Privacy Policy

MiceChat Privacy Policy

The MiceChat.com Web site interface, columnists and guides are part of MiceChat. Our policy is to respect and protect the privacy of our visitors. This policy statement tells you how we collect information from you and how we use it.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

You do not have to provide personal information to read our Site. However, if you’d like to comment, you will need to give a valid email and password to our comment system run by the company Disqus. You may opt out of that system at any time via your user portal on that site. 

We collect personal information only when you provide it to us; for example, to use services on this Site. You may be asked to provide your contact information (such as your name, postal address, telephone numbers and/or e-mail address), financial information (such as credit card numbers), and demographic information (such as your zip code, or age). You are not required to provide us with information to read the site, but it may be required to perform certain functions, such as commenting, sending a support message, or purchasing a product. 

Contact information is used to respond to your inquiries, to notify you if you have won a contest or a quiz, and to send products and services ordered from our sites. We may also offer you the opportunity to receive periodic mailings from us with information on new products and services, updates to our Web sites or upcoming events.

Financial information that is collected is used only to process orders for products and services purchased through our web sites and is never shared with third parties for any other reason.

Demographic information is shared with advertisers and third parties only on an aggregated basis. (See Aggregate Information below.)

Whenever we request your personal information on our Web sites, we will try to explain to you how we intend to use it and provide you with a choice to decline certain uses. In addition, if we plan to post any of your personal information on our Web sites (for example, your name and home town to identify you as the winner of a quiz), we will also notify you of this possibility either when you provide information to us or prior to posting the information.

We may be required to disclose personal information pursuant to valid legal process.

Please keep in mind that whenever you give out personal information online (such as in discussion forums or chat), that information can be collected and used by people you do not know. While we strive to protect your personal information and privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose online and you do so at your own risk.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymized string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the comment services we use (Disqus for our articles and vBulletin for our forums). After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact Forms and Email

If you sign up for a MiceChat Newsletter, we will collect your name and email address for the purpose of customizing your email and mailing it to you. It is not necessary nor required for you to join our mailing list.  If you do join our mailing list, you may unsubscribe at any time from a link at the bottom of every email.

Aggregate Information

We share aggregate information about our visitors, which does not personally identify you, with advertisers, business partners, sponsors, and other third parties. For example, we may report the percentage of visitors in each age category or the percentage of visitors interested in visiting Walt Disney World. This data is used to customize our content and to possibly offer advertising and services that better serve our visitors.

IP Addresses

An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are on the Internet. The IP address number is used to route requests from your computer and Web pages to your computer while you are on the Internet.

We collect IP addresses for the purposes of system administration, to report aggregate information to our advertisers and partners, and to audit the use of our site. When visitors request pages from our site, our servers log the visitors’ IP addresses. We do not normally link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable, which means that a visitor’s session will be logged, but the visitor remains anonymous to us. We can and will use IP addresses to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our house rules or to protect our service, site, visitors, or others.

Cookies

Cookies are data that a Web site transfers to an individual’s computer for record-keeping purposes. Cookies, which are an industry standard used by most Web sites, including ours, can facilitate a user’s ongoing access to, and use of, a site.

By showing how and when visitors use a site, cookies help us see which areas are popular and which are not. Many improvements and updates to the site are based on such data as total number of visitors and pages viewed. This information is most easily tracked with cookies. We use the information from cookies to provide services better tailored to our visitors needs.

We may use a temporary cookie to track the products you have chosen to purchase while shopping on our Web sites. The cookie expires once you are done shopping. The cookie saves you the trouble of entering information over and over again during a single visit.

If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows you to decline the cookie feature. You should note, however, that declining cookies may make it difficult for you to make purchases or use other services on our Web sites.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

Advertising

In addition to possible online banner advertisements displayed by MiceChat directly, we use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit our Web site. These companies may use aggregated information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, please see: http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp

Links to Other Sites

Visitors should be aware that when they are on a MiceChat site, they could be directed to other sites that are beyond our control. There are links to other sites from our pages that take you outside our service. For example, if you “click” on a banner advertisement, the “click” may take you off our site. This includes links from advertisers, sponsors, and business partners that may use our logo as part of a co-branding agreement. These other sites may send their own cookies to visitors, collect data, or solicit personal information. We are not responsible for the privacy of personal information furnished by you to these advertisers. Visitors to our site who provide personal information to these other sites are advised to check the privacy policies of those sites. Look for the link on their main pages.

Services Used by MiceChat which may collect your personal information: 

Disqus: Our comment platform is a service called Disqus. When you leave a comment, it is that service you are logging into and that service which collects your information. If you wish to opt-out of Disqus, you may do so at any time via your account page on the Disqus website. 

Mail Chimp: Our newsletters and event announcements are sent via Mail Chimp. There is an option to opt-out at the bottom of every email sent.  

EventZilla: We sell event tickets via EventZilla. You only need to supply information to this service if you are purchasing tickets and related products from us. MiceChat does not retain or resell any financial information. EventZilla offers additional privacy information that you may review at any time via their system.  

Mediavine Advertising Network (see above): Our advertising network collects information on you to deliver you ads which are targeted to your interests. There is a button in the upper left corner of every ad which you can use to opt-out of collection.  Please note that you will then be delivered ads which have not been optimized for you and your interests.  

Other Services: From time to time MiceChat utilizes other services, such as survey platforms, contest software, games, etc. These services are always provided on an opt-in basis and are never required. You never need to complete any information on these services unless you choose to do so.  

Our privacy policy does not extend to anything that is inherent in the operation of the Internet, and therefore beyond our control.

What Rights You Have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided which we currently hold. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes or data which we do not have direct access to for 3rd Party services used by this site. We strive to use only services that allow you to control or delete your personal data.

If you have any questions or concerns about your data, please use the Contact Us links below to send us a message.

Security

We have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us or from our online products or services, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your transmission, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. We may use third parties to host and maintain our Web site(s).

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Correcting, Updating, or Removing Personal Information

In case you wish to correct, update, or remove your personal information, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to find a way to correct, update, or remove the personal data you give us as it is used on our Web site(s) and to the extent we control the use of such data. You can do this at supplied member profile pages or by contacting the administrator.

Acceptance of These Terms

By using this Site, you signify your consent to the MiceChat Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our site(s). Your continued use of our site(s) following the posting of changes to these terms will mean you accept those changes.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The “help” feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP Address
  • Operating System type
  • Operating System version
  • Device Type
  • Language of the website
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.