Terms of Use

Thank you for visiting the Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina. It is presented to you by the Richmond County Board of County Commissioners. Our site adheres to high Internet standards by complying with the State of North Carolina's Public Records statutes and laws, by observing and championing Net etiquette, linking externally without endorsements, and by aiming for factual information throughout the Site.

By accessing or using the information, materials and data contained in this site, the user hereby agrees to accept the following terms and conditions contained on this page.

Third Party Sites
The Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, provides links to many websites that are not controlled, maintained, or regulated by us. As such, Richmond County is not responsible for the content of those linked websites or such sites' hyper-links. Use of information from those websites by the user is voluntary. Users should rely on the information from non-County agency sites only after undertaking an independent review of its accuracy.

References at those websites to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, or otherwise, does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina. When you link to a non-County agency site you are subject to the privacy policy of the new site and the information collected or used on those non-County agency sites.

Governmental Units & Educational Institutions
Richmond County provides links to other federal, state, and local governmental units that provide additional services and information that users of Richmond County's Official Site may find of interest. Links are also provided to educational institutions which include Grades K through 12, school districts, intermediate school districts, community colleges, and universities.

Private Organizations & Commercial Sites

Richmond County does not provide links to private organizations or commercial sites unless the sites offers services or educational information that compliments the information or services offered by Richmond County. Richmond County will not link to any site that contains any frontal nudity, profane or obscene language. The determination of whether to establish a link to a private organization's website is made by Richmond County's Public Communications Office on a case-by-case basis.

Non-Profit Organizations

Richmond County provides links to non-profit organizations that users of Richmond County's Site may find of interest. The determination of whether to establish links to non-profit organizations is made by Richmond County's Public Communications Office on a case-by-case basis.

Richmond County encourages and permits links to content on the Richmond County Official Site. Under no circumstances should the linking:
  1. Suggest that Richmond County promotes or endorses any third party's causes, ideas, websites, products or services
  2. Use Richmond County content for inappropriate and/or commercial purposes
  3. Contain any hyper-link to any other sites without the prior written consent of such sites
  4. Violate any patent or copyright rights of any third parties. In addition, links to the Richmond County Site should be executed in such a way so that the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents book marking the linked page or prevents the acknowledgment of Richmond County as the owner of the content.
Richmond County's Public Communications Office reserves the right to withdraw permission for any link at anytime with or without prior written notice.

Terms
By visiting the Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, users agree that they will not use the Site for any unlawful activity or use it in any way that would violate any of the terms and conditions stated in this Terms of Use and Legal Information.

Use of Communication Forums
The Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, has, will, or may contain threaded discussions, chat rooms, listservs and other communication forums. By participating in any of these, users agree to send and receive messages that are both proper and related to the forum topic. The following actions are unacceptable practices:
  • Defaming, harassing, threatening, or otherwise violating the legal rights of others, including their privacy
  • Misrepresenting one's person, background, or character
  • Posting any defamatory, infringing, profane, obscene, false, frontal nudity or unlawful material
  • Selling, advertising, or exchanging any goods or services unless expressly allowed and authorized by prior written approval of the Richmond County's Public Communications Office
  • Posting any copyrighted or patented material owned by a third party.
  • Also, users agree to use any Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, forum at their own risk. While championing proper use of such forums, Richmond County cannot and does not guarantee the users that violations of the above code for use of the Communications Forums will not occur.
Privacy Policy
It is the policy of the State of North Carolina that all records of the state or political subdivisions of the state are open for public inspection and copying, subject to certain exemptions. This policy is embodied in the North Carolina Constitution, together with the right of an individual to be free from unauthorized governmental intrusion into their private life, as provided in the North Carolina Constitution. In recognition of these policies, the County has established this Internet Privacy Policy. When you use our Site, you are acknowledging that any personal information you provide is subject to North Carolina's Public Records Policy as stated in the North Carolina Statutes, and the North Carolina Constitution.

You do not have to give us personal information to visit our Web Site, download our publications, use our email communications, or any other feature. We collect no personal information about you when you visit this site unless you choose to provide this information to us or unless required by a specific County agency in order to transact business with that agency. Under North Carolina law, email addresses are public records. If you do not want your email address released in response to a public-records request, do not send electronic mail to this entity. Instead, contact this office by phone or in writing.

Information Use
We will use the information that you voluntarily provide to us to notify you of selected Site changes or new publications. We may also use it to conduct statistical analyses of user activities in order to measure user interest in the information we provide and how we provide it. However, we do collect and store some non-personal information automatically as stated below.

We store the following information automatically:
  • Name of the domain from which you access the Internet (for example, xcompany.com, if you use a private Internet access account, or yourschool.edu if you connect from an educational institution's domain)
  • The page from which you came and the pages that you access.
  • Date and time you access our site
  • Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site
  • Your system's IP (Internet Protocol) address
  • The type of browser and operating system you used to access our site.
  • We use the information we collect in aggregate to count the number of, and types of, visitors to the different pages on our Site and to help us make our Site more useful to visitors like you.
Use of  Cookies
In order to process some transactions (or in the future to customize content specific to your geographic area or interests), we use cookie technology. A cookie is data that is stored on your computer's hard drive or is stored temporarily by our system. This data allows your browser to communicate with our Web servers. We use the cookie to track your progress during a transactional process such as paying your real estate taxes online. When your transaction is completed, the cookie is saved on your PC. The only time we create a cookie is when you conduct a multi-part transaction.

You may choose to reject all cookies by modifying your browser preferences. However, if you do not accept cookies, you will not be able to use some of our functions that require their use.

Disclaimer Regarding Accuracy of Information

Visitors to and users of the Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, are advised that information contained within the pages of the Site is believed to be accurate. However, errors can occur even with computer-generated information.

The County makes no representation regarding the completeness, accuracy, or timeliness of such information and data or that such information and data will be error-free. In the event that the information on the County's official printed documents differ from the information contained on this Web Site, the information on the County's official printed documents will control and take precedence. Please be aware that in the event an error or omission occurs, Richmond County will use all of its resources to recover fees and taxes due to it.

Visitors are encouraged to review the official version of all documents upon which they plan to rely. Any special notices related to how accurate or how current specific elements of data presented in our Site will be defined on those specific pages.

Site Security
When you use your credit card, debit card, or on-line checks to do business on the Official Site of Richmond County, North Carolina, we protect the integrity and privacy of your account information with advanced technologies . Our systems use Internet data encryption technology, known as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol (SHTTP), and Secure Electronic Transactions (SET).

However, even with advanced technologies, it is not always possible to prevent unauthorized access or unauthorized disclosure. The County makes no representation and assumes no responsibility or liability concerning the accuracy of the information or for any loss which might result to the user by the use of this Web Site. Please be aware that in the event unauthorized access, unauthorized disclosure, third party intervention, or any loss occurs due to error, omission, or inaccurate information being displayed on this Web Site, Richmond County reserves the right to recover any unpaid fees and taxes owed to it.

Intrusion Detection
For security purposes and to help ensure this service remains available to you, we use special software programs for monitoring network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise to cause damage to this government computer system or Site. These programs collect no information that would directly identify individuals, but they do collect information that could help us identify someone attempting to tamper with this Web Site.

If you use this system or Site, you should understand that all activities may be monitored and recorded. Anyone using this system or Site expressly consents to such monitoring. WARNING -- If such monitoring reveals possible evidence or information of criminal or suspicious activity, monitoring records may be provided to law enforcement officials without any prior oral or written notice to you.

Except for authorized law enforcement investigations, we make no other attempts to identify individual users or their usage habits. We only use raw monitoring data logs for determining trends in usage patterns and in diagnosing system or site problems.

Indemnity
As a condition of use of Richmond County's Web Site, the user any/or anyone linking to the Site agree to indemnify Richmond County, its Commissioners, officers, employees, and agents against any and all liability, expenses (including attorney's fees and court costs) and damages arising out of claims resulting from user's use of this Web Site and/or anyone linking to the Site, including, without limitation, any claims alleging facts that if true would constitute a breach of these terms and conditions stated in this Terms or Use and Legal Information.

Jurisdiction

The Terms of Use and Legal Information are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, United States of America (USA). User and / or anyone linking to this Site consents to exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the courts in Richmond County, North Carolina, USA in all disputes arising out of or relating to the use of this Web Site. The users of the Web Site and/or anyone linking to this Site in jurisdictions outside of Richmond County, North Carolina, consent to jurisdiction in Richmond County, North Carolina.

If you have any questions, suggestions or comments about the information presented here, please forward them to us via Email. If you have any complaints or would like to notify us of any copyrights or patented materials relating to this Site and/or anyone linking to this Site, please forward them to us via Email.