Social Media NZ Privacy PolicyAt Social Media NZ Ltd. we appreciate your readership and support and place a high value on your personal privacy. We respect the personal nature of the information you provide us on our website and recognize the importance of protecting this information. In adopting this Privacy Policy, our intent is to balance our legitimate business interests in collecting and using your personal information, with your reasonable expectations of privacy. This Privacy Policy may be revised or updated at any time and we encourage you to check back as often as you can to ensure that you are familiar with the most recent version and the terms of our Privacy Policy.The use of your Personal InformationWe will only use your personal information for the purpose for which you have provided it, unless you consent otherwise or we are required by law to disclose it. We do not sell, rent or lease our visitor or customer information to third parties. Your personal information will only be disclosed to those employees who have a need to know and who are subject to duties of confidentiality.These are the ways in which you would share your information:

1. We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our web site. Your IP address is not used to identify you. However, comments to articles have an associated IP address recorded. This IP address is never shown to other users and it is only collected in order to help us to prevent unsolicited posting to our forums (spam).
2. by sharing your e-mail address when subscribing to our site or newsletter
3. the type of browser and operating system you are using
4. upon submitting news tips to our editorial team or by submitting a report via our Contact Form, that includes your personal information
5. when you post comments on our posts or stories, and you include personal information (Twitter username and Facebook account name)
6. by participating in our Social Media NZ Surveys and Feedbacks, where an email address is requested, from a prompted form.

In addition to basic contact information, our analytics trackers may also collect information that is in no way personally identifiable. This may include the operating system you are working on, the Internet browser you are using, and the screen resolution of your computer.How Social Media NZ will use your Personal InformationDepending on which portion of our site that you have subscribed to, we may use your information in a number of ways.

1. The email address you provided through our newsletter subscription form enables us to send you news updates. This subscription is entirely opt-in by the user. We cannot subscribe you to the newsletter, as you must personally have access to the email account in order to verify the subscription. Subscribers can opt-out of our newsletter at any time by clicking the “Unsubscribe” link that is present on every email at the very bottom of the newsletter.
2. The email address that you use when contacting us with an editorial tip or via our contact page will not be used for any reason but for the purposes of responding to your inquiry.
3. The email address associated with your account when you comment on our stories may be used in conjunction with contests and promotions hosted on Social Media NZ website to notify you if you have won. Email addresses provided in comments are not used for any other reason.
4. If you choose to comment on Social Media NZ’s stories through Twitter and/or Facebook Connect, we do not get access to your email address nor do we have any access to your personal data or private information.
5. We may at times request your participation in a survey. We will not provide your email addresses to any third party but may contact you via them to distribute prizes in associated giveaway promotions.

To maintain a site that is free of charge, we display advertisements on our website. We also use information you give us through surveys to help our advertisers target the audience they want to reach and to provide you with potentially interesting advertisements. At no time does any party other than Social Media NZ have access to your personally identifiable information (with the exception of Google who maintains our RSS subscription-by-email service and our survey providers), and you will never be contacted by any party other than Social Media NZ. The only exceptions to the foregoing are that we may disclose personally identifiable information (i) in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order or subpoena, (ii) in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take actions regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of another person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law, or (iii) in the event we are acquired by or merged with another company.When you sign up for our updates or receive e-mail messages from Social Media NZ, you will always be given the chance to opt-out of our communications. You may change your preferences at any time and will only be contacted in manners consistent with your stated preferences. We will always comply with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 (NZ)Non-personally identifiable information (such as stated above) may be shared in aggregate form with our advertisers or marketing partners but your personally identifiable information will never be disclosed to them.We are also bound by the New Zealand legislation to make sure your personal information is not disclosed to third parties.You have rights of access to any personal information held about you. If you wish to update your personal information please email us.Social Media NZ Commenting PolicyWe never censor comments based on political or ideological point of view or of a critical nature. We reserve the right to delete those comments that are off-topic, those that are “spammy” in nature, abusive, use excessive foul language, are solely for promoting an external parties website, include ad hominem attacks or are defamatory in nature.When you post a comment on the Social Media Website you grant us an irrevocable license to publish that comment on the Social Media NZ website and use that comment for such purposes as we deem fit consistent with our business.Once a comment is made public on the Social Media NZ website, we will not remove it by request. As a user, you are responsible for your own communications and are responsible for the consequences of your posting. You agree to indemnify us in respect of all loss or damage which we suffer (including, but not limited to, damages, fines, or actual legal expense) as a result of claims by third parties or any prosecution by a third party arising from comments or posts made by you to the Social Media NZ website.Comments will only be considered for removal (i) in response to legal process, for example, in response to a court order, or (ii) in response to a law enforcement agency’s request, or where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take actions regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the physical safety of another person, violations of our terms of use, or as otherwise required by law.The Social Media NZ website provides a forum where users can share information and opinions on various subject matters. Therefore comments, opinions, postings or information displayed on the Social Media NZ are not necessarily ours and we accept no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage which you suffer, including consequential loss, loss of profit, direct or indirect loss, arising from anything posted on the Social Media NZ website by one of its users. The information provided on the Social Media NZ website is for general guidance only and does not constitute advice of any kind.Third Party Ad ServersSome of our advertisers use third party companies to serve advertisements when you visit the Site. These companies may use information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this and other websites, including information gathered by cookies, in order to provide advertisements about goods and Services as close to your perceived interests as possible. We do not control the practices of these companies and they may not follow the same privacy policies as us.Changes to our PolicyWe may, at our discretion, update or revise this policy from time to time. Any changes will take effect immediately once they are posted on our site. Your continued use of our services after any changes have been posted on our site signifies your acceptance of those changes.Social Media NZ Trademarks and copyrightTrademark and copyright ownershipSocial Media NZ Ltd is a Registered Business in New Zealand and is the owner of the Social Media trademark used on the Social Media NZ website. You may not use this trademark without our express permission.We are also the owner or licensee of the copyright in this website, its contents and images and no part of this website may be reproduced without our express permission or that of the copyright holder.Republishing rightsIf you want to republish the major part of any Social Media NZ content - please contact the editor at editor@socialmedianz.com and get a written release first. Permission is unlikely to be refused and if the republication is for non-commercial purposes, no charge will be involved. If the republication is for commercial use we'll advise you of any charges which must be paid before republication is permitted.In accord with existing copyright laws, excerpts (fair use) from Social Media NZ’s own news stories and commentaries may be quoted providing full and proper attribution is given including the Social Media NZ’s URL which is http://www.socialmedianz.comPlease don't place Social Media NZ pages in a frame on your own pages. It is considered "bad netiquette" and breach of copyright to attempt to surround anyone else's web pages with your own advertising or content. You should not attempt to "pass-off" any of Social Media NZ editorial content as your own work. Seasoned Net users are aware that by using frames, pages from several different sites can be displayed simultaneously on the one screen - but Net-neophytes often don't and this means they are likely make the mistake of believing that "my content" is "your content".Permission is granted for the headline and first sentence of any Social Media NZ story to be republished as part of the link text used on other sites. It is requested that you place the word 'Social Media NZ’ in bold text after the link so that the source of the story is obvious