ST. MARY’S COUNTY GOVERNMENT WEBSITE POLICIES: 
PRIVACY, DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY AND COPYRIGHT

St. Mary’s County Government is committed to protecting the rights of all our visitors. We recognize our obligation to keep sensitive information secure and have created this privacy statement to share our information gathering and dissemination practices for this website.

PRIVACY POLICY

If you do nothing during your visit but browse through the website, read pages, or download information, we will gather and store statistical information about your visit.   Our web server automatically collects this information when you visit our site.  We use this information to help diagnose problems with our server and to compile statistics on site usage.

To provide better service and a more effective website, sections of this site may use "cookies" as part of our interaction with your browser. A cookie is a small text file (typically only a few bytes) that we place on your hard drive to allow our server to identify your computer. Our cookies will not attempt to read any information on your hard drive, and we do not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to determine your identity or your email address.

When you visit certain areas of this site, you may be asked to provide personally identifiable information (such as name, address, e-mail address, gender, and/or credit card number) that we need to process your request.  We use the information to improve our service to you or to respond to your request. Sometimes we will forward your personal information to other government employees who may be better able to fulfill your request. In the event that you decline to provide such information, you limit our ability to serve you. Still, we invite you to continue to visit the site and take advantage of the wealth of information it offers.  This site has security measures in place to protect the information you provide us. We encrypt information that is deemed sensitive (such as credit card numbers) or data that must remain secure to meet legal requirements.

Users requesting e-mail notifications of web postings and\or announcements should not rely on the e-mail notification as their only information source.  Accounts will automatically be removed from the system if attempts to deliver notices are repeatedly unsuccessful.

GIS data are provided on an 'as is' basis. The maps and data provided are provided for illustration purposes only, and are not suitable for site-specific decision making. St. Mary’s County specifically disclaims any warranty, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular use. By Posting a Submission that contain images, photographs, pictures or that are otherwise graphical in whole or in part ("Pictures"), you warrant and represent that (a) you are the copyright owner of such Picture, or that the copyright owner of such Picture has granted you permission to use such Picture or any content and/or images contained in such Picture consistent with the manner and purpose, (b) you have the rights necessary to grant the licenses and sublicenses described in this policy, and (c) that each person depicted in such Picture, if any, has provided consent to the use of the Picture as set forth in these Terms of Use, including, by way of example, and not as a limitation, the distribution, public display and reproduction of such Picture. By Posting a Picture, you are granting to the St. Mary's County Government and the general public (for each such Picture available anywhere on the County Web Site), permission to use your Picture, (including, by way of example, and not as a limitation, downloading, printing and making prints and gift items which include such Picture), and including, without limitation, a non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty-free license to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Picture without having your name attached to such Picture, and the right to sublicense such rights to a St. Mary's County Government. The licenses granted in the preceding sentences for a Picture will terminate at the time a request to  completely remove such Picture from the St. Mary's County Website has been processed, provided that, such termination shall not affect any licenses granted in connection with such Picture prior to the time the Picture has completely been removed. No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Picture."

The entire risk as to quality and performance of the County Website is with the user of the data. In no event will St. Mary’s County or its staff be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or other damages, including loss of profit, arising out of the use of these data even if St. Mary’s County has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our website has many links to the websites of private organizations and non County entities. Please see our Disclaimer of Liability relating to the content of those websites.  When you link to another site, you are no longer on our site and are subject to the privacy policy of the new site.

For more information on on-line protection CLICK HERE.

DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY

The St. Mary’s County Government is not responsible for any offers, products, services, statements, information, content expressed made available by third parties and provided by any off-site page referenced on this Web site by hypertext link. The user specifically acknowledges that the St. Mary’s County Government shall not be liable for the conduct of other users, links, or third parties referenced in links on this Web site, and that the risk of injury from use of such links rests entirely with the user. Further, the presence of links to third parties on this Web site does not constitute an endorsement by the St. Mary’s County Government of the content of the linked sites, or of services or products which may be offered on those sites. These links are provided as an information service only, and it is the sole responsibility of the user to investigate and evaluate any and all offers, services, products, statements, information, and overall content of the linked page.

Neither St. Mary’s County Government, nor any County employee, officer, or agent make any warranty, express or implied, including the warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose, or assume any liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, service or process depicted or contained herein, or represent that its use would not infringe privately owned rights.

COPYRIGHT POLICY

The contents of this website are proprietary to the Board of County Commissioners for St. Mary’s County, Inc. and third parties and are subject to the copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property rights of the Board of County Commissioners for St. Mary’s County, Inc. and third parties. You may use this website only for your personal, non-commercial use. Other than making limited copies of this website's content, which you may also share with and transmit to your friends and colleagues, you may not reproduce, retransmit, redistribute, upload or post any part of this website, including the contents thereof, in any form or by any means, or store it in any information storage and retrieval system, without prior written permission from the Board of County Commissioners for St. Mary’s County, Inc.

If you are interested in obtaining permission to reproduce or retransmit any part of this website beyond that which you may use for personal use, as defined above, please contact: County Administrator, St. Mary’s County Government, 23115 Leonard Hall Drive, P.O. Box 653, Leonardtown, Maryland 20650.