Woodward Community Media’s Statement Regarding Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
Woodward Community Media (WCM) and our service providers use cookies and similar tracking technologies to collect information. A cookie is a small text file placed on your computer or device when you visit a site, application, or service. We use these technologies to analyze trends, administer the services, and track users’ movements around the services.
1. Types of Cookies We Use
We categorize our cookies by the following purposes:
- Essential Cookies: Strictly necessary to provide you with services available through WCM and to enable core features like secure log-in, registration, and shopping . Without these, the services you have requested cannot be provided.
- Functionality Cookies: Used to remember your choices, such as your Member station preferences and account details, to provide a more personalized experience.
- Analytics and Performance Cookies: These help us understand how visitors interact with our services by collecting information on traffic, referral sites, and page views. We use this data to improve site performance and monitor activity levels.
- Targeted and Sponsor Cookies: These cookies track your browsing habits (such as location and content history) to show sponsorship credits and messages relevant to your interests. Under certain laws, the use of these cookies may be considered “sharing” or “selling” information for targeted advertising.
- Social Networking Cookies: Used when you share information using a social media sharing button or engage with our content on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, TikTok or LinkedIn. These services may track your activity across websites.
2. Other Tracking Technologies
In addition to cookies, we may use:
- Pixel Tags & Web Beacons: Tiny graphic files (also known as clear GIFs) that allow us to recognize when someone has visited our services or opened an email. This helps us measure the effectiveness of our communications and sponsorship credits.
- Metadata Tags: We may use ID3 tags or other metadata containers embedded in podcasts and media files to collect anonymized listening data (e.g., play duration) when accessed via compatible media players.
- SDKs (Mobile Applications): If you use our mobile applications, we use Software Development Kits (SDKs) which function like cookies to collect device identifiers and usage data to improve app performance.
3. Third-Party Cookies
Third-party service providers (such as Google Analytics) serve sponsorship credits and analyze site usage. These providers may use their own cookies to collect data about your online activities over time and across different websites. This Privacy Policy does not cover the privacy practices of these third parties. We encourage you to review their respective privacy policies.
- Your Choices and Controls
By continuing to use the WCM Services, you consent to our use of cookies and tracking technologies as described in this Policy. If you do not agree to our use of these technologies, you should manage your browser settings as described below or discontinue use of the Services.
- Implicit Consent: By remaining on our site, you acknowledge that we use cookies to improve your experience, analyze traffic, and deliver relevant sponsorship content.
- Browser-Based Opt-Out: You can control or delete cookies directly through your web browser settings (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Edge, or Firefox). You may set your browser to block all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being set. Please note that disabling essential cookies may prevent certain features of the WCM Services from functioning.
- Global Privacy Control (GPC): We endeavor to recognize GPC signals. If your browser or device is set to transmit a “Do Not Track” or GPC signal, we will treat that as a valid request to opt-out of non-essential tracking to the extent technically feasible.
- Third-Party Opt-Outs: To opt-out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. For interest-based advertising, visit the DAA Opt-Out Tool.
5. Data Retention
Information collected via cookies is retained only as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined above (e.g., session cookies expire when you close your browser, while analytics cookies may persist for up to 24 months).
