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Columbia House Canada (referred to collectively herein, along with its Canadian affiliates, as "Columbia House", "we", "us" or "our") takes steps to ensure it meets privacy principles and requirements with respect to personal information under applicable Canadian privacy legislation. The purpose of this statement is to inform our customers and other individuals we deal with ("you" or "your") how we collect, use, disclose and protect your personal information. In particular it applies to our practices with respect to personal information of the members of Columbia House's various music, video, and DVD Clubs and visitors to our websites. Columbia House reserves the right to change this policy.
Personal information is information about an identifiable individual, as more particularly described under applicable privacy legislation. This statement applies to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information in Canada. This statement does not apply to information about our employees or to information that is not personal information. For example, this policy does not apply to aggregate information, which is general demographic information that does not identify any individual member. Columbia House may collect, use or disclose aggregate information for any purpose.
This Privacy Policy refers in various places to you contacting us in order to:
1) receive information or special offers
2) withdraw your consent to our retention, use and disclosure of your personal information
3) access or correct your personal information
4) receive a copy of the most current version of this Privacy Policy
5) communicate any questions, comments, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or the information practices of Columbia House.
You may contact us for any of these by:
1) writing to us, attention:
Privacy Officer
Columbia House
5900 Finch Avenue East,
Toronto ON M1B 5X7
2) calling 416-299-8181 (English) or 416-299-7477 (French) or the number listed in your Membership Agreement.
3) sending us an e-mail to cv_customer_service@columbiahousecanada.com (DVD Club English)
4) visiting the Customer Services area of our websites such as the "My Account" section at columbiahouse.ca (you will need to do this for each account, if you have more than one account).
5) faxing us at 416-299-2745, attention Privacy Officer, Columbia House.
6) as otherwise specified in this Privacy Policy.
Requests regarding access to or correction of personal information must be made in writing. If you wish to have your spouse, relative, or other trusted friend have access to your information, please write to us at Columbia House Canada, 5900 Finch Avenue East, Toronto ON M1B 5X7 or give us a call at the number provided in your Membership Agreement.
Columbia House and its agents and representatives collect personal information in a number of circumstances in connection with its music, video and DVD Clubs or any Clubs we may develop in the future. Personal information we collect includes:
name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and other contact information;
shipping and billing addresses and other shipment details about you or persons to whom you ship a gift or other merchandise;
member ID and account passwords;
credit card or other payment and financial information;
your listening, music, viewing and related preferences, age, gender, language, income and education and other demographic information, some of which may be optional;
personal information which you provide to us about others such as transmittal information that you may provide to us to use certain services such as "Tell A Friend" or "Get A Friend" services or when you send a gift;
information concerning your participation in loyalty or other special programs we may offer from time to time;
transaction and usage history including your shopping, purchases, traffic patterns, the pages you visit and related site usage inside our website and customer profiles;
information you provide in any registration form;
information you provide when you contact us by any means including online, by phone, or by mail;
personal information we receive from a company who has advised Columbia House that it has your consent to provide us with your personal information for marketing purposes;
such other information we may collect with consent or as permitted or required by law.
Columbia House generally uses personal information for the following purposes:
processing and reviewing your application for enrollment;
conducting credit checks with your consent;
performing our business operations, including processing and servicing member's orders and accounts including fulfilling purchases and billing, collecting payment and accounting for those purchases;
responding to your questions or enquiries;
carrying out the ongoing Club activities of our various Clubs such as our music and DVD Clubs including communicating with Club members about upcoming selections and Club benefits to recommend relevant or special offers, and to send newsletter, news about artists and other announcements and commercial offerings we think my interest you As a Club member you agreed to receive these communications, and it is how your membership works; If you joined Columbia House through one of our online sites, you will receive our electronic newsletters unless you have opted out;
sending order confirmations and status reports, reminders, promotional information about Club news, products and special offers;
personalizing Columbia House mailings and your experience when visiting our websites such as by presenting you with offerings and benefits that we think will be of interest to you based on your listening or other preferences you have indicated to us or your usage or purchase history;
keeping your credit card on file for future purchases unless you tell us not to;
inviting prior members of one of our Clubs to rejoin or inviting you to join another of our Clubs if you are already a member of another Club. We may contact you by telephone unless you have opted out;
investigating complaints and protecting Columbia House and its members, in compliance with the law, your Membership Agreement(s) and Columbia House policies;
sending you communications on behalf of third parties that we think may offer goods or services that may be of interest to you unless you have opted out;
unless you have opted out, providing your contact particulars (e-mail and postal address) to other marketers of products or services;
unless you have opted out communicating with you for the purposes described above via an e-mail address provided by you;
marketing the goods and services we provide;
managing, administering, collecting or otherwise enforcing accounts;
maintaining business records including records concerning rejected membership applications for reasonable periods in case you apply again, and generally managing and administering our business;
meeting legal, regulatory, insurance, security and processing requirements; and
otherwise with consent or as permitted or required by law.
Columbia House discloses personal information in the following circumstances:
to manage and administer member's accounts including to process credit card, cheques or other forms of payment;
to manage and administer our business including to enforce our membership and user agreements;
as permitted by law to protect the rights, property or safety of Columbia House or its employees, representatives, agents and affiliates;
to enforce any debts that you may owe to us;
with your consent to conduct credit checks when you enrol and from time to time;
with your consent to other marketers of products or services including online marketers;
to third party customer reward programs which Columbia House may make available from time to time which you wish to participate in;
to our affiliates (including outside of Canada) for internal audit, management, billing, insurance, regulatory or administrative purposes;
as necessary to meet legal, regulatory, insurance, audit, processing and security requirements, with your consent, or as permitted or required by law such as where we are required to do so by subpoena, court order, warrant or legally permitted inquiry by a government agency.
Service Providers. Personal information may also be transferred to third party agents or service providers we engage to provide various services such as: hosting and maintaining our websites, ad-serving (placing third party ads on our sites), providing certain merchandise you purchase; mailing; providing some of the services you use on our websites; managing some of our internal operations such as data analysis, site activity data collection and e-mails; customer service and fulfillment vendors; call centre, administrative, billing or other processing services on our behalf, some of which may be located outside of Canada. Some of our services may be provided through facilities operated by our affiliates including in the U.S. or elsewhere outside of Canada. We take reasonable measures to ensure that your personal information that may be collected, used, disclosed or otherwise processed by these service providers or our affiliates on our behalf is protected and not used or disclosed for purposes other than as directed by Columbia House, subject to legal requirements in foreign jurisdictions applicable to those organizations, for example, lawful requirements to disclose personal information to government authorities in those countries.
Business Transactions. Personal information may be used by Columbia House and disclosed to parties connected with the contemplated or actual financing, securitization, insuring, sale, assignment or other disposal of all or part of Columbia House or our business or assets, for the purposes of evaluating and/or performing the proposed transaction. These purposes may include:
permitting those parties to determine whether to proceed or continue with the transaction
fulfilling reporting, inspection or audit requirements or obligations to those parties
permitting the use and disclosure of your personal information by those parties (for example, assignees) for substantially the same purposes as described in this privacy statement.
External Sites. Columbia House may run sweepstakes with selected third parties or place advertisements or other promotional offers from select companies on our websites, in our e-mails or in our mailings. When you choose to participate in these sweepstakes or promotional offers, you may link to these businesses' websites or otherwise be asked to give them personal information such as via an entry ballot, or we may send over your personal information if you have provided it to us for that purpose such as when you enter a third party sweepstakes via one of our websites. These businesses operate independently from Columbia House. Any personal information that is given to them is at your option and is no longer controlled by us or our Privacy Policy.
We may use third-party advertising companies to serve ads on our behalf on our sites. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as "single pixel gifs" or "web beacons") to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags is generally not personally identifiable (unless, for example, you provide personally identifiable information to them through an ad or e-mail message). If you choose to take advantage of opportunities and provide your personal information to these third party sites, we encourage you to read these businesses' privacy policies if you should have any concerns about how they will care for your personal information.
If a member enters our pages from the site of one of Columbia House's partners, our system will recognize the path the visitor has taken. Columbia House advertises on such partners' sites or we've entered into a promotional partnership with them. We track the number of visitors to see the success of our online marketing or promotional campaign. These partners will not know your personal information, unless you are notified in advance, if you have given it to them separately or consented to give it to them through us. In cases where such partners have access to your information, we contractually bind them to handle it in accordance with their posted privacy statements.
We may provide links for your convenience to third party websites. Please note we are not responsible for the content on any such third party websites and you should review those sites' privacy policies before providing any personal information.
Consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information may be given in various ways. Consent can be express (for example, orally, electronically or on a form you may sign describing the intended uses and disclosures of personal information) or implied (for example, when you provide information necessary for a service you have requested). You may provide your consent in some circumstances where notice has been provided to you about our intentions with respect to your personal information and you have not withdrawn your consent for an identified purpose, such as by using an "opt out" option provided, if any. Consent may be given by your authorized representative (such as a legal guardian or a person having a power of attorney). Generally, by providing us with personal information, we will assume that you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of such information for the purposes identified or described in this privacy statement, if applicable, or otherwise at the time of collection. You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information at any time, subject to contractual and legal restrictions and reasonable notice. For example, you cannot withdraw consent to our use of your personal information necessary for us to collect, use and disclose to ensure that you fulfill your membership obligation to purchase, within the given time limit, the number of regular Club price selections specified at the time you enrolled or to our collection of a debt that you owe us. Note that if you withdraw your consent to certain uses of your personal information, we may no longer be able to provide certain of our products or services.
All Club members may also decline to receive optional electronic and other Club newsletters in addition to the material you agree to receive (either by postal mail or e-mail) as part of your membership. If you wish to have your name removed from or added to our e-mail list, or you want to sign up for additional Club newsletters by e-mail, please visit the E-mail Preferences section of the Account Info area of our site. If you change your mind about receiving e-mail or a particular newsletter, simply go back to edit your preferences. We also provide e-mail opt-out information in our e-mails.
We also may call you with special offers, for example, to join one of our other Clubs. If you do not wish to receive such phone calls please write to us, including any and all Club account numbers you have, at: Columbia House Canada, 5900 Finch Avenue, East Toronto, ON M1B 5X7 or give us a call at the number provided in your Membership Agreement or exercise any opt-out offered at the time of enrollment.
We make our postal mailing list available to selected companies whose products and services we think you may enjoy. Columbia House may send e-mail communications to members on behalf of other marketers of goods or services. If you do not want your name, address, e-mail address or other personal information to be used for such purposes, please visit the E-mail Preferences section of the Account Info area of our site or write to us, including any and all Club account numbers you have, at: Columbia House Canada, 5900 Finch Avenue, East, Toronto ON M1B 5X7 or give us a call at the number provided in your Membership Agreement or exercise any opt-out offered at the time of enrollment. If you change your mind, simply go back to edit your preferences or contact us in one of the ways indicated. We also provide e-mail opt-out information in our e-mails.
We protect your personal information using physical, electronic or procedural security measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the information in our custody or control, which may include safeguards to protect against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. Authorized employees, agents and mandataries of Columbia House who require access to your personal information in order to fulfil their job requirements will have access to your personal information.
We use industry standard encryption technology to help to safeguard your transactions. The technology used is SSL (Secure Socket Layer), which is supported by all web browsers that are version 4.0 or newer. Your information, including your credit card information, is encrypted as it travels over the Internet using encryption strengths that are standard in the industry. Upon our receipt, it is stored on restricted-access computers. Please be careful whenever sending personal information to us via the "Contact Customer Service" feature or other contact features on our websites or by e-mail. For example, do not send us your account password or credit card information via these methods, as they are not a secure means of transferring information. Our employees with access to your personal information are trained to follow specific practices concerning its proper handling. We have designed our websites not to display your full credit card information.
Your account is password-protected. You must use your password to submit an order or view your personal information in your account. Our sites are designed to sign you out automatically if your session remains inactive for a period of time. Currently that period of time is 20 minutes. If you share a computer, we recommend that you always sign out before leaving it unattended.
When you visit our websites, we may collect technical information that does not, by itself, identify a specific individual. This information may include, for example, the address (or "URL") of the website that you came from before visiting the site, which pages you visit on the site, which computer platform, monitor, web browser and related software and settings you used to view the site and any search terms you have entered on the site or a referral site. This technical information is aggregated and used to measure and improve the effectiveness of our sites. We may collect your IP (Internet Protocol) address and/or domain name to help diagnose problems with our server, administer our sites, see where our sites traffic is coming from. We may also collect other information via our sites, such as site usage activity and preferences, also known as demographic or profile data.
We may use "cookies" (described in more detail below) and clear GIFs on our sites or in our e-mail communications with you to enhance the functionality of our sites and to make your transactions and other activities more customized, convenient and efficient. We may use cookies, for example, to remember user preferences, show you hot new releases based on your preferences, alert you to new website features, or tell you what your featured Selection is, to minimize the need for you to re-enter information, and to store information about your activities on our site and other technical information. Cookies and/or clear GIFs may be placed by or third party service providers, who provide these services on our behalf.
Cookies are small pieces of information that we may send through your browser or other software to your hard drive. A cookie lets us recognize you and provide a more meaningful and personalized shopping experience when you come back to our sites.
Most web browsers are set to accept cookies automatically, but you can change this setting. However, you may need to leave your cookies "on" in order to take full advantage of the features of our sites. If your cookies are "off", see your browser's "help topics" to learn how to change the setting. Additionally, in the event that we use Flash cookies, your Flash layer can be set to accept, reject or delete them.
Columbia House may establish and maintain a file of your personal information for the purposes described above, which will be accessible at 5900 Finch Avenue East, Toronto ON, M1B 5X7. If you wish to request access or correction of your personal information in our custody or control, you may write to the above address, attention Privacy Officer. Your right to access or correct your personal information is subject to applicable legal restrictions. If you wish to make inquiries or complaints or have other concerns about our personal information practices, you may contact us as indicated in this Privacy Policy.
If you're not a member, but you've been contacted by Columbia House, we may have received your information in a few different ways. First, another member may have referred you under our "Get A Friend" or "Sign Up A Friend" programs. For the online program, members will give us your name and e-mail address in order for them to customize an invitation for you to join one or more of our Clubs. You also may receive similarly customized, e-mail reminders from your friend about this invitation. If your friend has submitted your information offline, you will hear from us offline as well. Either way, if you apply for membership, your information will be used in accordance with the rest of this privacy policy. If you choose not to apply online, your e-mail address will not be retained.
You may have received an offer from us, whether through postal mail, by phone or by e-mail. If you were a prior member of one of our Clubs, we may have invited you back. (We may also invite you to join another one of our Clubs if you're already a member of another Club. Please read above for how we handle that information.) Columbia House may also have received your information from one of our partners or from the mailing, opt-in e-mailing, or phone lists of a reputable company who advises us that you have consented to receiving marketing materials. If you do not want to be included in these lists in the future, please contact us or visit the consumer assistance page of the Canadian Marketing Association website (http://www.the-cma.org). There you will find information on how to choose your mail, e-mail, and telemarketing preferences.
Joining a Columbia House Club can be a fun and enjoyable family experience. Columbia House believes that parents should supervise their children's use of products sold through our Clubs, and in their online activities. We provide parental assistance such as explicit content advisories and the studios' and television ratings. Our policy is not to knowingly enrol persons under the age of majority into our Canadian clubs.
This privacy statement may be revised from time to time. If we intend to use or disclose personal information for purposes materially different than those described in this statement, we will make reasonable efforts to notify affected individuals in advance, if necessary. If you are concerned about how your personal information is used, you should contact us as described above or check our website periodically to obtain a current copy of this privacy policy.
Please contact Customer Service by writing to Columbia House Canada, 5900 Finch Avenue, East, Toronto ON M1B 5X7, calling the phone number provided in your Membership Agreement, or visiting the
Customer Service
area of our website.
This privacy policy was lasted updated May, 2006.
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