Policies

General

The online edition of The Bridge is a publication of Bridgeland High School Newspaper I, II, III students. The opinions expressed in this forum do not necessarily reflect those of the administration of Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.

Complaints | Corrections

Any complaint, correction or letter to the editor should be formally submitted via email to samantha.berry@cfisd.net. We reserve the right to grammatically correct Letters to the editor or trim to fit allotted space. Per CCHS Journalism Policy – all corrections will run immediately.

Comments

All submitted comments must be approved by the adviser of the publication. Comments must be professional and contain the writer’s email address upon submission. We reserve the right to not post any comment for any reason. Comments do not necessarily reflect the opinions of our staff, adviser or administration.

Professional Organizations

The Bridge is a member of the Interscholastic League Press Conference (ILPC), Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA), and the National Scholastic Press Association (NSPA).

Policy

The Bridge has a firm commitment to privacy. We take your privacy concerns seriously and want to make every effort to address them as we strive to offer our site visitors a high quality, interactive and personalized experience. That is why we have adopted the following policy, which explains our position on information gathering and how we intend to use and share any information we collect. It is important to note that this policy applies only to information collected by The Bridge and does not apply to information obtained or used by The Bridge or its affiliates through other means.

This privacy policy is subject to change from time to time.

Passive Data Collection and Use

Like most Web sites, The Bridge also collects and logs information automatically and through the use of electronic tools that may be transparent to you, such as your IP address, the name and location of your Internet Service Provider, the type and version of your browser, the length of time that you stay on The Bridge, search queries, your click-stream data, the location that referred you to The Bridge and the average number of pages viewed. If you visit another website prior to browsing The Bridge, that website might place personally identifiable information within a URL, which may be logged by us. Your IP address is the identifier assigned to your particular computer when you access the Internet. Depending on how you connect to the Internet, your IP address may always be the same, or it may change each time you access the Internet. Note that logging your IP address does not in and of itself provide us with your name, e-mail address or home or work address. We use this log information for systems administration and troubleshooting purposes and may also use it to gather general demographic information about you such as your general location and your Internet Service Provider.

Use of Cookies

Most standard Web browsers contain a feature called “cookies,” which allow a Web site to place information about a user’s visit to that Web site in a small data text file that is stored on the user’s computer. Our use of cookie technology will likely be transparent to you and is used to recognize you and hold information from one visit to the next in an effort to increase your ease of use of The Bridge and to allow us to better understand how people use our site through click-stream analysis.

Use of Personally Identifiable Information

We also reserve the right to disclose Personally Identifiable Information when deemed necessary or appropriate to comply with the law, respond to claims, protect our computer systems and customers, ensure the integrity and operation of our systems, or protect the rights, property or safety of The Bridge, its affiliates, or others.

We will not disclose your Personally Identifiable Information without your advance permission except as explained in this privacy policy or as explained at the time the information was collected.

Member Mail and Email Offers

The Bridge does not rent, sell, barter or give away its user or member lists or its users’ or members’ names, email addresses or mailing addresses for use by advertisers and other third parties for the purpose of solicitations, unless the user has previously given his or her consent at the time of general registration or registration for a specific contest or service. If a user granted permission to receive solicitations (referred to as email Offers) at the time of registration but subsequently wishes to opt out from receiving such solicitations, the user may go to the

The Bridge may send you information via e-mail about various products or services that we believe may be of interest to you, including e-mails about purchasing yearbooks and ads and updates to our site.

Affiliated sites, linked sites and advertisements

The Bridge expects its partners, providers of content and services and advertisers to respect the privacy of our users. Be aware, however, that third parties, including our partners, providers of content and services, advertisers and others accessible through our site may have their own privacy and data collection policies and practices. For example, during your visit to The Bridge you may link to, or view as part of a frame on a The Bridge page, certain content that is actually created or hosted by a third party. Also through The Bridge you may be introduced to, or be able to access information, services, Web sites, features, contest or sweepstakes offered by other parties. The Bridge are not responsible for the actions or policies of such third parties. You should check the applicable privacy policies of those third parties when providing information on a feature or page operated by a third party.

Electronic commerce with The Bridge

For certain electronic commerce services on The Bridge, such as placing classified ads electronically or buying a yearbook or newspaper subscription, we require additional information. To complete these transactions, we may collect information from you such as your name, credit card number and other financial or Personally Identifiable Information. We endeavor to protect the security of your payment information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, which encrypts information you submit.

Yearbook purchases are handled through smart-pay.com.

Remember the risks when you use the Internet

You should know that when you voluntarily disclose personal information on the The Bridge web site (for example, in the discussion forums), that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from other people. While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot be responsible for information that you choose to publicly disclose. Although we make good faith efforts to store the information we collect in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public and to work with responsible third parties, we cannot guarantee complete security for your information.

In addition, our advertisers, content providers, partners and other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through The Bridge have separate data and privacy practices that are independent of us, and we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those sites directly if you have questions about their privacy policies.

General

The Bridge endorses and abides by the privacy principles approved by the Interactive Services Association and the Direct Marketing Association. If you have any questions or comments about our policies, we may be reached at 10707 Mason Road Cypress, TX 77433, 832-349-7600 or at samantha.berry@cfisd.net.

Copyrights

All content on The Bridge is strictly protected by copyright laws. We’ll be glad to allow use of our photos once permission is granted. Contact samantha.berry@cfisd.net for usage of content.

If you believe that The Bridge or any user thereof has infringed your copyright in any material way, please notify us and provide the following information:

1. An identification of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed.
2. An identification of the material on The Bridge that you claim is infringing or is subject to infringing activity, with enough detail so that we can locate the material on our site.
3. Your name, address, telephone number and email address.
4. A statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.
5. A statement by you declaring that the above information in your Notice is accurate, made under penalty of perjury, and that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest involved.
6. Your physical or electronic signature.

Takedown Policy

The Bridge is a digital news source, but it is still part of Bridgeland’s historical record. The Bridge’ primary purpose is to publish the truth, as best we can determine it, and be an accurate record of events and issues from students’ perspectives. Writers and editors use the 11 “Put Up” steps before publication to ensure the validity, newsworthiness and ethics of each article. For these reasons, the editorial board will not take down past articles except in extraordinary circumstances.

If someone requests a takedown, the board will consider the following questions and actions:

• Does the article contain libel, inaccurate information, unwarranted invasion of privacy, obscenity or copyright infringement? If so, the editor-in-chief will remove this unprotected speech and add a corrections statement at the end of the article, as per the “Regarding Errors” policy. If, after careful investigation and discussion, the editorial board determines that the article is too heavily saturated with this unprotected speech to maintain, the board may decide to take the article down entirely. The board must come to consensus to make this decision.
• Does the article harm the requester so significantly that it outweighs all other factors? The editorial board will investigate this claim and weigh it against the value of an unaltered historical record. The board must come to consensus before taking down an article for this reason.
• Regardless of the outcome, the Editor-in-Chief will respond in writing to the request explaining the board’s action(s) and rationale for the final decision.