Last updated: March 4, 2003
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MountainZone.com knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This notice describes our privacy policy.
By visiting MountainZone.com, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.
The information we learn from visitors helps us personalize and continually improve your experience at MountainZone.com. Here are the types of information we gather.
- Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customizing future services for you, improving our site, and communicating with you.
- Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many Web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses MountainZone.com. A number of companies offer utilities designed to help you visit Web sites anonymously. Although we will not be able to provide you with a personalized experience at MountainZone.com if we cannot recognize you, we want you to be aware that these tools exist.
- E-mail Communications: To help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail from MountainZone.com if your computer supports such capabilities. We also may compare our email list to lists received from other companies, in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our visitors. If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, you can simply unsubscribe from any at any time.
- Information from Other Sources: We might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information.
- Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser and to provide features such as personalized greetings, and storage of items in your Shopping Cart between visits.
- 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 cookies altogether. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of MountainZone.com's coolest features, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.
Information about our visitors is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others. We share customer information only as described below and with subsidiaries MountainZone.com controls that either are subject to this Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Notice.
- Affiliated Businesses We Do Not Control: We work closely with our affiliated businesses. In some cases, such as our Marketplace by REI and Auctions, these businesses operate stores at MountainZone.com or sell offerings to you at MountainZone.com. In other cases, we operate stores, provide services, or sell product lines jointly with these businesses. You can tell when a third party is involved in your transactions, and we share customer information related to those transactions with that third party.
- Agents: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments, and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.
- Promotional Offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of MountainZone.com customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address.
- Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores, subsidiaries, or business units. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Notice (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise). Also, in the unlikely event that MountainZone.com or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets.
- Protection of MountainZone.com and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of MountainZone.com, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction. Obviously, however, this does not include selling, renting, sharing, or otherwise disclosing personally identifiable information from customers for commercial purposes in violation of the commitments set forth in this Privacy Notice.
- With Your Consent: Other than as set out above, you will receive notice when information about you might go to third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.
- We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input.
- We reveal only the last five digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.
- It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.
If you choose to visit MountainZone.com, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Notice and our Conditions of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the state of Washington. If you have any concern about privacy at MountainZone.com, please send us a thorough description to feedback@MountainZone.com, and we will try to resolve it.
Our business changes constantly, and our Privacy Notice and the Conditions of Use will change also. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our Web site frequently to see recent changes. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Notice applies to all information that we have about you and your account. We stand behind the promises we make, however, and will never materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of customer information collected in the past without the consent of affected customers.
You provide most such information when you search, participate in a contest or questionnaire, or communicate with customer service. For example, you provide information when you search for a subject or keyword; place an order through MountainZone.com or one of our third-party sellers; make an Auction bid or purchase; or communicate with us by phone, e-mail, or otherwise; complete a questionnaire or a contest entry form; participate in Discussion Boards or MountainZone.com Chat; provide and rate Reviews; and MountainZone.com Alerts. As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as your name, address, and phone numbers; credit card information; people to whom purchases have been shipped, including addresses and phone number; people (with addresses and phone numbers).
Examples of the information we collect and analyze include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type and version, operating system, and platform; purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from other customers.
Examples of information you can access easily at MountainZone.com include up-to-date information regarding recent orders; personally identifiable information (including name, e-mail, password, communications preferences and address book); payment settings (including credit card information and gift certificate, gift card, and check balances); e-mail notification settings, recommendations (including recent product view history, prior order history, and Favorites) and shopping lists.
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