(NPS) • The News Positioning System

The following discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices for the News Positioning System (NPS). We reserve the right to modify the information contained herein at anytime without prior notice. If we do make changes to our privacy policies, we will modify this page accordingly. Check this page periodically for amendments. This site and all information and materials on it are provided to you "as is" without warranty of any kind.

YOUR USE OF THIS SITE, OR YOUR PROVISION TO US OF ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION CONSTITUTES YOUR AGREEMENT TO THESE TERMS AND ANY SUBSEQUENT CHANGES TO THESE TERMS; DO NOT USE THE SITE OR PROVIDE INFORMATION IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH ALL OF THE TERMS.

As with many websites, we collect certain information, even when you are not logged in. When you browse, read, or download information from the NPS, data is collected by the NPS, including but not limited to your IP address, URL request, browser type, and date and time of your request.

We analyze traffic to the NPS site in various ways, including using a service called Google Analytics. (Google Analytics is subject to the privacy policy of Google, Inc., which you can find on their website.) We use this information to generate statistics and measure site activity to improve the usefulness of the site to our visitors. Unless you affirmatively provide additional information to us, we do not collect or store personally identifiable information such as name, mailing address, email address, phone number, or social security number.

We collect the IP addresses of visitors, time of access, browser type, and web pages visited. We collect this information on an aggregate basis only. For example, we track which pages are most popular among visitors as a whole. We do not track information on which pages an individual user visits. We do not collect any other information without your knowledge and permission.

NPS requests personally identifiable information when you register for an account. Information may be used or requested to perform research, improve usability of the site, administer mailing lists or online communities, or other activities related to the NPS services. This information may include, but is not limited to, personal names, e-mail addresses, location, and occupation.

1. Profile information:

   When you register with NPS, you create your own profile and privacy settings. Profile information you provide is displayed on NPS, with the exception of your phone number and email address. The only information required to make a profile is a username and password, so you decide how much or how little information you wish to put on your profile. If you enter an email address we will be able to send you password reminders, we will also be able to forward messages to you from other NPS users directly. If you do not enter an email address you will have to log into NPS to collect any messages from other users. We may occasionally use your name, email address or phone number to contact you regarding your use of NPS for research purposes, or leave you a message on NPS so you can opt to contact us.

   Profile information is used by NPS primarily to be presented back to and edited by you when you access the service and to be presented to others. Other users will be able to contact you through your profile. If you provide an email address to NPS, then NPS will forward messages left on you profile to you. Other users will not be made aware of your email address when they send a message, and your email address will remain private unless you choose to contact them. If you do not enter an email into NPS, messages will be stored on the site until you can pick them up at a later time. To pick up your messages you can temporarily enter an email address to which you messages will be sent. That email address will be erased after this one time use.

2. Groups:

   Users with common interests are organized in "groups" on NPS. When you join a group, your membership in that group may become public knowledge according to the privacy settings of the group.

   Your membership in a group is controlled by the creator of the group--depending on the settings, he or she will have to approve your membership, and in all groups the creator has the power to remove people from the group. These decisions are made solely at the discretion of the group creator based on whatever criteria they decide and NPS is not responsible for any of these.

3. Articles:

   When you use NPS to submit an article, your articles can be shared with other users in accordance with the privacy settings you select. All such sharing of information is done at your risk. Therefore, please keep in mind that if you disclose personal information in your article summaries and elsewhere, this information may become publicly available.

   Article Privacy Settings:

   You can set the privacy level for each article you publish on NPS. 1) You can choose to make an article publicly available. This means the article can be viewed by anyone visiting the site. 2) You can make the article private. A private report will appear only on your user profile. Private means that you are the only user who will be able to view the content of the report. Please be aware the report will still be figured into aggregate data about use of NPS, aggregate information about reviewed landmen and companies, as well as aggregate average grades. Also NPS retains the right to access the report for site maintenance and research purposes. Users visiting the site will be made aware that there is a private report about the landman or company, which they cannot access. 3) Finally you can share the report with your a cluster of users in a group. Please be aware NPS cannot guarantee the identity of any of its users. Therefore we strongly recommend that you only share reports with groups if you can personally guarantee the identities of its members and if you recently check to make sure that no unwanted, unknown members are in the group. NPS also cannot ensure that individuals with whom you choose to share reports will maintain their privacy.

Available log records, account information, and all data stored on our servers may be accessed by our system administrators. [EXPLAIN POLICY OF SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS TO DOCUMENTS – ENCRYPTION, ETC.] If you choose make a document or report private, you will be able to access them from your users profile. Please be aware that for the purpose of research and site maintenance NPS reserves the right to access documents and reports you submit privately. In the special case of documents like contracts which may be associated with non-disclosure agreement we will take that added precaution of encrypting the documents so that they are not accidentally opened during site maintenance. You will have the option to encrypt your document when you upload it. NPS cannot ensure that encryption will keep documents fully private. If you have any questions about documents you are uploading, consult a lawyer.

We may use information you provide without identifying you as an individual to third parties. We do this for research purposes, to evaluate and optimize NPS and other ExtrACT projects as well as to share information between other ExtrACT projects.

In the event that we are required by law (including a court order) to disclose the information you submit, we will provide you with notice (unless we are prohibited) that a request for your information has been made so that you may object to the disclosure. We will send this notice by email to the address you have given us. We prefer to independently object to over-broad requests for access to information about users of our site, but we cannot assure you that we will be able to do this in all cases. If you do not challenge the disclosure request yourself, we may be legally required to turn over your information.

We may use session cookies when you visit our website while your browser is open, or while you are logged into our site. Cookies are small files used by the server and browser to keep track of information about a user; they can be used to significantly increase the usability of a site. To facilitate our registration and login functions, we may use cookies to recognize when you return to our website. If you do not logout of your account, these cookies allow us to keep track of your username and password so that you do not have to resubmit the information to log into your account. If others will be using your computer, you should log out of your account so that your logon information is cleared. Cookies will not be preserved between authenticated sessions, and will be deleted on logout or 4 hours after the browser window is closed.

We will not use tracking software other than cookies to determine state for each individual session.

This website's content is intended for adults and we will not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age. If you are a parent or legal guardian of a child under age 13 who you believe has submitted personal information to this site, please contact us immediately.

Posting or updating content is a public action, and all content may be publicly visible. Identification of all contributed content may include, but is not limited to, display of your account name or IP address. All content may be retained for restorative, archival, or research purposes by the NPS. Editing or deleting content may alter the displayed state of the content, but will not permanently delete the content from the website. [Will want to flesh this out more]

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. However, your confidential use of this site cannot be guaranteed by NPS. NPS shall not be responsible for any harm that you or any person may suffer as a result of a breach of confidentiality in respect to your use of this site or any information you transmitted to this site.

Material on this website may link to independently run websites outside of the http://www.newspositioning.com/nps/ website domain. The NPS is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of such websites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any websites you visit from this website.