Privacy Policy
Privacy Policy
PartsByTopher LLC (“Company”) is committed to maintaining your privacy. This privacy policy and agreement (our “Privacy Policy”) specifies the personal information that we ask you to provide in order to utilize www.PartsByTopher.com (the “Site”), and the following terms govern how we treat this personal information.
PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY. YOUR CONSENT TO THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY CREATES LEGAL OBLIGATIONS FOR YOU AND FOR US. PLEASE READ SECTION 2 (YOUR CONSENT) TO LEARN WHAT CONSTITUTES "CONSENT" UNDER THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE REFRAIN FROM USING OUR SITE.
- Navigating Our Privacy Policy
It is important that you understand this Privacy Policy. To assist in your understanding, we have divided this Privacy Policy into numbered sections, and provided a set of definitions to allow easy reference to the key concepts in this Policy. If you have questions, please feel free to contact us at the address in Section 28 (Contact Us).
- Your Consent
You indicate your consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy in different ways, depending on your relationship to the Site. The procedures for consenting to this Policy are (a) less formal if you are simply a casual Site Visitor, and (b) more formal if you are seeking to become a Registered User.
2.1. Consent by Site Visitor. By accessing and using our Website as a Site Visitor, you are acknowledging that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy and agree to be legally bound by it.
2.2. Consent by Registered Users. If you register an account as a User on our Site, during the registration process you will be prompted to click a "checkbox" confirming that you have had an opportunity to review this Policy, and that you agree to its terms. Clicking this checkbox confirms your agreement to be bound by this Privacy Policy.
- Our Services Rely In Part On Information from You
Information you may provide while visiting our Site or while participating in our Services falls into two broad categories: (i) Personally Identifiable Information, and (ii) Anonymous Information. We use the term “Personally Identifiable Information” to mean any information that could reasonably be used to identify you, including your name, address, e-mail address, birth date, financial information, cell or land-line phone number, or any other combination of information that could be used to identify you.
“Anonymous Information” is information that does not identify you, and may include statistical information concerning, for example, your use of our Services or the pages on our Site that you visit most frequently. Please keep in mind that our Privacy Policy does not govern information you choose to exchange with other Registered Users (or with Site Visitors), as we have no direct control over the collection or use of this information. Please use appropriate precautions in sharing your information with these users. Section 22 (Further Resources) provides further guidance on good practices in this regard.
- A Site Visitor Does Not Provide Personally Identifiable Information
We have structured our Website so that, as a casual Site Visitor, you may come to our Site and review selected information about our Services and the products we offer without revealing your identity or providing any Personally Identifying Information. It is only where you wish to become a Registered User, and create a user account and/or purchase any products we make available, that we require you to provide Personally Identifiable Information (hereinafter “Registered User” or “Participating User”).
- A Registered User Will Provide Personally Identifiable Information
To provide our Services to Registered Users via the sale of listed products, we obtain Personally Identifiable Information from you. The ways in which you provide this information, and how we use and protect this information, are set out in Sections 6, 7, 8, and 11, below.
- A Participating User Provides Contact Information, and Other Similar Personally Identifiable Information
6.1. Services Available to Participating Users. Participating Users may be entitled to engage in email marketing exchanges and place orders through our Site.
6.2. Registration/Checkout Information. In order to access our Services as a Participating User we require that you complete a registration/checkout questionnaire. Our registration/checkout questionnaire will specify the information which you must provide in order to place an order or subscribe to our email list for offers and promotional material, which may include such items as (i) name; (ii) email address; (iii) cell and land-line phone number; (iv) mailing address; (v) birth date; and/or (vi) credit card and/or payment information, if applicable (collectively "Contact Information"). Our registration questionnaire may additionally request information which you may, at your option, choose to provide or withhold. To the extent this additional information constitutes Personally Identifiable Information, we will treat it in the manner specified in this Privacy Policy.
6.3. Identity Verification. We may require each user to provide information designed to verify his or her identity. This information ("Identity Verification Information") may include (i) information from a successfully completed electronic check transaction, (ii) a credit report, or (iii) other similar information designed to authenticate and confirm your identity.
- How We Use Your Personally Identifiable Information
We use your Personally Identifiable Information to process your transactions and facilitate your activities with respect to our Site, as set out below. We do not disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to third parties without your express consent, except in the specific circumstances identified in Section 10 (There Are Strictly Limited Circumstances Where Certain Third Parties Have Access To Personally Identifiable Information).
7.1. Processing Your Transactions. We use the Personally Identifiable Information you provide to process transactions that you have placed on our Site, and to provide you with the Services you have requested. Registered Users cannot opt-out of this use of information.
7.2. Operation of Our Site. We use your Personally Identifiable Information in the operation of our Website, and to comply with Applicable Law. You cannot participate in our Site if you seek to opt-out of these uses of your Information.
7.3. Providing You With Informal Information. Periodically, we might like to send you materials for informational purposes, such as promotional and/or marketing notices via our Site or information concerning an order you have, or have attempted, to place on our Site (collectively, "Informal Information"). Informal Information may take a range of forms, including but not limited to, email, newsletters, or automatic notices generated by our Website. Periodically, we may choose to send news, bulletins, marketing materials, or other information to Registered Users, and will use Personally Identifiable Information to send such communications. If we choose to undertake such communications, you will have the ability to opt-out of receiving these communications as provided herein below.
7.4. Feedback, Questionnaires and Surveys. Our Website may allow Site Visitors and Registered Users to participate in surveys and/or questionnaires, which from time to time we may post on the Site. We also encourage our users to provide feedback to us about our Site and our Services. You are free to choose whether you participate in these activities. We may ask that, in addition to providing your responses, you also provide Contact Information. In these instances, we use any Personally Identifiable Information you choose provide to us in connection with these activities strictly for the purposes for which you submit the information. We will use survey and questionnaire information – with any Personally Identifiable Information removed – for monitoring or improving the use and appeal of this Site and for other purposes (with no other obligation to you and, specifically, with no obligation to compensate you for these uses). You are not obligated to participate in any of these activities and, if you undertake these activities, you will have the ability to opt-out as provided herein below (Changing or Removing Information; Opting Out).
- There Are Strictly Limited Circumstances Where Certain Third Parties Have Access To Personally Identifiable Information
8.1. Service Providers. We may employ other companies to perform functions on our behalf, such as maintaining the Site, providing services related to the Site, collecting information, responding to and sending electronic mail, or other functions necessary to our business. We may need to share your Personally Identifiable Information with these companies (collectively, "Service Providers"). We will share with our Service Providers only that information necessary for them to perform their functions, and we require them to commit to refrain from using your Personally Identifiable Information for any other purpose.
8.2. Question of Harm. We may reveal your Personally Identifiable Information to attorneys, private investigator organizations or law enforcement agencies if we believe (i) that you are in risk of harm from another, (ii) that you are harming or interfering (or will harm or interfere) with others, or (iii) that you are violating (either intentionally or unintentionally) our Terms and Conditions of Use (also referred to as our Terms of Service) or are otherwise violating legal rights. We will take all reasonable steps to disclose only so much of this Information as is necessary, limiting the disclosure, for example (and where applicable), to Contact Information only.
8.3. Legal. The Company will reveal your Personally Identifiable Information to the extent we reasonably believe we are required to do so by law. If we receive legal process calling for the disclosure of your Personally Identifiable Information, we will attempt to notify you via the email address you supplied during registration within a reasonable amount of time before we respond to the request, unless such notification is not permitted.
8.4. Transfer of Site. The Company shall be entitled to transfer to a third party information it collects, including any Personally Identifiable Information, in connection with a sale of all or substantially all of the assets of the business entity responsible for the information under this Policy, provided the acquiring third party has agreed to safeguard your Personally Identifiable Information with protections that in all material respects are the same as, or more protective than, those set out in this Privacy Policy.
- Changing or Removing Information; Opting Out
9.1. Discretionary Account Information. To allow appropriate control over Personally Identifiable Information, you can access your account (after supplying your user name and password) to change or update discretionary information that you have previously submitted.
9.2. Opting-Out. You are entitled to decline to participate in certain Services, and to decline to give us permission (or to revoke that permission in your discretion) to use your Personally Identifiable Information for certain purposes. We provide you with the ability to decline – or “opt-out of” – receiving communications concerning, or being included in, these activities. Section 8 (How We Use Your Personally Identifiable Information) identifies the Services and uses for which you hold this opt-out right. To opt-out, please email us, and we can also answer questions or assist if you contact us as provided in Section 28 (Contact Us). Please understand that you will not be allowed to opt–out of Required Notices or other legal and related notices concerning your relationship to the Site. The Site retains full discretion to decide whether you still qualify for certain Site Services in light of the particular information you chose to opt-out from providing.
9.3. Deleting Information. Finally, if you request, we will remove your name and all other Personally Identifiable Information from our databases. Please understand, however, that it may be impossible to remove this information completely, due to IRS and regulatory reporting requirements, and data backups and records of deletions. In addition, please understand that, if you request deletion of your information, you will be unable to use certain features of the Site and any associated Services. You may not remove de-identified, anonymous, or aggregate data from our databases.
- How We Safeguard Your Personally Identifiable Information
We take the protection of your information very serious. We only utilize third party secured transaction payment processing systems designed to prevent unauthorized access to or disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information, and we take all reasonable steps to secure and safeguard this Information, as follows:
- Our Site's password-protected section requires users to give us unique identifiers such as their user ID and password;
- We employ a secure channel, using Secure Sockets Layer encryption, the standard for secure Internet network connections, to protect information exchanged over the Internet between your web browser and our servers;
- Our employees (and employees of our Affiliates) are required to acknowledge that they understand and will abide by this Privacy Policy with respect to the confidentiality of Personally Identifiable Information; and
- We provide access to our databases containing Personally Identifiable Information on a need-to-know basis only.
In addition, we, or one of our Service Providers, use automated tools to monitor network traffic to identify unauthorized attempts to upload information, change information, or otherwise seek to "hack into" our systems.
- Third Party Services.
Our products and Services may also use or offer products or services from third parties. Information collected by third parties is governed by their privacy practices, and we encourage you to learn about the privacy practices of those third parties. We would be more than happy to discuss in further detail the security measures we implement with any User or Visitor that requests such. We would also be glad to share with any User or Visitor any of the privacy practices of third parties providing services to our Site.
Our security systems are therefore structured to deter and prevent hackers and others from accessing information you provide to us. Please understand, though, that this information should not be construed as a warranty that our security systems are fail proof. Due to the nature of Internet communications and evolving technologies, we cannot provide and we also disclaim assurance that the information you provide us will remain free from loss, misuse, or alteration by third parties who, despite our efforts, obtain unauthorized access.
- Anonymous, Aggregate Information
We may use Anonymous Information to analyze the effectiveness of our Site, to improve our Services, and for other similar purposes. In addition, from time to time, we may undertake or commission statistical and other summary analyses of the general behavior and characteristics of users participating in our Services and the characteristics of visitors at our Site, and may share Anonymous Information with third parties, including Advertisers. Rest assured, though, that Anonymous Information provided to third parties will not allow anyone to identify you, or determine anything personal about you. We may collect Anonymous Information through features of the software that supports our Services, through cookies, and through other means described below.
12.1. IP Addresses; Logs. We may automatically receive and record information in our server logs from your browser, including your IP address (the Internet address of your computer), your computer's name, the type and version of your web browser, referrer addresses, and other generally-accepted log information. We may also record page views (hit counts) and other general statistical and tracking information, which will be aggregated with that of other users in order to understand how our Website is being used, and for security and monitoring purposes. None of this data contains Personally Identifiable Information.
12.2. Cookies. A cookie is a small amount of data, often including an anonymous unique identifier, which is sent to your browser from a website's computers and stored on your computer's hard drive. Cookies can be used to provide you with a tailored user experience and to make it easier for you to use a website upon a future visit. We may include cookies on our Site and use them to recognize you when you return to our Site. You may set your browser so that it does not accept cookies. Cookies must be enabled on your web browser, however, if you wish to access certain personalized features of our Services.
12.3. Tags. We may use so-called "pixel tags" – small graphic images (also know as "web beacons" or "single-pixel GIFS") – to tell us what parts of our website have been visited or to measure the effectiveness of searches customers perform on our Site. Pixel tags also enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they inform us whether emails have been opened, to help ensure that our messages are of interest to our Registered Users. None of this data includes Personally Identifiable Information, and you can "opt-out" of receiving these types of emails from us by following the directions provided above (Changing or Removing Information; Opting Out). If any Personally Identifiable Information is collected using such tools, it will be subject to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
12.4. Click-Throughs. We may send email messages that use a “click-through URL” linked to content on our Website. When you click one of these URLs, you pass through our web server before arriving at the destination web page. We track this click-through data to help determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked, simply do not click text or graphic links in the email, or notify us in accordance with the Opt Out provisions above (Changing or Removing Information; Opting Out).
12.5. Banner Ads; Advertising Profiles. The Services may include the use of ad banner partners for the serving and/or targeting of ads, promotions, and other marketing messages. These ads may be provided, in some cases, by a third party ad service provider or advertiser ("Advertisers"). These Advertisers may use traditional banner ads, or other advertising methods, such as advertising using profiles and related Content. An Advertiser may place or utilize its own cookie on your browser, and may use Anonymous Information about your visit to our sites, such as the number of times you have viewed the ad. If the Advertiser requests that you provide to it Personally Identifiable Information, please be aware that this Advertiser's use and collection of this information will be governed by its own privacy policy, and not our Policy. We recommend that you review the Advertiser's privacy policy before providing Personally Identifiable Information.
12.6. Computer Configuration. In order to determine whether your computer is supported by our system, we may collect certain Anonymous Information. This information includes, but may not be limited to, your operating system and browser, as well as the presence of any software that our Site may require to operate with your computer, or other third party software on your computer. This information is kept strictly confidential and is not shared with third parties, except as provided for in this Privacy Policy.
- Any Information Linked With Your Personally Identifiable Information Is Protected As “Personally Identifiable Information”
To enable us to better understand the characteristics of our Registered Users and/or to provide services tailored to your needs, we may link (i) the Personally Identifiable Information a Registered User provides with (ii) Anonymous Information. If we combine or link any Anonymous Information or other information with your Personally Identifiable Information, the resulting combination will be treated and protected as Personally Identifiable Information under this Privacy Policy.
- Notice of Security Incident
If we detect, despite the safeguards set out above, an intrusion or other unauthorized access to or use of Personally Identifiable Information (an "Intrusion"), we will (i) notify affected users of the Intrusion if the information at issue is sensitive, in our discretion; (ii) deliver this notice by the means we deem most efficient under the circumstances (such as, for example, first class mail or email); (iii) use contact information for each affected user that is current in our files; and (iv) use commercially reasonable efforts to accomplish these steps and effect this notice in a timely manner. To the extent applicable law requires steps in addition to those specified above, we will under all circumstances comply with applicable law.
- Participation by Children and Teens; Advisory
Due to federal law (as reflected in the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act), WE DO NOT ALLOW INDIVIDUALS WHO WE KNOW ARE UNDER 18 TO PARTICIPATE IN OUR SITE OR SERVICES. YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD TO USE OUR SITE AND SERVICES.
- Notification of Changes
From time to time, we may change our Privacy Policy. If we make any changes regarding disclosure of Personally Identifiable Information to third parties, we will post the updated Terms on the Site and will indicate at the cover page of the document the date on which the Privacy Policy was last modified. We will post notice of the new Policy from the privacy link on our Site. With respect to Site Visitors, your use of our Site following any such change constitutes your agreement to follow and be bound by the Privacy Policy, as changed. The updated Privacy Policy will be effective as of the time of posting, or such later date as may be specified in the updated terms, and will apply to your use of any of our Service from that point forward. You understand and agree that your use of the Site and/or Services will at all times be governed by the then current version of the Privacy Policy in effect on the date of such use. By using the Site, you acknowledge and agree to review the then current version of the Privacy Policy prior to each such use. If at any time you do not agree to any revised terms, you should immediately stop using the Website and notify us that you do not agree to be bound by the newly updated terms. Otherwise, continued use of the Site after any modifications to the Privacy Policy have been posted to the Site, shall constitute your acknowledgment of, and binding agreement to, the then current updated terms of the Privacy Policy.
- Our Affiliates
We may choose to rely on and share information with companies closely related to us – our "Affiliates" – for certain purposes under this Privacy Policy. By "Affiliate," we mean an entity that controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with us, whether the control results from equity ownership, contract, overlapping management or otherwise. In this context, "control" means the ability to replace the officers or directors or otherwise materially influence or control management decisions. You agree that any Affiliates will be entitled to enjoy our rights under this Policy and, in exchange, we agree that we will be responsible for our Affiliate's conduct under this Policy, if our Affiliate fails to comply with any resulting obligations. In any event, we ensure that our Affiliates agree to protect Personally Identifiable Information in a manner no less protective of your interests than the protections set out in this Policy.
- Relationship to Terms of Use and Other Contracts; Incorporation of Terms of Use
This Privacy Policy must be read in conjunction with our Terms and Conditions of Use (also referred to as “Terms of Service”), and the provisions of our Terms and Conditions of Use are incorporated herein. To the extent the Terms and Conditions of Use conflict with the terms of this Privacy Policy, the terms of this Privacy Policy will control.
- Notice of Privacy Rights to California Residents
California law requires that we provide you with a summary of your privacy rights under the California Online Privacy Protection Act (the “Act”) and the California Business and Professions Code. As required by the Act, we will provide you with the categories of Personally Identifiable Information that we collect through the Website and the categories of third party persons or entities with whom such Personally Identifiable Information may be shared for direct marketing purposes at your request. California law requires us to inform you, at your request, (1) the categories of Personally Identifiable Information we collect and what third parties we share that information with; (2) the names and addresses of those third parties; and (3) examples of the products marketed by those companies. The Act further requires us to allow you to control who you do not want us to share that information with. To obtain this information, please send a request by email or standard mail to the address set out in Section 30 (Contact Us). When contacting us, please indicate your name, address, email address, and what Personally Identifiable Information you do not want us to share with Affiliated Businesses or Marketing Partners. The request should be labeled “California Customer Choice Notice.” Please allow 30 days for a response. Also, please note that there is no charge for controlling the sharing of your Personally Identifiable Information or requesting this notice.
- Third Party Links; Advertisers
We may allow certain corporations (other than Offering Companies), advertisers, and other entities to place ads and information on our Site (collectively, "Corporate Participants"). Although we have permitted the Corporate Participants to exchange information via the Site, we are not responsible for your choice to contact or do business with them. Your correspondence and dealings with Corporate Participants, and any other terms, conditions, warranties, or representations associated with such dealings, are solely between you and the Corporate Participant, and you agree that we shall not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage incurred as the result of your dealings with Corporate Participants or as the result of the presence of Corporate Participants on the Site.
- Termination; Duration of Rights
You are entitled to terminate this Privacy Policy at any point, by following the directions set out in Section 9.3 (Deleting Information). We will continue to protect your Personally Identifiable Information under the terms of this Privacy Policy, for the duration of the period that this Information is in our possession, or under our control. Our Terms of Use will survive a termination of this Privacy Policy (in accordance with their terms), and continue to govern any ongoing obligations or limitations on our relationship.
- Contact Us
If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, the practices of this Site, or your dealings with this Website, please contact us at sales@partsbytopher.com.