Privacy Policy

 

Worden Brothers, Inc. ("WBI") is committed to protecting your privacy. As a customer, you supply us with certain personally identifiable data. We want you to understand how such personally identifiable data is collected and used. We also want you to make informed choices as to whether and to what extent you may restrict the manner in which your personally identifiable data is used. This Privacy Policy is in addition to any user, or other, agreements you have entered in to with WBI and nothing in this Privacy Policy shall be construed as superseding or replacing any other such agreement.

Set forth below is WBI's Privacy Policy. Please read it carefully.

1. Scope and Nature of Policy

As a current or prospective customer of our business, this Privacy Policy covers personally identifiable data collected from and about you. "Personally Identifiable Data" means any data about an identified or identifiable individual recorded in any form.

This Privacy Policy complies with the requirements of the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles issued by the U.S. Department of Commerce on July 21, 2000 (the "Safe Harbor Principles"). Because we comply with the Safe Harbor Principles, our transfers of data from countries in the European Union to the United States meet the adequacy requirements of the European Union Data Protection Directive.

This Privacy Policy includes examples of the types of information we may collect. These examples are illustrative and should not be considered a complete inventory of our information collection practices. Accordingly, the words "include" and "including" mean inclusion without limitation.

This Privacy Policy does not cover personally identifiable data we collect from and about our employees. We have different corporate policies for those types of data. It also does not cover data collected by us for statistical purposes from which the personally identifiable characteristics have been removed. We retain the right to use such data for statistical purposes for our own business use.

We do not knowingly solicit personally identifiable data from persons under the age of 13 years.

2. Types and Sources of Data Collected

In the ordinary course of our business, we gather personally identifiable data about you, including:

• Information you provide, such as your name, address(es), company and other telephone number(s), fax number(s), e-mail address(es), date and place of birth, driver's license number, credit card information, membership reward program
• Information about your transactions with us, our licensees or distributors or others, such as your order activity; and
• Information we receive from consumer reporting agencies, such as your creditworthiness and credit history.

We gather personally identifiable data about you from a variety of sources, including websites we operate, websites operated by others through which you can transact with us or our licensees or distributors, customer support center, enrollment forms for our programs, and consumer reporting agencies. We also gather personally identifiable data about you from other companies with whom we maintain business relationships.

3. Use of "Cookies"

One way we collect information about you when you use our websites is through the use of cookies. A "cookie" is a set of data that a website server stores on your computer. Cookies enable websites to recognize your computer and to "remember" your entries as you move from page to page, or even when you revisit the site from time to time using the same computer. Cookies stored on your computer by our websites are encrypted. This means that they cannot easily be read by anyone other than us.

We use two different types of cookies in our websites:

"Session cookies" track the user's progression through our sites in a single visit. These cookies enable us to remember things as the user progresses from one page to another. Your session cookies are deleted as soon as you close your browser. In addition, if you leave your browser open for a prolonged period, they are set to automatically erase themselves after a short period (typically less than one hour).

"Persistent cookies" remember a user at the user's next visit. Your persistent cookies are not automatically erased, and they remain on your computer until you erase them. (If you do not want these cookies to remain on your computer, you can erase them through use of your browser settings.)

Your browser or other software you install may permit you to restrict the use of session cookies, persistent cookies or all cookies. If you elect not to permit the use of session cookies, you will not be able to use our websites. If you elect not to permit the use of persistent cookies only, you may still enjoy the full functionality of our websites; however, if you do so, you will need to re-enter some data when starting a new session.

4. Linked Websites

Our websites may contain links to third party websites, which may or may not be operated in conjunction with our websites. We do not monitor or control the information collected when you choose to "click through" links to these websites. The treatment of user data by the operators of third party websites may be different from ours. For details regarding their treatment of personally identifiable data about you, you will need to read their privacy policies or contact them

5. Data Retention

While we generally retain personally identifiable data about you as long as we believe it will be useful to us, we do not retain personally identifiable data about you longer than the law of the country and state in which it is being retained permits. Currently, the principal place in which we retain personally identifiable data about you is the State of North Carolina, U.S.A.

6. Data Security

We maintain reasonable physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect personally identifiable data about you from loss, misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. As part of those precautions, we seek to protect personally identifiable data about you through technologies designed to safeguard the data during its transmission. We restrict access to personally identifiable data about you to those employees we determine need to know that information for us and our licensees and distributors to provide services to you. We also have adopted a policy under which employee misuse of personally identifiable data about you is treated as a serious offense for which disciplinary action may be taken. You should, however, be aware that there is no method of transmitting or storing data that is completely secure. Although their physical characteristics are different, postal mail, telephone calls, faxes and transmissions over the Internet all present possibilities of loss, misrouting, interception and misuse of the data being transmitted.

When we decide what data to seek from or send to you, or how to seek or send it, we try to attain reasonable balance between the security of your data and your convenience. We do this because we believe our customers attach value to both. As a result, we sometimes use a method of communication that is less secure than some of its less convenient alternatives. An important example of this occurs in the case of e-mail. When we send e-mail to you, we send it as plain text without encrypting it. We do this because we believe that many of our customers do not currently have the capability to receive encrypted e-mail. As a consequence, though, if our unencrypted e-mail intended for you were misrouted or intercepted, it could be read more easily than encrypted e-mail.

To protect personally identifiable data about you effectively, we need your help. Please do not divulge your WBI user number or any similar program membership number to anyone who is not employed by us or one of our licensees or distributors. In addition, because e-mail to and from us is not encrypted, please do not include your user number, or any other information you regard as confidential, in any e-mail you send us. [A more secure way to communicate with us over the Internet is to click on the "Contact Us" link on the home page of our website www.worden.com  and complete the form that you are presented.] Finally, if you have obtained a personal identification number, or "PIN", in order to utilize portions of our websites, do not divulge your PIN to anyone - not even one of our employees.

7. Parties to Whom We Disclose Data

Our general policy is to not disclose personally identifiable data about you to any third party. This policy is not applicable to our licensees and distributors.

We generally use personally identifiable data about you to make and process your orders, give you access to our services, provide you with customer assistance, prepare your account statements and maintain and develop software. We may use licensees and distributors from time to time to perform such services for us. We also may disclose information in response to requests from law enforcement agencies or government regulators. A more detailed description of those uses appears below. Such uses are called "Normal Uses."

By purchasing our products, whether from us or through one of our licensees or distributors, you are consenting to our use and limited disclosure of personally identifiable data about you for Normal Uses. If you do not wish to consent to such use and disclosure of personally identifiable data about you, please do not purchase our products, whether directly or through a licensee or distributor.

8. Normal Uses

Internal Uses. We may initially use the personally identifiable data that we collect from you to make your initial purchase with us or our licensees or distributors; to process your transactions with us and our licensees or distributors; to provide you with access to our services, including any enhanced services you request; and to bill and collect amounts owed to us for continuing service. If you seek to pay charges by a debit, charge or credit card, we may disclose personally identifiable data about you to the company issuing the card and to other companies that assist in processing the charges. Similarly, if you seek to have your charges invoiced to a third party, we may disclose personally identifiable data about you to that third party and to any companies that assist the third party in processing invoices. Further, if you participate in a membership rewards program operated by a third party and seek to receive a reward based on a transaction with us or our licensees or distributors, we may disclose personally identifiable data about you to the program's operator, as well as to companies assisting the operator in the operation of the program, to permit you to receive your membership rewards.

We may share personally identifiable data about you among ourselves and with our licensees and distributors to enable us to perform the functions described above. In the event that personally identifiable data about you is shared among ourselves or with our licensees or distributors, the party with which such information is shared will be required to agree to observe the relevant provisions of our Privacy Policy with respect to personally identifiable data about you (including any choices you have made under our Privacy Policy to limit the use of your data).

TC2000 Platinum Uses. If you are a customer of TC2000 Platinum, additional disclosures and disclaimers apply. TC2000 Platinum users may form and administer their own "clubs" or "information exchange groups" as well as publish information on electronic bulletin boards generally accessible to other TC2000 Platinum subscribers. We do not assume any responsibility for the privacy or security of any such communications, and you assume all risks of publishing such information on the system for examination by others, including our employees and persons who gain unauthorized access to the site ("hackers"). Furthermore, any such information published by you will pass through and be stored upon one or more of our servers. We will access the information stored on our server(s) for three purposes: first, to verify that the TC2000 Platinum program and system is operating properly; second, to police the content of publications in response to any customer complaints about inappropriate content, and, third, to gather information for statistical purposes No information published by a TC2000 Platinum customer is to be considered an expression of opinion or fact by us. We do not adopt, ratify, guarantee or endorse the contents or accuracy of any such publications. If you believe a communication published through TC2000 Platinum violates your privacy, you may report the same to us [by e-mailing us for investigation at www.worden.com ("Contact Us" link) or] by mail to Privacy Services, Worden Brothers, Inc., PO Box 1139, Wilmington, NC 28402.

Compliance Uses. We may use and disclose personally identifiable data about you as we reasonably believe is necessary to protect our business; to comply with applicable law; to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of you or others; and to permit us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain. For example, if you breach a license agreement or other agreement with us or any of our licensees or affiliates, personally identifiable data about you may be used, disclosed to third parties or publicly disclosed to the extent necessary to enforce the agreements and recover any amounts owed. As another example, we may, to the fullest extent the law allows, disclose personally identifiable data about you to law enforcement agencies to assist them in identifying individuals who have been or may be engaged in illegal activities.

Transactional Uses. We may acquire or sell assets, including ownership interests in our company, and other companies may acquire financial interests in us. In those transactions, personally identifiable data about you may be among the transferred business assets. We may disclose personally identifiable data about you to any company in connection with a proposed or actual sale, merger, transfer, or exchange of all or a portion of a business or operating unit if you do business or have done business with that business or operating unit, but only if that company agrees to use the data solely for the purpose of making its acquisition decision and to observe the relevant provisions of our Privacy Policy with respect to the data. In the event that personally identifiable data about you is transferred to a company acquiring assets from us, we will require that company to agree to observe the relevant provisions of our Privacy Policy with respect to personally identifiable data about you (including any choices you have made under our Privacy Policy to limit the use of your data).

Independent Agency Uses. We may disclose personally identifiable data about you to any individual or company that we retain to assist us in the conduct of our business, including an individual or company that performs marketing services on our behalf, but only if that individual or company agrees to use the personally identifiable data about you solely for the purposes of performing the tasks on behalf of, and under the instruction of, us and to observe the relevant provisions of our Privacy Policy with respect to the data.

Use of Data from Others. We may obtain personally identifiable data about you from our licensees and distributors and from other companies with whom we have business relationships. Such information may be merged with or used to enhance personally identifiable data that we have collected previously, as permitted by applicable law.

Disclosure to Promotional Program Sponsors. A promotional program, or "PP", is a contract or program we establish in cooperation with a sponsoring company or organization (the "sponsor") through which individuals with specified characteristics are entitled to license our products or receive our service terms that differ from those generally offered to the public. Examples of PPs include plans where our products or services are bundled with those of the sponsor (and perhaps others). We identify PPs using unique numbers ("PP Numbers"), and we require those who wish to transact under the terms of a PP, to furnish us with the appropriate PP Number.

If you transact using a PP Number, you consent to our disclosure of personally identifiable data about you to the PP's sponsor in order to permit us and the sponsor to (i) verify your eligibility to participate using that number; (ii) determine our compliance with the promotional terms of the PP; (iii) determine your compliance with the sponsor's policies; and (iv) facilitate the sponsor's reimbursement of some or all of the costs of your transaction to the extent it has agreed to reimburse you for them. We require sponsors to treat all personally identifiable data disclosed to them for these purposes as confidential and not to use that data for marketing purposes.

If you do not wish us to share personally identifiable data about you in the manner described under this subheading, you must not use a PP Number in connection with your transaction. If you do not use a PP Number, you will not receive the benefits of the associated contract or program.

9. Marketing Uses

You have the right to "opt out" of Marketing Uses in the manner described below under the heading Option to Limit Use of Data.

We may aggregate and analyze all of the personally identifiable data about you to enable us to develop targeted marketing programs and service offerings that we believe are tailored to the needs of particular groups of customers. We may then use the personally identifiable data about you to contact you regarding programs and services we believe might be of interest to you. If you wish us not to contact you for this purpose, you may decline as set forth below under Option to Limit Use of Data.

We may disclose all of the personally identifiable data about you among ourselves and to our licensees and distributors for marketing purposes, provided the licensees and distributors to which we disclose the data agree to observe the relevant provisions of our Privacy Policy with respect to the data being disclosed (including any choices you have made under our Privacy Policy to limit the use of your data). If you wish us not to disclose personally identifiable data about you to our licensees and distributors for marketing purposes, you may decline as set forth below under Option to Limit Use of Data.

10. Unintentional Disclosure

While we have taken significant steps to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of your personally identifiable data to persons who, without authorization, break into and access our confidential electronic files in violation of existing law ("hackers"), we cannot guarantee that a sophisticated hacker will not some day penetrate the barriers we have in place to safeguard your personally identifiable data. We will continue to evaluate and, where indicated, update our security precautions consistent with good business practices.

11. Option to Limit Use of Data

You may elect to direct us to limit the use of personally identifiable data about you. As stated above, it is our standing company policy not to disclose personally identifiable data about you to third parties companies (who are not our licensees or distributors) for their marketing purposes. However, you may direct us not to send you any marketing offers or materials and not to provide personally identifiable data about you to our licensees and distributors for marketing purposes. If you do this, we will not, after your direction becomes effective, either send you any marketing offers or materials or provide personally identifiable data about you to our licensees or distributors for marketing purposes. (We are not, however, responsible for any subsequent use by licensees or distributors of data disclosed to them before we received your direction.)

How to Elect. If you are a current customer, you may communicate your election to us by accessing the update section of your customer profile in your program’s section of this website and make the desired directions. You may also make your choice by writing Privacy Services, Worden Brothers, Inc., PO Box 1139, Wilmington, NC 28402. Any direction made through this website will become effective within 48 hours of your making the direction. Any direction made through the mail will become effective by the end of the 20th business day following the date on which your direction is received at the above addresses.

Subsequent Choices. If you choose no longer to limit the use of personally identifiable data about you, then we will observe the terms of your latest effective choice as if it were the only instruction we had received from you with respect to the use of personally identifiable data about you.

Option to Limit Non-Marketing Uses of Data. We will not make any non-marketing use of personally identifiable data about you unless either: (i) we give you notice of that use and provide you the opportunity to direct us not to make that use of the personally identifiable data about you, or (ii) applicable law or where applicable, the Safe Harbor Principles, authorize us to make that use of personally identifiable data about you without providing you the opportunity to direct us not to do so. Please note that all Normal Uses of personally identifiable data about you as described in our Privacy Policy constitute uses that are so authorized.

12. Access to or Correction of Data

We make reasonable efforts to ensure that the personally identifiable data we have about you is accurate, current and complete.

You have a reasonable right to access and review personally identifiable data about you collected by us. You may correct factual errors in that data by sending a request to us that credibly shows the error. You should contact our main office in the country in which you reside for information about how to exercise these rights. As an alternative, you may obtain the information by writing to Privacy Services, Worden Brothers, Inc., PO Box 1139, Wilmington, NC 28402. To protect your privacy and security, we will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

[If you are a current customer enrolled in TC2000 or a similar program, you may update the information in your member profile by accessing the update section of your member profile in the program's section of this website.]

13. Right to Make Future Changes in Policy Reserved

We make our Privacy Policy available through a link on the home page of our website www.worden.com. We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy in the future. Subject to applicable laws, any changes to our Privacy Policy will be effective upon posting of the revised Privacy Policy on the Internet, accessible from a link appearing on the home page of our website www.worden.com. If we make changes, we will revise the "Last Updated" date on the top or cover page of our Privacy Policy.

If we change our Privacy Policy in a way that is less protective of your privacy, then the change will not apply to our use of any personally identifiable data about you that was collected by us before the change was made, unless we notify you and provide you with the opportunity to direct us not to make new uses of personally identifiable data about you.

14. Coordination with Applicable Law

We do business in many countries and states. Depending on where you live and where and the products and services you purchase from us, our collection and use of personally identifiable data about you may be governed by federal and state laws of the United States (including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), the laws of other countries or the Safe Harbor Principles. Where applicable, we will comply with such laws and the Safe Harbor Principles regarding our collection and use of personally identifiable data about you and will limit any disclosures of data accordingly.

15. Information Regarding Former Customers

We disclose personally identifiable data about former customers or customers with inactive accounts only in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

16. Customer Questions

We hope our Privacy Policy answers your questions about our collection and use of personally identifiable data about you. If it does not, or if you have questions about whether we are observing our Privacy Policy, please write to us at Privacy Services, Worden Brothers, Inc., PO Box 1139, Wilmington, NC 28402. If, after we respond to you, you feel that we have not satisfactorily addressed your questions or concerns, we will refer you to a neutral, independent third party dispute resolution organization.

17. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THIS PRIVACY POLICY OR IF WBI FAILS TO ABIDE BY THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY IS TO STOP USING THE SERVICES PROVIDED BY WBI. WBI WILL NOT PAY YOU ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOST PROFITS, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF NOTIFIED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND EVEN IF SUCH DAMAGES ARE THE RESULT OF THE NEGLIGENCE OF WBI.