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Privacy Policy

Milestone Communications Inc. Privacy Policy

Milestone Communications Inc., as the parent corporation of Monterey County Weekly, www.montereycountynow.com, www.bestofmontereycounty.com, and www.montereycountyweekly.com, respects your privacy. Milestone Communications Inc. will gather personally identifiable information about you only when you provide it voluntarily for specific purposes such as posting an ad, posting a Reader Comment, or signing up for an e-mail newsletter. We are strongly committed to protecting the privacy of our users and we comply with both the United States Federal Law S. 877 CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 as well as the California Online Privacy Protection Act of 2004.

This website is wholly owned by Milestone Communications Inc. All products and services that are made available to you, the user, are subject to this policy without qualification. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you understand fully all of our online privacy policies and practices.

Privacy Policy

By visiting this site you agree that your visit, and any dispute over our online privacy practices, is governed by this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, Posted Rules governing contests, and any and all applicable Copyright, Trademark, and Intellectual Property Laws set forth by the United States Government. The materials contained within our website may not be reposted, used, disseminated, copied, reprinted, or otherwise used in any way, shape, form, or context, wholly or partially, without our CEO or publisher’s expressed written consent and permission.

In addition, by using our products and services, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this Privacy Policy and any other privacy, data collection, or user policy applicable on Milestone Communications Inc. platforms and website and to receive any required legal notices regarding our privacy practices through the continuous posting of a clear and conspicuous link (found at the bottom of our web pages) to the current version of this Privacy Policy.

Your Privacy Choices & Consent Management

We believe in providing our readers with transparency and control over their data. We utilize the Klaro Consent Manager to allow you to manage your privacy preferences across our digital platforms.

  • Consent Model: For visitors within the United States, we operate on an "Opt-Out" basis. Tracking for Analytics and Advertising is enabled by default to support our local journalism, but you may opt-out at any time. For visitors detected in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or Switzerland (based on timezone detection), we operate on a strict "Opt-In" basis.

  • Managing Preferences: You may reopen the consent interface at any time to change your settings by clicking the "Cookie Preferences" or "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link in our website footer.

  • Duration of Choice: If you Accept tracking, your preference is stored for 365 days. If you specifically Decline Advertising tracking, we respect that choice but will refresh the request for your preference after 7 days.

Cookies & Tracking Technologies

"Cookies" are small text files that allow websites to store and retrieve information about you from your computer system. Milestone Communications Inc. serves cookies to track site usage for later aggregation.

  • Analytics Cookies: We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Broadstreet Analytics to understand site traffic and user behavior. This data helps us improve our reporting and site performance.

  • Advertising Cookies: We work with Broadstreet Ads to deliver local advertisements. Some of our advertisements are "dumb" image-based ads that do not utilize tracking scripts. However, other advertisements may use cookies to measure effectiveness and ensure you do not see the same ad repeatedly.

  • Functional Cookies: We use CitySpark to power our interactive events calendar. CitySpark may use cookies to remember your preferences or interactions within the calendar widget.

IP address tracking: We collect IP addresses to administer and analyze our site and report aggregate, non-personal information. To maintain our users' anonymity, we do not associate IP addresses with records containing personal information in our general analytics.

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads when you visit the Website. These companies may use information (not including any Personally-Identifying Information) about your visits to this and other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. You can opt out of several third-party ad servers' cookies simultaneously via:

Other Information We Collect

We may also collect:

  • (a) Geo-location information (via IP or timezone), unique device identifiers, browser types, language, operating system, and the state or country from which you accessed our sites.

  • (b) Information related to the ways in which you interact with our sites, including referring/exit pages, number of clicks, landing pages, pages viewed, time spent on particular pages, and the date/time of your use.

What We Do With Information Collected

We use the information collected for the following purposes:

  • To perform analytics and research aimed at improving our digital products.

  • To allow us to personalize content and advertising.

  • To generate reports about our user base and usage patterns.

  • To process and respond to your inquiries.

  • To administer surveys, contests and reader polls.

  • To notify you about new features, special events or products.

Please note that our digital platforms are supported by advertising revenue. We will send you commercial emails on behalf of ourselves, our affiliates, and advertisers only if you have opted in. You can opt out of these at any time.

Registration & Newsletters

Our website may require registration for certain features. Registration forms require an email address and may store names, addresses and preferences.

  • Email Services: Your email address is kept private and will not be sold to third parties. It may be used by our divisions or affiliates as set forth in this policy. You may opt out of future mailings at any time.

California Privacy Rights (CCPA/CPRA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to:

  1. Know what personal information is being collected about you.

  2. Delete personal information collected from you (with some exceptions).

  3. Opt out of the "sale" or "sharing" of your personal information.

    • Our use of third-party analytics and advertising services may be classified as "sharing" under California law. You may exercise your right to opt-out by clicking the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link in our footer and toggling the "Advertising" and "Analytics" services to Off.

To request a list of third parties to whom we have disclosed personal information for their direct marketing purposes, please email publisher@montereycountynow.com.

California Do-Not-Track Disclosure

We encourage you to check your privacy preferences in your browser. While the industry works on a unified "Do Not Track" standard, we provide our own robust opt-out mechanism via the Klaro Consent Manager found in our website footer–see “cookie preferences.”

User Contributions: Letters, Comments and Blogs

  • Letters to the Editor: We require your real name and contact info. We reserve the right to publish these in print or digital form. (To read our comment policy, click here.)

  • Public Forums: Any information shared on message boards or blogs becomes public and is no. longer governed by this Privacy Policy. Please do not post personal information you intend to keep private.

Giveaways, Contests and Surveys

Information collected for contests is used solely for the expressed purpose of that feature (e.g., notifying winners). This information may be shared with the specific sponsor of the contest, as disclosed at the time of entry.

Children

Our site is intended for a mature audience and is not oriented towards children. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of thirteen (13).

Legal Disclaimer

We may disclose personal information when required by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with legal processes, court orders, or to protect and defend our rights and property.

How We Protect Information

We implement reasonable administrative, technical and physical security measures to protect against unauthorized access or alteration of your information. However, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Google Signals

Our website utilizes Google Signals, a feature of Google Analytics, for cross-device tracking and advertising. This collects device identifiers and demographic information to improve website functionality and targeted advertising. You can opt out via Google Ads Settings. Google Signals data is retained for a maximum of 26 months.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this policy at any time. Changes are effective immediately upon posting. Your continued use of our sites following the posting of changes constitutes your acceptance of those changes.

Contact

If you have any questions about this privacy statement or your dealings with our sites, please contact: publisher@montereycountynow.com

Last Updated: January 28, 2026

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