Web Site Policy
Purpose of the Web Site
It is the purpose of the official Town of Thurston Web site, townofthurstonny.org, to provide accurate, non-editorial content and Town of Thurston municipal government. When/where appropriate, the Web site will be used to facilitate the delivery of direct services provided by the Town of Thurston municipal government to its citizens and visitors. All Town of Thurston municipal government offices, departments, agencies, governing bodies, boards, and commissions are eligible to submit content or request the posting or hypertext linking to appropriate information to support their mission or service initiatives. Unless sponsored by an eligible user (as defined above), other individuals or groups are not eligible. All Internet posting requests must come from an eligible user. The Town Clerk, a is the public point of contact for all concerns regarding the Town’s Web presence. Comments about this site are welcome from any source and are always greatly appreciated.
Privacy & Security of Personal Information
The Town of Thurston utilizes information technology systems to provide its citizens with vital services. As reliance on the information created and stored by these systems increases, so does the Town’s responsibility to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of its computing infrastructure and its associated data.
Information Collected and Stored Automatically
When you visit townofthurstonny.org, we may store some or all of the following: the Internet address from which you accessed our site, date and time, the Internet address of the web site from which you linked to townofthurstonny.org, the name of the file or words you searched, items clicked on a page, and the browser and operating system used.
This information is used to measure the number of visitors to the various sections of our site and identify system performance or problem areas. We also use this information to help us develop the site, analyze patterns of usage, and to make the site more useful.
This information is not used for associating search terms or patterns of site navigation with individual users.
External Links
The security of the information you provide to the Town of Thurston is important to us. However, the Town of Thurston site includes links to other sites, and when you choose to visit those sites, we are not responsible for the privacy policies or how user information is utilized. In addition, we may permit third parties to offer registration-based services through our site. We are not responsible for the actions and policies of these third parties, and encourage individuals to review the privacy policies of these parties when supplying personally identifiable information to them.
Links To and From the Town of Thurston Web site
External links may be made to Web sites that meet the following criteria, as determined by the Webmaster:
· Sites that are owned and managed by a state, local or federal governmental agency or local school board.
· Sites that are maintained by an organization that receives direct financial support from the Town
· Sites that have a direct contractual relationship with the Town for the provision of goods and/or services.
· Sites that provide a unique online resource that will assist in the provision of services and/or information that compliment the purpose of the Town’s Web presence as outlined above.
External links will not be made to sites that fall within any of the following criteria, as determined by the Webmaster:
· Sites that are owned or managed by a political party, candidate or special interest group or are of a political nature that are associated with, sponsored by or serving a candidate for elected office, any political party or organization supporting or seeking to defeat any candidate for elective office or ballot proposal.
· Sites that are owned, managed or provide content for commercial, non-profit, religious, community, civic or other organizations that do not have a direct contractual relationship with the Town for the provision of goods and/or services.
· Sites containing any materials that may reasonably be considered scurrilous or offensive. Offensive materials are defined as sexual content or images, slurs against race, religious or political beliefs, age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin or physical attributes.
Links may be made to the Town of Thurston Web site with the express written (email) permission of the Webmaster. Persons wishing to link to the Web site may contact the Webmaster for permission and linking procedures. When permission is received to link to the Web site, all hypertext links should be pointed to the homepage, townofthurstonny.org..
�:�0�
Disclaimer of Endorsement
The information posted on the townofthurstonny.org website includes hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and/or private organizations. Townofthurstonny.org provides these links and pointers solely for our users' information and convenience. When users select a link to an outside website, they are leaving the townofthurstonny.org site and are subject to the privacy and security policies of the owners/sponsors of the outside website. The Town of Thurston does not:
· control or guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of information contained on a linked website.
· endorse the organizations sponsoring linked websites and we do not endorse the views they express or the products/services they offer.
· authorize the use of copyrighted materials contained in linked websites. Users must request such authorization from the owner of such copyrighted materials.
· be held responsible for transmissions users receive from linked websites.
· guarantee that outside websites comply with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (accessibility requirements).