of protecting the privacy of your personally identifiable information. In adopting this Privacy Policy, our intent is to balance our legitimate business interests in collecting and using personally identifiable information and your reasonable expectations of privacy. Please note: this policy applies only to information collected by Sprig, and does not govern or apply to information collected or used by Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company or its divisions or affiliates through other means.
What personally identifiable information do I provide to Sprig?
Sprig may ask you to provide various types of personally identifiable information to enhance your experience on our site. For example, Sprig may ask for information such as your name or e-mail address. The more information you provide, the better we are able to customize your experience. We may also ask you for other information at other times — such as when you enter a contest or participate in a promotion, or when you order products from Sprig. Whenever you provide personally identifiable information to us, we will make an effort to link to our Privacy Policy. See below about "cookies" and what other information is collected.
How does Sprig use my personally identifiable information?
Our primary goal in collecting personally identifiable information is to provide you, the user, with a customized experience on our network of sites. This includes personalization services, interactive communications, online shopping and many other types of services, most of which are completely free to you.
Sprig uses the personally identifiable information you provide to us in several ways. Some examples follow.
A user's personally identifiable information may be used by Sprig for editorial purposes such as to contact you as part of an online survey. Additionally, we may also use the information provided by you to: 1) contact you with legal notices, 2) to advise you of any material changes or additions to our Service or terms and conditions, and 3) account status (including confirmation of registrations).
Finally, we reserve the right to send you offers and information about Sprig, The Washington Post Company and its affiliates. However, if you do not wish to receive the foregoing, please click the following link http://sprig.com/accounts/profile/edit/ while logged in. to request removal from this list.
Further, if you told us in your account preferences that you would be interested in receiving e-mail from us, we may send you e-mails about Sprig products, promotions, or services as well as on behalf of other companies. However, if you no longer wish to receive any of the foregoing, you may change your preferences for the future at any time by clicking on the following link http://sprig.com/accounts/profile/edit/ while logged in.
In order to provide services free of charge, we display advertisements. Sprig delivers targeted advertisements on behalf of advertisers. Advertisers give us an advertisement and tell us the type of audience they want to reach (for example, females over 25 years old). We take the advertisement and display it to users meeting that criteria. In this process, the advertiser never has access to individual account information.
Sprig also does research on our users' demographics, interests and behavior based on the information you provide to us including upon registration, on order forms, during a promotion, as well as from our server log files or from surveys. We do this to better understand and serve our users. This research is compiled and analyzed on an aggregated basis and Sprig may share this aggregated data with advertisers or other businesses. In addition, under confidentiality agreements, Sprig may match user information with third party data.
If Sprig changes its use of your personally identifiable information, it will notify you by the email that you provided at registration and /or prominently post such changes in this Privacy Policy.
Do other companies or people have access to personally identifiable information I provide to Sprig?
When you are on an area of Sprig and are asked for personally identifiable information, you are providing that information to Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company, its divisions or affiliates, or vendors providing contractual services for Sprig (such as hosting vendors and list managers). If personally identifiable information is being provided to and/or maintained by any company other than these, our policy is that we will not transfer that personally identifiable information unless notice is given prior to transfer. If you do not want your information to be shared, you can choose not to allow the transfer by not using that particular service or by expressing this preference, if requested. Additional information about personally identifiable information follows.
Promotions: Promotions that run on Sprig may be sponsored by companies other than Sprig or WPNI or may be co-sponsored by Sprig, and/or WPNI and another company. Some or all personally identifiable information provided by you during a promotion may be shared with the sponsor. If information will be shared, we will disclose such sharing prior to the transfer. You can decide not to participate in the promotion if you don't want your personally identifiable information to be shared. In certain circumstances, you may not be able to participate in a particular promotion if you chose not to share personally identifiable information. Currently, most Sprig promotions are limited to U.S. or North American residents.
Advertisers and Links: Sprig advertisers, or Web sites that have links on our site, may also collect personally identifiable information directly from you. The information practices of companies collecting data on our site or Web sites linked to Sprig are not covered by this Privacy Policy.
We do not control the privacy policies of our advertisers, sponsors or other sites or businesses to which we provide hyperlinks or access. Please visit the sites of these businesses to review their privacy policies.
Sprig users should also be aware that, when you voluntarily disclose personal information in chat areas or bulletin boards, that information may be collected by others and may result in unsolicited messages from others.
Except as stated in this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection, a user's personally identifiable information will not be transferred to a party outside Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company, its divisions or affiliates, or its service vendors unless notice is given at the time of collection or prior to transfer. Sprig, WPNI, The Washington Post Company or its divisions or affiliates may also disclose account information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our User Agreement or may be causing injury to or interference with (either intentionally or unintentionally) Sprig's rights or property, other Sprig users, or anyone else that could be harmed by such activities.
Data Security: We have in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to protect the information we collect online. However, as effective as these measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the internet.
What information do web servers collect?
Web servers serving Sprig automatically collect certain non-personally identifiable information, such as which pages each user visits and the domain name (e.g., earthlink.net) of visitors. This information is used for various purposes including internal review, to tailor information to individual visitors, and for traffic audits. We also provide this information (as well as information from third-party market researchers) about our users on an aggregated, anonymous basis to our advertisers.
What are cookies and how does Sprig use them?
Sprig places a "cookie" on the browser of a Sprig user's computer to store and sometimes track information about you. A cookie can be used to tell when your computer has contacted a Web site; we may also use the information for editorial purposes and for other purposes such as measuring certain traffic patterns. For example, cookies are used to ensure that you don't see the same ad too many times in a single session and that you do not have to reenter your login name or password during your visit. We may also use cookies to track your progress and number of entries in some of our promotions and contests. Advertising service vendors that serve ads into our site may also use their own cookies. You may opt-out of the cookies delivered by Sprig by changing the setting on your browser. Please be aware that this will disable all cookies delivered to your browser, not just the ones delivered by Sprig.
How Can I Opt-Out of Online Advertising Cookies?
Online advertising for the Service may be delivered by third vendors (the “Advertising Service Vendors”). Advertising Service vendors place cookies on users' hard drives so that their systems can identify your computer. By placing such cookies on your system, the Advertising Service Vendors are able, among other things, to determine automatically whether you have seen a particular advertisement before and avoid sending you duplicate advertisements. It also enables the Advertising Service Vendors to serve you advertisements tailored to things you have shown interest in based on other sites you have visited. Advertising Service Vendors allow visitors the option to opt-out of advertising cookies. If you do not want the benefits of advertising cookies, you must follow the procedures of the Advertising Service Vendors to deny or accept this feature. Please note that denying this feature or “opting out” will affect not only Sprig and other WPNI sites, but it may affect other sites served by as well. However, it will not affect the cookies used by Sprig.
Often our advertisers contract with a third-party service to host their ads. In this case, an ad serving vendor contacts the advertisers' hosting service for a particular advertisement. In that case, an independent cookie may be used by the third-party service. We do not have a mechanism to allow visitors to opt-out of cookies from vendors with whom we do not have a contractual relationship.
Kids under 13: Do not send any information about yourself to us — including information like your name, address or e-mail address. In general, we do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If, in limited circumstances, we do knowingly collect personally identifiable information from a child under the age of 13, we will do so only with verified parental consent prior to collection. In the event that we learn that we have collected any personal information from a child under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information from our database as quickly as possible.
Technology on the Internet is developing at a rapid pace, and we need to maintain our flexibility in the online arena. If we need to change our policy in the future, we will post these changes as soon as they go into effect.
