Privacy Policy

Hoak Media of Panama City LLC dba WMBB-TV PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS

At Hoak Media of Panama City LLC, we are committed to protecting the privacy, accuracy and reliability of any personal information you choose to provide and to safeguarding such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. This privacy policy applies to those websites that are part of the Hoak Media of Panama City LLC stations. This Policy applies only to the personal information collected by Hoak Media of Panama City LLC and its network stations and does not cover any such information collected by its corporate parent, affiliates, or any other company, unless specifically stated.

Unless specified otherwise on the Service, all users must be at least 18 years of age and a legal resident of the United States to participate in any activity that requires the submission of personal information. This Service is designed and targeted to United States (“ U.S. ”) audiences and is governed by and operated in accordance with the laws of the U.S. We make no representation that this Service is operated in accordance with the laws or governed by other nations. By your participation in our Service activities, you certify that you are at least 18 years of age and located in the U.S. If you are located in the European Union or elsewhere outside of the U.S. and you participate in activities on this Service contrary to our policy that only U.S. residents are eligible for certain activities, you do so at your own risk and initiative, and are responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. Please be aware that any personal information you transfer to us will be transferred to the U.S and subject to U.S. law. By using this Service, participating in any Service activities, and/or providing us with your personal information, you consent to this transfer of personal information to the U.S. and waive any claims that may arise under your own national laws.

Please read this privacy policy carefully. This privacy policy may change from time to time, so please check back often. If you have any questions or comments regarding this privacy policy, please contact us by sending an e-mail message to .

1. Collection of Personal Information
You do not need to provide any information that identifies you ("personal information") to use a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site or to obtain information from most of the features of a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site. In general, you can visit our websites without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information.

However, if you want to use certain online services, you may be asked to provide some personal information, such as your name, mailing address or e-mail address. We also may ask you to choose a user name and password, and provide that information when accessing certain online features. If you do not want to give us any personal information, you can always decide not to use the services. The choice is yours. We are only interested in offering you convenient online services that match your interests and needs.

Unless stated otherwise, we do not request contact information for a mobile phone, text messaging or any wireless device that includes a domain name address (such as “.net” or “.com”) as part of the contact information. Federal law prohibits the sending of commercial email messages directly to a wireless device that uses a domain name, unless you have first given your affirmative consent. We may inadvertently collect a wireless device number that includes a domain name when you send us an inquiry or register for a contest or membership club. However, we will not knowingly use that contact information for sending commercial email. We reserve the right to respond to user inquiries or requests sent via a wireless device that uses a domain name as such messages are not deemed to be commercial email and therefore, are not regulated by Federal law. However, when “computer to phone” commercial emails are prohibited by law, we may reject your wireless device contact information when such information is submitted for certain features or services. We will attempt to notify you if we will need new contact information. All users of the Service are required to provide true, current, complete and accurate personal information when prompted and we will reject and delete any entry that we believe in good faith to be false or fraudulent. Any prize or benefit shall be forfeited due to a rejected or disqualified entry.

Your continued participation indicates your acceptance of this Privacy Policy and of the collection, use, disclosure, management and storage of your personal information as described below. We may from time to time, transfer or merge any personal information collected off-line to our online databases or store off-line information in an electronic format. We may also combine personal information we collect online with information available from other sources, including information received from Advertisers, or marketing companies. This Privacy Policy covers all such personal information and will remain in full force and effect as long as you are a user of the Service or a participant in Station activities.

The list below contains some of the instances when a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website, one of its operational service providers or vendors (third party companies that provide internal support to the Service) may collect your personal information. Please note that many of our websites may offer additional online features and services and may ask you to provide some personal information before permitting you to access those areas. This Privacy Policy governs the collection of any personal information you provide to a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site that is part of the Hoak Media of Panama City LLC station group.

Automated News Services and Updates. This Service may offer you special subscription features for news and news-related topics. For email updates, you are only required to submit an email address. The submission of other information such as your computer’s operating system, ranges for household income and education, and a general description of your profession is voluntary.

Polls. Many Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites offer polling areas, which provide users with an opportunity to vote on local and national issues of concern. When you choose to participate in a poll, we may ask you to provide your name and e-mail address. This information helps us ensure the accuracy of our polling data.

Surveys. Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites also may allow users to complete surveys about products or services offered by Hoak Media of Panama City LLC or other companies. These surveys may ask for your name and e-mail address, and/or other information, such as your gender and income level. This information helps us understand our survey results.

Contests/Trivia. Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites also afford users many opportunities to play contests or trivia games. When you enter into a contest, trivia game or any other promotional opportunity, we may ask for your name, password information and address (physical and electronic) so that we can contact you if you win. Sometimes we may require you to provide additional information, such as your gender and income level. Of course, if you do not want to provide such information, you do not need to participate in the online activity.

Purchases and Shopping. Some Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites enable users to purchase products. When you purchase products, we may request your name, address, telephone number and credit card information. This information allows us to send you the items you ordered, to process payment information, and to respond to product and billing questions. Credit card or debit card account information will be collected via a secured transmission process and will be stored in a commercially reasonable secured manner. Alternatively, the Service may use a third party operational service provider to conduct the financial transaction in a secured manner; the third party payment site will be accessible via a hyperlink from the Hoak Media of Panama City LLC Station Group’s website and will be solely responsible for all financial transactions and the collection, use, and storage of your personal information.

Chat/Message Boards. Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites also may offer users the chance to participate in public forums, such as chat rooms, message boards and/or news groups. When you choose to participate in any of these forums, we may request your name, password information and address (physical and electronic). This information helps us respond to questions or concerns about use of these public areas.

Comments/Questions. You may send us comments or questions about your use of a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site. You need not identify yourself to send a comment or question, but we may collect your e-mail address so that we can send you a response. If you choose to provide other personal information in your comment or question, we may keep it in our correspondence files.

The above list contains some of the instances when a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website may collect your personal information. Please note that many of our websites may offer additional online features and services and may ask you to provide some personal information before permitting you to access those areas. This privacy policy governs the collection of any personal information you provide to a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site that is part of the Hoak Media of Panama City LLC Network.

2. Use and Disclosure of Personal Information
Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites use your personal information for three general purposes. First, we use the information to provide you with the services you request and to respond to billing and/or other questions related to such service offerings. Second, we use the information to understand your use of our websites and to notify you about updates to one of our sites or to send you marketing materials or promotional offers that may be of interest to you. Third, we may use this information in aggregate form to help us evaluate and modify existing services, and to help us develop additional services that are likely to be of interest to our users. On occasion, Hoak Media of Panama City LLC may or one of its network stations may share your personal information with our affiliated advertisers, sponsors and promotional partners. You will have an opportunity to "opt-out" of such sharing the time of registration for the event or feature, or by contacting the Service at .

We may share your personal information with unaffiliated third parties in limited instances. For example, we may share your personal information with unaffiliated third parties as is necessary to process or collect payments, or service registered-user accounts. We also may hire third-party technology providers to host the Hoak Media of Panama City LLC Network and to store your personal information.

We may also share aggregate, non-personal information about website usage with unaffiliated third parties, including, but not limited to, government agencies, advertisers, and the media (i.e., __% of Hoak Media of Panama City LLC users are female, __% of users have visited certain sections, etc.). This aggregate information does not contain any personal information about an individual.

Finally, we may be required to disclose personal information by law or legal process, to protect and defend the rights or property of a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site, or to protect the personal safety of users to one of our sites. We also reserve the right to contact appropriate authorities when activities that are illegal or violate our policies are taking place on a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website.

Except under the limited circumstances described above, we will not disclose any of your personal information to unaffiliated third parties.

3. How We Protect Personal Information
We take reasonable measures to protect the privacy, accuracy, and reliability of any information you choose to provide and to protect such information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction. Only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information, and they only may do so for permitted business functions. Any employee who violates our privacy access policies will be subject to disciplinary action.

However, please note that this Service does not use a secured connection for the transmission of personal information except for the purchase of goods and services. When a user transmits personal information over an unsecured Internet connection, personal information during the transmission such as your email or registration could be copied or intercepted by unknown third parties. Therefore, you understand, acknowledge and agree that you transmit certain personal information over this Service at your own risk.

4. Accessing or Deleting Your Personal information
If you have submitted personal information through a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site and you would like to access that information, please send an e-mail to . We will use reasonable efforts to supply you with this information and to correct any factual inaccuracies that you identify. Upon your request, we also will remove your personal information from our databases.

5. Collection, Use and Disclosure of Non-Personal Information
In some cases, a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site may collect information about you that is not personally identifiable, as described below. We reserve the right to merge any such information with your personal information.

6. Internet Protocol Addresses
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a number automatically assigned to your computer whenever you access the Internet. This number does not identify your name, e-mail address or other personal information. If you request pages from any Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website, that site's server will enter your IP address into a log. To maintain user anonymity, Hoak Media of Panama City LLC does not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information. We also do not permit IP addresses to be associated and viewed with posts to chat rooms and bulletin boards. We store IP addresses for a period of time to help us to identify anyone who refuses to comply with our in-house rules or terms of service, and to identify visitors who threaten our service, site, customers or others. We also will use this information to measure site traffic for purposes of system administration and for our sponsors. This aggregate data also helps us to understand how people are using the website and helps us improve your online experience.

7. Cookies
Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites also automatically gather certain non-personal information through the use of "cookies." "Cookies" are small text files that recognize repeat visitors, facilitate ongoing access to some sites, and allow sites to understand how and when pages are visited and by how many people. We use cookies primarily to make improvements and updates based on which areas are popular and which are not. We also use cookies to ensure the accuracy of our polling data. Except for personal information voluntarily provided by you (i.e., during any registration process), we do not use information transferred through cookies for promotional or marketing purposes, and that information is not shared with third parties.

Our advertisers may occasionally place cookies on your computer, which is standard in the Internet industry. Please note that Hoak Media of Panama City LLC does not control advertiser cookies, and such cookies are not subject to this privacy policy.

8. Safeguarding Children's Privacy
Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites will not knowingly collect personal information or any other identifying data from children under 13 years of age without first obtaining verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian. Requests for parental consent will explain how we collect, use, and disclose children's personal information, and will include an opportunity for parents to prevent use of their children's information, as well as to prevent their children from participating in features which involve the collection of personal information. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 send personal information to a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site without first obtaining parental consent, the site will immediately reject any such entry and delete that information from its database, unless such information pertains to the programming or operations of Hoak Media of Panama City LLC network stations and will be subject to the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission. (See above Comments/Question Section.)

Except to meet FCC, other regulatory and legal purposes, we will not use, distribute or disclose any child's personal information to third parties without prior parental consent. If, at any time. a parent withdraws his or her consent to our use or maintenance of personal information collected from his or her child, we will promptly remove such information from our database. In addition, we will not require children less than 13 years of age to disclose more personal information than is necessary in order to participate in any online feature or service.

9. External Links
Hoak Media of Panama City LLC sites may provide links to various external websites or services (collectively referred to as a “Linked Website”). (Please see the Service’s Legal Terms for Website Use Agreement for more information.) When you click on one of these links, you will be transferred from a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website and connected to the service or website of the third party organization or company that you selected. Even if an affiliation exists between Hoak Media of Panama City LLC and a third party Linked Website, Hoak Media of Panama City LLC exercises no control and has no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or business practices of a Linked Website. Each of these Linked Websites maintains its own independent privacy and data collection policies and procedures. If you visit a website that is linked to a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC site, you should consult that site's privacy policy before providing those sites with any of your personal information.

10. Framed Websites/Pages
The Service may also include certain pages that are “framed” and link to third party websites (“Framed Pages”). We provide these Framed Pages as a convenience to our users. A Framed Page may have the same look and feel as other pages on the Service, with a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC or network station logo and border, but Framed Pages are often merely gateways to other web sites. Even if an affiliation exists between Hoak Media of Panama City LLC and a Framed Page, Hoak Media of Panama City LLC exercises no control over Framed Pages, and Hoak Media of Panama City LLC is not responsible for any content or the privacy policies or data-collection practices of a Framed Page. The privacy policy of the Framed Page, if any, will control your use of, and provision of information to or through, the Framed Page. If you visit a Framed Page, you should consult the Framed Page’s privacy policy before providing any personal information.

11. Terms, Changes and Questions
By using a Hoak Media of Panama City LLC website, you signify your agreement to the terms of our privacy policy. If you do not agree with these terms, please do not use or disclose any personal information through one of our sites. If we decide to change this privacy policy, we will post those changes here so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose it to anyone. If you have any questions or comments about this policy or our use of personal information, you may send an e-mail to or send a letter to the following address:

Hoak Media of Panama City LLC

We will use reasonable efforts to promptly investigate any complaint you may have regarding our use of personal information.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on July 16, 2008 and is effective immediately.