Privacy

Vava'u Press Limited / Matangi Tonga Online Privacy Policy

18 October 2024
Last updated: 18 October 2024

The Matangi Tonga Online website is a service of Vava'u Press Limited, a private publishing company first registered in Tonga in 1980 that is, and has been continuously, owned and operated by two journalists, Pesi Fonua and Mary Lyn Fonua.

When you visit our website at matangitonga.to and engage with our pages or purchase services from us, we respect your privacy.

This privacy statement demonstrates a commitment to protecting your privacy and tells you what information we collect, and what we can do with it.

• Information Collection
• What data do we collect?
• Who is collecting the information?
• Use of Information Collected
• Disclosure of Information
• User choices
• Managing Personal information
• Protection of information
• Linked Sites
• Notification of Changes
• Holding Information
• Contact Information

Information collection

This privacy policy describes how Vava‘u Press Limited / Matangi Tonga Online collects and uses data, including personal information when you use our services, such as:

• subscribing to our premium content and archives,
• register as a member of Matangi Tonga Online,
• visiting our website matangitonga.to,
• posting comments on our articles,
• where you purchase advertising from us or place a notice, and
• anywhere we gather information from you and refer to this privacy policy. Information you may post on our website will be publicly available for use by us and any third party using our services.

Except as otherwise stated in this privacy policy, we do not provide this information to third parties, except in aggregate form. Your personal information will not be shared, sold, rented or disclosed other than as described in this Privacy Policy.

From time to time, when we are conducting our editorial activities, we may also handle personal information relying on the accepted news media Code of Ethics developed by the Media Council Inc. in Tonga.

What data do we collect?

Data provided by you.

We may collect, store and process data, including personal information provided by you when accessing or using our websites, apps and services, such as:

1. Information collected from you: personal information voluntarily provided by you when you interact with us, such as when you sign up or register to use our services, when you purchase a service from us, information you provide to us through our office or by email or by telephone, through customer enquiries or directly to our representatives from time to time;
2. We, our partners, or advertisers may use a feature of your browser called a cookie to assign identification to your computer. Cookies are not required to browse the site, but to use any login services cookies are required. The unique user ID contained within your cookie automatically identifies your computer (but not you) to our servers every time you visit our site. Cookies by themselves cannot be used to find out the identity of any user. You can turn the cookies feature off by using your browser's preference options, but you may not be able to utilize some services properly. You cannot register an account or login without cookies enabled. You cannot make credit card payment without cookies enabled.
3. We keep track of your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers and to administer our site. Your IP address is a number that identifies a computer, which accesses the Internet. This address is used to gather broad demographic information about you, such as your Internet service provider and the geographic location of your IP address. Matangi Tonga Online may also collect aggregate information on how our users are utilizing the site. This might include information regarding visitor traffic patterns through the site and search queries.
4. We log browser types, access times, URLs from which visitors came to our site and URLs viewed by visitors while on our site. Matangi Tonga Online uses this information on an aggregate basis, and it helps us to make sure that we can support our visitor traffic and service performance.
5. We may contract service partners to provide us with data collection and reporting services to better understand the overall use of our site. These service partners may collect information on our behalf about our users' visiting behaviours in several ways, including through the use of cookies or pixel tags. Our service partners may not disclose this information to any third party.

Who is collecting the information?

Matangi Tonga Online directly requests and collects information from users of its site.

1. We also contract partners to provide certain services. We provide secure online credit card processing. Users may enter information, such as credit card numbers and expiry dates, that then goes to the partner bank and the full card number and expiry date are not kept by Matangi Tonga Online for online transactions. The areas of our site in which partners are collecting information may be cobranded with our partners' logos. If you have questions regarding the privacy policy or data collection practices of one of our content partners, please contact that partner directly.
2. We use third-party advertising companies and advertising networks to collect information and serve ads to users of our site. These companies may use cookies, pixel tags, or otherwise independently collect information (but not including your name, address email address or telephone number) from you and use this information about your visits to this and other sites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services of interest to you. We do not control their collection and use of information.

Use of Information Collected

If you register for a service, we may use the information we collect:

1. to provide the service to you or to send communications regarding the service. We may also send a newsletter by email to our users who opt to receive such emails;
2. for verification of your identity and assisting you in case you forget your password or login details for our registration services;
3. through our partners use the information voluntarily provided for authorising and processing credit card transactions, which you enter into online;
4. we use IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our site.

Disclosure of Information

Matangi Tonga Online may disclose your personal information:

1. to our business partners to provide you with the services you have requested. (If you have questions regarding the privacy policy or data-collection practices of one of our business partners, please contact that partner directly);
2. we may disclose certain non-personally identifiable information about you to advertisers or other third parties to present you with targeted advertisements;
3. we may share aggregate demographic information with our advertisers or information collection companies, but will not reveal any personally identifiable information in these instances;
4. we also may disclose your personal information (including without limitation IP addresses) to a third party if the law or legal process requires it;
5. for any other uses that you, the user, authorise.

User choices

1. Users may always choose to not provide us with any of the information we request; however, this may limit our ability to provide a specific service or limit our ability to offer personalized content.
2. Your browser offers preferences that allows you to disable cookies.
3. To view your Matangi Tonga Online account visit: http://www.matangitonga.to/user and login.
4. Blocking cookies will prevent access to premium content, or purchasing using the shopping cart, or any other personalised service.

Managing personal information

You control the personal information that you share with us and the communications you receive from us. Importantly:

• you can access and correct your membership data at any time;
• for services that require an account, you can deactivate and delete your account;
• you can contact us at matangi [at] matangitonga [dot] to for any privacy questions or concerns; and
• you can unsubscribe from any emails or newsletters (excluding service notifications) by contacting us at matangi [at] matangitonga [dot] to

Protection of information

Except as otherwise stated in this privacy policy, Matangi Tonga Online has taken measures to ensure that information that is not publicly available through its site is accessible only to the user who initially entered the information or to authorized personnel at Matangi Tonga Online or its partners, and only after a password has been entered.

Linked Sites

Matangi Tonga Online contains many links to Web sites not controlled by Matangi Tonga Online. These sites have their own policies and practices with respect to online privacy, and Matangi Tonga Online and Vava'u Press Ltd. cannot be responsible for the privacy practices or the content of these Web sites.

Notification of Changes

This policy may be revised as new features are added to the site. Amendments to this privacy policy may be made, with the date of its last revision noted.

Holding Information

Any personal information provided by users of Matangi Tonga Online will be collected and held by Vava'u Press Ltd., at its premises, Corner Railway Road and Hala Holomui, Nuku'alofa, Tonga, South Pacific.

User accounts that remain inactive for over 12 months may be purged from the system.

Personal information required to operate the website and provide personalised services will also be held on our webserver(s). Matangi Tonga Online undertakes to maintain the webserver(s) and undertake industry best practice security precautions.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or about Matangi Tonga Online information collection practices, please contact our Privacy Officer at:

Vava'u Press Limited
P. O. Box 24, Nuku'alofa, Tonga, Pacific Islands
Email: matangi [at] matangitonga [dot] to

--

Terms & conditions
  Code of Ethics 
Privacy policy