This computer system is for the use of Jones County Government for the purpose of providing services and information via the Internet. Unauthorized access or access which exceeds authorized access is punishable by law.

We want to make it clear that we will not obtain personally-identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, or as otherwise required by law, we do not share any information we receive with any outside parties.

How we handle the information we gather when you visit our Web site:

We temporarily collect and store the following information about you:
• The name of the domain from which you access the Internet (i.e. aol.com, if you are connecting from an AOL account)
• The type of web browser that you used to access our site
• The item you requested from the server
• The Internet address of the Web site from which you linked directly to our site
• The Internet Protocol (IP) address from any referring search engine that you used to access our site

If your browser accepts cookies, we may use a cookie to determine if you are a repeat or new visitor or to understand how many different visitors come to our sites. When we examine this data, it is always presented in an aggregate form. Except in the case of actual law enforcement investigations, we do not track or look at individual’s usage behavior.

What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent to your browser – along with a web page – when you access a Web site. There are two kinds of cookies. A session cookie is never written to a drive, it is destroyed as soon as you close your hard drive. Some cookies we use are persistent and some are session only. If you have your browser set to notify you before accepting cookies, the notice will tell you if the cookie expires some time in the future or not. Persistent cookies have an expiration date in the future. Session cookies have no date associated with them.

Use of our cookies

We use this information to create summary statistics which are used for Web site planning and maintenance and to analyze system performance. This information tells us the number of visitors to the different sections of our site and helps us understand if our site is meeting the needs of our visitors. This information is only presented in an aggregate form—never for an individual user. Other potential uses of cookies on our web site are to provide functionality for Web-based applications. Beyond these uses for cookies on Jones County Web sites, we do not share any cookie information with any third party.

If you identify yourself by sending an email or completing a form

When you send us personally identifying information (e.g. in an electronic mail message containing a question or comment, or by filling out a form that email us this information), we sue this information to respond to your request. Electronic forms submitted to Jones County include the Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to you by your Internet service provider. We may also forward your email to other Government employees, who are better able to answer your questions.

Links to other sites

The documents post on the Web site may contain hypertext links or pointers to information created and maintained by other public and private organizations as provided by Communications Office policy. These links and pointers are provided for visitors’ convenience. Jones County Government does not control or guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, or completeness of any linked information from non-Jones County Government sites.

Security

For site security purposes and to ensure that this service remains available to all users, Jones County web servers employ industry-standard methods to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. Unauthorized attempts to upload information or change information on Jones County servers are strictly prohibited and may be punishable by law.

In the specific context of this security monitoring, there is no expectation of privacy. However, only in the case of actual law enforcement investigations, will we attempt to identify individual users or their usage habits.

If you have any questions about these policies, contact us at (478) 986-6405.