Privacy Policy

What information do web servers collect?

Web servers serving washingtonpost.com automatically collect certain non-personally identifiable information, such as which pages each user visits and the domain name of visitors. This information is used for various purposes including internal review, to tailor information to individual visitors and other users, for traffic audits, and as described elsewhere in this privacy policy. 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 washingtonpost.com use them?

Washingtonpost.com places a “cookie” on the browser of a washingtonpost.com 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 understand your use of the Service. Advertising service vendors that serve ads into our site may also use their own cookies. You may opt out of those cookies as described below. You may opt-out of the cookies delivered by washingtonpost.com 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 washingtonpost.com.

How can I opt out of online advertising cookies?

Online advertising for washingtonpost.com is delivered by the vendor DoubleClick. DoubleClick places cookies on your browser to facilitate serving particular ads – for instance, to help determine whether you have seen a particular advertisement before, to tailor ads to you if you have visited our site before, and to avoid sending you duplicate advertisements. You can opt out of DoubleClick’s use of cookies for these purposes by visiting http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/.

In some cases, we and advertisers on washingtonpost.com and other sites work with other third-party vendors to help deliver advertisements tailored to your interests. These vendors include ad networks and audience segment providers, and they place cookies on your browser to collect information about your online activity (e.g., the sites and pages you have visited) in order to help advertisers deliver particular ads on our site and other sites that they believe you would find most relevant. You can opt out of those vendors’ use of cookies to tailor advertising to you by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/.

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.

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