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American-Rails.com Privacy Policy

Updated: January 5, 2024

At American-Rails.com we are dedicated to protecting your data and privacy.

We recognize that your privacy is important. This document outlines the types of personal information we receive and collect when you use American-Rails.com, as well as some of the steps we take to safeguard information. This will help you make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us.

American-Rails.com strives to maintain the highest standards of decency, fairness and integrity in all our operations. Likewise, we are dedicated to protecting our customers' and online visitors' privacy on our website.

About Our Cookies

A cookie is a string of information that American-Rails.com stores on your computer, which your browser provides to American-Rails.com each time you return to the site. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their use of our website, and their website access preferences.

American-Rails.com  uses Google Analytics to analyze the use of this website. Google Analytics collects demographic and interest data, and generates statistical and other information about website use, by means of cookies. These cookies are kept on your computer. We share this information with Google, which will store and use this information on its servers. Google's privacy policy is available at: https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Google Analytics Cookies

American-Rails.com uses information from Google Analytics to track the number of visits to the website, browsers and operating systems. No personally identifiable information is obtained from these cookies. We use the information that Google Analytics generates relating to our website to create reports about the use of the site. These reports allow us to update the site and improve your usage of it.

If you do not wish your data to be collected via Google Analytics, you can install its opt-out browser extension or add-on at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/

Advertising Cookies

We use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our website. These companies use cookies and web beacons in their ads to ascertain how many times you've seen an advertisement.

We share this information with these companies, but do not provide them with any personally identifiable information for cookie or web beacon use, so they cannot personally identify you with that information from our website.

You may opt out of personalized ads for over 130 different ad networks. Click here to do that.  In addition, if you would like to opt out of interest-based advertising provided by Network Advertising Initiative members, or manage such ads on your browser please click here to do that.

Some third-party advertisements are served by Google. Google's cookie enables it to serve ads to our visitors based on their visits to other sites on the Web. You may opt out of personalized ads by visiting the Google ad opt-out page.

This link from Google provides more information about how Google manages data in its ad products.

Finally, American-Rails.com features ads served through a company called Mediavine.  If you would like to learn more about them, the ads they serve, and opt out from these ads please click here to visit their Privacy Policy page.  For more about Mediavine programmatic advertising please read on below.

Mediavine Programmatic Advertising (Ver 1.1)

The Website works with Mediavine to manage third-party interest-based advertising appearing on the Website. Mediavine serves content and advertisements when you visit the Website, which may use first and third-party cookies. A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website.

First party cookies are created by the website that you are visiting. A third-party cookie is frequently used in behavioral advertising and analytics and is created by a domain other than the website you are visiting. Third-party cookies, tags, pixels, beacons and other similar technologies (collectively, “Tags”) may be placed on the Website to monitor interaction with advertising content and to target and optimize advertising. Each internet browser has functionality so that you can block both first and third-party cookies and clear your browser’s cache. The "help" feature of the menu bar on most browsers will tell you how to stop accepting new cookies, how to receive notification of new cookies, how to disable existing cookies and how to clear your browser’s cache. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information at All About Cookies.

Without cookies you may not be able to take full advantage of the Website content and features. Please note that rejecting cookies does not mean that you will no longer see ads when you visit our Site. In the event you opt-out, you will still see non-personalized advertisements on the Website.

The Website collects the following data using a cookie when serving personalized ads:

  • IP Address
  • Operating System type
  • Operating System version
  • Device Type
  • Language of the website
  • Web browser type
  • Email (in hashed form)

Mediavine Partners (companies listed below with whom Mediavine shares data) may also use this data to link to other end user information the partner has independently collected to deliver targeted advertisements. Mediavine Partners may also separately collect data about end users from other sources, such as advertising IDs or pixels, and link that data to data collected from Mediavine publishers in order to provide interest-based advertising across your online experience, including devices, browsers and apps. This data includes usage data, cookie information, device information, information about interactions between users and advertisements and websites, geolocation data, traffic data, and information about a visitor’s referral source to a particular website. Mediavine Partners may also create unique IDs to create audience segments, which are used to provide targeted advertising.

If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices to opt-in or opt-out of this data collection, please visit National Advertising Initiative opt out page. You may also visit Digital Advertising Alliance website and Network Advertising Initiative website to learn more information about interest-based advertising. You may download the AppChoices app at Digital Advertising Alliance’s AppChoices app to opt out in connection with mobile apps, or use the platform controls on your mobile device to opt out.

For specific information about Mediavine Partners, the data each collects and their data collection and privacy policies, please visit Mediavine Partners.

Refusing Cookies

You can set your browser to accept or refuse all cookies automatically, or notify you when a cookie is being requested. Taking this action should not cause a problem with the continued use of our site. Consult the Help section of your browser for guidance on how to refuse all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is requested.

If you choose to refuse American-Rails.com's cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the site.

Personally Identifiable Information

American-Rails.com may collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • To run and operate our site.
  • To display content on the site correctly.
  • To improve customer service.
  • To help us respond to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently.
  • To personalize your user experience.
  • To understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on our site.
  • To improve our site.
  • To improve our products and services.
  • To run a promotion, contest, survey or other site feature.
  • To send information to you that you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.
  • To send periodic emails, which may include electronic newsletters and/or autoresponder series of emails.
  • To respond to your enquiries, questions, and/or other requests.

American-Rails.com may collect personally identifiable information from you in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, when you visit our site, register on the site, or fill out a form, and in connection with other activities, services, features or resources we make available on our site.  To learn more about personally identifiable information please click here.

If you complete a form, we will require your name and your email address, and will ask for information relevant to the purpose of the form.

You can always refuse to supply personally identifiable information and visit our site anonymously. However, it may prevent you from engaging in certain site-related activities.

If we make material changes in the collection of personally identifiable information, we will inform you by placing a notice on our site. We will use personal information received from you for internal purposes only and will not sell it or provide it to third parties.

We also collect each visitor's IP address, which helps us combat spam and fraud. We do not use IP addresses for any other purpose.

Non-personally Identifiable Information

We may collect non-personally identifiable information about you whenever you interact with our site. Non-personally identifiable information may include the browser name, the type of computer and technical information about your method of connecting to our site, such as the operating system and the Internet service provider you used, and other similar information.

Children's Privacy Protection

This website is directed to adults. It is not directed to children under the age of 16. We operate our site in compliance with current regulations. Anyone under the age of 16 must provide parental consent to use this site. We do not knowingly collect or use personally identifiable information from anyone under 16 years of age.

California Consumer Privacy Act

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) became effective on January 1, 2020 and is a new type of privacy law which establishes various rights to California state residents.  It specifically targets companies which do business in California and earn revenue, carry out data processing, and potentially sell California residents' personal information.  As such, the companies which do this must provide residents the right to opt out of the "sale" of their "personal information" as the law defines and provide this opt-out via a prominent "Do Not Sell My Personal Information" link on the "selling" party’s homepage.  Please note, American-Rails.com has not sold any personal information about consumers in 2022.  In addition, American-Rails.com has never sold any such information since the site was founded in 2007. 

Release of Information

If we sell American-Rails.com, the information we have obtained from you through your voluntary participation in our site may transfer to the new owner as a part of the sale so that the service provided to you may continue. In that event, you will receive notice through our website of that change in control and practices, and we will make reasonable efforts to ensure that the purchaser honors any opt-out requests you might make.

Data Storage

Personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information collected by this site is stored on our host's servers. That host is SiteSell Inc., located at 1000 Saint-Jean Boulevard, Suite 702, Pointe-Claire, QC H9R 5P1 Canada.

If you wish to review your information stored on the SiteSell servers for American-Rails.comclick on this link. You can also edit, download or delete any of your information from the servers by clicking on that link.

How You Can Correct or Remove Information

We provide this privacy policy as a statement to you of our commitment to protect your personally identifiable information. If you have submitted personally identifiable information through our website and would like to update that information or have it deleted from our records, click on this link.

Updates and Effective Date

American-Rails.com reserves the right to make changes in this policy. If there is a material change in our cookie and privacy practices, we will indicate on our site that those practices have changed and provide a link to the updated privacy policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy so that you will know what information we collect and how we use it.

Agreeing To Terms

If you do not agree to American-Rails.com's privacy policy as posted here on this website, please do not consent to the setting of cookies and the collection and storage of your personally identifiable information.

Your explicit consent indicates acceptance of this privacy policy in its entirety.  Finally, if you would like to review your personal information please click here.

Last updated:  May 23, 2022

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