• When subscribing to any of our email newsletters, we only ask for your email address.
• That information is only used to send you our famous free email newsletters.
• We don't rent, sell or distribute subscriber information to anybody. We never share your information except to carry out the services you request. Period.
• You can unsubscribe from the email newsletters at any time you like. You have complete control over your subscriptions.
• The instructions to remove yourself from an ezine are given at the bottom of every issue. Follow those instructions and our automated system will handle the rest.

None of this is new or a change in our policies. Ever since we started Woody’s Watch in 1996 we’ve always kept our readers’ personal information confidential. This privacy policy just formalizes what we’ve always done.

This privacy statement discloses the privacy practices for the Woody’s Watch web site www.woodyswatch.com, WOPR web site www.wopr.com and email newsletters (ezines).

If you feel that this company is not abiding by its posted privacy policy, you should first contact our Manager, by sending email to manager@woodywatch.com with full details of your concerns.

Information Collection and Use

Woody’s Watch is the sole owner of the information collected on the Woody's Watch or WOPR web sites. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. Woody’s Watch collects information from our users at several different points on our websites and also receives requests for subscription to our free email newsletters that are collected by third-parties on our behalf. As a long-standing policy we only ask you for information that is necessary for us to provide services to you.

Woody's Watch has three parts of its operations that need some personal information from you as follows:

Email Newsletters

Our famous free email newsletters are at the core of what we do, for most people it is our only point of contact with them. Therefore we restrict the information we request from you to a bare minimum.
If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletters, we only ask for your email address. We may also store your name if you subscribe via email and your name is included in your email message header.

Your email address is only used by us to send the email newsletters you have requested.

Your email address is not otherwise retrievable by us in the normal course of business.

We send all new subscribers a welcoming email to verify their email address. That message prominently includes information on how to stop receiving that email newsletter.

Correction/Updating Personal Information

If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (ie email address), or if a user no longer desires our service, then the user has full control over the information we store.

We provide several ways to correct, update or remove that user’s personal data. This can be done at the Subscriber Services web page for each email newsletter on the woodyswatch.com web site.

Removing or unsubscribing from an email newsletter can be done via the woodyswatch.com web site or via email. Current instructions for this are provided at the bottom of each email newsletter that we send.

It is vital that any request for unsubscribing is done at exactly the same email address as originally subscribed -- the exact address stored on our list system is displayed in the 'Administrivia' section at the bottom of each of our email newsletters sent to you.

Since the subscription system is fully automated and secure you must use one of the several methods outlined to unsubscribe. Sending requests to other email addresses related to Woody's Watch (including replying to an email newsletter) will not be received and acted upon.

A confirmation email of your unsubscription from an email newsletter will be sent to your email address. If you do not receive that confirmation then the request to unsubscribe has been unsuccessful, please check carefully the email address used.

Choice/Opt-out

Woody’s Watch does not use personal information for purposes not directly related to our site or sending of our email newsletters.

Users who no longer wish to receive one or more of our newsletters may opt-out of receiving these communications by using the web site or email methods shown at the bottom of each issue of our email newsletters. An email acknowledgement of the removal the list of subscribers will be sent to the email address.

The mechanism for removing or unsubscribing from an email newsletter is fully automated. You must follow the instructions given at the bottom of the most current issue you have received in order to be unsubscribed. Taking other actions (such as replying to an ezine sent to you or sending email requests to other addresses) will not be read by anyone and will not unsubscribe you.

Online Discussion Forum (Woody's Lounge)

Woody's Lounge is a web based discussion facility that you may choose to participate in.

Woody's Lounge is a collection of online Message Boards where members may post comments and reply to other posts about Microsoft software and other computer-related topics. These posts are available for viewing by other members and by the general public.

To enter you need to supply a username, password and email address only.

Woody's Lounge will not disclose personal details supplied with the registration or other communication except where required to do so by law or where a Lounger has elected to make details available, as outlined below.

Members are reminded that the forum is accessible to the public and any information divulged through the content of posting on the forum becomes public and they should exercise caution when deciding to disclose their personal information.

Member information obtained during registration

Woody's Lounge stores each member's information entered during registration including their username, email address and IP identifying number.

The username will be displayed on each post or reply made by the member on the forum. At the time of registration, members may choose to identify themselves on their posts by using their own name or may remain anonymous to other members and the public by choosing a pseudonym as their username.

The email address provided during registration will not be displayed on the forum and is only available for the Lounge administration to communicate directly with the member for the issue of their initial password (which is stored encrypted) and to provide members, if they so choose, with information from time to time on the development of the Boards.

The IP identifying address is for system administration and to assist in identifying a member in the event of a formal complaint or claim being made against that member by an aggrieved party or by other legal or regulatory authorities.

Woody's Lounge may pass on a member's details or disclose their identifying data, other information or content to any law enforcement or regulatory authority in order to comply with their direction or request in regard to legal process. Further, we may disclose a member's identifying data, other information or content to a third party in response to any claim of aggrievement or claim of violation of a third party's rights.

Additional public information entered by members on their profile

Members' profiles can be viewed by other users who choose to click on a username beside a posting. There is no initial personal information displayed on this profile until a member decides to edit their Basic Profile and provide further particulars. This publicly available information is optional and may be left blank if a member desires. These optional items include an email address for other users to contact the member, the member's real name, the member's Internet home page address, their occupation, hobbies, location and ICQ number. Members can add to, amend or delete this optional personal information at any time by editing their Basic Profile.

Member opt-out/update procedures

A member may remove their information from our database so as not to receive future communications or to no longer receive our Service, by sending email to LoungeAdmin

A member may modify the information previously provided, by editing their Profile or sending email to LoungeAdmin

The use of cookies and external links

Cookies are pieces of software code sent from the web site to each user and stored as small files within their web browser program. Woody's Lounge requires members to accept cookies so as to be able to maintain their personal custom settings, assist in speedier logins and to facilitate the effective use of the site. Members may disable cookies by selecting the appropriate option on their web browser. However, this may adversely affect the ability to correctly view or to access the Lounge.

Posts may contain links to other web sites. We have no control over and are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other such web sites.

Security

Woody's Lounge maintains a security system on the server to protect member's personal data and the site's operation. However, no Internet data is yet able to be fully guaranteed to be secure. While we will continue to endeavour to protect member's personal data we cannot warrant the security of any information sent over the Internet to us.

Contests / Giveaways

From time-to-time we offer prizes to our readers. Some contests need your participation to enter via email (eg sending in your favorite tips) while others are random drawings from the list of current ezine subscribers and therefore requires no separate registration or entry.

Participation in these contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose information. If you are chosen as a winner then our Manager will email you to request contact information (such as name, address and phone number) so we can send your prize to you. Contact information will be used to notify the winners and distribute prizes only.

Contest winners will need to supply us with their name and shipping address upon a specific request from an authorized staff member of Woody's Watch (usually the Manager or Editor-in-Chief). This address information is only used for the purpose of delivering your prize and is only held temporarily in private storage at our office. You can review or correct name / address that you can given for this purpose by sending email to manager@woodyswatch.com.

The public announcement of contest winners will only show an abbreviated name and broad location (ie city or state / country).

All Woody's Watch subscribers are eligible to participate in contests or win randomly drawn prizes regardless of where they live in the world. Normally the majority of winners come from North America because that's where the majority of the subscribers reside. Employees, writers and any other people connected with the operation of Woody's Watch, their family and relatives are ineligible to enter or win any prizes.

Surveys

From time-to-time our site may request information from users via surveys. We have not undertaken a user survey to date but may do so in the future.

Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose information. Information requested may include contact information (such as name and address), and demographic information (such as postal/zip code, age level). Contact information will be used to notify any winners and award prizes only. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site and email newsletters.

Contest winners will need to supply us with their name and shipping address upon a specific request from an authorized staff member of Woody's Watch (usually the Manager or Editor-in-Chief). This address information is only used for the purpose of delivering your prize and is only held temporarily in private storage at our office. You can review or correct the status of any name / address that you can given for this purpose by sending email to manager@woodyswatch.com.

The public announcement of any survey winners will only show an abbreviated name and broad location (ie city or state / country).

Tell-A-Friend

If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask them for the friend’s name and email address. Woody’s Watch will automatically send the friend a one-time email inviting them to visit the site and/or subscribe to one of our free email newsletters. . Woody’s Watch stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and then discards the information. The information is not used, sold or shared.

Registration

Registration is not required to use any part of the Woody’s Watch web sites.

If you wish to receive one or more of our free email newsletters you are required to supply to your email address only.
Registration is required for use of our online discussion facility known as the WOPR Lounge. To use that feature you need to supply a username and password of your choice plus an email address.

Orders

Woody’s Watch only distributes free email newsletters, therefore it does not accept paid orders for any products.

Cookies

A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s hard drive containing information about the user.

The Woody’s Watch web sites and email newsletters do NOT use cookies.

Some of our advertisers may use cookies on our site and email newsletters. However, we have no access to or control over these cookies.

Log Files

We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user’s movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.

Sharing

We may share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person.

We use an outside company to dispatch our email newsletters. This company does not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.

Links

Our web sites and our email newsletters contain links to other sites. Please be aware that Woody’s Watch is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information.

This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Web site and email newsletters.

Security

Our websites take every precaution to protect our users’ information. If users submit sensitive information via the website, your information is protected both online and off-line.

All of our users’ information is held by restricted access in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job are granted access to personally identifiable information. For the vast majority of customers we hold little, if any, information about them, apart from the subscriber’s email address and possibly their name.

Site and Service Updates

We may in the future send the user site and service announcement updates. Members are not able to un-subscribe from service announcements, which contain important information about the service. We communicate with the user to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account via email or the web site only.

Collection by outside parties

To date we have not permitted our services to be used for collection of information by outside parties and it is not anticipated that we will do so. Users of our site would always be notified if their information was being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with services that require an outside party, or not.

Notification of Changes

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on our privacy related web pages so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.

Effective Date

While this policy formalizes the practices of Woody's Watch since it's inception in 1996, for the purposes of any dispute resolution this privacy policy is effective on 5th February 2001.


Regards,
Woody Leonhard, Publisher
Peter Deegan, Editor-in-Chief

Woody's Watch