Epsilon Privacy Policy - Last revised March 6, 2007
Epsilon is a leading provider of multi-channel marketing services, technologies, database and data solutions. This Privacy Policy (also referred to herein as our "Policy") has been created by Epsilon as part of our commitment to data protection and privacy. Because you may provide us with personal information, we have developed this Policy to inform you of Epsilon's practices concerning such information. If you have additional questions about this Policy, please click here. If you would like to optout of the Abacus cooperative database, please click here.
Epsilon's Privacy Policy
Additional Important Privacy Information
Epsilon's Privacy Policy
What Personal Information Does Epsilon Collect?
Epsilon uses the information it collects to improve your experience with Epsilon, including personalizing and enhancing the experience we provide to you on our web site. The types of information we may collect about you include:
- Information You Give Us. We receive and store any information you enter on our web site, through registration and other forms, or give us in any other way. This may include you name, the company you work for, postal address, email address, telephone number, marketing preferences, and other information.
- Information From Other Sources. We may receive information about you from other sources. If you provide information to Epsilon, we may collect additional information about you, including information about you from Epsilon affiliates and other sources. For more information, read about Fair Information Practices below.
- Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with our web sites. For example, like many web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information when your web browser accesses Epsilon's web sites. This may include individual and aggregate visitor preferences and session information, as well as information such as your IP address and the browser you are using. There are a number of utilities designed to help you visit web sites, including ours, anonymously. Our use of cookies is described in greater detail in the following section.
What Are Cookies And How Does Epsilon Use Them?
A cookie is a text-only string of information that a web site transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer's hard disk so that the website can remember who you are. A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the "lifetime" of the cookie, and a value, usually a randomly generated unique number. Many cookies last only through a single session, or visit. Others may have an expiration date, or may remain on your computer until you delete them. Cookies can help a web site to arrange content to match you r preferred interests more quickly and also to improve the user experience. Most major web sites use cookies.
Web beacons may be used to monitor web site traffic in conjunction with cookies. A web beacon is a graphic on a web page or in an email message designed to track pages viewed and messages opened. Web beacons are often invisible because they are typically only 1-pixel by 1-pixel in size. We may place Web beacons on our web pages to collect data about visitors. When a user requests an Epsilon web page, a web beacon may be retrieved/activated. Once the Web beacon is retrieved/activated, it points to an external site to retrieve the image. At that time it can also pass along information such as the IP address of the computer that retrieved the image, the time the Web beacon was viewed and for how long, and the type of browser that retrieved the image. This information can then be compiled and made available to Epsilon. Web beacons, along with cookies, enable us to enhance your experience on the Epsilon site. Turning off the browser's cookies will prevent web beacons from tracking your specific activity. The web beacon may still record an anonymous visit from your IP address, but unique information will not be recorded (information on how to turn off cookies provided below).
- How Does Epsilon Use Cookies? We use cookies for a number of purposes - for example, to maintain continuity during a user session, to gather data about the usage of our web site for research and other purposes, to store your preferences for certain kinds of information and marketing offers, or to store a username or encrypted customer identification number so that you do not have to provide this information every time you return to our site. We may share some cookie information we gather with Epsilon affiliate companies. Our cookies may be, but typically are not, used to gather personally identifiable information including what site pages a visitor accesses.
Our Web site also uses Omniture, a third party, to track and analyze usage and volume statistical information (which does not include personally identifiable information) from visitors to the Web site to help us continue to improve the quality of our Web site. Omniture uses cookies to help track visitor behavior and sets cookies on behalf of Epsilon. Omniture does not use cookies to relate Web site visitors to any personally identifiable information. Omniture provides Epsilon with information about site usage that reflects individual behavior of visitors, but not their identity. All data collected by Omniture on behalf of Epsilon is used only to provide us with information on site usage and is not shared with any other third parties. To view the privacy policy of Omniture, click here. If you do not wish to allow your session visitation information to be aggregated and analyzed by Omniture, you may utilize the opt out mechanism found under the heading "OPT OUT METHOD" by clicking here.
- How Can I Prevent The Use of Cookies? You can decide if and how your computer will accept a cookie by configuring your preferences or options in your browser. The Help portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable or delete cookies altogether. However, please note that if you choose to reject cookies, you may not be able to use certain online services or web site features.
Does Epsilon Share the Information It Receives?
Epsilon does not sell, rent, loan, trade or lease any personal information without prior consent.
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and to our affiliate companies who may be able to address or respond to your inquiries. All Epsilon affiliates are committed to protecting your privacy and will uphold the commitments ma de in this Policy. Epsilon may also share the information with an affiliate company or another company in relation to a sale or consolidation of Epsilon 's assets, provided, however, that such companies agree to honor all of the privacy commitments set forth in this Policy.
What Choices Do I Have?
Epsilon maintains an email marketing newsletter list (Insight) to communicate with our clients and prospects. Individuals must affirmatively ask to join our mailing list by opting-in on the Epsilon Web site. We do not sell, rent, loan, trade or lease the addresses on our list to anyone. All email messages sent to this list include an opportunity to unsubscribe or opt-out of receiving future Insight newsletters.
Epsilon maintains a postal mailing list to communicate with our clients and prospects. We do not sell, rent, loan, trade or lease our list to anyone. You can request to be removed from our mailing list by contacting us via email. You may also request to be removed from our mailing list at the postal address below:
Epsilon
ATTN: Privacy Officer
16 West 20th Street
New York, NY 10011
Can I Access & Correct My Personal Information?
If you would like to update your information please go to the Contact Us window and submit a new form with updated contact information. Any Profile updates or changes will take place within a 24-hour period.
To request access to the information we have about you, please send a request via email. Epsilon will respond within 30 days.
How Is Information About Me Kept Secure?
We protect information we collect about you by maintaining physical, electronic and procedural safeguards. All information is secure and may be accessed only by key staff members of Epsilon. Epsilon does not request sensitive information (such as a credit card number and/ or social security number). We take every precaution to protect your information both online and offline. Periodically, our employees are notified about the importance we place on privacy and security, and what they can do to ensure our clients' information is protected. The servers on which we store data are kept in a secure environment. If you have any questions about security, click here to send an email.
How Will I Know About Changes to This Policy?
Epsilon may revise this Policy from time to time. If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, or by means of a notice on our home page. You should bookmark and periodically review this page to ensure that you are familiar with the most current version of this Policy. You can determine when this Policy was last revised by checking the "Last Revised" legend at the top of the Policy.
Additional Important Privacy Information
How Does Epsilon Protect the Privacy of Information It Collects and Manages on Behalf of Its Clients?
Epsilon works with the world's leading marketers (our clients) to develop direct mail and permission-based email marketing communications to send to their customers (client's customers/consumers). Epsilon also creates database technology solutions and strategic data/list solutions for its clients.
Epsilon's role in supporting our clients may include hosting client data, compiling or procuring prospect/acquisition data for our clients, delivery of direct mail or email, tracking results of direct mail or email campaigns, analysis of data, hosting of response data collection sites, and transferring collected data back to our clients or to an Epsilon hosted database.
Epsilon treats all client customer data as confidential. Epsilon is contractually bound to keep our clients' customer data private and this data is never shared across clients or with any third-party that is not authorized by a client to receive its customer data. Epsilon only uses its client's customer data for the specific purpose of providing services to its clients as authorized by our clients. It is our client's responsibility (as a user of our products and services) to provide proper notice to its customers/consumers with regard to any required notices as to its data collection and data use practices, including any email or internet tracking devices.
Epsilon may, however, share our client's customer data with an Epsilon affiliate company or another company if such sharing is in connection with providing services to our clients, or in relation to a sale or consolidation of Epsilon's assets, provided, however, that all such companies agree to honor all of the privacy commitments set forth in this Policy and have demonstrated appropriate levels of their ability to so protect the privacy of our client's data.
Some of our clients independently use Epsilon's technology platforms to design and send their direct mail or email campaigns without the involvement Epsilon support staff. Epsilon informs all of its clients in writing about its stringent Policy against sending unsolicited commercial email, or sending direct mail in a manner not consistent with Direct Marketing Association (DMA) guidelines. In addition, before companies can use Epsilon technology to send email, they must commit to us in writing that consumers have agreed to receive such email messages. If problems arise with a client's direct mail or email campaign, Epsilon works with the client to resolve the problems and may prevent the use of its products and services by such client for further direct mail or email campaigns until the problems are corrected. If Epsilon determines that a client has knowingly used its system s for sending unsolicited commercial email, or direct mail in a manner inconsistent with DMA guidelines, it will immediately revoke the client's permission to send direct mail or email using our products or our systems.
EU Safe Harbor
The collection of personal information in the European Union is governed by Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995. This Directive addresses the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal information and on the free movement of such information, as well as the national legislation of European Union Member states (EU). For more information, see http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/privacy/index_en.htm.
The following Epsilon entities, Epsilon Data Management, LLC and Alliance Data FHC, Inc., trading as Epsilon Interactive International are safe harbor certified and participate in the EU Safe Harbor Privacy Framework as set forth by the United States Department of Commerce. As part of our participation in the safe harbor, we have agreed to TRUSTe dispute resolution for disputes relating to our compliance with the Safe Harbor Privacy Framework. If you have any complaints regarding our compliance with the Safe Harbor you should first contact us.
If contacting us does not resolve your complaint, you may raise your complaint with TRUSTe by:
If you are faxing or mailing TRUSTe to lodge a complaint, you must include the following information:
- The name of company
- The alleged privacy violation
- Your contact information
- And whether you would like the particulars of your complaint shared with the company.
For information about TRUSTe or the operation of TRUSTe's dispute resolution process, see http://www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php or request this information from TRUSTe at any of the addresses listed above. The TRUSTe dispute resolution process shall be conducted in English.
TRUSTe Privacy Program
Epsilon is a licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent organization whose mission is to build users' trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. For more information on TRUSTe, please click here. Because Epsilon wants to demonstrate its commitment to its clients and consumers' privacy, its privacy practices have been reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.
If you feel that Epsilon is not abiding by its posted privacy Policy, you should first contact Epsilon's Privacy Administrator by email.
If you do not receive acknowledgment of your inquiry or your inquiry has not been addressed to your satisfaction, you can then contact TRUSTe. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison to Epsilon for prompt complaint resolution.
Fair Information Practices
Epsilon, or it subsidiaries, may collect data off-line directly from consumers or from other data collection sources in order to compile acquisition lists of various consumers who may be interested in receiving marketing materials from Epsilon clients. Epsilon respects and promotes consumer privacy and is committed to maintaining the balance between the legitimate information needs of businesses and the concerns of individuals and the public at large about fair information practices. In its consumer data collection practices, Epsilon and all business with whom Epsilon associates, employ the following fair information practices.
Fair Information practices used by Epsilon and its data providers:
- Collection of relevant and socially legitimate information from reputable sources
- Taking reasonable steps to assure the accuracy of information, including permitting individuals to correct inaccuracies or inform the source of the correct information
- Safeguarding information by restricting access to only those who have a legitimate need and right to access the information
- Taking reasonable steps to protect against the misuse of non-public information
- Informing customers of how information is used
- Maintaining systems to protect information from unauthorized access, including using industry standard secure socket layer ("SSL") encryption when transmitting sensitive information over the public Internet
- Educating employees on the importance of privacy issues and requirements
Platform for Privacy Preferences ("P3P")
This Policy is the sole authorized statement of Epsilon's practices with respect to the collection of information through this web sit e and the subsequent use and disclosure of such information. Any summaries of this Policy generated by third party software or otherwise (for example, in connection with the "Platform for Privacy Preferences" of "P3P") shall have no legal effect, are in no way binding upon alliance, and shall not be relied upon in substitute for this Policy, and neither supersede nor modify this Policy.
Links To Other Web Sites
This Web site contains links to other sites. The inclusion of any link does not imply our endorsement of the external site company, its web site, or the products and services it promotes and sells. Please be aware that Epsilon is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by Epsilon.
