Appeal Rights
Residents of certain states have the right to appeal a decision regarding a privacy request. You can exercise this right by responding to the email we send containing our response to your request, and following the instructions in such email. As of the Effective Date, residents of Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia have this right.
Right to Limit Sensitive PI Processing
Certain personal information qualifies as sensitive data or Sensitive PI under the U.S. State Privacy Laws, which we refer to in this U.S. State Privacy Notice as “Sensitive PI”. If you are a California resident, you have the right to direct businesses to limit their use and disclosure of Sensitive PI if it is used or disclosed beyond certain internal business purposes. Where applicable, we will treat such a request as a revocation of any consent that you may have provided to your processing of Sensitive PI.
Right to Know/Access
Right to Know – Categories/Confirmation of Processing
If you are a California resident, you have the right to request that we provide you with certain information about our collection, use and disclosure of your PI over the 12-month period prior to the request date, related to categories of PI. You can request that we confirm whether we are processing your personal information, and disclose to you: (1) the categories of PI we collected about you; (2) the categories of sources for the PI; (3) our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that PI; (4) a list of the categories of PI disclosed for a business purpose in the prior 12 months and, for each category of PI, the categories of recipients; and (5) a list of the categories of PI sold or shared about you in the prior 12 months and, for each, the categories of recipients.
Right to Know – Specific Pieces
You have the right to request a transportable copy of the specific pieces of PI we collected about you. In some states, such as California, this includes the right to PI collected in the 12-month period preceding your request. Please note that PI is retained by us for various time periods, so there may be certain information that we have collected about you that we do not even retain for 12 months (and thus, it would not be able to be included in our response to you). Based on your state of residence, we may apply a limit on the number of “Right to Know” requests you make over a particular time period, as permitted under U.S. State Privacy Laws.
Right to Delete
You have the right to request that we delete any of your PI that we have collected directly from you, subject to certain exceptions which we will explain if they apply. After we confirm that your deletion request is a Verifiable Consumer Request, subject to permitted retention exceptions, we will carry out one or more of the following: (i) permanently erase your PI on our existing systems with the exception of archived or back-up systems, (ii) deidentify your PI, or (iii) aggregate your PI with other information. In our response to your request to delete, we will tell you the method for deleting your PI. Where legal exceptions will apply to your request for deletion, we will tell you which one(s) and will limit retention to the permitted purpose(s).
Right to Correct
You have the right to request that we correct inaccuracies that you find in your personal information maintained by us. Your request to correct is subject to our verification (discussed above) and the response standards in the applicable U.S. State Privacy Laws.
Do Not Sell/Share/Target
Under the various U.S. State Privacy Laws, Consumers have the right to opt-out of certain processing activities. California and certain other states have opt-outs specific to Targeted Advertising activities – which California’s law refers to as “cross-context behavioral advertising”, and others simply as Targeted Advertising – which involve the use of PI from different businesses or services to target advertisements to you. California provides Consumers the right to opt-out of Sharing, which includes providing or making available PI to third parties for such Targeted Advertising activities, while other states provide Consumers the right to opt-out from processing PI for Targeted Advertising more broadly. There are broad and differing concepts of the Sale of PI under the various U.S. State Privacy Laws, all of which at a minimum require providing or otherwise making available PI to a third party.
Third-Party digital businesses, including social media platforms, analytics companies, data brokers, third-party advertisers, and other tech companies that offer digital advertising services (“Third-Party Digital Businesses”) may associate cookies, web beacons (also known as pixel tags) and other similar technology (“Tracking Technologies”) on the U.S. News Services that collect PI when you use or access the U.S. News Services, or otherwise collect and process PI that we make available about you, including digital activity information. Giving access to PI on the U.S. News Services, or otherwise, to Third-Party Digital Businesses could be deemed a Sale and/or Sharing and could implicate Targeted Advertising under some state laws. Therefore, we will treat such PI collected by Third-Party Digital Businesses (e.g., cookie ID, IP address, and other online IDs and internet or other electronic activity information) as such, and subject to the opt-out requests described above. In some instances, the PI we make available about you is collected directly by such Third-Party Digital Businesses using Tracking Technologies on the U.S. News Services or our advertisements that are served on third-party sites (which we refer to as “cookie PI”). However, certain PI which we make available to Third Party Digital Businesses is information that we have previously collected directly from you or otherwise about you, such as your email address (which we refer to below as “non-cookie PI”). For information regarding other categories of third parties to which we may sell/share your PI, see the table above in the PI COLLECTION, USE, AND DISCLOSURES section above.
When you opt-out pursuant to the instructions below, it will have the effect of opting you out of Sale, Sharing, and Targeted Advertising, such that our opt-out process is intended to combine all of these state opt-outs into a single opt-out. Instructions for opting out are below. Please note that there are distinct instructions for opting out of cookie PI and non-cookie PI, which we explain further, below.
Opt-out for non-cookie PI: If you would like to submit a request to opt-out of our processing of your non-cookie PI (e.g., your email address) for Targeted Advertising, or opt-out of the Sale or Sharing of such data, make an opt-out request on our webform.
Opt-out for cookie PI: If you would like to submit a request to opt-out of our processing of your cookie-related PI for Targeted Advertising, or opt-out of the sale/sharing of such PI, you can exercise an opt-out request by visiting our webform and following the instructions. You must exercise your preferences on each of our websites and apps you visit, from each browser you use, and on each device that you use. Since your browser opt-out is designated by a cookie, if you clear or block cookies, your preferences will no longer be effective and you will need to enable them again via our cookie management tool.
Your Additional Cookies Choices
Third-Party Digital Businesses may use cookies and other Tracking Technologies to recognize your device and/or to collect and record information about your visits to the U.S. News Services and other websites, so that they can facilitate feature functionality, measure the effectiveness of ads, track page usage and paths followed during visits, and provide interest-based advertisements to you. These companies may provide this data to us. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about certain kinds of online interest-based advertising, please visit National Advertising Initiative Consumer Opt Out, Digital Advertising Alliance Your AdChoices , or AdChoices for your mobile device. U.S. News does not provide any assurances that these third-party tools, programs or statements are complete or accurate.
Some of the U.S. State Privacy Laws also require us to state that we do not knowingly Sell or Share the PI of Consumers under 16.
Opt-Out Preference Signals (Also Known as Global Privacy Control or “GPC”)
Some of the U.S. State Privacy Laws require businesses to process GPC signals, which are referred to in some states as opt-out preference signals (“OOPS”). GPC signals are signals sent by a platform, technology, or mechanism, enabled by individuals on their devices or browsers, that communicate the individual’s choice to opt-out of Sale, Sharing and/or Targeted Advertising, such that the GPC signal effectively automatically communicates such requests. To use an OOPS/GPC, you can download an internet browser or a plugin to use on your current internet browser and follow the settings to enable the OOPS/GPC. To our knowledge, we have configured our websites to receive and honor GPC signals pursuant to the specification and implementation instructions at https://globalprivacycontrol.org. We will apply GPC signals as a Do Not Sell/Share/Target requests as to cookie PI. Due to technical limitations, we are unable to apply GPC signals to non-cookie PI; however, you can make a Do Not Sell/Share/Target request as to non-cookie PI at our webform as just described above. Notably, when you are visiting our website on a particular device and browser, we will apply the GPC signal and corresponding Do Not Sell/Share/Target as to cookie-PI only to that specific device and browser. You must re-enable GPC if you visit our website on a different device and/or browser.
We are required by certain U.S. State Privacy Laws to state that we do not: (1) charge a fee for use of our websites if you have enabled GPC; (2) change your experience with our websites if you use GPC; or (3) display a notification, pop-up, text, graphic, animation, sound, video, or any interstitial in response to the OOPS/GPC (except that we may from time-to-time display on our website or consent management platform that you have enabled GPC).
Automated Decision-Making and Profiling
We may engage in processing that constitutes automated decision-making or profiling under the CCPA. However, as of the Effective Date, the definitions of these concepts, and any associated opt-out and access rights have not been added to the updated regulations of the CCPA.
We do not believe we carry out profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects. If we change our practices, we will change this policy and provide you with the right to opt-out of such activities as required by the applicable U.S. State Privacy Laws, subject to any applicable exceptions.
You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment, in a manner prohibited by U.S. State Privacy Laws, for the exercise of your privacy rights.
We collect and use your PI to administer and maintain incentive/loyalty programs that may constitute a “financial incentive,” “price or service difference,” or “bona fide loyalty program” as defined under the U.S. State Privacy Laws. For a description of our current loyalty/incentive programs, including how to opt-in to or withdraw from such programs, and the basis for valuing your PI in connection with program benefits, click here. Please note that participating in our incentive programs is entirely optional, you will have to affirmatively opt-in to the programs to participate. Additionally, any opt out instructions are available in the link above. We may add or change incentive programs by posting a notice on the program descriptions linked to above, so check them regularly.
