Last Updated: 5/2/2012
At Cardstore.com (the "Site"), operated by Cardstore, Inc., protecting our users' privacy and security is a top priority. This policy describes what types of information we gather about you, how we use it, under what circumstances we disclose it to third parties, and your rights to change or delete it. It applies to everyone who registers or logs in to the Site or the Cardstore application (the "Application") on or after January 1, 2011.
This policy applies to the Site and the Application; it does not apply to the websites or applications of other companies or organizations, even if we link to those websites. You should carefully review the privacy policies of those websites and applications in order to determine how they treat your personal information.
We gather certain generic information about the use of our website, such as the number of unique visitors, the frequency with which they visit, and the areas on the website that they favor. These statistics are very much like television ratings that tell the networks how many people tuned in to a program. We only use this type of data in aggregate--that is, we look at the data on a collective basis, in summary form, rather than on an individual basis. This data helps us determine the extent to which our customers use certain parts of our website, which, in turn, enables us to make it as appealing as possible. This data does not contain any personally identifiable information about you.
We collect and analyze traffic on our website by keeping track of the IP addresses of our visitors. IP addresses are unique numeric identifiers that are assigned to each computer browser accessing the Internet. An IP address, by itself, cannot identify you personally. However, when combined with other information provided by an Internet Service Provider, an IP address can be used to identify the computer originating a message.
If you register with us, you may be required to provide us with certain personal information, including your name, e-mail address, physical address, phone number, credit card number, credit card expiration date, and billing address (this required information is subject to change from time to time depending on, among other things, the nature of your membership). You may also provide us with additional information regarding your preferences and interests; however, preference information is not required and is completely optional on your part.
When you use our Site or Application to send a paper card, we collect your personal information, including your address and payment information, and your recipient's physical address. This information is necessary to send the paper card, and we will share is with third parties as necessary to process your order. These partners will not use your information for any purpose but to process your order. We will not use your recipient's information for any purpose other than to send the paper card.
We use a technology called "cookies" on our website. Cookies are pieces of information or data sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies to make your visit to our website easier. For example, cookies allow us to recognize you when you re-enter our website so that you will not have to sign-in each time you visit. Cookies also allow us to count the number of unique and return visitors who use our site. Cookies can also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance their experience on our site.
Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can reset your browser to notify you when you've received a cookie or, alternatively, to refuse to accept cookies. It is important to note that you may not be able to use certain features on our website if you choose not to accept cookies.
We also collect information on our website through the use of web beacons or 1x1 pixels. These pixels are connected to your personally identifiable information, if you have provided it, and allow us to better serve you by tracking your interests on our website. We do not sell, rent, trade, or otherwise distribute information about you gathered through the web beacons or pixels with any third parties except for third parties provide us with research or analysis services. They may only use the information they gather this way to provide services to us. No other use will be made of your information gathered this way.
We may use non-personally identifiable information to show you advertisements for products that may be of interest to you. For example, we may serve ads from toy companies to users searching the birthday pages. We may also use geographic or other information we have collected from you to make sure that the ads you see are for goods and services that are actually of interest to you or are available in your area. We may use cookie files to assure that you will not be served the same ads repeatedly. If you are not a Registered User, no information is collected from you when you visit the site.
We may conduct demographic or other research about the users of our website to determine how users engage with our content.
We may provide information about how our customers collectively use our website to advertisers, sponsors, and other companies with which we do business ("Business Partners"). This data does not include any personally identifiable information about you.
Occasionally, we may sponsor contests or promotions on our sites or in our e-mail products. Participation in such contests is purely voluntary. In order to enter a contest or promotion, you may be asked to provide personally identifiable information. By entering, you agree to all of its terms and conditions, which will be clearly stated. Where a contest or promotion is not sponsored by us, the identity of the sponsor will be clearly disclosed in the rules. We cannot be responsible for actions or policies of third-party contest sponsors. Users are encouraged to review the relevant privacy policy of the contest sponsor before entering.
Cardstore, Inc., is a member of the American Greetings family. This means it is an Affiliate of American Greetings and its subsidiaries, including but not limited to Egreetings.com, BlueMountain.com, Webshots.com, and Recycled Paper Greetings. We reserve the right to share your personally identifiable information, including your email, postal address, phone number and purchase history, with its Affiliates. We may share your personally identifiable information with Affiliates in order to conduct promotions, offer special premiums, and share databases and equipment. We will not share your credit card information or other payment information with anyone, including Affiliates, without your express permission. We reserve the right to share your information with other companies that become Affiliates of American Greetings.
From time to time, we may send you invitations to enhance your membership, offers for new products and services from us, special premiums, or special offers from our affiliates and our sponsors. We do not share your personally identifiable information with any third parties in connection with these invitations.
You can always decline these invitations by un-checking the opt-in box on the My Account page on our site. If you are already receiving the Newsletter and you want to unsubscribe, simply follow the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of each edition. For other ways to unsubscribe, see Opt-Out/Changing Your Status, below.
If you have opted-in, we may offer you money-saving coupons, discounts, and promotions from our Business Partners. These communications may come from us or directly from the Business Partners themselves. If you have opted-in to these communications, we may also share with our Business Partners certain demographic, geographic, preference, and other personally identifiable information we have gathered about you. This will help them in directing offers that are more likely to be of interest to you.
If you do sign up for the program but later change your mind, you may opt-out at any time by following the procedures outlined in Opt-Out/Changing Your Status, below.
We reserve the right to communicate with you from time to time about important administrative, policy, legal, credit card, and billing matters that affect your use of our services, including without limitation any alleged violations of our Terms of Service. These communications are mandatory.
Generally, we do not share your information with third parties. We do reserve the right to share your information with third-party companies we may use to offer premiums, maintain databases, and perform other service functions for us. We do not share equipment or databases with these companies and will not share your credit card information with them without your express permission. Additionally, any company we use for these reasons will not share, sell, or distribute your information, or otherwise use your information except to provide us services.
To process your orders, we may provide our Business Partners with your name, street address, e-mail address, phone number, and credit card information. We will limit the types of information shared to the minimum necessary to efficiently process your order and these Business Partners will only use your information to process your order.
We reserve the right to disclose your personal information to appropriate third parties if we are required to do so by law or we believe that such action is necessary:
To comply with legal process such as a search warrant, subpoena or court order;
To protect the company's rights and property;
To investigate reports of users sending material using a false e-mail address or users sending harassing, threatening, or abusive messages;
To protect against misuse or unauthorized use of our website, products, or services; or
During emergencies, such as when we believe someone's physical safety is at risk.
At any time, you can change choices you have previously made about the use of your personal information. Except for mandatory communications, every communication we send you will contain a clearly worded "Opt-Out" or "Unsubscribe" link allowing you to withdraw your permission for future mailings. Permission changes will be honored as soon as possible after receipt. Please allow five to seven days for processing. Permission changes will not affect any information that you provided to us and that we previously shared with our Business Partners.
If you are a Registered User, you have the ability to review and correct your personally identifiable information at any time. Simply click on the "View Account" link at the top of the every page. There, you can change your address information, e-mail type, sign-in, and e-mail permissions.
If you are a Registered User, you may edit your information by signing in to your account and clicking on "View Account."
We are committed to protecting the privacy and rights of children online. To that end, we do not collect any personally identifiable information from users whom we know are under the age of 13.
In the event that American Greetings or the Site, or its units or its relevant subsidiaries are ever sold, acquired, merged, liquidated, reorganized, or otherwise transferred, we reserve the right to transfer our user databases together with any personally identifiable information contained in them, to a third party acquiring the Site assets. In the event we do so, we will place a prominent notice of the sale on the homepage of our site, with links to information about how you can change your privacy preferences.
When you place orders or access your payment information, we use an advanced encryption technology known as Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to protect the storage and transfer of your data from unauthorized parties. While on a secure page, such as our registration form, a lock or key icon appears at the bottom of your web browser.
In addition to our online security efforts, we take steps to protect your personal data offline as well. All of your information, not just your personally identifiable information, is restricted in our offices. Employees are granted access on a need-to-know basis (for example, our billing clerk or a customer support representative). Furthermore, All employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. We also comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards for safeguarding and handling your payment information. These standards are set by Visa and dictate levels of network and physical security that must be met in order for us to be allowed to process credit cards.
Our main servers are operated from a dedicated Internet hosting facility with state-of-the-art physical security features, including smoke detection and fire suppression systems, motion sensors, 24x7 secured access, and video camera surveillance and security breach alarms.
We will occasionally update this Privacy Policy in response to changing business circumstances and legal developments. When we post changes to this Policy, you will see the word "updated" next to the Privacy Policy link on the front page of the Site. If there are material changes to this Policy or in how we use your personally identifiable information, we will prominently post such changes prior to implementing the change. we encourage you to periodically review this Policy to understand how we are protecting your information.
As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us through our Customer Support Department.
