GENERAL MATTERS
Overview
At Splendid Greetings, protecting our users' privacy and
security is a top priority. For this reason, we have adopted
the following policy to advise you of your choices regarding
the use of your personal information online. 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 update or correct it.
INFORMATION ABOUT YOU
Information Gathered From All Visitors
Aggregate Data
We gather certain generic information with respect to customers'
use of our web site, such as the number of unique visitors,
the frequency with which they visit, and the areas on the
web site 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 web site, which, in turn, enables
us to make it as appealing as possible. We may also provide
statistical "ratings" about how our customers
collectively use our web site to advertisers, sponsors,
and other companies with which we do business ("Business
Partners"). We do this so they, too, can understand
how often people use their areas of the site in order for
them to provide you with the best possible experience. These
statistical ratings do not contain any personally identifiable
information about you or any of our users.
Cookies
We use a technology nicknamed "cookies" on our
web site. 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 web site easier. For example, cookies
allow us to recognize you when you re-enter our web site
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. 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 web site if you choose not to accept cookies, such
as subscription cards, My Page, address book, favorites,
and greetings history. In addition, you will not be able
to participate in any of our sweepstakes or contests. Cookies
can also enable us to track and target the interests of
our users to enhance their experience on our site.
Third Party Advertiser Cookies
We use third-party advertising companies to serve our ads
on the Internet. These third-party advertising companies
employ cookie and Clear Gif technology (aka 1x1 Pixel .gifs,
Web bugs) to measure and improve the effectiveness of ads
for their clients. To do so, these companies may use anonymous
information about your visits to our Web site and other
Web sites. This information can include: date/time of banner
ad shown, the banner ad that was shown, their cookie, the
IP address. This information can also be used for online
preference marketing purposes. Splendid Greetings does not
use or have access to this information.
If you want to prevent a third-party advertiser from setting
and/or reading cookies on your computer, currently you may
either visit each ad network's web site individually and
opt out or visit the web site of the National Advertising
Initiative ("NAI") to opt-out of all network-advertising
cookies. This site will also allow you to review the third-party
advertising companies' privacy policies.
Advertising Research Cookies
From time-to-time, outside third party research companies
may set cookies on your browser regarding exposure to certain
ad placements. These cookies may be used later for research
purposes if you later opt-in to take a survey. If you choose
to take the survey, these companies may examine your browser
to see if a one of their cookies has been set. If the company
detects the cookie in your browser, it will gather only
2 pieces of information from it: where you have seen a particular
ad and; how many times you have seen it.
IP Addresses
We collect and analyze traffic on our web site 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 your Internet
Service Provider (ISP), your IP address can be used to identify
the computer originating a message.
SPLENDID GREETINGS INCLUDES THE SENDER IP ADDRESS IN THE
HEADER INFORMATION OF EACH GREETINGS NOTIFICATION E-MAIL
IT SENDS. IT IS AVAILABLE TO THE GREETINGS RECIPIENT AND
ANYONE ELSE WHO IS FORWARDED THE NOTIFICATION E-MAIL. THIS
LIMITS YOUR ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE ANONYMOUSLY USING ELECTRONIC
GREETINGS. ELECTRONIC GREETINGS ARE NEITHER INTENDED NOR
APPROPRIATE FOR ANONYMOUS COMMUNICATIONS, AND SUCH ACTIVITY
IS EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED BY THE ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY IN
OUR TERMS OF SERVICE.
When You Send A Greeting
If you use our web site to send an online greeting or any
other content, we collect your e-mail address and your recipient's
e-mail address. This information is necessary to send the
content and provide confirmation that it has been received.
We will not use your recipient's e-mail address for any
purpose other than to send the greeting. We may also use
your e-mail address to contact you if you have chosen to
receive communications from Splendid Greetings or its Partners.
(See Opt-Out/Changing Your Status, below).
Personalizing Your Experience on the Web Site
We try to personalize your experience on our web sites by
tracking greetings and other content you have sent and gifts
you have purchased in order to shape our recommendations
about the greetings, cards, games, and gifts that might
be of interest to you. We also examine customer traffic
patterns and web site usage to help us enhance the design
and layout of the site and make it easier to navigate.
From time to time, we may send you surveys or solicit your
feedback. We use surveys to gage user interest in new products
and premiums we may offer. We will ask for your feedback
on greetings and other site features. We will use the information
we gather to improve our sites and provide a more meaningful
experience for our users. We may also use the information
to alert you to offers and products in which you have expressed
an interest.
Communications from Splendid Greetings
We send to all of our users our exclusive Splendid Greetings
Newsletter, which alerts you to new features, content, and
services, premiums available on our site. From time to time,
we will also send you invitations to enhance your Splendid
Greetings membership, offers for new products and services
from Splendid Greetings, special "Members Only"
premiums, or special offers from our affiliates and sponsors.
These communications are sent to you directly by Splendid
Greetings. We do not share your personally identifiable
information with any third parties in connection with the
Newsletter.
You can always decline the Newsletter by un-checking the
opt-out box on the "Personalize Your Greeting"
pages or registration pages on our site. If you are already
receiving the Newsletter and you want to unsubscribe, you
can simply follow the "unsubscribe" links at the
bottom of each edition. For other ways to unsubscribe, see
Opt-Out/Changing Your Status, below.
Communications from Our Business Partners
Splendid Greetings also offers you the opportunity to receive
money-saving offers, discounts, and promotions from our
Business Partners. These communications may come from Splendid
Greetings or directly from the Partners themselves. We may
also share with them certain demographic, geographic, preference,
and other personally identifiable information we have gathered
about you. This will help them in directing to you offers
that are more likely to be of interest.
This program is conducted strictly on an opt-in basis. In
order to receive the offers, you must affirmatively check
the clearly marked box on our "Personalize Your Greeting"
pages and registration pages on our site. If you leave the
box unchecked, you will not receive any offers. If you do
sign up for the program but later change your mind, you
are free at any time to opt-out by following the procedures
outlined in Opt-Out/Changing Your Status, below.
Mandatory Communications
Splendid Greetings reserves the right to communicate with
you from time to time about important administrative, policy,
legal, credit card, and billing matters, which will affect
your use of our web sites, including without limitation
any alleged violations of our Terms
of Service. These communications are mandatory.
Information Gathered From Members
If you elect to purchase a Membership on Splendid Greetings,
you will be required to provide us with certain personal
information, including your name, e-mail address, credit
card number, expiration date, and billing address (this
required information is subject to change from time to time).
There will also be opportunities for you to provide us with
additional information regarding your preferences and interests.
This information, however, is not required and is completely
optional on your part.
Additional data may be collected from Members based upon
certain services they elect to utilize on our web site.
For example, we may track the categories of greetings you
send in order to make appropriate recommendations for products
or services available on our site or those of our Business
Partners. Members may register for Splendid Greetings Reminders,
which are e-mail alerts to track important dates and occasions
they specify. Splendid Greetings Membership allows you to
store greetings for future delivery, bookmark favorite greetings,
and save greetings received in an online scrapbook. By obtaining
this information, we can provide our Members with specific
content and advertising in which they might be interested.
None of this information is required to use our service
or to become a Member; however, the omission of certain
types of data will limit the value of your membership.
If you become a Member of Splendid Greetings from one of
our co-branded sites, we may share your registration information
with the co-branded partner. In such instances, the site
will be clearly labeled with the branding information of
our partner and links to its privacy policy will be conspicuously
posted. We may also disclose your offline address to postal
advertisers and catalogue marketers. If you do not wish
to receive such communications, you can send an e-mail to
privacy@splendidgreetings.com
and you will be removed from the list.
SPLENDID GREETINGS USES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
If you have provided us your consent, we will use the information
we have collected about you in five ways:
To send personalized, targeted information that we think
our users will find relevant, either from Splendid Greetings
or directly from its Business Partners;
To include targeted advertising within such messages;
To send promotions and coupons based on the user's interests;
To contact the user for feedback and surveys; and
To send the user other information about Splendid Greetings.
On-Site Advertising
Splendid Greetings may also use information about you
to target advertising while you are visiting our site.
For example, we may serve ads from toy companies to users
searching the Kids Birthday Greeting 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.
Information Sharing Between Affiliates
Splendid Greetings is part of the AmericanGreetings.com,
Inc. family of companies. Its affiliates include AmericanGreetings.com,
Egreetings.com, BeatGreets.com, and SpecialSomeone.com.
Splendid Greetings reserves the right to share your personally
identifiable information with those companies, including
your e-mail, postal address, phone number, and purchase
history. We may use that information to conduct joint
promotions, offer you special premiums, and to share databases
and equipment. We also reserve the right to share your
personal information with other companies that AG may
subsequently acquire. We will only share your credit card
information among our affiliates if you expressly give
us permission to do so.
Order Fulfillment
From time to time, you may be given the opportunity to
order products and services directly on the Splendid Greetings
site, the Newsletters, or in other communications you
may receive from Splendid Greetings. These orders are
typically fulfilled by Splendid Greetings Business Partners
directly. To process your order, Splendid Greetings may
provide these Partners with your name, street address,
e-mail address, phone number, and credit card information.
Splendid Greetings will limit the types of information
shared to the minimum necessary to efficiently process
your order. However, in accepting these offers, you become
a customer of the Business Partner and therefore subject
to its privacy policy. Splendid Greetings will alert users
whenever a Business Partner will be fulfilling an order
for products or services ordered on our site. We encourage
you to review these companies' privacy policies and only
do business with those who adhere to personal information
practices with which you are comfortable.
Privacy of Greeting Card Information
We treat all of our greetings products as private correspondence
between the sender and the recipient and will not disclose
the contents of any greeting other than to the intended
recipient, except under the specific situations outlined
in Disclosure Exceptions, below. This policy applies to
all aspects of our greetings, including your personalized
messages. Under normal circumstances, we will not monitor
or edit the contents of the online greetings you send.
On occasion, however, we may need to view your message
in connection with the technical processing of your greeting
or the maintenance of our network. Also, if you ask one
of our customer service representatives to help you send
a greeting or to verify that a greeting was sent, that
representative will be able to access all information
about the card, including the recipient's e-mail address
and the message.
Disclosure Exceptions
Notwithstanding the above policies, 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
web site and/or the Splendid Greetings service; or
During emergencies, such as when we believe someone's
physical safety is at risk.
Your IP address can be accessed by greetings recipients
in the header of the notification e-mail. Under certain
circumstances, recipients, their legal representatives,
and/or law enforcement authorities may be able to combine
this with information disclosed by ISPs to determine the
source of a particular communication. By using this service,
you knowingly and voluntarily assume any risks associated
with such disclosure.
YOUR CONTROL OVER YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Opt-Out/Changing Your Status
At any time, you can change choices you have previously
made as to the use of your personal information. Every
communication Splendid Greetings sends you will contain
a clearly worded "Opt-Out" or "Unsubscribe"
link allowing you to withdraw your permission for future
mailings. Alternatively, you can send a blank e-mail to
privacy@splendidgreetings.com and type "Remove"
in the subject field. This system is automated and must
be contacted from the email address you wish to have removed.
Permission changes will be honored as soon as possible
after receipt. Please allow five to seven days for processing.
Permission changes will however not affect any information
which you provided to us and which we previously shared
with our Business Partners. our sole risk.
Editing Your Profile
If you are a registered member, you have the ability to
review and correct your personally identifiable information
at any time. Simply sign into the site and click the "My
Profile" link on the header of every page. There,
you can change your address information, e-mail type,
sign-in, and e-mail permissions. You can revise, add,
delete, or completely cancel all alerts by following the
links to "Reminders" at the top of each page.
OTHER MATTERS
Protection For Children - COPPA Compliance
We are committed to protecting the privacy and rights
of children online. We believe that children should be
able to use the Internet in a safe, productive, and efficient
manner and should be afforded the highest protection available
with respect to their personal information. To that end,
we have made it our policy to not collect any individually
identifiable information from users whom we know are under
the age of 13.
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act ("COPPA")
imposes certain requirements upon web sites and online
services that are directed toward children.
Contests and Promotions
Occasionally, Splendid Greetings may sponsor contests
and/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 outlined in the rules. Where a contest or promotion
is not sponsored by Splendid Greetings, the identity of
the sponsor will be clearly disclosed in the rules. Splendid
Greetings cannot be responsible for actions or policies
of third-party contest sponsors. Users are encouraged
to review the relevant privacy policy of the sponsor before
entering.
Sale of Assets
In the event that Splendid Greetings and/or its units
or 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 therein,
to a third-party acquiring Splendid Greetings 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 as to how you can change your privacy preferences.
Data Security
When you place orders for purchased products 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 on 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 the sensitive information mentioned
above, is restricted in our offices. Employees are granted
access on a need-to-know basis (for example, our billing
clerk or a customer service representative). Furthermore,
ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and
privacy practices. Finally, the servers on which we store
personally identifiable information are kept in a secure
environment, behind a locked cage.
Splendid Greetings 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, and 24x7 secured
access, as well as video camera surveillance and security
breach alarms. If you have any questions about the security
at our website, you can send an email to webmaster@splendidgreetings.com.
Changes to the Privacy Policy
Splendid Greetings will occasionally update this Privacy
Policy in response to changing business circumstances
and legal developments. When Splendid Greetings posts
changes to this Policy, you will see the word "updated"
next to the Privacy Policy link on the front page of Splendid
Greetings Sites. If there are material changes to this
Policy or in how Splendid Greetings uses your personally
identifiable information, Splendid Greetings will prominently
post such changes prior to implementing the change. Splendid
Greetings encourages you to periodically review this Policy
to be informed of how we are protecting your information.
USE COMMON SENSE IN ALL YOUR ONLINE
ACTIVITIES
Even the best policy can't protect your online privacy
and security in all circumstances. Unscrupulous advertisers,
hackers, and scam artists are constantly searching the
Internet looking for new targets. Your best protection
is to understand the limits to privacy on the Internet
and use common sense in all of your on-line activities.
Be aware that e-mail is an inherently insecure form of
communication. Remember that third parties are sometimes
able to illegally intercept your unencrypted messages,
including online greetings. Anytime you post a message
to an on-line bulletin board, your e-mail address can
be accessed by advertisers looking to compile lists for
unsolicited commercial e-mail (also known as spam). Be
sure that you only disclose your e-mail address in circumstances
in which it is safe to do so.
Beware of scams in which persons unknown to you request
your screen name, password, or credit card information.
Make sure you verify the identity of anyone asking for
personal information. Always monitor your children's on-line
activities and educate them as to the rules for safe Internet
use.