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MercedSunStar.com PRIVACY POLICY

MercedSunStar.com 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 MercedSunStar.com and does not apply to information obtained or used by The Merced Sun-Star or its affiliates through other means.

MercedSunStar.com collects and stores Personally Identifiable Information such as your name, address, e-mail address, etc. What information we collect and store depends on the page you are visiting and the services you elect to participate in. We use this information to operate our services, provide you with the highest quality services, offer you opportunities we think will be of interest, and better tailor the advertising you see from us to suit you. This information is not shared with anyone outside of The Merced Sun-Star and MercedSunStar.com except as provided for in this Privacy Policy. More specifics on the information we collect are outlined within this policy.

This Privacy Policy is subject to change from time to time. If the policy is revised, a notice will be placed in the Member Center where registered members of our service may also update their personal information, subscribe to e-mail newsletters and revise the permissions that they previously granted MercedSunStar.com. They may also receive an e-mail outlining the change. Non-registered users of MercedSunStar.com may view the privacy policy, including any revisions, by clicking on the "Privacy Policy" link on the home page of MercedSunStar.com. If the changes represent a material departure from our current policy or materially affect users' rights and obligations, if feasible, the changes will be posted on this page 30 days in advance of their effective date.

What information we collect and how it is used

Access to the majority of content, services and features on MercedSunStar.com requires users to become registered members. Member registration requires you to provide certain Personally Identifiable Information, such as your name, e-mail address, street address, gender, and date of birth. You will be asked to select a member name and password so that you have access to this information and can revise it in the future. To complete the registration process, we will send you a validation e-mail message. You must click the link in the e-mail to fully activate your membership account. You will also have the opportunity to subscribe to e-mail newsletters and alerts and elect to receive e-mail Offers sent to you on behalf of MercedSunStar.com advertisers. Some features and services may require additional Personally Identifiable Information or other demographic information. We may collect other personal information when you provide feedback, comments, engage in chat, message boards, interactive forums or participate in surveys, or if you contact us offline. For example, when you enter contests you will be asked to also provide your phone number so that we can reach you in the event you've won a prize. All users may decline to share such information with us by choosing not to register on the Web site or use our services. Only registered members, however, may access certain content, services and features.

You may also be asked to create a separate registration account with some of the services provided by partners and other providers on MercedSunStar.com. Be aware that the information collected by these providers may be subject to the privacy policy and terms of use of that provider, and we recommend reviewing these prior to submitting your registration.

If you wish to forward an article to a friend, we will ask that you provide your friend's name and e-mail address. While we collect statistics on which articles are forwarded, we do not sell, rent, or market your friend's personal information, and retain the information only as long as necessary to provide this service.

Passive Data Collection and Use

Like most Web sites, MercedSunStar.com 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 MercedSunStar.com, search queries, your click-stream data, the location that referred you to MercedSunStar.com and the average number of pages viewed. If you visit another Web site prior to browsing MercedSunStar.com, that Web site 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. In order to better provide our services to you and to develop member profiles that enable us to focus our site, services and advertisements on your interests, we may correlate this log information with other information about you, such as your registration information or newspaper subscription records.

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 MercedSunStar.com and to allow us to better understand how people use our site through click-stream analysis. For example, cookies are used to store your member name and password, sparing you from having to re-enter that information each time you visit. Another example is that we may use cookie technology to control the number of times you see a particular advertisement while visiting MercedSunStar.com. You can turn the cookies feature off by using your browser preference options, but doing so will severely limit your access to MercedSunStar.com and may prevent you from registration.

Some of MercedSunStar.com's third party content providers also may place a cookie on the user's computer. If a user chooses to monitor or restrict cookies that are placed on his computer, the user can determine the Web site that is attempting to place a cookie. Those cookies are controlled by the content provider, and users should refer to that provider's privacy policy for further information regarding its use of cookies.

We use software developed by another company, RealMedia, to display advertising on MercedSunStar.com, and we may use cookies in conjunction with displaying those ads. In addition, advertisers may elect to use other advertising companies to serve their ads on MercedSunStar.com, and advertisers themselves may also place a cookie on a user's computer. We do not have access to the cookies or their contents that are placed by advertisers or by third-party advertising companies.

Use of Personally Identifiable Information

Personally Identifiable Information may be accessed by the user who entered it, by The Merced Sun-Star and MercedSunStar.com personnel, and by certain third parties, such as those who provide technical support or content services to MercedSunStar.com. We ask these third parties to keep any personal information supplied by us confidential. We also endeavor to keep your Personally Identifiable Information inaccessible to other users or advertisers of MercedSunStar.com. Note that your member name will be displayed on our homepage when you visit MercedSunStar.com as a logged in member. We will also display your e-mail address and contact information in your Member Center. We make every effort to make the Member Center secure; it can only be accessed by logging in with your member name and password.

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 business and systems, or protect the rights, property or safety of MercedSunStar.com, 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.

Use of Aggregated information

In order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and others, we may use your Personally Identifiable Information to create a compiled, aggregate view of the MercedSunStar.com audience and their usage patterns. We use Aggregated Information to operate our services and to better understand our audience as we develop new content and services. Aggregated Information may also be shared with third parties we contract with to provide content and services on MercedSunStar.com as well as advertisers so that they can better understand our audience. For example, we might disclose that a certain percentage of our users are female or within a certain age range or live within a cluster of zip codes.

Member Mail and E-mail Offers

MercedSunStar.com does not rent, sell, barter or give away its user or member lists or its users' or members' names, e-mail 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 e-mail Offers) at the time of registration but subsequently wishes to opt out from receiving such solicitations, the user may go to the Member Center and change one or more of the category-specific permissions related to receiving e-mail sent on behalf of MercedSunStar.com advertisers.

All registered users will receive periodic Member Mail via e-mail related to their membership account or various features and services on MercedSunStar.com that their membership entitles them to access. Because Member Mail is an important part of our service to you, users cannot opt-out of receiving Member Mail.

When a user specifically authorizes e-mail solicitations, we make available the user names and other Personally Identifiable Information in accordance with the applicable license. Please refer to the legal notices and license terms of our Jobs service for further details.

Our HTML-encoded e-mail messages include graphic files, which we use to gather information about e-mails sent our members. When such a message is opened in an HTML-capable e-mail program, the recipient's computer accesses our server to retrieve the graphic file, and allows us to record and store the date and time, the recipient's e-mail address, and other standard logging information. These HTML-encoded e-mail messages may also read cookies.

Affiliated sites, linked sites and advertisements

MercedSunStar.com 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 MercedSunStar.com you may link to, or view as part of a frame on a MercedSunStar.com page, certain content that is actually created or hosted by a third party. Also through MercedSunStar.com you may be introduced to, or be able to access information, services, Web sites, features, contest or sweepstakes offered by other parties. The Merced Sun-Star and MercedSunStar.com is 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 Merced Sun-Star

For certain electronic commerce services on MercedSunStar.com, such as placing classified ads electronically, subscribing to The Merced Sun-Star newspaper or to our premium online services or ordering The Merced Sun-Star merchandise, 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. MercedSunStar.com uses the credit card and shipping information for the purpose of completing the transaction and does not provide this information to third parties except for the issuers of credit cards in order to process the transaction, or as otherwise set forth in this policy.

Electronic commerce with other merchants

MercedSunStar.com provides Internet hosting services to a number of online merchants that sell a variety of goods and services. These stores may collect information from you such as your name, credit card number and other contact information. MercedSunStar.com does not collect, use or disclose this information, nor does it own or control the stores or have responsibility for transactions made by those merchants. If you would like to know more about the information collected when you participate in electronic commerce on or through MercedSunStar.com, you should check directly with those online merchants, as their privacy policies govern the usage of those merchants' online stores.

Changing your personal information

In general, a registered member may return to his or her account information page in the Member Center to update the information he or she previously provided to us. To prevent minors from improperly entering contests for which they are not eligible, we may require additional proof from people asking to change their birth date information. Information you provide to MercedSunStar.com may be stored by us for an indefinite time. This information includes the registration data as well as information provided in conjunction with various membership services, contests or features available on MercedSunStar.com.

You can delete your MercedSunStar.com membership account in Member Center by clicking on the link labeled "delete your account." By doing so, all but a transactional record of your membership account will be removed from our databases, though some records may remain on back-up media. Note that by deleting your account, you will cancel your membership and no longer be able to access MercedSunStar.com.

If after visiting your Member Center you are unclear on how to change your information or have other questions, please contact us via e-mail at webstaff@modbee.com or by phone at your_phone.

Remember the risks when you use the Internet

You should know that when you voluntarily disclose personal information on the MercedSunStar.com Web site, 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. Further, you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. 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 MercedSunStar.com 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.

International users

If you are an international user, by using MercedSunStar.com or by registering for any of its services, you agree that MercedSunStar.com may collect, use and transfer your personal information as described in this privacy policy, including transfers outside the country where you live. If you reside in a country in the European Union or other jurisdiction that provides access rights under law, you may access your personal information or have it corrected or updated by going to your account information page and personally updating the information. in accordance with applicable law by contacting us. In some jurisdictions, you may be charged a reasonable fee for access to information.

Platform for Privacy Preferences.

MercedSunStar.com supports P3P, the Platform for Privacy Preferences, which allows us to convey our privacy policies, to the extent possible, in standardized, machine-readable code. While our site supports P3P, the resulting code has inherent limitations such that it does not fully and may not accurately express all of our data practices. Some P3P-enabled browsers may interpret the same P3P code in different ways, while others may interpret P3P code in a manner inconsistent with the original intention. Accordingly, your browser's interpretation of the P3P code should only be considered as a short-hand expression of our privacy practices. This Privacy Policy remains our primary policy, and takes precedence over the P3P code for all purposes.

General

In the event of the sale or merger of The Merced Sun-Star Company and/or The McClatchy Company, ownership of the user registration information described in this Privacy Policy will be transferred to the acquiring or successor company.

MercedSunStar.com 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:

Offices: 3033 North G Street, Merced, Ca 95340 E-mail: webstaff@modbee.com

Effective Date: October 19, 2005

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Child Protection Policy

MercedSunStar.com is particularly concerned with providing a safe online environment for children. Children under the age 13 will not be allowed to register and become a member of MercedSunStar.com in order to access general MercedSunStar.com content, features and services.

In the future, parents and legal guardians of children under age 13 who register are able to establish a member account for their child by accessing the Member Center. Other areas and services operated by MercedSunStar.com that do not require registration but that ask for Personally Identifiable Information from children under age 13 will require a parental consent before collecting the information. does not ask children under age 13 for more personal information, as a condition of participation, than is reasonably necessary to participate in a given activity or promotion. Further, we limit most of our contests to people who are at least 18 years of age, making children ineligible to enter.

Parental consent to allow registration and collect information about children can be provided by faxing or mailing a copy of the completed Parental Consent Form, including your signature, to the address or facsimile number provided on the Parental Consent Form. This form will be available in applicable areas of our site.

MercedSunStar.com will not knowingly disclose personal information about users under the age of 13 without prior parental or legal guardian consent, except as required by law. If for any reason you wish to access, update or remove information about your child that has been previously provided to MercedSunStar.com, you may call us at your_phone or e-mail us at webstaff@modbee.com.

MercedSunStar.com strongly recommends parental supervision when a child uses the Internet, particularly when a child enters a forum or uses e-mail. We also encourage parents to instruct their children not to give out personal information in these areas.

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Terms Of Use for MercedSunStar.com

Effective Oct. 14, 2005

Welcome to MercedSunStar.com, a news, information and communication service available on the Internet's World Wide Web. The service combines much of The Merced Sun-Star newspaper with additional material available only on MercedSunStar.com. Both The Merced Sun-Star and MercedSunStar.com are divisions of McClatchy Newspapers, Inc., a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company.

You must read, agree with and accept all of the terms and conditions contained in these Terms of Use before you may become a Member of MercedSunStar.com. By registering as a Member, and/or by accessing and using MercedSunStar.com, you agree to these Terms of Use.

From time to time, we may make changes to these Terms of Use by posting the changes here. Should you object to any such modifications to these Terms of Use or become dissatisfied with MercedSunStar.com in any way, your only recourse is to immediately terminate your Membership and discontinue use of MercedSunStar.com. Otherwise, continuing to use the service after that date means that you agree to be bound by the changes.

Cost

At this time, there is no cost for using the basic or premium services of MercedSunStar.com. From time to time there may be premium content available via subscription or surcharge, and those areas will be clearly marked. Because this is an advertising-supported service, we encourage you to patronize the advertisers that help to make this service possible.

The Merced Sun-Star electronic archives carry a fee per full-text article downloaded. Note that many news articles remain available for several days in the pages of MercedSunStar.com. Additional information, including credit card information, may be required to complete this purchase.

Registration

Access to the majority of content, services and features on MercedSunStar.com requires users to register and become Members of MercedSunStar.com. Member registration requires you to provide certain Personally Identifiable Information, such as your name, e-mail address, street address, gender, and date of birth. Please see our Privacy Policy for information on MercedSunStar.com's information gathering and how we intend to use and share any information we collect. If you become a Member of MercedSunStar.com, you accept responsibility for all activities that occur under your account. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and for restricting access to your computer so others may not access MercedSunStar.com using your username or account in whole or in part. MercedSunStar.com reserves the right to terminate Membership and deny access to the site to any person who violates these Terms Of Use.

Copyrights and trademarks

Material published on MercedSunStar.com, including articles, photos, graphics, bulletin board postings, audio and video clips, and other content, is copyrighted by The Merced Sun-Star, or by other information providers who have licensed their content for use on MercedSunStar.com. Additionally, the entire content of MercedSunStar.com is also copyrighted as a collective work under the United States copyright laws; the owner of the collective work is The Merced Sun-Star. You cannot reproduce, republish or redistribute material from The Merced Sun-Star, the Associated Press and other news services and syndicates in any way without the written consent of the copyright owner.

You may, however, electronically store a reasonable portion of MercedSunStar.com content for your personal, non-commercial use by making a single electronic copy on your computer's hard drive, a single copy on a disk or other media or a single copy in printed form. You agree, however, that you will not store or archive a significant portion of the content or create a database using the content.

These rules also apply:

1. You will not in any way violate the intellectual property laws protecting the content accessible through MercedSunStar.com. This means you agree not to copy, modify, publish, transmit, create derivative works from, transfer, sell or display the content, including logos, trademarks or service marks, or otherwise violate the proprietary rights of MercedSunStar.com or others.
2. You will not reuse, republish or otherwise distribute the content or any modified or altered versions of it, whether over the Internet or otherwise, and whether or not for payment, without the express written permission of The Merced Sun-Star or a third-party copyright holder.
3. You will cooperate promptly and completely with any reasonable request by The Merced Sun-Star related to an investigation of infringement of copyright or other proprietary right.

To obtain permission to reuse or republish any material copyrighted by The Merced Sun-Star, please contact webstaff@modbee.com. The Merced Sun-Star cannot grant permission to reuse or republish material from other information providers, such as the Associated Press or New York Times News Service. Please contact them directly.

Member Content is any information, including photographs, you provide to us or other users in the registration process, in any public message area (including the forums area) or through any e-mail feature. You are solely responsible for Member Content, and we act as a passive conduit for your online distribution and publication of Member Content. Member Content must conform to the guidelines set forth under Community Publishing Guidelines below. MercedSunStar.com reserves the right to remove any material that it believes may violate these Terms or Use, or any copyright or third-party rights.

The Merced Sun-Star, MercedSunStar.com and its logos are registered service marks or trademarks.

Submissions

By submitting any content to MercedSunStar.com, including photographs, you automatically grant The Merced Sun-Star and MercedSunStar.com a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), license to use, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, create derivative works of, distribute, transfer or sell any such content, for any purpose, including commercial purposes, without any payment to you, in any type of media or in any form now known or later developed. In addition, you automatically waive and give up any claim that any use of such content violates any of your rights, including privacy rights, publicity rights, moral rights or any other right, including the right to approve the way MercedSunStar.com uses such content.

Community Publishing Guidelines

MercedSunStar.com encourages a free and open exchange of ideas in a climate of mutual respect. MercedSunStar.com welcomes your participation in our online discussion and comment posting systems. We hope these forums offer you the chance to interact with our writers and each other. In order to keep these forums enjoyable and interesting for all of our users, we ask simply that you follow these minimal rules. These rules are only a minimum; in addition to complying with these rules, we ask that you also exercise common sense and generally be considerate toward your fellow users. By participating either in our online discussion and comment posting systems, you are consenting to these rules.

1. You agree that you are fully responsible for the content that you post. You will not knowingly post content that violates the copyright, trademark, patent or other intellectual property right of any third party and that you will remove the same should you discover that you have violated this provision. Likewise, you may not post content that is libelous, defamatory, obscene, abusive, that violates a third party's right to privacy, that otherwise violates any applicable local, state, national or international law, or that is otherwise inappropriate. You will indemnify The Merced Sun-Star, its employees, agents, and affiliates from any and all claims and/or damages (including but not limited to reasonable attorneys' fees) resulting from any claim brought by any third party relating to content you have posted.

2. You understand and agree that MercedSunStar.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties. You further understand that MercedSunStar.com does not and cannot review all content prior to its posting. Keep in mind that more than likely you will read a post before MercedSunStar.com staff. Nevertheless, MercedSunStar.com may monitor the discussion forums as it chooses and reserves the right (but assumes no obligations) to remove, edit or otherwise alter content that it deems inappropriate for any reason without obtaining anyone's consent. We further reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to remove a user's privilege to post content in our discussion forums.

3. You understand and agree that these discussion forums are to be used only for noncommercial purposes. You may not solicit funds, promote commercial entities or otherwise engage in non-commercial activity in our discussion forums.

4. The discussion forums are for text only. Use of graphics and audio is not appropriate.

5. You acknowledge and agree that you use and/or rely on any information obtained through the discussion forums at your own risk. MercedSunStar.com is not in any manner endorsing the content of the discussion groups and cannot and will not vouch for its reliability.

6. For any content that you post, you hereby grant to MercedSunStar.com the royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, exclusive and fully sub-licensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such content in whole or in part, world-wide and to incorporate it in other works, in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

To register a complaint about another user's conduct, please send an e-mail message to webstaff@modbee.com.

Privacy rights

MercedSunStar.com takes your personal privacy seriously. That is why we have adopted our Privacy Policy, which explains our position on information gathering and how we intend to use and share any information we collect. Your use of the MercedSunStar.com Web site or our services signifies acknowledgement of and consent to the information practices in our Privacy Policy. Other services, advertisers and information providers that are accessible on MercedSunStar.com are provided by third parties, and have their own policies about using personal information. You should contact these third parties directly for their policies.

You agree that MercedSunStar.com may access and disclose information about you or your use of our service when we deem it necessary or appropriate to comply with the law, to respond to claims, to protect our systems and customers, to ensure the integrity and operation of our business and systems, or to protect the rights or property of MercedSunStar.com or its affiliates. Such disclosure may include, without limitation, Personally Identifiable Information (name, e-mail address, etc.), your IP address, clickstream and traffic information, and usage history. Our right to disclose any such information shall govern over any terms of our Privacy Policy.

International Users

You acknowledge and agree that due to the international dimension of our company we may use the data collected in the course of our relationship for the purposes identified in the Privacy Policy, for the purposes identified in our other communications with you, or to provide the information to other businesses and selected third parties which may be outside your resident jurisdiction. MercedSunStar.com stores and processes your information on computers located in the United States that are protected by physical as well as technological security devices. In addition, such data may be stored on servers located in other jurisdictions. By providing us with your data, you consent to the transfer of such data. If you object to your information being transferred or used in this way please do not use our site or services.

Children's use of MercedSunStar.com

MercedSunStar.com is particularly concerned with providing a safe online environment for children. Parents and legal guardians of children under age 13 who register will be able to establish a member account for their child by accessing the Member Center. Children under age 13 without signed Parental Consent Forms are not allowed to become members of MercedSunStar.com. For more information about how MercedSunStar.com handles children's privacy, please refer to our Child Protection Policy.

Other services and information providers accessible through MercedSunStar.com have their own policies about children's privacy, and you should contact them directly for their policies.

MercedSunStar.com strongly recommends that parents supervise the use of the Internet by their children. A number of commercial products are available to help limit access to material on the Internet that you may consider harmful or inappropriate for your child.

Disclaimer

While MercedSunStar.com strives for accuracy, it does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any information or database on our service. Nor does MercedSunStar.com guarantee or warrant that any files available for downloading will be free of defects. Neither The Merced Sun-Star nor any of its information providers shall be liable in any way to you or the other parties for delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in the material published in MercedSunStar.com.

While we take reasonable steps to ensure that no viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other destructive properties are present, the entire risk as to the quality and performance of MercedSunStar.com and the accuracy and completeness of any information is with the user of our service.

Likewise, MercedSunStar.com does not warrant that our service will be uninterrupted or error-free. MercedSunStar.com makes no warranties, express or implied, including, without limitation, those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose any information published on the MercedSunStar.com Web site or any products or services sold through the MercedSunStar.com Web site.

Opinions, advice and all other information expressed on MercedSunStar.com bulletin boards represent the individual's own views and not necessarily those of MercedSunStar.com. MercedSunStar.com does not endorse and is not responsible for statements, advice and opinions made by anyone other than authorized MercedSunStar.com spokespersons.

Any investment decisions or other actions that users take based on information available on MercedSunStar.com should first be reviewed by a competent financial adviser or other professional.

THE MercedSunStar.com SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR WARRANTIES REGARDING THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENT, OR ANY OTHER SERVICE OR PRODUCT ON OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE (INCLUDING ANY LINK TO ANOTHER WEB SITE OR RESOURCE).

In no event will MercedSunStar.com be liable for (i) any incidental, consequential, or indirect damages (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of business profits, business interruption, loss of programs or information, and the like) arising out of the use of or inability to use MercedSunStar.com, or any information or services provided on MercedSunStar.com, even if MercedSunStar.com has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or (ii) any claim attributable to errors, omissions, or other inaccuracies published on MercedSunStar.com.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold MercedSunStar.com harmless from and against any and all liability, loss, claims, damages, costs and/or actions (including attorney's fees) based on or arising from any breach by you of your obligations under these Terms of Use. We reserve the right to defend any such claim, and you agree to provide us with such reasonable cooperation and information as we may request.

Jurisdiction

This Agreement between The Merced Sun-Star and its users will be governed and interpreted under the laws of in the State of California without regard to its conflict of laws provisions. Any action brought in connection with this Agreement shall be filed within one year of the date of the alleged injury, regardless of any statute of limitations, and filed filing_loc.

Arbitration

Any legal controversy or legal claim arising out of or relating to these Terms of Use or MercedSunStar.com, excluding legal action taken by The Merced Sun-Star to obtain an injunction relating to its intellectual property, shall be settled by binding arbitration in accordance with the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association. Any such controversy or claim shall be arbitrated on an individual basis, and shall not be consolidated in any arbitration with any claim or controversy of any other party. The arbitration shall be conducted in arbitration_loc, and judgment on the arbitration award may be entered into any court having jurisdiction thereof.

Termination

Notwithstanding any provision of these Terms of Use, we reserve the right, without notice and in our sole discretion, to terminate any or all of the MercedSunStar.com service and/or your license to use the MercedSunStar.com service, or to block or prevent future access to and use of MercedSunStar.com.

Severability

If any provision of these Terms of Use shall be deemed unlawful, void or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these Terms of Use and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Questions and comments about MercedSunStar.com

We hope you enjoy using MercedSunStar.com. Questions and comments about the content of MercedSunStar.com may be sent by submitting an e-mail to webstaff@modbee.com. We read all comments sent to us and try to respond to as many as possible. Technical questions regarding your software, your configuration or your connection should be directed to your Internet access provider. MercedSunStar.com cannot address questions except those specifically about content and services that we provide.

© Copyright 2005, The Merced Sun-Star

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Frequently Asked Questions

1. What if I forgot my username and/or password?
2. How do I change my username?
3. How do I change my password?
4. What does it cost?
5. Why do I need to register?
6. What should I do if all passwords I select are taken?
7. How do I subscribe to or unsubscribe from a newsletter?
8. My activation link expired; how do I reactivate my account?
9. I continue to get the login screen. Why?
10. Will you sell my information?
11. Why do I get an error message when I try to create my username?
12. I did not request my password. Why did I receive it via email?
13. What should I do if I try to reactivate my account but the system says it does not recognize my email address?
14. The password that was sent to me does not work. What should I do?
15. I signed up for a newsletter but did not receive it. Why?

Answers:

Q.	What if I forgot my username and/or password?
A.	Please click on the link below and enter either your username or email address and the system will be prompted to send you a copy of your username and password: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/reg-bin/int.cgi?mode=request_password
Q.	How do I change my username?
A.	If you would like to change your username please contact member services using our Member Services contact form and provide your old username and email address that is associated with your registered account.
Q.	How do I change my password?
A.	If you cannot log in, please refer to Question #1 "I forgot my username and/or password?" then read below. Once you log in, you will see a link in the upper right hand corner that reads "Member Center". Please click on that link. You should be redirected to new screen that reads: "Welcome (your username) to the member center!" Directly under that you will see several options: Edit your member information Change your password Delete your account Newsletters Offers By clicking on the "Change your password" option you will be directed to the corresponding page in which you can enter and save your new password.
Q.	What does it cost?
A.	There is absolutely no cost to registering with MercedSunStar.com. The service is 100% free.
Q.	Why do I need to register?
A.	We understand that registration raises concerns for some MercedSunStar.com visitors. So why are we requiring visitors to register? We want to maintain a free, high-quality Web site. It costs a substantial amount of money each year to run MercedSunStar.com. Just like The Merced Sun-Star newspaper, our Web site depends on advertising revenue to produce and deliver the news. Registration data enables us to better describe our online audience to advertisers and to help them tailor the advertising messages that appear on our site. A better understanding of our audience will also allow us to develop features and services that members will find most useful. We understand why you might hesitate to register. You value your privacy and so do we. Our Privacy Policy guarantees that we will never sell, rent, barter or give away member data to any third party. We've also established a Member Center to enable you to easily control your e-mail preferences and manage your registration account. We understand that this is a significant change, and we've taken steps to make this as painless as possible. Once registered, you won't need to log in each time you visit -- only if you explicitly log off or visit the site on a different computer.
Q.	What should I do if all passwords I select are taken?
A.	The password field is not unique, meaning multiple users can share the same password within their respective accounts. The username field however, is unique. This means each user that registers with our site must create a distinct username. When you submit a username already in use, the resulting error page automatically deletes the entries in the password field. This is done as a security precaution. Without reading the error message fully, it can initially appear that the password field, rather then the username field, is the source of the problem. If you still continue to have problems with your password please use our Member Services contact form.
Q.	How do I subscribe to or unsubscribe from a newsletter?
A.	If you cannot log in, please refer to Question #1 "What if I forgot my username and/or password?" then read below. Once you log in, you will see a link in the upper right hand corner that reads "Member Center". Please click on that link. You should be redirected to new screen that reads: "Welcome (your username) to the member center!" Directly under that you will see several options: Edit your member information Change your password Delete your account Newsletters Offers By clicking on the "Change your password" option you will be directed to the corresponding page in which you can enter and save your new password.
Q.	My activation link expired; how do I reactivate my account?
A.	You can click on the link below and it will take you to the interface where you can login, register using a unique email address, request your password using your user name or email address, or request activation: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/reg-bin/int.cgi?mode=login
Q.	I continue to get the login screen. Why?
A.	If you are prompted to another login in screen after correctly entering your data, it may be an issue of your computer not being set to receive cookies. The registration process sets a persistent cookie on your computer's hard drive that remains active until one of the following occurs: You explicitly log off our Web site after every visit. You are using a different computer each time you visit our Web site. You have deleted your cookie manually. You have software installed on your computer (such as anti-adware/anti-spam/anti-tracking software) that automatically deletes cookies. You have your browser set to automatically delete cookies after a set period of time. Please check your browser to make sure it allows third parties to plant cookies on your machine. The following links can assist you in changing those settings based on your browser's preferences: Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla and Firefox users can receive help changing their cookie settings by clicking on the following link: http://www.google.com/cookies.html AOL users should consult the following page for help in changing their cookie settings: http://webmaster.info.aol.com/cookieguide.html
Q.	Will you sell my information?
A.	We value your privacy as much as you do. Our privacy policy guarantees that we will never sell, rent, barter or give away member data to any third party. We've also established a Member Center to enable you to easily control your e-mail preferences and manage your registration account.
Q.	Why do I get an error message when I try to create my username?
A.	The following are recommendations for creating a valid username: Make sure that the username you are submitting is not so general that another indivudual may have already established an account under that name. For instance, submitting a first name such as Jim, Bill or Beverly will likely be rejected. Instead create a distinct name by combining your first initial and last name. Make sure your username starts with a letter and contains only letters, numbers and the underscore character. There can be no spaces or @ signs in your username. Make sure you do not submit an email address as a username. Make sure your password is at least characters or letters.
Q.	I did not request my password. Why did I receive it via email?
A.	Registered users of MercedSunStar.com may forget their username and/or password and visit the retrieval section of our site: http://www.mercedsunstar.com/reg-bin/int.cgi?mode=request_password Many times in their search, they enter the wrong username into the first field (such as yours) and unknowingly prompt the system to send a copy of that information to the associated email address. The only person who receives such data is the person registered for the account, so there is no worry of your username and password being delivered to the wrong person.
Q.	What should I do if I try to reactivate my account but the system says it does not recognize my email address?
A.	Is there an alternate email address that you may have used to create your account previously? If so, please try it. Or have you clicked on the request activation link before you attempted to reactivate? If so, please email us and you will be contacted by Member Services as soon as possible. If all else fails, please try to create a new account with your most current information.
Q.	The password that was sent to me does not work. What should I do?
A.	If the password that was sent to you does not work and you cannot login please use our Member Services contact form and send us the password that you received and the password of your choice. We will update your registration information and you will be sent a confirmation.
Q.	I signed up for a newsletter but did not receive it. Why?
A.	Certain ISPs (such as Yahoo!, AOL, and MSN/Hotmail) perceive our emails as spam and thus block our newsletters from being received., Alternately, these ISPs might automatically be sending the newsletters to your Bulk/Junk mail folder. Please check these folders to see if that is where they are being received. If you have not received your newsletter and would like to use a new email address, please use our Member Services contact form and provide your preferred email address.

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If not, please use our Member Services contact form.

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