Our Privacy Policy
Our commitment to the highest level of integrity in dealing with our customers at Plantwink extends beyond the highest quality products and services that we sell. We are also committed to protecting the privacy of our customers in their interactions with us through our website.
Commitment to Privacy
This Privacy Policy is designed to assist you in understanding how we collect, use and safeguard any data and personal information we receive or that you provide to us. This Privacy Policy is also designed to assist you in making informed decisions when using our site, products and services. The policy outlines our practices in:
- Collecting information about you;
- Using and protecting information that we collect;
- Sharing information that we collect;
- Receiving your feedback about our privacy practices; and
- Communicating policy changes.
Read on to learn how we use data and your personal information and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to review and correct, the information.
Collecting Information About You
In general, you can visit the Plantwink website without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. Our web servers track the Internet domain address from which people visit us and analyze this data for trends and statistics, but data about individual users visiting the website is limited in nature and you will remain anonymous, unless you voluntarily tell us who you are.
There may be times (such as when you place an order, sign up to receive catalogs or email newsletters, or participate in contests, sweepstakes or promotions) when we ask you to provide certain personal information about yourself, such as your name, shipping and billing addresses, telephone number, email address, and/or credit card information. We also maintain a record of online purchases from our website. Whether or not to provide such information is completely your own choice. But if you choose not to provide the information we request, you may be unable to make purchases, participate in special offers, or access certain content on our website.
Cookies
The Plantwink website uses “cookies.” A cookie is a small amount of data that is sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Generally, we use cookies to remind us of who you are, tailor our products and services to suit your personal interests, estimate our audience size, assist our online merchants in tracking visits, process your order, track your status in our promotions, contests and sweepstakes, and/or analyze your visiting patterns. You can generally set your browser to not accept cookies or to notify you when you are sent a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether or not to accept it. However, by not accepting cookies, this may affect or impede your ability to shop on our site. We may contract with third parties who may use cookies and collect information on our behalf. These third parties are prohibited by our contract with them from sharing that information with anyone other than us or other designated service providers.
For informational purposes, here are the types of cookies that Plantwink may use through its website:
- Session Cookies: A session cookie is temporarily placed within your browser while you are using the browser to use the Internet. Session cookies are erased once the browser is closed. Session cookies may be used, for example, to store and prepopulate information in a product checkout process so that you only have to enter certain information once before other parts to a form (for example) are automatically populated.
- Persistent Cookies: A persistent cookie is stored on your computer’s hard drive for a set period of time before the cookie is erased. Persistent cookies may (among other functions) assist Plantwink in measuring use of the website by helping us track if you are a repeat visitor to the site. Persistent cookies can also be used to support advertising banners, including ones managed by third parties, in order to present advertising content that is more relevant to your expressed interests and browsing history.
- Web Beacons: A web beacon (also called a clear gif or page tag) is another mechanism Plantwink may use to track website activity. While different from cookies, web beacons act in similar ways and often in conjunction with cookies. A web beacon may be an unobtrusive object embedded into a page that helps to log information (e.g., accounting for page requests by browsers).
Using Information About You
Plantwink will use the data and personal information you provide for internal purposes, such as confirming and tracking your order or registration, analyzing trends and statistics, informing you about our products, services and special offers, and providing you with information from and about Plantwink To serve you better, we may combine information you give us online, over the phone or through the mail. We may also combine that information with publicly available information and information we receive from others, such as our Marketing Partners. We use that combined information to enhance and personalize your shopping experience with us, to communicate with you about our products and special offers that may be of interest to you, and for other promotional purposes.
For sake of simplicity, here is a range of uses we may make of the information we collect from you:
- Provide and deliver products and services and fulfill your orders;
- Process, record and track your purchases, payments, returns, warranties, and rebates;
- Communicate with you through channels such as email, phone or text message;
- Evaluate and respond to your requests, inquiries, and applications;
- Create and manage account registrations, such as a Plantwink user account;
- Conduct and administer sweepstakes, surveys, promotions, and contests;
- Customize your online experiences, including customized advertisements and offers;
- Publish product reviews as submitted through the website or mail by you and other customers;
- Operate and improve our business, products, and services (such as product development, performance of market research, data analytics, and billing, reconciliation and collection activities);
- Guard against and work to prevent fraud and unauthorized transactions; and
- Comply with and enforce applicable legal requirements, industry standards, and our policies and contractual terms.
Mobile Marketing
We send mobile offers and promotions to mobile devices of customers who have requested to receive them via an opt-in request. Message and data rates may apply. To stop receiving these messages at any time, contact Plantwink customer service
Security
We use encryption and authentication tools to protect the security of your personal information that you share with us. Unfortunately, however, much like offline transactions, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we take every precaution to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you transmit to or from our website. By sending your personal information to us through the website, you accept the risks inherent with Internet communications and transmissions. Once we receive your personal information, we exercise administrative, technical, and physical safeguards to protect its security on our systems. We urge you to keep any password you use for the Plantwink website in a safe place and not to divulge it to anyone. Also remember to close your browser window when you have finished your visit to our website. This is to ensure that others cannot access your account, especially if you are sharing a computer with someone else or are using a computer in a public place such as a library or hotel.
Protecting Children
Plantwink takes special care to protect the safety and privacy of children. Our websites are general audience sites. We do not intend to nor knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. It is our policy, in compliance with the requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), not to collect information online about or from children age 13 and under. We also do not send email or regular US Mail correspondence to anyone under the age of 13 without their parent’s consent. Children under the age of 13 should always ask their parents or guardians for permission before providing any personal information to anyone online and should then do so only under supervision of their parents or guardians. We urge parents and guardians to participate in their children’s online activities and use parental control or other web filtering technology to supervise children’s access to the web. If a child under the age of 13 has provided us with personal information, we ask that a parent or guardian contact us so we can delete that personal information.
Sharing Information About You
From time to time we might establish a business relationship with other persons or entities whom we believe trustworthy and whom we have confirmed or required that their privacy policies are consistent with ours. These are known as our Marketing Partners. In the course of such business relationships, we might share and cross-reference information, including personal information about you, that will enable such persons or entities to contact you regarding products and services that may be of interest to you. Additional details are described below regarding online advertising. We may also share personal information with third party marketing partners for their own marketing purposes.
We may contract with companies or persons to provide certain services including credit card processing, shipping, data management, promotional services, etc. We call them our Service Providers. We provide our Service Providers with the information needed for them to perform these services, including your personal information when necessary. Although unlikely, in certain instances we may disclose your personal information when we have reason to believe that it is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against persons or entities who may be causing injury to you, to Plantwink or to others. We may also disclose your personal information when the law requires it.