Mercola.com's Policy on Security, Privacy and Website Terms of Use
This policy sets forth the type of information Mercola.com collects from you via this website (the "Website"), the way we use such information, and the procedures we use to keep such information confidential. This policy also sets forth the terms and conditions of your use of the website and its content.
Mercola.com takes every reasonable precaution to protect our users' personal information. When users submit sensitive information via the Mercola.com website, their information is protected both online and off-line.
Your Consent
By using the Website, you consent to the collection and use of certain information in the manner we describe and agree to be bound by the terms of use as set forth herein.
Notification of Changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our homepage
Opt-out or Termination of User Accounts
If users have opted out of all communication with the Website, or deleted/deactivated their account, Mercola.com will not contact such users again nor will their personal information ever be used by us in any manner.
Contact Information
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at http://support.mercola.com or call 847.985.2680.
Security
We are committed to preventing others from unauthorized access to the personal information you provide to us, and we maintain commercially reasonable procedures and technology designed for this purpose. The Website has reasonable technical and organizational security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of information under our control. However, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized third parties will never be able to defeat those security measures or use your personal information for improper purposes.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information, such as credit card number, that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry, 128-bit SSL. While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to un-locked, or open, when users are just 'surfing'.
While we use 128-bit SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also do everything in our power to protect user-information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment.
The Information We Collect
We request information from the user on our secure order form. A user must provide contact information (such as name, email, and shipping address) and financial information (such as credit card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill customer's orders. If we have trouble processing an order, the information is used to contact the user. This information is only shared with other companies who work on behalf of Mercola.com to provide a product or service to you. Unless we tell you differently, these companies do not have any right to use the personally identifiable information we provide to them beyond what is necessary to assist us. We may also use this information to inform you of additional goods and services about which you might be interested or to customize your experience and use of the Website.
We may ask you for personally-identifying information in connection with a promotion or survey. Any email you receive from us, or third parties authorized by you to send email, will contain additional opt-out or unsubscribe options in the email with instructions on how to unsubscribe from receiving future emails.
We may automatically gather general statistical information about our website and visitors, such as IP addresses, browsers, pages viewed, number of visitors, goods and services purchased, transactions completed, etc. To do this, we use action tags and cookies provided by our site analytics and marketing partners. Although these partners log the information coming from our site on our behalf, we authorize how that data may and may not be used. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site.
Agents
We use an outside shipping company to fulfill orders, and a credit card processing company to bill you for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any other purposes.
Service Providers
We use other third parties to provide credit card transactions on our site. When you process an order, we will share credit card information, name & address information as necessary for the third party to provide the credit card transaction service. The third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for any other purpose
Access to Personally Identifiable Information
If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by making the change on our member information page or contacting our Customer Support at http://support.mercola.com or by contacting us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below.
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.
Children under 13
We do not knowingly collect or use personal information from children under 13 without containing verifiable consent from their parents. We have no way of distinguishing the age of individuals who address our website, and so we carry out the same Privacy Policy for individuals of all ages. If a child has provided us with personal information without parental or guardian consent, the parent or guardian should contact us to remove the information and opt out of promotional opportunities. For more information about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), visit the FTC website: www.ftc.gov.
Log Files
Like most standard website servers, we use log files. This includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.
The Way We Use Non-Medical Information
Our goal is to provide products that best meet your needs, therefore we evaluate your personal interactions with us in an effort to bring you the products which best suit your tastes. In addition, we use your information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to statistically analyze site usage, to improve our content and product offerings and to customize our site's content, layout, and services.
We may use your information to deliver information to you that, in some cases, is targeted to your interests, such as targeted banners, new products, services and promotions. At times we may ask you to provide us voluntarily with additional information regarding your personal or business interests, experience or requests, which we may use to customize our products and services for you.
If you place a request for products or services, we use your personal information to ship your order; if the products or services are from a retail partner, we may provide your relevant information to that retailer for purposes of the transaction. If you establish a credit account with us or our providers, we collect additional information, including billing information, credit card number and expiration date, and tracking information from checks or money orders.
We may also use or disclose information to resolve disputes or investigate problems. We may disclose or access information whenever we believe in good faith that the law so requires or if we otherwise consider it necessary to do so to maintain service and improve our products and services.
We may use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our servers, to manage our website and to enhance our site based on the usage pattern data we receive .
Newsletter
Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter may opt-out of receiving these communications by following the instructions on our unsubscribe page http://store.mercola.com/unsubscribe
Email-A-Friend
If a user elects to use our E-mail to a friend service for informing a someone about an article, we launch the default email program on the user's computer. We do not know who you send the article to and therefore we could not collect and store that data.
Links
The Website contains links to other sites. Mercola.com is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such other sites. By including links to other websites, we neither endorse such sites nor guarantee that the information they contain is accurate. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site to read the privacy statements of every linked website as the privacy policies of each may differ from ours. This privacy statement applies solely to the Mercola.com website.
Third Party Advertising
We do not accept any paid advertisements on Mercola.com. Any services or products recommended and/or offered in the newsletter or elsewhere on Mercola.com have gone through extensive review before such recommendations, and based on that review were recommended and/or offered. Mercola.com's powerful search capability is provided by Google, however, and so it should be noted that when Mercola.com visitors use this search functionality and see outside websites/products/services advertised in the search results, those are part of Google's program, not Mercola.com's.
Blogs, Forums & Testimonials
If you use a bulletin board chat room, blog or post a testimonial on this site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.
As a condition of use of the Blogs, Forums, & Testimonials, you may only use the services for lawful purposes and are in compliance with the Terms of Use found at http://v.mercola.com/TermsofService.htm . You understand and agree that Mercola.com is not under any obligation to control, monitor or verify the statements made by members of Mercola.com's on-line community. If Mercola.com discovers that you are making unacceptable use of Mercola.com, however, Mercola.com may terminate your account.
Personally Identifiable Information
We Do Not Share Personally Identifiable Information with Third Parties other than those mentioned above under Service Providers.
Unsolicited Ideas
We welcome feedback, questions and comments about our products, services and this Website. As a general policy, we do not accept unsolicited ideas for products or services through this Website. All communications and other materials (including, without limitation, unsolicited ideas, photographs, drawings, suggestions, or materials) you send to this Website by e-mail or otherwise are and shall remain the sole and exclusive property of Mercola.com and may be used by us for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation to you.
TRUSTe Privacy Program
Mercola.com is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non-profit organization whose mission is to build user's trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the site http://www.mercola.com. Because this Website wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If you have questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact our customer service department at http://support.mercola.com. If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should contact TRUSTe at http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php . TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with us to resolve your concerns.
Privacy Policy last updated 12/20/2006
Mercola.com
1443 W Schaumburg Rd Suite 250
Schaumburg IL 60194
847.985.2680
|
