Gay West Community Network (GWCN) recognizes the importance of protecting information we may collect from visitors to our web site. We respect your privacy. Our policy is to use the information we acquire from visitors to our site for internal purposes only, and we maintain appropriate security measures to keep this information private.

This policy does not apply to web sites or content of third parties or other organizations to which our site links. You should carefully examine the privacy policies of these third parties and organizations to determine their privacy practices.

Newsletters and Other Communications from Us.

Our community members may receive newsletters, email communications, or communications through other channels for, among other purposes, the promotion and marketing of a service from our community partners, and we may also offer other visitors to our sites the opportunity to sign up to receive such information. When there is a separate sign-up for newsletters, our community partner ask for contact information such as name and email address, and, sometimes, demographic and profile information. By visiting our sites, you affirmatively consent to our collection and use of your data. We use this information in the same manner as we use the contact information in the Registration process described above. We may offer our users the choice whether to receive mailings from others that we think will be of interest. Recipients of our mailings can unsubscribe by following instructions that may appear at the end of email communications. Note that in order to keep our registered users informed about the operation of our services, we may send occassional emails and announcements that are needed for the proper functioning and administration of our sites and service.You certainly won't receive a ton emails you don't want or will have to read.

Personal Information

We do not sell or make available your personal information to any third parties. If you tell us you do not wish to have this information used as a basis for further contact, we will respect those wishes. We do keep track of the domains from which people visit for 12 months. We analyze this data for trends and statistics, and use the information to make our site more interesting for our visitors. Then discard the information. We do not partner with or have special relationships with any ad server companies.

GWCN takes precautions to keep the visitor information disclosed to us secure, and such information will not be disclosed to third parties for commercial purposes. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and to ensure the appropriate use of information, we have in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

Code of Ethics

We believe that information is intrinsically a valuable commodity, and that all information should be free, and freely available. We believe in people who are informed rather than blinkered.

Our website is Family Friendly. It contains no porn pictures, adult advertising or links making it suitable for all ages.

We absolutely endorse and comply with all regulations prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, disability or age, and we shall make no discrimination of any kind on our website.

Access to our website will remain free and not require any payment, subscription of membership to access it.

Our website will have no political, religious or sectarian bias (and will refuse to publish any material that encourages such attitudes), but will endeavour to provide an equal forum to all persuasions.

Much of the material found on the Internet is trivial, derivative, plagiaristic or downright stolen. We frown on such practices and are committed to the creation of a website which has real and original value and that enriches the Internet queer community.

We wholeheartedly disapprove of unsolicited e-mail (so-called UCE or "spam") and the flimsy pretexts some webmasters make to send unsolicited email.

Communities

Some of our sites may enable you to participate in public services such as discussion boards. Please use discretion when posting personal information about yourself when using these services. Be aware that when you disclose personal information at these sites, such as your name, member name, e-mail address, etc., the information may be collected and used by others to send unsolicited e-mail. The services are open to the public, and what you post there can be seen by anyone and is not protected. GWCN cannot control the comments that you may receive while you participate in forum board You may find other people's comments to be offensive, harmful or inaccurate. We do our best remove these comments when they appear

Cookies

"Cookies" are small text files a web site can use to recognize repeat visitors, facilitate the visitor's ongoing access to and use of the site, and allow a site to track usage behavior and compile aggregate data that will allow content improvements. Cookies are not programs that copy themselves to a visitor's system and damage files. Generally cookies work by assigning a unique number to the visitor that has no meaning outside the assigning site. If a visitor does not want information collected through the use of cookies, there is a simple procedure in most browsers that allows the visitor to deny or accept the cookie feature. GWCN's web site does not use cookies at this time.

Copyright  Notice

Gay West’s Web site in its entirety is copyrighted by Gay West Community Network

Acceptable Use Guidelines The Gay West Logo or any event connection (Queer West Fest) may not be used for any commercial or fundraising purposes whatsoever without express permission by Gay West Community Network. Vendors interested in obtaining a license to use the Gay West Community Network logo or any event connection (Queer West Fest), for merchandise or other commercial purposes should contact Gay West at queerwest.toronto[at]gmail.com or at (416) 551-1709 for further information.

Permission is freely granted to create record or reference copies of pages of this web site for research and study. You may download, print, and make copies of these materials for research, teaching, and private study. Many of the materials on the site are designed to be printed and distributed locally for purposes of activism or personal use, and may be distributed widely as long as they provide proper attribution.

Commercial print reproduction in print publication, or duplication of the materials on this web site, including use of through mirroring or use on another web site "must be requested in advance. "

Non-commercial print reproduction, such as for use by community activists, and student and non-commercial newspapers or student course work is granted on a blanket basis, and must be accompanied by the following statement:

Copyright [2000 or other year indicated], Gay West Community Network. Reprinted with permission of Gay West Community Network. http://gaywest.905host.net/

Links to Other Sites

As stated above, GWCN's privacy policy does not apply to web sites of other individuals or organizations to which this site links. Such sites are independently owned and controlled. Those sites may use cookies or collect data or personal information in a manner inconsistent with our privacy policy. Each visitor should carefully examine the privacy policies of other organizations to determine their privacy practices. GWCN accepts no responsibility for the content or privacy policies of linked sites.

Legal Disclosures

GWCN may disclose personal information if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to protect the safety of any individual or our rights and property. GWCN may also disclose personal information if we believe in good faith that such disclosure is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against a person or entity that may be causing injury or interference with GWCN's rights or property (for example, hacking, copyright violation, etc.). In addition, GWCN may disclose personal information if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so by law.

Note to Parents

GWCN welcomes children to learn more about our organization. However, we encourage this to be done with their parent's knowledge and supervision. There are parental control tools available such as browsers and filtering software that prevent children from accessing inappropriate sites. See: Safety on the web links Protecting the privacy of children is especially important. We do not collect information from individuals under the age of 16. If you are under the age of 16, we ask that you do not submit any personal information through the Site. If we have specific knowledge that an individual under the age of 16 has submitted personally identifiable information to the Site, we will delete such information permanently and without notice. We follow the guidelines set out in The Children's Online Privacy Protection Rule There is teen program run by City Toronto, west district for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered youth ages 15-24 Queer West (Youth group)