Town of Greenfield

Website Policy

I.             SCOPE

A.            The Mayor is the authority and shall have final review approval for all town policies posted on the website and for all website policies for the Town of Greenfield.

B.            Designated Town employee(s) responsible for maintaining the Town's website, social media and messaging services will have authority as the Webmaster.  The Webmaster may work with third parties to build/design/maintain the website. The Webmaster shall be supervised by the Mayor or his or her designee.

C.            In each Town department there shall be a Town employee or employees responsible for reviewing potential items for posting on the Town's website and posting such items in accordance with all applicable posting policies.

II.             POLICY

Departments will be responsible for updates to their departmental web page(s) as necessary.  Updates may include, but are not limited to:

• Event calendar(s)
• Creation and maintenance of  departmental online forms
• Photos to the photo gallery
• Posting of press releases
• Departmental information that furthers the goals of Egovernment and citizen on-line accessibility and interaction with the Town. 

III.           RESPONSIBILITIES

Maintaining the Town Web Site so it is current and up to date is crucial for it to be a trusted resource by the Community.  Departments are responsible for performing  this function.  Although the Webmaster has final responsibility for the maintenance and day to day general oversight of the Town Website, each Department Head or Supervisor, or his/her designee, is responsible for the implementation and adherence to this policy within their respective departments.

IV.           GENERAL DISCLAIMER

The information and materials contained on the Town of Greenfield website are compiled from a variety of sources, and are subject to change without notice, may not be current and up-to-date, and should not be considered official public records.  Do not rely on information and materials without first verifying its accuracy with the appropriate Town department, commission, board, committee or agency. The Town of Greenfield makes no warranties or representations whatsoever with respect to content, quality, accuracy or completeness of any information or materials contained on either this website or any external website linked to this website.  Additionally, the Town of Greenfield disavows any legal liability for the content, quality, completeness of said information and materials.  The Town will not be responsible for any personal or property damage by viewing and/or accessing the content within the website.  Use of the information is solely the responsibility of the user.  The Town of Greenfield reserves the right to change, modify, update or amend all or part of this policy at any time.

Communications to the Town of Greenfield via this website shall not be deemed to constitute legal or official notice to the Town of Greenfield, its departments, commissions, boards, committees, agencies, officers, employees, representatives or agents for any purposes whatsoever, including with respect to any existing, pending or future claim or cause of action against the Town of Greenfield or any of its departments, commissions, boards, committees, agencies, officers, employees, representatives or agents where such notice is required by federal, state or local law.

Any modification of the contents of the Town of Greenfield website without the express permission of the Town of Greenfield is strictly prohibited. Violations of this policy will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

V.            WEB LINKS

For purposes of these guidelines, an “external link” is a link to a website maintained by an outside party. An “internal link” is a link to a portion of the Town website that is maintained by the webmaster or by an operating agreement with the Town.

A.            EXTERNAL LINKS

Requests for external links shall be submitted to the Webmaster for approval. To be approved, an external link must go to a website that has information specifically related to the Town of Greenfield such as information about municipal or community services or events. External links must fit within one of the following categories, and will be provided at the sole discretion of the Town of Greenfield:

• Local Organizations

• Area Businesses and Real Estate

• Local Attractions

• Local News and Weather

• Travel, Tourism and Entertainment

• Government Services

• Services from Not for Profit Agencies

* Other content deemed appropriate or suitable as determined by the Town

The Town website will not provide links to sites that promote or exhibit bias, discrimination, pornography, libelous or otherwise defamatory content.  Some of the links contained on this site may lead to resources outside of the Town of Greenfield website, including social media sites. The existence of these links should not be construed as an endorsement by the Town of Greenfield of these sites or their content. The Town of Greenfield is in no way responsible for the content of such links, or advertisements that appear on these sites.

The Town of Greenfield will not link to websites for political candidates or parties, individual or personal homepages, for-profit organizations, and organizations or individuals advocating a position on a local, state or federal issue, including any election or referendum or ballot issue.

Additionally, the Town of Greenfield website will not link to websites or blogs where anonymous commenting is permitted except to sites of news organizations requiring registration of commenters. The Town of Greenfield reserves the right to determine how and where external links will appear on its website and to remove any link at any time for any reason without notice in its sole discretion.

B.            INTERNAL LINKS

The webmaster has the sole discretion as to the placement of internal links.

VI.          PRIVACY STATEMENT

 The Town of Greenfield does not capture personal information on visitors to its website(s) without permission or notification, except as listed below.  The Town endeavors to collect only the minimum amount of information needed to meet the purposes for which the website was created.  All information collected on the Town of Greenfield website, including but not limited to online form submissions and e-mails generated to and from email links, will be treated in the same manner as any written communication.   Communications are subject to the confidentiality and public disclosure provisions of Massachusetts General Law.

VII.          INFORMATION

The Town may collect some or all of the following information on visitors who view or download information from its website(s):

• Date -- Date the visit occurred.
• Time -- Time the visit occurred.
• Client IP -- Unique Internet Protocol (IP) address of the website visitor. The IP address recorded is normally that of the visitor's Internet provider (e.g., aol.com if the visitor connects from an America Online account).
• HTTP Status -- Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) error code. i.e., "404 Requested Page Not Found."
• HTTP Request URL -- Identifies the Web page or file requested by the website visitor.
• Bytes Sent -- Amount of data sent from the Web server to website visitor during that connection.
• Bytes Received -- Amount of data sent from website visitor to the Web server.
• User Agent -- Type of Web browser or other client software that made request to the Web server.
• Referrer -- Uniform Resource Locator (URL) that referred to the requested file.
• Protocol Version -- Version of HTTP used by the visitor's Web browser software.

In addition, the Town may collect the Date, Time, Client IP and/or Referrer on clicks that take visitors to external links.  The information collected is used to improve website content and help to understand how people are using its services.  The Town analyzes website logs to continually improve the value of the materials and content available on the site. The information in website logs is not personally identifiable, and no attempt is made to link it with the individuals who browse the website. Some statistical information, such as a running count of the number of visitors, may be displayed on the website or shared with individuals who request it.

VIII.              SEARCH ENGINE STATISTICS

The Town of Greenfield gathers statistics about visitors who use its search engine.  As with viewer statistics described above, the town uses this information to better serve its customers. The statistics gathered about users of the search engine are:

• Date and Time of Use
• Keywords or Terms searched for Client IP (see definition in section above)
• Directories searched on our site
• Number of documents found
• Number of documents searched.
  • As with the visitor statistics, the search engine statistics are not personally identifiable and no attempt is made to link them with the individuals that browse our website.
• RSS feeds
  • The websites may make available RSS feeds. The service providing the Town the capability of RSS feeds may track subscriptions and IP addresses utilizing the service and may provide the information to the Town.
• Personally identifiable information
  • "Personally identifiable information" is information about a person that is readily identifiable to that specific individual. It includes, for example, an individual's name, street address, e-mail address, or phone number. Personally identifiable information will not be collected unless you voluntarily send an email message, complete and send an online form. Your choice not to participate in these activities will not impair your ability to access certain information or obtain a service online. Unless specifically protected under state or federal law, any information provided may be inspected by the public or disclosed in a legal proceeding. This includes personally identifiable information submitted by town staff for staff purposes.

IX.               E-MAIL

E-mail messages sent to any Town of Greenfield address will be treated in the same manner as any other written communication. They are subject to public inspection or legal disclosure and are saved in accordance with Massachusetts statutes.  E-mail or other information requests sent to the Town website are maintained in order to respond to the request, forward that request to the appropriate agency, or to provide the Web designer with valuable customer feedback to assist in improving the site. E-mail sent using the “Contact Us” feature of the website are public records.  E-mails sent to the Town’s elected officials as a group and to other standing boards and commissions may be posted on the Town website for viewing by any party.  Responses of individual elected officials or appointed officials are not posted on the website unless the official specifically directs them to the online area for e-mails.  All e-mails are available by request to the Office of the Town Clerk.

X.                 ELECTRONIC FORMS

Any other information provided by a visitor at the request of a department of the Town of Greenfield, such as the completion and electronic filing of a form, will be considered to be voluntarily provided by the visitor.  It will be treated in the same manner as information provided in written form or in person during a visit to the agency. Information provided may be subject to public inspection and legal disclosure and may be saved for a period of time before it is destroyed.  It may be shared with anyone who requests it.

XI.                COOKIES

Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service provider’s systems to recognize your browser and capture and remember certain information.  The Town Greenfield website uses cookies on publically accessed pages to compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us maintain and improve our site.

Posted: Tue, Dec 8, 2015 04:07 PM
Updated Wed, Dec 9, 2015 12:00 AM