Mission Statement

Local News Now LLC seeks to improve and serve our communities by bringing readers up-to-date news and information that’s relevant to their lives, and by giving local businesses affordable and effective marketing options.

Our news coverage is conducted independent from our advertising operations.

Comment and Forum Policies

With regards to comments on our articles and message board posts, we encourage a vigorous debate of issues important to the community. We ask, however, that users keep the conversation civil and on-topic. Our approach to comment moderation is that of a hockey ref — we try to “let them play” but also actively try to prevent fights and serious misconduct.

We reserve the right to edit or remove any comments with or without warning, for any reason. Note that because the comments are moderated by actual humans who eat, sleep and have obligations outside of work, that moderation mostly happens during working hours and the following policies will only be applied insomuch as our availability allows.

The “golden rule” applies. Any posts or comments that contain the following are likely to be removed:

• Hate speech, racism or discriminatory remarks
• Strong personal attacks
• Threats of violence
• Off-topic diatribes
• Meme images that concern national politics or contain potentially copyrighted material
• Negative remarks directed at victims of tragic events
• Especially profane or vulgar language
• Unsubstantiated, specific allegations of criminal wrongdoing directed at an individual or company that has not, in fact, been charged with a crime
• Unsubstantiated allegations of corruption or conspiracies
• Personally identifying information, such as phone numbers, home addresses or the full names of private individuals (doxxing)
• Topics not directly relevant to the local area and region. National political discussions without a strong local angle will be considered off-topic.
• Business reviews. Please use Yelp if you want to review a local business.
• Posts designed to stifle or disrupt conversation. This includes intentionally provocative “troll” comments.
• Negative comments about the personal appearance of individuals.
• Misleading claims about a comment’s authorship.
• Comments about illegal immigration, abortion or other provocative topics in articles that contain no reference to those topics.
• NEW: The posting of national political memes or restricted, copyrighted images (such as syndicated editorial cartoons). Non-political memes and Creative Commons-licensed images (such as XKCD cartoons) are generally okay.

Note that comments may be pre-moderated. We will not disclose the methodology for this. Continued efforts to deliberately thwart pre-moderation, or to post comments that have been previously removed, will result in a ban from commenting.

(The above does not prohibit the self-censorship of common curse words — s**t, f**k, etc. — when used in a context that does not otherwise violate our comment policies.)

By posting comments or any other content to the web site you grant Local News Now LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, irrevocable license to use, copy, display, distribute, adapt and create derivative works from such comments or other content in any medium throughout the world, and you represent and warrant that you have rights in such content sufficient to grant such license.

Your Disqus handle or provided name will appear publicly. When you provide an email address for your comments, our commenting system will attach any Gravatar (user avatar) associated with that email address.

Think carefully about what you post. We will not remove comments upon request. Any request to remove a comment for any reason will be ignored. Use the “flag” feature in Disqus to notify us of comments that are in severe violation of our policy, however please note that abuse of the flagging system will result in you being banned.

We will not respond to any emails or phone calls regarding our comment policy. Repeated complaints about comment moderation or abusive language targeting our employees will result in you being permanently banned from commenting.

The views expressed by the authors of comments are their own and do not reflect the views of this site or the site’s ownership.

Crime Report Policy

If you have been arrested for a crime and have been found innocent or had the charges dropped, we will, upon request and at our sole discretion, consider removing your name from any articles we have published and requesting that Google update the page in their cache. We will also consider name removal for minor crimes that occurred more than 4 years ago.

If you would like to request name removal, please email us at [email protected] with your name, a link to the article in question, and proof of the court verdict or case status. Processing this request may take several weeks and, if rejected, we may choose not to reply to your email.

Our crime-related articles are based on information provided by police and/or prosecutors, and we make attribution of that information clear. Our articles are not “incorrect” insomuch as we report what authorities tell us regarding alleged crimes. This is common practice among news organizations and we are well within our First Amendment rights to publish this information freely. Threats of lawsuits will be ignored as a matter of policy. Threats of violence or harassment will be immediately brought to the attention of law enforcement.

Copyright Policy

All photos posted to the news portion of the site are the copyrighted property of Local News Now LLC unless otherwise noted. No representation of ownership is implied for photos posted to user-submitted portions of the site, including the event calendar.

Unauthorized use of our photos results in financial damage to our company and we will enforce our copyright by legal means if necessary. Unauthorized use of our photos may be rectified after the fact by paying our standard photo licensing fee. That fee is $300 per photo.

Terms of Use

1. Terms

By accessing this web site, you are entering into a legal agreement between you and Local News Now LLC and you shall be bound by these web site Terms and Conditions of Use, all applicable laws and regulations, and shall be responsible for compliance with any applicable local laws. If you do not agree with any of these terms, you are prohibited from using or accessing this site. The materials contained in this web site are protected by applicable copyright and trademark law.

2. Use License

1. Permission is granted to temporarily download one copy of the materials (information or software) on Local News Now LLC’s web site for personal, non-commercial transitory viewing only. This is the grant of a license, not a transfer of title, and under this license you may not:
   1. modify or copy the materials;
   2. use the materials for any commercial purpose, or for any public display (commercial or non-commercial);
   3. attempt to decompile or reverse engineer any software contained on Local News Now LLC’s web site;
   4. remove any copyright or other proprietary notations from the materials; or
   5. transfer the materials to another person or “mirror” the materials on any other servers
2. This license shall automatically terminate if you violate any of these restrictions and may be terminated by Local News Now LLC at any time. Upon terminating your viewing of these materials or upon the termination of this license, you must destroy any downloaded materials in your possession whether in electronic or printed format.

3. Disclaimer

The materials on Local News Now LLC’s web sites are provided “as is.” Local News Now LLC makes no warranties, expressed or implied, and hereby disclaims and negates all other warranties, including without limitation, implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement of intellectual property or other violation of rights. Further, Local News Now LLC does not warrant or make any representations concerning the accuracy, likely results, or reliability of the use of the materials on its Internet web site or otherwise relating to such materials or on any sites linked to this site.

4. Limitations

In no event shall Local News Now LLC or its suppliers be liable for any damages (including, without limitation, damages for loss of data or profit, or due to business interruption,) arising out of the use or inability to use the materials on Local News Now LLC’s Internet sites, even if Local News Now LLC or an Local News Now LLC authorized representative has been notified orally or in writing of the possibility of such damage. Because some jurisdictions do not allow limitations on implied warranties, or limitations of liability for consequential or incidental damages, these limitations may not apply to you.

5. Revisions and Errata

The materials appearing on Local News Now LLC’s web sites could include technical, typographical, or photographic errors. Local News Now LLC does not warrant that any of the materials on its web site are accurate, complete, or current. Local News Now LLC may make changes to the materials contained on its web site at any time without notice. Local News Now LLC does not, however, make any commitment to update the materials.

6. Links

Local News Now LLC has not reviewed all of the sites linked to its Internet web site and is not responsible for the contents of any such linked site. The inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by Local News Now LLC of the site. Use of any such linked web site is at the user’s own risk.

7. Site Terms of Use Modifications

Local News Now LLC may revise these terms of use for its web site at any time without notice. By using this web site you are agreeing to be bound by the then current version of these Terms and Conditions of Use.

8. Governing Law

Any claim relating to Local News Now LLC’s web site shall be governed by U.S. federal law or by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

9.  DMCA

Pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), if you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any content on the web site infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the DMCA by contacting our Copyright Agent at [email protected].

10.  User Registration

Individuals registering for user accounts on Local News Now LLC agree to register only one account. If your account is removed or suspended by Local News Now LLC for any reason, you agree to refrain from creating additional accounts. Users with suspended or deleted accounts are also prohibited from commenting on articles, participating in the forums or otherwise posting content to the Local News Now LLC web site.

11. Website Ban

Local News Now LLC reserves the right to ban any individual from accessing the web site, its contents, and from posting on its comment sections or message boards.

Privacy Policy

Your privacy is very important to us. Accordingly, we have developed this privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) so you may better understand how we collect and use the personal information that you may submit to the web site.

BY ACCESSING AND USING THE WEB SITE IN ANY WAY, YOU ARE ACCEPTING THE PRACTICES DESCRIBED IN THIS PRIVACY POLICY. Local News Now LLC reserves the right, for any reason, in its sole discretion, to change, modify, update, add or remove portions of this Privacy Policy at any time.

1. Collection of Information

The Information That We Collect

When you visit the web site you provide us with incidental web site usage information that is collected by our servers on a real-time basis.

Although the web site generally does not collect personal information, if you choose to submit any comments you are asked to provide your name and email address and are permitted to provide your website address. Please understand that any content you post to the web site is submitted at your own risk. When submitting any such content, you are required to review and comply with our Terms of Use.

When you visit the Site we collect usage information, but it is anonymous and is not linked to you as an individual. We may use this data to better understand, for example, how the Site is navigated, how many visitors arrive at specific pages, the length and frequency of stays at the Site, the types of browsers and computer operating systems used by our visitors and the Internet Protocol addresses from which our visitors connect to the Site. We may use this information to improve the Site’s Content and ease of use. Services we use for this purpose include Google Analytics and Quantcast.

Children’s Personal Information

Local News Now LLC does not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from users under the age of 13. If we find out that we have received such personal information, we will take prompt and reasonable steps to delete it.

Third-Party Ad-serving Companies

The web site displays advertisements, including advertisements provided by third-party ad-serving companies and ad networks. Some of these ad networks may place functionality on the web site, or a third party site through which they serve ads, in order to recognize your computer each time they send you an online advertisement regardless of the site on which the ad is displayed. Thus, third party ad-serving companies or ad networks could compile information about where you are using your computer, where you saw their advertisements, and which ads you clicked on. Such information would allow the third party to deliver targeted advertisements that it believes will be of interest to you.

2. Use of Your Information

Personal Information

Local News Now LLC may integrate and use your personal information to help enhance and personalize your use of the web site. Local News Now LLC may also use your personal information to communicate with you for such purposes as advisement of system downtimes, announcements regarding the launch of new services, and responses to user inquiries. Your email address will not be used for the purpose of sending you third-party marketing or “spam” messages.

Comments or other content that you upload to the web site will be available to other site users and to the public. Please exercise due discretion when posting to the site — what you post will likey be there permanently. We do not remove comments or other content upon request. We cannot control the actions of other members or third parties with whom you may share comments or other content.

Web Site Usage Information

The web site usage information that we may collect (e.g., cookies, Internet tags, web beacons, etc.) from visitors and registered users of the web site may be used by Local News Now LLC to monitor the operation, technical functions and quality of the web site and analyze demographic information about the web site’s users. This information may also be used to provide general statistics regarding use of the web site. We may also use such information for research or improvements of the web site and the services we offer. This data may further be used by Local News Now LLC to deliver customized content and advertising to you when your online behavior indicates that you are interested in a particular subject area.

Service Providers

Local News Now LLC may provide your information to service providers to help us operate the web site and to provide the services that are offered through the web site. This type of sharing may include disclosures to independent contractors and other third parties who provide hosting or technical support for the web site, or to third parties providing services to web site users.  We will endeavor to require these third-party providers to treat your personal information with a level of confidentiality and security consistent with the standards in this Privacy Policy.

Search Engines and Other Sites

Search engines and other web sites not affiliated with Local News Now LLC, such as archive.org and google.com, may crawl the web site and facilitate the accessibility to the public of publicly-available content and postings from the web site. The web site may also contain links to other sites. Local News Now LLC is not responsible for the privacy practices of such other web sites.

Transactions

Local News Now LLC uses third-party services, including Stripe, to process sales initiated on our sites. See Stripe’s website for more information on how it uses data you submit for such transactions. Transactional data is not stored on computers controlled by Local News Now LLC, though other information you submit in order to receive our services — for instance, dates and times for an event calendar entry — are stored on our server and may remain stored indefinitely.

Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics to analyze the use of our website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information gathered relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of our website. Google’s privacy policy is available at: https://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

Advertising Privacy Statement

This Site is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a CafeMedia (“CafeMedia”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Site, and CafeMedia will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about CafeMedia’s data usage, click here: www.cafemedia.com/publisher-advertising-privacy-policy

To help understand your interests, AdThrive, Google and our other advertising partners will track your behavior on our website and on other websites across the Internet using cookies.

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

By using this Site, you consent to the use of such cookies and the sharing of data captured by such cookies with AdThrive, Google, and our other third party partners. You can view, delete or add interest categories associated with your browser by visiting: https://adssettings.google.com. You can also opt out of the network cookie using those settings or using the Network Advertising Initiative’s multi-cookie opt-out mechanism at: http://optout.networkadvertising.org. However, these opt-out mechanisms themselves use cookies, and if you clear the cookies from your browser your opt-out will not be maintained.

For European Economic Area Residents

If you reside in a country in the European Economic Area (EEA), then under the GDPR and applicable data protection laws you have the rights, among other things, to access your personal data, have us erase it, and/or restrict its further processing. If you wish to access or delete your personal data (if any) maintained by us or AdThrive related to advertising on the Site, you can contact us at [email protected] and contact AdThrive at [email protected]. If you wish to see a list of the advertising partners we work with or change which of those partners track your behavior using cookies, click the ad preferences link at the bottom of the site. (Available in the EU.)

For California Residents

California law gives residents the right to opt out of the “sale” of their personal information to third parties, including for advertising purposes. Under California law, the sharing of your information with a service provider for advertising purposes could be considered a “sale.” To opt out of the sharing of your information for advertising information, click the opt out link provided in the footer of this page. You also have the right to request from us the categories of personal information that we have shared and the categories of third parties to whom the information was provided. To make such a request, please contact us at [email protected]. To be clear we do not share your name, contact information, or any other sensitive information with third parties, and the categories of third parties that we share information with for advertising purposes are supply side platforms, programmatic advertising exchanges, and demand side platforms.