Last updated – August 11, 2026

SJB Business Solutions, Inc., D.B.A. Lake and McHenry County Scanner, (“we”, “us”, or “our”) operates https://www.lakemchenryscanner.com (the “Website”). This policy explains what personal information we collect, how we use it, who we share it with, and the choices and rights you have — including how to delete your account and your data.

This policy covers privacy only. Rules about using the Website, posting comments, and our disclaimers and liability terms are in our Terms of Service.

1. Information we collect

Information you give us directly. We collect personal information when you knowingly provide it — for example when you subscribe to our newsletter, enter a contest or sweepstakes, complete a survey, submit a news tip, or contact us. Depending on what you are doing, this may include your name, email address, and phone number.

Reader account information. If you create a reader account in order to comment, we collect and store:

  • the display name and email address associated with your account;
  • an optional location you may choose to enter (for example a town name), which is shown publicly with your comments if you provide one;
  • the comments you post;
  • your newsletter and reply-notification preferences; and
  • basic records needed to operate the account safely — the date you registered, and the IP address, browser information, and language preference recorded when you register and each time you post a comment, used to detect abuse and ban evasion.

Information from Facebook, Google, or Apple when you use social sign-in. You can create a reader account using Facebook Login, Google Sign-In, or Sign in with Apple instead of a password. If you do, we receive only the following from that provider:

  • your name, where the provider supplies it
  • your profile picture, where the provider supplies it
  • your email address
  • a unique identifier for your account with that provider

Two things differ with Sign in with Apple: Apple does not supply a profile picture, and it supplies your name only the first time you authorize us. Apple also lets you hide your real address, in which case we receive an anonymous forwarding address ending in `privaterelay.appleid.com` rather than your own. That forwarding address is what we store and what any email we send you goes to.

We do not receive your password, your friends or contacts, your posts, or any other information from your Facebook, Google, or Apple account. We use this information to create and identify your reader account, to display your name and an initials avatar alongside comments you post, and — subject to your newsletter preference, described below — to send you our newsletter.

Information collected automatically. Our servers automatically collect technical information when you visit, including your browser type, operating system, referring website, and IP address. An IP address is generally assigned by your internet service provider or the network you are connecting through, and it is treated as personal information under California and other privacy laws.

Your newsletter preference. When you create an account, the newsletter option is pre-selected, and you are enrolled unless you clear it during sign-up. You can turn it off at any time from your account settings or by using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter we send. See Section 6.

2. How we use information

We use personal information to:

  • provide the service you asked for — sending a newsletter you subscribed to, notifying a contest winner, responding to a message you sent us;
  • create, operate, and secure your reader account, and display your comments;
  • communicate with you about new features or services;
  • detect, prevent, and respond to abuse, spam, harassment, ban evasion, and violations of our Terms of Service;
  • diagnose technical problems, understand aggregate usage of the Website, and improve it;
  • comply with law, and respond to subpoenas, court orders, and other legal process.

3. How we share information

We never sell, license, or rent the information we receive through Facebook, Google, or Apple sign-in, and we never provide it to advertisers, advertising identity partners, or data brokers. It is used to create and identify your reader account and to show your name and an initials avatar with your comments.

Like any website, we do depend on service providers to operate — a hosting company stores the data, and an email company delivers the newsletter. Those companies act on our instructions and may use the information only to perform that service for us. If your newsletter preference is on, the email address on your account — including one supplied by Facebook, Google, or Apple — is shared with MailerLite so the newsletter can reach you. That is delivery, not advertising, and MailerLite may not use it for any other purpose.

Email addresses you type into a form on this Website are treated differently, and you should know this. If you enter an email address into a form here — a newsletter signup, a registration form, or a comment form — our advertising partner Raptive may capture it, convert it into a hashed (scrambled) form, and share that hashed value with their advertising partners so that ads shown to you are more relevant. This is standard for ad-supported publishers and is how the Website earns revenue. You can opt out at any time using the “Do not sell or share my personal information” link in the footer of every page — see Section 6.

This applies only to an address you actually type in. If you signed up using Facebook, Google, or Apple, you never typed your address here, and it is not part of that process.

Beyond that, we may share personal information:

  • With service providers who perform functions on our behalf — for example email delivery, website hosting, and technical maintenance — and only to the extent needed to perform those functions. While we seek to require such providers to follow appropriate privacy practices, we do not bear responsibility for the actions or policies of third parties.
  • For legal reasons, including to cooperate with official investigations or legal proceedings, to respond to subpoenas, search warrants or court orders, and to protect the rights, property, or safety of our readers, the public, or us.
  • In a business transfer. If all or part of our business or assets is sold, transferred, or acquired, information about our users may be among the transferred assets. Any acquirer will remain bound by the commitments in this policy with respect to information already collected.
  • In aggregated or anonymized form, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you — for example usage trends shared with advertisers or partners.

Information you post publicly — including comments and the display name and an initials avatar shown with them — is visible to anyone who visits the Website. Please be thoughtful about what you share in public areas.

4. Advertising and analytics

This Website is affiliated with CMI Marketing, Inc., d/b/a Raptive (“Raptive”) for the purposes of placing advertising on the Website, and Raptive will collect and use certain data for advertising purposes. To learn more about Raptive’s data usage, see https://raptive.com/creator-advertising-privacy-statement.

We use Google Analytics to analyze use of the Website. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies, which is used to create reports about how the Website is used. Google’s privacy policy is available at https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Advertising vendors may use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies to serve advertisements tailored to interests you have shown by browsing this and other sites, to measure whether you have seen a particular advertisement before, and to avoid showing you duplicate advertisements. In doing so they may collect data such as browser type, operating system, pages visited, time of visit, content viewed, and ads viewed. The use of these technologies by advertising vendors is governed by their own privacy policies, not this one, and we disclaim all liability in connection with them.

Raptive Email Identity. Raptive operates an email identity service that recognises when an email address is entered into a form on the Website, converts it to a hashed value, and shares that value with advertising partners so advertisers can reach the right audiences without receiving your actual address. It applies to addresses you type into a form here.

Information received through Facebook, Google, or Apple sign-in is never provided to advertising vendors or identity partners, and is excluded from the service described above.

5. Cookies

Cookies are small pieces of information stored by a website on your device. We may use cookies to control the display of ads, understand usage patterns, deliver editorial content, and remember your account and preferences — for example to keep you signed in.

Some of our cookies may contain personally identifiable information, and such cookies may be shared with our affiliates and other companies. This does not include information received through Facebook, Google, or Apple sign-in, which is never shared as described in Section 3. Some advertisers also serve their own cookies through the Website; we do not control cookies placed by advertisers. You can opt out of this sharing using the “Do not sell or share my personal information” link described in Section 6.

If you do not want interest-based advertising cookies, you may be able to opt out at https://optout.networkadvertising.org. If you do not want cookies at all, your browser almost certainly offers a setting to refuse them, though some parts of the Website (including signing in) may not work correctly if you do.

6. Your choices and your rights

Do not sell or share my personal information. Advertising on this Website involves sharing identifiers associated with your browser with advertising and identity-resolution partners, which is treated as a “sale” or “sharing” of personal information under California law. You can opt out at any time using the “Do not sell or share my personal information” link in the footer of every page. We also honor opt-out preference signals, including the Global Privacy Control (GPC), where your browser sends them.

What the opt-out covers. It covers the advertising identifiers described in Section 4, including the hashed form of any email address you typed into a form on the Website. Information received through Facebook, Google, or Apple sign-in is never provided to advertising or identity partners in the first place, so there is nothing to opt out of there — see Section 3.

Updating your information. While signed in, you can change your display name, your location, your newsletter preference, and your reply-notification preference from your account settings. Display name changes are limited to about once a year to prevent people from evading moderation or impersonating other readers by changing identity repeatedly. A name may be refused if it breaches our community rules. If you need your name changed sooner, email us at info@lakemchenryscanner.com.

To change the email address on your account, write to us at info@lakemchenryscanner.com — there is currently no way to change it yourself.

Deleting your account and your data. You can request deletion at any time by emailing info@lakemchenryscanner.com with the subject line “Delete my data”, and, while signed in, from your account settings.

Deleting your account removes the personal information held on your account — your name, email address, profile picture, the record of which Facebook, Google, or Apple account you signed in with, and the IP address, browser, and language details recorded when you registered.

What deletion does not remove, so that you can decide accordingly:

    • Comments you post stay on the Website. They are no longer shown with your name and are no longer linked to your account. If you wrote something identifying in the text of a comment, that text remains, and you should ask us to remove the comment itself if you want it gone.
    • The IP address recorded with each comment is kept for up to 90 days from posting, and is then deleted automatically. During that period, a comment is still associated with an IP address, which is personal information.
    • Diagnostic records of sign-in, sign-up and commenting problems are kept separately so we can find out why something did not work. Deleting your account removes your name and the IP address and browser information from those records; the record that a problem occurred, with nothing identifying you, remains until it is deleted on the schedule in Section 8.
  • We may retain records where the law requires it, or where we need them to resolve a dispute or enforce our agreements.

If you want a comment removed as well as your account, say so in your email and we will remove it.

If you signed in with Facebook, you can additionally request deletion from Facebook, under Settings → Apps and Websites. We process those requests automatically and provide a confirmation code you can use to check the status.

Unsubscribing from email. Every newsletter we send includes an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing from the newsletter does not delete your reader account.

7. Children’s privacy

The Website is not intended for children, and specifically not for anyone under the age of 13. No one under 13 may create a reader account, post comments, or provide any personal information to us. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13, and any such information we learn we have collected will be deleted.

If you believe a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at info@lakemchenryscanner.com and we will delete it.

Parents should also be aware that if children disclose information about themselves in publicly accessible areas of the Website, they may receive unsolicited messages from other parties. We encourage you to tell them not to do so.

8. Data retention

We keep personal information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the Website, and afterwards only as required to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When you delete your account, your personal information is removed as described in Section 6.

IP addresses recorded with comments, and those recorded in our diagnostic records of sign-in, sign-up and commenting problems, are deleted automatically after 90 days, whether or not you delete your account. The diagnostic record itself — that a problem happened and what kind — is kept without any IP address or browser information for up to one year so we can tell whether a problem is new or recurring.

9. Information security

No transmission over the internet and no system of physical or electronic security is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of the information you send to us or the security of our servers or databases. By using the Website you agree to assume all risk in connection with information sent to us or collected by us when you use the Website.

If we believe the security of your information in our possession or control may have been compromised, we will seek to notify you, including by email where we have your email address.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised. If we make a material change to how we handle personal information, we will provide notice on the Website before the change takes effect.

11. How to contact us

Questions about this policy, or requests relating to your personal information, can be sent to:

Lake and McHenry County Scanner

Email: info@lakemchenryscanner.com

Address: 6615 Grand Avenue, Unit #6025, Gurnee, IL 60031