Amazon.com Privacy Notice Last updated: July 20, 2005 Amazon.com 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 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.
Click here to see
examples of what we collect. 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. A number of
companies offer utilities designed
to help you visit Web sites anonymously. Although we will not be able to
provide you with a personalized experience at Amazon.com if we cannot recognize
you, we want you to be aware that these tools exist.
- 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. Click
here to see examples of the information we receive.
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. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of
Amazon.com's coolest features, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.
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, zShops, 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.
- Agents: 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. Click here for more information on how to sign
off.
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.
Click here to see
some examples, the list of which will change as our Web site evolves. 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, and Customer Reviews.
- 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. However, you will not be able to use such important features as
1-Click ordering and
New for
You if you do not use cookies.
- Click
here to explore products that offer anonymous browsing. In addition, the
Federal Trade Commission provides useful information about online privacy on
its own Web site,
Site Seeing on
the Internet.
Children 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. Safe Harbor 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 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
About
You; 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 Amazon.com Chat; provide and rate
Reviews;
specify a
Special
Occasion Reminder or a favorite charity in
Charity Links;
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
About
You; 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 and version, 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; zShops you visited; your Auction history;
and the phone number you used to call our 800 number. 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 (such as drugstore.com) or for which we provide
technical, fulfillment, advertising, or other services (such as Target.com);
search term and search result information from some searches conducted through
the Web search features offered by our subsidiary, Alexa Internet; search
results and links, including paid listings (such as Sponsored Links from
Google); 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. 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, zShops, 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 Toysrus.com, Babiesrus.com,
Imaginarium.com, Target, Borders, Waldenbooks, AT&T Wireless, Sprint,
T-Mobile, CarsDirect.com, Hotwire, drugstore.com, The Vacation Store,
Ofoto.com, Office Depot, J&R, Virginmega.com, Nordstrom, Eddie Bauer, and
other apparel stores.
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