Privacy Policy

Date Last Updated: FEBRUARY 11, 2026

GALAX NEWS LLC,(“[Organization],” “we,” or “us”) wants you to be familiar with how we collect, use, and disclose your personal information. This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) describes our practices in connection with information that we collect from or about you through:

The [www.swvacountry.com] and any other [Galax News LLC]-operated website from which you are accessing this Policy (the “Websites”);
[The application made available by us for use on or through mobile devices (the “App”);]
[Our social media pages located at [URL] (collectively, our “Social Media Pages”); and]
[HTML-formatted email messages that we send to you that link to this Policy or other communications with you.]

We refer to the GALAX NEWS LLC’s Websites[, App, Social Media Pages, and emails] as the “Services.”

Personal Information When you visit and use our Services, we may collect the following categories ofinformation:

Identifiers, including your [name, email address, telephone or mobile phone number, mailing address, username and password, account name, account number, IP address, ordevice identifiers and information];
Demographic Information, including [city, state, zip code, or other similar information;]
Electronic Network Activity Information – We may collect information related to your electronic network activity, such as your browsing history, information about how you use the Services, information about your device;
Payment Information, including [details about your method of payment and billing address when you provide your payment information to us];
Communications and other information you provide us, such as [when you choose to contact us or engage with our Services, interact with our chatbot, respond to surveys, or otherwise communicate with us];
Inferences– We may also collect inferences drawn from the other information described above.

Collection of Personal Information

In addition to the information we receive from you, we may also receive the categories of information described above from other sources including from other users of the Services (such as when they purchase a gift article or subscription for you), advertising partners, co-sponsors, internet service providers, data analytics providers, operating systems and platforms, social networks, and publicly available sources. For example, if you access any social media or similar services through our Services to login or to share information our Services with others, we may collect information from these third-party services.

If you disclose any Personal Information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with the Services, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Policy.

Use of Personal Information

We and our service providers may use Personal Information for the following purposes:

To provide the Services’ functionality to you, such as arranging access to your registered account, and providing you with related services and support.
To complete your transactions, including processing your subscriptions, donations, or orders, and verifying your information.
To respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests, for example, when you send us questions, suggestions, tips, or complaints, or requests for information about our Services.
To send administrative information to you, such as changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
To send you our newsletter or other marketing communications, with information about our services, new topics or series, and other updates about our organization.
To analyze or predict our users’ preferences to understand how our digital content is used and consumed.
To better understand your interests and preferences, so that we can personalize our interactions with you and provide you with information or offers tailored to your interests.
To allow you to participate in a sweepstakes, contest, or other promotion. Some promotions have additional rules containing information about how we will use and disclose your Personal Information. Please read those additional rules before choosing to participate.
To accomplish our business purposes, including:
For data analysis, for example, to improve the efficiency of our Services;
For audits, to verify that our internal processes function as intended and to address legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements;
For fraud prevention and fraud security monitoring purposes, for example, to detect and prevent cyberattacks or attempts to commit identity theft;
For developing added content and services;
For enhancing, improving, repairing, maintaining, or modifying our current content and services;
For determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, so that we can adapt our campaigns to the needs and interests of our users; and
For operating and expanding our business activities, for example, understanding which parts of our Services are of most interest to our users so we can focus our energies on meeting our users’ interests.

Aggregated or De-identified Personal Information

We may aggregate and/or de-identify Personal Information so that it will no longer be considered Personal Information. Aggregated or de-identified data that we do not attempt to reidentify is not subject to this Policy.

Disclosure of Personal Information

We may disclose Personal Information:

To our affiliates for the purposes described in this Policy.
To our third party service providers, to facilitate services they provide to us.
These can include providers of services such as [website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, marketing, fraud prevention, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service or related benefits (including special promotions), email delivery, auditing, and other services].
To another business in the event of an acquisition.
If we, or substantially all our assets, are acquired by one or more third parties as a result of an acquisition, merger, sale, reorganization, consolidation, liquidation, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy, personal information may be one of the transferred assets.
To third party sponsors of sweepstakes, contests, and similar promotions, if you choose to participate .
With your consent.
We may share information for other purposes to which you consent.
When you post on our websites.
- This may include information shared onmessageboards, chat, profile pages, blogs, and other services to which you are able to post information and content (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages). Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public and may be available to other users and the general public.
For legal purposes.
- We may disclose your information to comply with applicable laws, including to respond to law enforcement; toprotect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others; and to stop any activity that we consider illegal, unethical, or legally actionable.

Cookies, Pixel Tags, and other Online Tracking Technologies

When you use our Services, we and our third-party partners may automatically collect information from you and your devices, including information about your browsing activities and how you interact with our website, such as browser type, time spent on the Services, pages visited, language preferences,and other traffic data.

We and our third-party partners may collect this information through a variety of methods, including through cookies and other tracking technologies (collectively, “cookies”), such as web beacons (also known as pixels) and SDKs. These cookies may be used for a variety of purposes, including for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively, analytics, and to personalize your experience.We also gather statistical information using services such as Google Analytics about use of the Services in order to continually improve their design and functionality, understand how they are used, and assist us with resolving questions regarding them. For more information on how Google Analytics collects and stores information, please seehttps://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites.

These technologies may be used to serve relevant ads based on your activities on and off the Services as well as for other related purposes including avoiding showing you duplicative ads and to track the effectiveness of advertising.]

If you do not want information collected by cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular website.You may also wish to refer tohttp://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html. If, however, you do not accept cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Services.You also may not receive advertising or other offers from us that are relevant to your interests and needs. Many advertising companies that collect information for interest-based advertising are members of the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) or the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), both of which maintain websites where people can opt out of interest-based advertising from their members. To opt-out of website interest-based advertising provided by each organization’s respective participating companies, visit the DAA’s opt-out portal available at http://optout.aboutads.info/, or visit the NAI’s opt-out portal available at http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1.

How WE SECURE INFORMATION

Protecting your information is a priority for us and we seek to use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures to protect the security and integrity of all information collected via our Services. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure and we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you provide to us. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the“Contacting Us”section below.

Your Choices

IMPORTANT note: Text/SMS/mobile messages and automated calls to mobile phones require the individual’s opt-in consent under federal and numerous state laws. This consent must be affirmatively obtained separately from this Policy. Communicating in these ways to mobile phones without the individual owner’s opt-in consent creates substantial legal and financial risk to organizations.

Your choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information:

Receiving marketing-related emails from us. If you no longer want to receive marketing related emails from us on a going-forward basis, you may opt out by:
Data Rights.There might be laws that afford you rights to access, delete, or correct your personal information. Please contact us if you would like to request information about the rights available to you.

Our sharing of your Personal Information with affiliates for their direct marketing purposes.] Under the California “Shine the Light” law, California residents can opt out of our sharing your Personal Information with third parties and our affiliates for their direct marketing purposes. To the extent we share information with a third party in a manner that may be covered by the Shine the Light law, you may opt out of this sharing by:

Cookies and Similar Technologies.You may be able to refuse or disable cookies by adjusting your web browser settings. Because each web browser is different, please consult the instructions provided by your web browser (typically in the “help” section). If you choose to refuse, disable, or delete these technologies, some of our Services’ functionality may no longer be available to you.
Do-Not-Track.Some web browsers have a “Do Not Track” preference that transmits a “Do Not Track” header to the websites you visit with information indicating that you do not want your activity to be tracked. We currently do not respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals, as there is no standard for how online services should respond to such signals. As standards develop, we may develop policies for responding to do-not-track signals that we will describe in this Policy.]Your California Rights: You may request to opt-out of the sharing of personal information withthird parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out.

THIRD PARTY SERVICES

Some of our Services may contain links to content maintained by third parties that we do not control. We may allow third parties to place and read their own cookies, web beacons, and similar technologies to collect information automatically through our Services. If you access third-party services, such as Facebook, Google, or Twitter, through the Services—e.g., to share a story—these third-party services may be able to collect information about you, including information about your activity on the Services. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties, and we recommend that you visit the privacy policies of each website that you visit.

Use of Services by MINORS

The Services are not directed to individuals under the age of [thirteen (13)], and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from individuals under 13.

[NOTE: If the organizationhas registered users who are under age 18,andit allows users to post content or information to the Services, then it should include the following paragraph (even if not based in CA).

Removal of Content for California Minors

Pursuant to California Business & Professions Code section 22581, if you are a resident of California, under 18, and a registered user of the Services, you may ask us to remove content or information that you have posted to the Services by writing to[contact@galaxnews.com]We will make reasonable efforts to remove the post from public view, but please note that your request does not ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information, as, for example, some of your content may have been reposted by another user.

INTERNATIONAL USERS

[Galax News LLC] is located in the United States. Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in the United States and any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers, which may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country.

SENSITIVE INFORMATION

Unless we request it, we ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., social security numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics, or criminal background) on or through the Services or otherwise to us.

THIRD PARTY PAYMENT SERVICE

The Services may provide functionality allowing you to make payments to the us using third-party payment services with which you have created your own account. When you use such a service to make a payment to us, your Personal Information will be collected by such third party and not by us and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, this third party’s collection, use, and disclosure of your Personal Information.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this Policy from time to time. The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this Policy indicates when this Policy was last revised. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Services. You understand and agree that you will be deemed to have accepted the updated Privacy Policy if you continue to use the Services after the new Policy takes effect.

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this Policy or our practices, or you wish to submit a request to exercise your rights as detailed in this Policy, please contact us at [contact@galaxnews.com], or [PO Box 14, Galax, VA 24333]

Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us.