Privacy Policy

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS SITE.

As used herein, the phrase "this Site" refers to insidecostarica.com and other sites on the World Wide Web which are owned and/or operated by Istarmedia.net (collectively "Istarmedia"). By using this Site, you indicate your acceptance of these Terms & Conditions. If you do not agree to these Terms & Conditions, you have no right or license to access this Site and you should not do so.

Istarmedia reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to change, modify or otherwise update this Policy at any time. Such changes, modifications, updates, or additions shall be effective immediately upon notice thereof, which may be given by means including, but not limited to, posting on this site, or by electronic or conventional mail, or by any other means by which you obtain notice thereof. Your use of this site after such notice shall be deemed to constitute your acceptance of such changes, modifications, updates, or additions.

Istarmedia understands and respects your desire for privacy. To that end, we would like you to know how we use the personal information you provide to us.

We collect personal information (such as your name, address, and credit card number) and non-personally-indentifiable information (such as information about daily Web site usage, your IP address or domain). Personal information is collected when you subscribe to the magazine, purchase a product from the site, register for the online newsletter, enter contests, or participate in other interactive online activities (e.g., surveys, chat rooms, games, or bulletin boards) through this site. As described below, we may use such information to fulfill magazine subscriptions, award prizes, track customer usage of the sites, or for promotional and marketing purposes.

Insidecostarica.com has implemented appropriate safeguards to help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and make proper use of the information that we collect. However, no transmission of data over the Internet is guaranteed to be completely secure. Thus, while we strive to protect your personal information, Maxim Online cannot absolutely guarantee the security of any information you provide to us.

POLICY FOR MINORS

Children should always ask parents for permission before providing any personal information online. No information should be submitted to or posted at this site by any Minor (a guest under 18 years of age) without the consent of a parent or guardian. Unless otherwise disclosed during collection, we do not provide any personally identifying information about Minors, regardless of its source, to any third party for any purpose whatsoever. No personally identifying information collected from Minors is used for any marketing or promotional purposes whatsoever. Minors are not allowed to participate in contests.

POLICY FOR ADULT GUESTS

Insidecostarica.com collects personal information from guests over 18 years of age in order to provide guests with a personalized online experience and to provide our advertisers a way to reach the right audience. Insidecostarica.com may share the personal and aggregate information we collect with our affiliates and other sites operated by and for Maxim Online. On a confidential basis, insidecostarica.com may also share personal information with our corporate affiliates or consultants or with third parties that perform a particular service on our behalf (such as fulfilling orders or for general site administration purposes). Insidecostarica.com shares aggregate information with third parties for advertising and promotional purposes. We may also disclose personal information in response to legal process, such as a request by law enforcement, a court order or subpoena, or to protect the integrity of our site if we believe that a user has committed unlawful or otherwise harmful acts.

With the permission of guests 18 years or older, information submitted at the time of registration or submission may also be used for marketing and promotional purposes by us and may be shared with companies that have been pre-screened by us for these purposes.

If any individual submits content for publication (e.g., Beat This Caption or Reader Mail), we may publish his or her name and any other information submitted by that individual.

If users elect to use our “E-mail to a Friend” referral service for informing a friend about our site, we ask for the friend’s e-mail address. We will send an e-mail in response to your request inviting them to visit the site. We store this information solely for the purpose of sending the e-mail.

PUBLIC FORUMS

Whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online in chat rooms, message boards, or similar posting areas, the information can be reviewed and collected by anyone. Therefore, do not post any information that you do not want to be made available to the general public. Maxim is not responsible for unsolicited communications that arise from your postings on this site.

PURCHASE OF PRODUCTS FROM THIS SITE

If you purchase a product from this site, we will collect information from you, including your credit card and contact information, for use by the provider of the product. Unless otherwise stated, Maxim does not have any responsibility in connection with such purchases and all transactions and use of any customer information are the sole responsibility of the product provider. Be sure to review the product provider’s privacy policy and contact them directly if you have any questions. They may have privacy terms that differ from insidecostarica.com's Privacy Policy.

USE OF IP ADDRESSES

An IP address is a number that’s automatically assigned to your computer whenever you’re surfing the Web. Web servers automatically identify your computer by its IP address. When a guest requests pages from our site, our servers log the guest’s IP address. The IP addresses are collected for the purposes of system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. We do not link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable. This means that a guest’s session will be logged, but the identity of the guest remains anonymous.

USE OF COOKIES

In cyberspace, cookies are pieces of information that a Web site transfers to an individual’s hard drive for record-keeping purposes.

Cookies make Web-surfing easier for you by saving your passwords, purchases, and preferences while you’re at a site. The use of cookies is an industry standard—you’ll find them at most major Web sites.

By showing how and when guests use the site, cookies help us see which areas are popular and which are not and help in targeting ads based on guest interests. Many improvements and updates to the site are based on such data as total number of visitors and pages viewed. This information is most easily tracked with cookies.

A cookie lets the computers remember that you’ve registered, which allows us to speed up your future activities at our sites. Similarly, the stores hosted by us usually use a cookie to track which products you’ve chosen to purchase while shopping. Letting it do the record-keeping saves you the trouble of entering information over and over again. We never use cookies to retrieve information from your computer that was not originally sent in a cookie.

The ads appearing on insidecostarica.com are delivered to you by a third-party advertising network. In the course of delivering an ad to you, the advertising provider may collect certain non-personally identifiable information about your visits to this site through the use of cookies or similar technology.

You may occasionally get cookies from our advertisers on this site as well. insidecostarica.com does not control these cookies, and they are not subject to insidecostarica.com’s Privacy Policy. Advertisers do not have access to insidecostarica.com’s cookies.

The use of advertising cookies sent by third-party servers is standard in the Internet industry.

Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you’d prefer, you can set yours to refuse cookies or to alert you when cookies are being sent. However, it is possible that some parts of the site, such as the shopping, contest, and game areas, will not function properly if you do so.