Privacy Notice
Last updated:
August 29, 2007.
BUY.sc knows
that you care how information about you is used and
shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and
sensibly. This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting
BUY.sc or Amazon.com, you are accepting the practices described in this
Privacy
Notice.
What
Personal Information About Customers Does Amazon.com
Gather?
The information we
learn from customers helps us personalize and
continually improve your shopping experience at Amazon.com. Here are
the types of information we gather.
- Information You Give Us: We
receive and store any
information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. You
can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not
be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the
information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your
requests, customizing future shopping for you, improving our stores,
and communicating with you.
- Automatic Information: We
receive and store certain types
of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many
Web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information
when your Web browser accesses Amazon.com. Click
here to see examples of the information we receive.
- E-mail Communications: To
help us make e-mails more useful
and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail
from Amazon.com if your computer supports such capabilities. We also
compare our customer list to lists received from other companies, in an
effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers. If you
do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please adjust your
Customer Communication Preferences.
- Information from Other
Sources: We might receive
information about you from other sources and add it to our account
information.
What
About
Cookies?
- Cookies are alphanumeric
identifiers
that we transfer to your
computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to
recognize your browser and to provide features such as 1-Click
purchasing, New for You, personalized Amazon Honor System greetings,
and storage of items in your Shopping Cart
between visits.
- The Help portion of the toolbar on
most browsers will tell you
how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the
browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable
cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar
data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies, by changing the
add-on's settings or visiting the Website of its manufacturer. However,
because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of Amazon.com's
essential features, we recommend that you leave them turned on. For
instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be
able to add items to your Shopping Cart, proceed to Checkout, or use
any Amazon.com products and services that require you to Sign in.
Does
Amazon.com Share the Information It Receives?
Information
about our customers is an important part of our
business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others. We
share customer information only as described below and with
subsidiaries Amazon.com, Inc. controls that either are subject to this
Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those
described in this Privacy Notice.
- Affiliated Businesses We Do Not
Control: We work closely
with our affiliated businesses. In some cases, such as Marketplace and
Auctions sellers, these businesses operate stores at Amazon.com or sell
offerings to you at Amazon.com. In other cases, we operate stores,
provide services, or sell product lines jointly with these businesses.
Click here for some examples of co-branded and
joint offerings. You can tell when a third party is involved in your
transactions, and we share customer information related to those
transactions with that third party.
- Third-Party Service
Providers:
We employ other companies
and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include
fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail,
removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data,
providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links
(including paid listings and links), processing credit card payments,
and providing customer service. They have access to personal
information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for
other purposes.
- Promotional Offers:
Sometimes
we send offers to selected
groups of Amazon.com customers on behalf of other businesses. When we
do this, we do not give that business your name and address. If you do
not want to receive such offers, please adjust your Customer
Communication Preferences.
- Business Transfers: As we
continue to develop our
business, we might sell or buy stores, subsidiaries, or business units.
In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the
transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in
any pre-existing Privacy Notice (unless, of course, the customer
consents otherwise). Also, in the unlikely event that Amazon.com, Inc.,
or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information
will of course be one of the transferred assets.
- Protection of Amazon.com and
Others: We release account
and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate
to comply with the law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and
other
agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Amazon.com,
our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other
companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk
reduction. Obviously, however, this does not include selling, renting,
sharing, or otherwise disclosing personally identifiable information
from customers for commercial purposes in violation of the commitments
set forth in this Privacy Notice.
- With Your Consent: Other than
as set out above, you will
receive notice when information about you might go to third parties,
and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the
information.
How
Secure
Is Information About Me?
- We work to protect the security of your information during
transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which
encrypts information you input.
- We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers
when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card
number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.
- It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to
your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished
using a shared computer.
What
About Third-Party Advertisers and Links to Other
Websites?
Our site
includes third-party advertising and links to other
websites. We do not provide any personally identifiable customer
information to these advertisers or third-party websites. Click here for some examples as well as
information on how to contact these companies to learn more or opt-out
of their information collection practices.
These
third-party websites and advertisers, or Internet advertising
companies working on their behalf, sometimes use technology to send (or
"serve") the advertisements that appear on our website directly to your
browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this happens.
They may also use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (also known as
action tags or single-pixel gifs), and other technologies to measure
the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content.
We do not have access to or control over cookies or other features that
they may use, and the information practices of these advertisers and
third-party websites are not covered by this Privacy Notice. Please
contact them directly for more information about their privacy
practices. In addition, the Network Advertising
Initiative offers useful information about Internet advertising
companies (also called "ad networks" or "network advertisers"),
including information about how to opt-out of their information
collection.
Amazon.com
also displays targeted advertising based on personal
information about users. Although Amazon.com does not provide any
personal information to advertisers, advertisers (including ad-serving
companies) may assume that users who interact with or click on a
targeted advertisement meet the targeting criteria used to display the
ad (for example, users in the northwestern United States who like
classical music).
Which
Information Can I Access?
Amazon.com gives
you access to a broad range of information about
your account and your interactions with Amazon.com for the limited
purpose of viewing and, in certain cases, updating that information.
What
Choices Do I Have?
- As discussed above, you can always
choose not to provide
information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or to
take advantage of such Amazon.com features as your
Profile, Wish Lists, Customer Reviews, and.
- You can add or update certain
information on pages such as those
listed in the "Which Information Can I Access?"
section above. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of
the prior version for our records.
- If you do not want to receive
e-mail
or other mail from us,
please adjust your Customer Communication
Preferences. (If you do not want to receive Conditions of Use and other
legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Notice, those notices will
still govern your use of Amazon.com, and it is your responsibility to
review them for changes.)
- The Help portion of the toolbar on
most browsers will tell you
how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the
browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable
cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar
data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies, by changing the
add-on's settings or visiting the Website of its manufacturer. However,
because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of Amazon.com's
essential features, we recommend that you leave them turned on. For
instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be
able to add items to your Shopping Cart, proceed to Checkout, or use
any Amazon.com products and services that require you to Sign in.
Are
Children Allowed to Use Amazon.com?
Amazon.com does
not
sell products for purchase by children. We sell
children's products for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you
may use Amazon.com only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.
Does
Amazon.com Participate in the Safe Harbor Program?
Amazon.com
is a participant in the Safe Harbor program developed by
the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Union. We have
certified that we adhere to the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles agreed
upon by the U.S. and the E.U. For more information about the Safe
Harbor and to view our certification, visit the U.S. Department of
Commerce's
Safe Harbor Web site. If you would like to contact Amazon.com
directly about the Safe Harbor program, please send an e-mail to
safeharbor@amazon.com.
Conditions
of Use, Notices, and Revisions
If you
choose to visit Amazon.com, your visit and any dispute over
privacy is subject to this Notice and our Conditions of Use,
including
limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the
law of the state of Washington. If you have any concern about privacy
at Amazon.com, please contact us with a thorough description, and we
will try to resolve it.
Our
business changes constantly, and our Privacy Notice and the
Conditions of Use will change
also. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions,
unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our Web site
frequently to see recent changes. Unless stated otherwise, our current
Privacy Notice applies to all information that we have about you and
your account. We stand behind the promises we make, however, and will
never materially change our policies and practices to make them less
protective of customer information collected in the past without the
consent of affected customers.
Related
Practices and Information
- Conditions of Use
- Web-based
Discussion Service
- Amazon.com Marketplace
and Auctions Participation Agreement
- Marketplace and Auctions
Account and Community Guide
- Help department
- Recent Purchases
- Your Profile Guidelines
Examples
of Information Collected
Information
You Give Us
You
provide
most such information when you search, buy, bid, post,
participate in a contest or questionnaire, or communicate with customer
service. For example, you provide information when you search for a
product; place an order through Amazon.com or one of our third-party
sellers; make an Auction bid or purchase; provide information in
Your Account (and you might have
more than one if you have used more than one e-mail address when
shopping with us) or Your Profile;
communicate with us by phone, e-mail, or otherwise; complete a
questionnaire or a contest entry form; compile Wish Lists or other
gift registries; provide employer information when opening a corporate
account; participate in Discussion Boards
or other community features; provide and rate Reviews; specify a Special
Occasion Reminder;
share information with Amazon Friends; and employ other Personal
Notification Services, such as
Available to Order Notifications. As a result of those actions, you
might supply us with such information as your name, address, and phone
numbers; credit card information; people to whom purchases have been
shipped, including addresses and phone number; people (with addresses
and phone numbers) listed in 1-Click
settings; e-mail addresses of Amazon
Friends and other people; content of reviews and e-mails to us;
personal description and photograph in Your
Profile; and financial information, including Social Security and
driver's license numbers.
Automatic
Information
Examples
of
the information we collect and analyze include the
Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the
Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection
information such as browser type, version, and timezone setting,
browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform;
purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information
from other customers to create features such as Purchase Circles and
Top
Sellers; the full Uniform Resource Locator (URL) clickstream to,
through, and from our Web site, including date and time; cookie number;
products you viewed or searched for; your Auction history; and the
phone number you used to call our 800 number. We may also use browser
data such as cookies, Flash cookies (also known as Flash Local Shared
Objects), or similar data on certain parts of our Website for fraud
prevention and other purposes. During some visits we may use software
tools such as JavaScript to measure and collect session information,
including page response times, download errors, length of visits to
certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks,
and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page.
Information
from Other Sources
Examples
of
information we receive from other sources include
updated delivery and address information from our carriers or other
third parties, which we use to correct our records and deliver your
next purchase or communication more easily; account information,
purchase or redemption information, and page-view information from some
merchants with which we operate co-branded businesses or for which we
provide technical, fulfillment, advertising, or other services (such as
Target.com, BombayCompany.com, and DVF.com); search term and search
result information from some searches conducted through the Web search
features offered by our subsidiaries, Alexa Internet and A9.com; search
results and links, including paid listings (such as Sponsored Links);
and credit history information from credit bureaus, which we use to
help prevent and detect fraud and to offer certain credit or financial
services to some customers.
Third-Party
Advertisers and Links to Other Websites
Examples
of
third-party advertisers and advertising companies that
you can link to from the Amazon.com website or that serve advertising
content directly to your browser on certain Amazon.com pages include
Doubleclick. You can find out
more about its information collection and use practices, including how
to opt out of cookies and other collection techniques that is uses, by
clicking on the above link to its website.
Information
You Can Access
Examples
of
information you can access easily at Amazon.com include
up-to-date information regarding recent orders; personally identifiable
information (including name, e-mail, password, communications
preferences, address book, and 1-Click settings); payment settings
(including credit card information and gift certificate, gift card, and
check balances); e-mail notification settings (including Alerts,
Available to Order notifications, Delivers, New for You, Special
Occasion Reminders, Weekly Movie Showtimes, and newsletters);
recommendations (including recent product view history, prior order
history, and Favorites); shopping lists and gift registries (including
Wish Lists and Baby and Wedding Registries); Auctions and Marketplace
seller accounts; and your Profile (including your product Reviews,
Requests, and Recommendations, Listmania lists, "So You'd Like to..."
guides, personal profile, people you tagged as interesting, and Amazon
Friends).
Co-branded
and Joint Offerings
Examples
of
businesses with which we offer joint or co-branded
products and other offerings include Target, CD Now, Verizon Wireless,
Sprint, T-Mobile, Cingular, Shutterfly, Office Depot, J&R,
PetSmart, Godiva, FTD, Avon, Bombay Company, Macy's, PacSun, Eddie
Bauer and Northern Tool + Equipment.