Collections Etc.: Privacy & Security

Introduction

Collections Etc. values its customers and respects their privacy. We collect customer information in an effort to improve your shopping experience and to communicate with you about our products, services, sales and specials, and promotions. This policy describes the personal information we collect about you on this web site, why we collect it, how we use it and when we share it with third parties.

Our policy also describes the choices you can make about how we collect and use your information. This privacy policy does not apply to the use or disclosure of information that is collected or obtained by us through means other than this web site.

Our web site contains links to third-party web sites. Such linked sites are not under the control of Collections Etc. and we are not responsible for the contents or privacy practices of any linked site.

If you have any questions about our privacy policy:
1. click here to contact our Customer Care department via email,
2. call us at 1-620-584-8000 seven days a week, 6:00 AM to midnight CST, or
3. write us at Collections Etc. Privacy Policy, Customer Care Department, 2521 Busse Road, Elk Grove Village, IL 60007.

If our information practices change in the future, we will let you know by posting the policy changes on our web site or by communicating directly with you via email. We will notify you of any such change before we use your information in a manner not previously disclosed in our privacy policy. You will have the opportunity at that time to opt out of any new use of your information.

Information collected from you using technology
CollectionsEtc.com collects some information about you using technology related to the operation of the World Wide Web, including Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses and cookies. This technology may not be readily apparent to you.

IP Addresses
Each visitor to this site has an IP address that is associated with the place from which you access the Internet - like your ISP (Internet service provider), your company, or your university. Our web site collects your IP address when you visit the site so that our server can send the information and content you request back to your computer. This information is not personally identifiable.

Cookies
Cookies are pieces of information that a web site sends to your computer while you are viewing the web site. These pieces of information allow the web site to remember important information that will make your use of that site more productive. CollectionsEtc.com uses cookies to keep track of what you have in your shopping cart and to remember you when you return to our store. Cookies cannot harm your computer and they do not contain any personal or private information. You must accept cookies to purchase products at CollectionsEtc.com.

CollectionsEtc.com employs WebTrends On Demand™ to aggregate data collected by technological means. Any information that WebTrends On Demand™ collects is completely anonymous. Click here to view the privacy policy for WebTrends On Demand.

We use this information collected through technological means to make our site more interesting and useful to you. We normally don't combine this type of information with personally identifiable information. However, we will combine this information with personally identifiable information to identify a visitor in order to enforce compliance with our policies or rules, in response to a subpoena, or to protect our site, guests, or others.

CollectionsEtc.com also uses third party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf across the Internet. These third party advertising companies may collect anonymous information about your visits to our Web site, and your interaction with our ads. For instance, they may keep track of how many of our ads you had seen before visiting our site. This is primarily accomplished through technology, including cookies and Action Tags (commonly referred to as Web Beacons or GIF tags), which we place on various pages within our Web site.

The third party advertising companies do not collect any personally identifiable information through the use of their technology. The third party advertising companies may use information about your visits to this and other Web sites in order to provide ads about goods and services of interest to you. If you would like more information about this practice or the process of opting out of third party cookies, please click here.

Information You Provide
If you browse CollectionsEtc.com, you may generally do so anonymously without providing any personal information. However, there are cases where we may ask you for personal data. When personally identifiable information is collected, you will know because you will have to fill out a secure form. For example, when you purchase from CollectionsEtc.com, request a catalog, or register for a Preferred Customer Account, we collect information that you volunteer such as your name, postal address, telephone number, email address, and financial information, such as credit card. This information is necessary to create an account, or process the order or catalog request. Collections Etc. stores financial information in industry standard encryption format for purposes of processing credit card or deferred billing payment. Collections Etc. will not email you asking for your personal or financial information.

Our product display pages allow you to send email to a friend about an item on this site. We require your name, your email address, your friend's name and your friend's email address. The individual you designate will be sent a one-time email, displaying your name as the sender. The names and email addresses are not stored by Collections Etc.

You, our Customer, are the most important and valuable asset of our business. We will use the information collected from you to tailor our product offering and improve your shopping experience, making shopping easier and more enjoyable. This also enables us to process your orders, confirm your orders, notify you about backorders and alert you about updates to our web site products and our privacy statement.

When you purchase products online from us, request a catalog or otherwise provide us with personal information, we automatically add you to our customer database. Unless you have indicated you do not want to receive promotional materials from us, you may receive periodic mailings or promotional email offers from us about new products and services, discounts, special promotions or upcoming events. If you do not want to receive such mailings from us, please click here for contact information or call us at 1-620-584-8000. In addition, you may click the "Unsubscribe" link on any promotional email you receive from us to indicate you do not wish to receive such emails in the future.

If you have provided us with a valid email address, we will send you order confirmation emails and shipment confirmation emails when your order is shipped from our distribution centers. We may contact you by mail or telephone if we have questions about your order. If one or more of the items in your order is on backorder, you may receive an email notification regarding the expected delivery date.

What is third party personal information?
This is information we have collected through our web site from a person other than the person to whom it pertains or whom it identifies, such as information about a person for whom you are ordering a gift. Our product display pages allow you to send email to a friend about an item on this site. We require your name, your email address, your friend's name and your friend's email address. The individual you designate will be sent a one-time email, displaying your name as the sender. The names and email addresses are not stored by Collections Etc.

How do we use this information?
This information is primarily used for the purpose for which such information is collected, including completing the order fulfillment process. Except as noted below, we will share third party personal information with our business partners for other purposes only if we have received the third party's permission to do so. We may on occasion contact the third party in the event of a product recall due to safety or quality of material/workmanship concerns. We will use third party personal information to mail the third party a catalog or other marketing material or to contact the third party by email with promotional offers only if we have their permission to do so.

When you provide us with a mailing address on our site, Collections Etc. will provide your name and postal address to a select group of companies whose products you may find of interest. If you do not want us to share this information with these companies, we can add your name to our "do-not-share" list. Please click here for contact information or call us at 1-620-584-8000. Please see the end of this document for additional contact information.

We provide your personal information, including IP Address, and personal information of third parties to third party agents we have hired to help us provide the good or service you have requested. For example, we use an outside shipping company to ship orders, a credit card processing company to bill customers for goods and services, and a payment solution company to allow customers to shop online without a credit card (deferred billing). These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. When you place an order with us for merchandise, we use the shipping information you provided at order entry to fulfill your order and provide this information to the shipping company. If you have paid for your order using a credit card, we transmit the information required to authorize your credit card over a secure channel to the credit card processing company for authorization. If you have select to pay for your order with deferred billing, we transmit your personal information, and IP address to the payment solution company to authorize credit.

We may disclose personal information about you or third parties without notice in response to a subpoena or when we believe in good faith that the law permits or requires it or to respond to an emergency situation. We may also share personal information with governmental agencies or other companies assisting us in fraud prevention or investigation. We may do so when:

1. Permitted or required by law;
2. Trying to protect against or prevent actual or potential fraud or unauthorized transactions; or
3. Investigating fraud that has already taken place.

Personal information is not provided to these agencies or companies for marketing purposes. We may also share statistical or aggregated information about our users with advertisers, business partners, sponsors and other third parties. No personal information is supplied in these cases. This data is used to customize our web site content and advertising to deliver a better experience to our users. In the event Collections Etc. or its subsidiaries or affiliates or their assets are sold, merged or otherwise involved in a corporate transaction, your personal information and third party personal information will likely be involved in that transaction. Before any such change in ownership or transfer of personal information in a manner not previously disclosed in this privacy policy, we will post a notice on this web site or send out a notice. You (and any third parties) will have the opportunity at that time to opt out of any such transfer or new use of personal information.

Third Party Sites
You may visit other web sites, through links on our site, who may collect, use and share your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies. The information practices of those web sites linking from or to our site are not covered by this Policy, and we encourage you to be very cautious before you disclose your personal information to others.

Cookies are pieces of information that a web site sends to your computer while you are viewing the web site. These pieces of information allow the web site to remember important information that will make your use of that site more productive. For instance, we use cookies to remember and process the items added to your shopping cart. We do not use cookies to store any personal or financial information on your computer.

You may choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is sent or you may turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser settings. Each browser is a little different; so identify the correct way to do this through the Help menu in your specific browser. However, cookies allow you to take advantage of some of our web site's best features, including buying products, so we recommend that you leave this feature turned on. In some cases, failure to accept cookies may disable or render unusable some features of our web site.

Collections Etc. is committed to earning and keeping your trust. We understand the need for our customer's personal information and credit card information to remain secure and private. We use industry standard encryption technologies when transferring and receiving your personal information. On the Internet, when you see a solid key icon or a locked padlock icon in the lower portion of your browser window, this indicates that the site is secured through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Pages on our web site requesting personal information should always have one of these icons. In addition, only authorized Collections Etc. employees have access to customer personal information on our servers. While we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration to data will not occur, we take reasonable precautions to prevent such unfortunate occurrences.

Collections Etc. does not seek to solicit information from children under 18 years of age. No information should be submitted to this site by guests under 18 years of age, and guests under 18 years old are not allowed to register for our mailings, contests, or customer accounts. We recognize the need to protect the privacy of children. If a child submits information to us and we know that the person submitting the information is a child, we will not use it for any purpose. We will delete any information inadvertently given to us without parental consent as soon as we discover it and we will not disclose it to third parties.

For California Residents Only
Under California law, residents of California who have an established business relationship with Collections Etc. may choose to opt-out of Collections Etc. sharing their personal information with 3rd parties for marketing purposes. Collections Etc. customers can also opt-out of receiving future Collections Etc. catalogs.

If you would like us not to share your personal information with 3rd parties and/or would like to stop receiving Collections Etc. catalogs, click here.

If you have registered as a "Preferred Customer" on our web site, you may update your privacy preferences at any time. You may also contact us using any of the contact addresses listed below for any reason, including a request to be added or taken off a list, to access, correct or update your information, or if you have questions or concerns about our use of your information.

By Postal Mail
Collections Etc. Privacy Policy
Customer Care Department
2521 Busse Road
Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

By Phone
Call seven days a week, 6:00 AM to midnight CST at 1-620-584-8000.

By email
Email: CustomerService@CollectionsEtc.com. Please specify the words "Privacy Policy" in the subject line.

Click here to unsubscribe from Collections Etc. periodic emailings. Please specify the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line.

Please note: When you contact us, please provide your name and address exactly as it appears on correspondence you have received from us.

Your use of our web site constitutes your agreement to the policies and procedures set forth in this privacy policy. In the event that Collections Etc. amends its Privacy Policy, these changes will be clearly posted on our site so that you can be kept informed of how, where, when and why we collect information and how we use it.

If you have any additional questions, please contact a Collections Etc. customer care representative at the contact points listed above.

Copyright Laws
Collections Etc™ and other marks on our web site and in our catalog mailings are trademarks of Collections Etc. Inc. All content on this web site, including without limitation, the text, graphics, web site design, icons and images are the sole property of Collections Etc., Inc. Copyright 2005. Replication of the content of this web site in any manner without the express written consent of Collections Etc. Inc. is strictly prohibited.