Information Collection and Use
The name 'the Company' refers to Santa Barbara Chocolate and or VanZeek. Information Collection The Company is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. The Company collects information from our users at several different points on our website.
Registration
In order to use this website, a user must first complete the registration form. During registration, a user is required to give contact information (such as name and email address). We use this information to contact the user about services on our site for which he or she has expressed interest.
Information Use
The Company and its operational service partners collect and use your personal information to operate and deliver the services you have requested. The Company also uses your personal information to inform you of other products or services available from The Company and its affiliates. The Company may also contact you via surveys to conduct research about your opinion of current services or of potential new services that may be offered.
The Company does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties. The Company may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your personal information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party.
We occasionally hire other companies to provide limited services on our behalf, such as handling the processing and delivery of mailings, providing customer support, processing transactions, or performing statistical analysis of our services. We will only provide those companies the personal information they need to deliver the service. They are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information and are prohibited from using that information for any other purpose.
The Company does not use or disclose sensitive personal information, such as race, religion, or political affiliations, without your explicit consent.
The Company may access and/or disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on the site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of The Company; or (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of this site or the public.
Profile
We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, clear gifs, and/or third parties to create a profile of our users. A profile is stored information that we keep on individual users that details their viewing preferences. Consequently, collected information is tied to the users personally identifiable information to provide special offers and to improve the content of the site for the user. This profile is used to tailor a user’s visit to our website, and to direct pertinent marketing promotions to them. We do not share your profile with other third parties. Your profile is shared in aggregate form only.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. For the session ID cookie, once users close the browser, the cookie simply terminates. A persistent cookie is a small text file stored on the user’s hard drive for an extended period of time. Persistent cookies can be removed by following Internet browser help file directions.
By setting a persistent cookie, a user does not need to log in each time he or she visits the site, thereby saving time while on our site. If users reject the persistent cookie, they may still use our site. In this case, we use a session ID cookie to allow access to restricted areas. If cookies are disabled, only non-restricted areas of the site will be accessible. Persistent cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site.
Some of our business partners use cookies on our site. However, we have no access to or control over these cookies, once we have given permission for them to set cookies for advertising.
Third Party Advertising
We do not currently partner with any third party ad servers.
This privacy statement covers the use of cookies by only The Company and does not cover the use of cookies by any advertisers.
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 aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc. are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Communications from the Site Special Offers and Updates
We may send new members a welcome email to verify password and username. Established members will occasionally receive information on products, services, special deals, and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users, we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see the Choice and Opt-out sections.
Newsletter
If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name and email address. Out of respect for our users' privacy, we provide a way to opt-out of these communications. Please see the Choice and Opt-out sections.
Service Announcements
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.
Customer Service
We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone, in accordance with the user's wishes.
Sharing Legal Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our website.
Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)
We do not currently share aggregated demographic information with our partners and advertisers.
Third Party Advertisers
We do not currently use third party advertisers.
Advertisers
We only share email addresses with our advertisers if the user elects the option from his account.
Service Providers
We partner with other third parties to provide specific services. For example, we use Digi Cert, Bank of America and Pay Pal to perform payment processing. When the user signs up for these particular services, we share names, or other contact information that is necessary for the third party to provide these services. These third parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing these services.
Business Transactions
In the event Vanzeek merges, is acquired by another company, or a portion of its assets is sold, users’ personal information will, in most instances, be part of the assets transferred.
Choice/Opt-out
Our users are given the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having their information used for purposes not directly related to our site.
Users who no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications may opt-out of receiving these communications by replying to the newsletter with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line of the email or email us directly with UNSUBSCRIBE in the subject line of the email. We also offer an opt-out mechanism on the account pages or the user may contact us using the contact information below to opt-out.
Users of our site are always notified when their information is being collected by any outside parties. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether or not they should proceed with services that require an outside party.
Links
This website may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we, The Company, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.
Surveys/Contests
From time-to-time, our site requests information from users via surveys or contests. Participation in these surveys or contests is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. The requested information typically includes contact information (such as name and address), and demographic information (such as zip code). Contact information will be used to notify the winners and award prizes. Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site. Users’ personally identifiable information is not shared with third parties unless we give prior notice and choice. Though we may use an intermediary to conduct these surveys or contests, they may not use users’ personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.
Tell a Friend
If a user elects to use our referral service for informing a friend or business about our site, we may ask for a name and email address. The Company will automatically send the friend an email inviting them to visit the site. The Company stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this email and tracking the success of our referral program. The friend may contact The Company to request the removal of this information from our database.
Chat Rooms, Message Boards, and Public Forums
Please keep in mind that whenever you voluntarily disclose personal information online - for example, on message boards, through email, or in chat areas - that information can be collected and used by others. In short, by posting personal information online that is publicly accessible, you may receive unsolicited messages from other parties in return.
Security
This website takes every precaution to protect our users’ information. When users submit sensitive information via the website, their information is protected both online and off-line.
When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information, that information is encrypted and is protected with the best encryption software in the industry - 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’. In addition to using SSL encryption for data transfer we also store sensitive information such as passwords in encrypted format.
We use 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. Our employees must use password-protected screen-savers when they leave their desk. When they return, they must re-enter their password to re-gain access to user information. Furthermore, ALL employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Every year, as well as any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our users’ information is protected. Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are in a secure environment, in a locked facility.
If users have any questions about the security at our website, users can send an email to Vanzeek.
Supplementation of Information
In order for this website to properly fulfill its obligation to users, it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from 3rd party sources.
Purchasing History
We do not currently share purchasing information with partners.
Enhancement of Marketing Profile
We purchase third party marketing data and add it to our existing user database to better target our advertising and provide pertinent offers we think our users would be interested in. We use this information to enhance or overlay the ‘profile’ of individual users. This aggregate marketing data is therefore tied to the users’ personally identifiable information. See also the 'Profile' section.
Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information
If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as postal code, phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate users’ personally identifiable information. This can done on the member account pages or by emailing our customer support or call us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below.
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 our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.
If, however, we are going to use users’ personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time of collection we will notify users by posting a notice on our website for 30 days.
All prices are subject to change without notice.
Contact Info
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at: info@santabarbarachocolate.com or toll free: 888.812.6262