Name - Your first and last name help us to personalize your Delphi experience. For example, your "My Delphi" list of favorite Forums may feature your first and/or last name. This information is only visible to you - Delphi will not disclose your first or last name to any Delphi member, or to any third party without your permission.

Email Address - Your email address allows Delphi to route important messages to your existing email account. Message Board notifications, personalized My Delphi newsletters, and messages sent to you from your Delphi Homepage all rely on the email address you provide when you signup. The ability to turn off email correspondence from Delphi is also under your direct control, as is the ability to change your email address that is associated with your Delphi account. Delphi will not disclose your email address to any Delphi member, or to any third party without your permission.

Membername - This is similar to an "Account ID": it's a unique identifier that is associated with your account. It's also used as part of the URL on some Delphi Personal Homepages. While many other aspects of your Delphi account can be updated regularly, your Membername cannot be changed.

2. Information Delphi requests
Some additional information is requested when you join Delphi. This information provides aggregate demographic data that Delphi uses to better understand the types of people using Delphi. also allow us to do a better job of recommending content that may be of interest to you on Delphi, and to show you advertisements that are relevant to your age, profession, and geographic location. Similar to television, radio, and magazines, Delphi relies primarily on revenue from advertising to subsidize the cost of providing you with free services. To help enhance the relevance and effectiveness of ads, Delphi provides advertisers demographic information on an aggregate basis (not linked to your personal name or email address). For example, Delphi will report to advertisers that "45% of members are female and the average age is 28." Ultimately, however, the decision to provide this information is yours. Information that Delphi requests, but does not require, includes Home Zip Code, Birth Year, Occupation, and Gender.

1. Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that many Web sites write through your browser when you visit them. A cookie can only be read by the site that places it, so Delphi can't "see where you've been" based on any other cookies in your browser. Netscape Navigator uses a single file called "cookies.txt" to record all cookies, and you can open this file in any text editor to see what it looks like. On a Macintosh computer, the Netscape cookie file is called "MagicCookie". Internet Explorer uses a separate file for each cookie, which typically reside in "C:\Windows\Profiles\User\Cookies." Much controversy and myth has been spread about cookies, specifically that cookies "read or write information on your computer's hard drive, and are therefore evil", or "cookies can find out where I live and what my email address is." To learn the truth about cookies, and to help to dispell this misinformation, please visit:

Netscape: Client Side State - HTTP Cookies
Delphi: Interactive Glossary of Internet Terms

Cookies are generally supported in version 3.0 and newer of Internet Explorer, 2.02 and newer of Netscape, and 3.0 and newer of AOL. Most browsers also allow the option of displaying a warning before accepting a cookie, or refusing all cookies. Declining cookies while using Delphi may result in some of our features not working properly.

2. Cobranding & Partner Sites
Delphi has formed partnerships with several other Web-based services, in the interest of bringing the highest quality services to you "under one roof". Some of these cobranded arrangements include the sharing of some of your personal information with our partners in order to extend these services to you. You will be given the opportunity to opt-out of joining any of our partner services at the time of registration. Delphi also requires from its partner sites the same level of respect and privacy for members' personal information that Delphi adheres to, and as a result will not redistribute any of your account information without your consent.

Delphi, as well as its partner sites, may send you email messages on a regular basis to keep you apprised of your membership status and inform you of new services available to you. Examples of this on Delphi include the personalized 'My Delphi' email, which shows you an overview of activity in your favorite Delphi Forums. If you create your own Forum on Delphi, we will also email you traffic summary reports for your own Forum on a regular basis. Included in each of these messages are simple instructions on how to remove yourself from these mailings if you do not wish to receive them in the future. Our partner sites will also include similar instructions to be removed from their own regular mailings should you not wish to receive email correspondence from any of them as well.