INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Our Websites typically collect two (2) kinds of information about you:
(a) information that you provide that personally identifies you; and
(b) information that does not personally identify you that we automatically
collect when you visit our Website or that you provide us.
1. Personally Identifiable Information:
Our definition of personally identifiable information includes any information that may be used to specifically identify or contact you, such as your name, mail address, phone number, etc. As a general policy, we do not automatically collect your personally identifiable information when you visit our Websites. In certain circumstances, we may request, allow or otherwise provide you an opportunity to submit your personally identifiable information in connection with a feature, program, promotion or some other aspect of our Websites. For instance, you may: (a) provide your name, mail/shipping address, e-mail address, credit card number and phone number when registering with our Websites, using our online store or in connection with a contest entry; (b) provide certain demographic information about you (e.g., age, gender, purchase preference, usage frequency, etc.) when participating in a survey, poll or joining a club; or (c) post a product rating and recommendation on our Websites. Certain information may not be personally identifiable when standing alone (e.g., your age), but may become so when combined with other information (e.g., your age and name). Whether or not you provide this information is your choice; however, in many instances this type of information is required to participate in the particular activity, realize a benefit we may offer or gain access to certain content on our Websites.
2. Non-Personal Information:
Our definition of non-personal information is any information that does not personally identify you. Non-personal information can include certain personally identifiable information that has been de-identified; that is, information that has been rendered anonymous. We and/or our third party service providers obtain non-personal information about you from information that you provide us, either separately or together with your personally identifiable information. We and/or our third party service providers also automatically collect certain non-personal information from you when you access our Websites.
HOW WE USE & SHARE THE INFORMATION COLLECTED
1. Personally Identifiable Information:
The personally identifiable information you submit to us is generally used to carry
out your requests, respond to your inquiries, better serve you or in other ways
naturally associated with the circumstances in which you provided the information.
We may also use this information to later contact you for a variety of reasons,
such as customer service, to provide you with information or services or process
transactions that you have requested or agreed to receive, to provide you with
marketing or promotional information for our products, to communicate with you
about content or other information you have posted or shared with us via our Website
or with regard to your use of the Website and, in our discretion, changes to the Website
and/or Website policies, for internal business purposes, or for purposes disclosed
at the time you provide your information or as otherwise set forth in this
Privacy Policy. You may opt-out from receiving future promotional information from us,
or direct that we not share your information in the future with any affiliated
companies or third parties for their direct marketing purposes, as set forth below
in Section I.
2. Non-Personal Information:
In addition to any personally identifiable information or other information that
you choose to provide to us on the Websites, we and our third-party service
providers may use a variety of technologies, now and hereafter devised, that
automatically collect certain web site usage information whenever you visit or
interact with the Websites. This information may include browser type, operating
system, the page served, the time, the source of the request, the preceding page
view, and other similar information. We may use this usage information for a variety
of purposes, including to enhance or otherwise improve the Websites. In addition,
we may also collect your IP address or some other unique identifier for the
particular device you use to access the Internet, as applicable (collectively,
referred to herein as a “Device Identifier�). A Device Identifier is a number that
is automatically assigned to your Computer, and we may identify your device by its
Device Identifier. When analyzed, usage information helps us determine how our
Websites are used, such as what types of visitors arrive at the Websites, what type
of content is most popular, what type of content you may find most relevant and
what type of visitors are interested in particular kinds of content and advertising.
We may associate your Device Identifier or web site usage information with the
personally identifiable information you provide, but we will treat the combined
information as personally identifiable information. Web site usage information may
be collected using various methods, such as the following:
Web Beacons - Small graphic images or other web programming code called web
beacons (also known as “1x1 GIFs� or “clear GIFs�) may be included in our web
pages and e-mail messages. Web beacons may be invisible to you, but any
electronic image or other web programming code inserted into a web page or
e-mail can act as a web beacon. Web beacons or similar technologies may be
used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation, to count visitors
to the Websites, to monitor how users navigate the Websites, to count how many
e-mails that were sent were actually opened or to count how many particular
articles or links were actually viewed.
Cookies - A cookie is a data file placed on a Computer when it is used to visit
the Websites. Cookies may be used for many purposes, including, without limitation,
tracking user preferences and web pages visited while using the Websites. You
may be able to remove, reject and/or disable some types of cookies using your
browser’s preferences or other programs. Some features of the Websites may not
function properly or may operate slowly if you disable, delete, or refuse to
accept cookies. Some of the cookies we use may be “Flash� cookies. A Flash
cookie is a data file placed on a Computer via the Adobe Flash plug-in that may
be built-in to or downloaded by you to your Computer. While they are harmless,
depending on your browser, these cookies may not be deleted when your cookies
are deleted or disabled and, in some instances, they may cause your cookies to
reappear in your browser. Please check your browser to determine where these
types of cookies are stored and how they may be deleted or disabled.
Mobile Device Identifiers - Certain mobile service providers uniquely identify
mobile devices and we or our third-party service providers may receive such
device information if you access the Websites through mobile devices. Certain
features of our Websites may require collection of mobile phone numbers, and
we may associate that phone number to mobile device identification information.
Additionally, some mobile phone service providers operate systems that pinpoint
the physical location of devices that use their service. Depending on the
provider, we or our third-party service providers may receive this information.
Embedded Scripts - An embedded script is programming code that is designed to
collect information about your interactions with the Websites, such as the links
you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your Computer from our
web server or a third-party service provider, is active only while you are
connected to the Websites, and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.
Information collected through passive means may be non-identifying or may be
associated with you. In the latter case it will be treated as personally
identifiable information.
We use non-personal information in a variety of ways, including to help analyze
site traffic, understand customer needs and trends, carry out targeted
promotional activities and to improve our services. We may use your non-personal
information by itself or aggregate it with information we have obtained from others.
We may share your non-personal information with our affiliated companies and
third parties to achieve these objectives and others, but remember that aggregate
information is anonymous information that does not personally identify you.
We may provide our analysis and certain non-personal information to third
parties (who may in turn use this information to provide advertisements tailored
to your interests), but this will not involve disclosing any of your personally
identifiable information.
3. Information You Provide About A Third Party
If you send someone else a communication from the Websites, such as sending
Website content to a friend, the information you provide (names, e-mail addresses,
etc.) is used to facilitate the communication and is not used for any other
marketing purpose unless we obtain consent from that person or we explicitly say
otherwise. Please be aware that when you use any send-to-a-friend functionality
on our Websites, your e-mail address may be included in the communication sent to
your friend
4. Information Third Parties Provide About You
We also may, from time to time, supplement the information we collect with outside
records from third parties in order to enhance our ability to serve you, to tailor
our content to you and to offer you opportunities to purchase products or services
that we believe may be of interest to you. We may combine the information we receive
from those other sources with information we collect through the Websites. In
those cases, we will apply this Privacy Policy to any personal identifiable
information received, unless otherwise specifically disclosed by us at the time
you provide your personally identifiable information.