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Seeds of Change Privacy Policy
General Terms and Conditions
A Special Note to Parents
Seeds of Change Privacy Policy
We care about your privacy. We want to tell you in detail about the Internet policies and practices which we have adopted to protect your privacy so that you can feel confident about how we handle the personal information you entrust to us on-line. The server(s) that make(s) this site available may be located outside the country from which you accessed this site, but we will collect, process and use personal information only in accordance with this policy.
While we do not intend to make changes to our policies very often, it is always a good idea to double check when you visit our site to be sure that you have read and agree with our most current policy statement. We will not make any changes that have retroactive effect unless legally required to do so.
The content on our site may include, among other items of interest, entertainment, games, recipes, surveys, sweepstakes, and contests, and may also include advertising and opportunities to shop on-line. We may also provide information on our company and our products. We hope that you enjoy our site and will come back often to visit!
When Do We Collect Personal Information?
We only collect personally identifiable data, such as names, addresses, e-mail addresses, hobby or activity information, demographic information (age, gender, etc.), taste or preference information, and the like, when voluntarily submitted by a visitor. Visitors may choose to submit personal information to enter contests, to obtain information or submit a comment, to register for a loyalty program or chat room, or to place an order. We make a special effort to advise children to get parental permission before providing information or ordering anything on-line, and urge parents to supervise their children's on-line use. We may ask for age information from children so that we can provide age-relevant content and fulfill certain legal obligations; if we learn we are dealing with a child, we may ask for the e-mail address of a parent and make an effort to contact them to determine if the child has permission to provide information to us. We have special policies in place for children. Please see the "Special Note to Parents" link on our home page.
What Do We Do With The Information?
Providing personal information is up to you, our visitor. We collect personally identifiable information to enter you in contests and notify you of results, to e-mail you with updates and news, to respond to your questions or comments, to register you for certain features, and/or to send out brochures and other information on our products or our company. We ask visitors providing e-mail addresses to let us know if they would like further information or updates from us or our site; only those who request it will receive follow-up e-mail or other communications from us. We may also ask if you would like to receive information about other products available from members of our family of companies. Only those who expressly ask to receive such information on-line will get it. We also offer visitors an "opt-out" option at any time they wish to cease receiving e-mails or other information from us.
Personal information is used solely by us, and our affiliates, agents or business partners who help make this site and its content and the products and services at this site, available to you in order to respond to your requests (like fulfilling on-line shopping orders or offering a sweepstakes or promotion), and to better serve you, consistent with this policy. In addition, we may occasionally ask you if we may share information with other trusted third parties. We will let you know at the time the information is collected if such third-party sharing is anticipated, will identify the types of businesses at the area of collection, will describe the information we will share (like your mail or e-mail address) and will only share data if you agree. We will share personal data only with those who have agreed to follow careful policies.
How Do We Use "Cookies"?
What are Cookies?
"Cookies" are data files that a Web site sends to your computer while you are viewing the site. These data files include information that allows our site to remember important information that will make your use of the site more efficient and useful to you. Our sites use cookies for a variety of purposes. We use cookie technology and IP addresses to obtain non-personal information from on-line visitors, and also to provide registered visitors with the best possible personalized on-line experience.
How Do We Use Cookies?
Visitors to our site use different web browsers and different computers. To make your visits as easy as possible with the technology you use, we automatically keep track of the type of browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Netscape) and operating system (e.g., Windows, Macintosh) used by a visitor, and the domain name of the visitor's Internet service provider. We also track the total number of visitors to our site in an aggregate form to allow us to update and improve our site; personally identifiable information is not extracted in this process. This data tells us if more visitors prefer certain features or areas to others, which helps us keep our site fresh and interesting to the majority of our visitors.
We may also use cookies to help prevent children from entering certain areas or features intended only for adults or older teens.
How Do We Use Cookies to Personalize Your Experience at Our Sites?
Cookie technology helps us deliver content tailored to a visitor's interests, and allows us to make ordering products, entering and participating in sweepstakes and contests, and offering other functions at our site easier for our visitors. Sites that offer on-line shopping use cookies to remember and process the items in your shopping cart. Where permitted, we may associate personal information with a cookie file in such instances.
What if I Don't Want Cookies?
If you don't want cookies, you can set your computer to warn you each time a cookie is being sent or turn off all cookies through your browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator). (Check your browser HELP menu to learn the correct way to change or update your cookies.) If you disable cookies, you may be unable to access some of the features noted above.
What About Chat Rooms, Message Boards, or Other Interactive Forums?
We may offer chat rooms, message or bulletin boards, or interactive areas where visitors may post comments or information for our visitors' enjoyment. If there is a chat room, bulletin or message board, or other interactive areas where personal information may be posted at this site, be sure to check our chat room rules before entering, as you will be bound by them as well as our General Terms & Conditions. Our chat room rules will establish age and other restrictions on participation, and outline requirements for obtaining parental consent for children where their participation is permitted. As you know, anything you post on-line is available for the world to see. We make no representations and undertake no obligations as to information you voluntarily post.
Is Credit Card / Transaction Information Secure?
We care about the safety and security of your transaction. We use SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) to communicate with your browser software when you order from us on-line and thereby provide us with credit card or similar information. SSL is the industry standard security protocol, which makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to intercept your credit card / transaction and order information that you send us when you submit your on-line order. Otherwise, the transmission of information to and from us is not encrypted or secure. We take precautions to safeguard your credit card data in our internal systems.
What Do You Do To Safeguard Personal Information?
We have instituted safeguards to check that our internal procedures meet our high policy standards. We also use our best efforts to be sure that third parties who work with us as our agents to make this site and its contents available to you, and to fulfill your orders and requests, agree to protect personal information that they must access in order to serve our site and our visitors.
What About Links to Other Sites?
We may offer links to other sites outside our company. However, we try to link only with sites that share our values. You should always check the privacy policy of any linked site to understand their information collection practices, including how they may use cookies. We are not responsible for the content or information collection policies of sites operated by other companies. If you visit another site, you should review their privacy and other policies.
Anything Else I Should Know?
We reserve the right to use or disclose any information as needed to satisfy any law, regulation or legal request, to conduct investigations of consumer complaints or possible breaches of law, to protect the integrity of the site, to fulfill your requests, or to cooperate in any legal investigation.
What Should I Do If I Have Questions, Wish To Access, Update or Delete Information, or Wish To Opt Out of Receiving Future Communications?
If you would like us to access, update, change, or delete information we have about you (subject to any applicable legal exceptions), would like to opt out of receiving further communications from us, or have questions about our privacy policy, please contact our Privacy Coordinator Nancy Nava at nancy.nava@effem.com. You may also write, fax or call our corporate Privacy Coordinator's office at: Nancy Nava, Seeds of Change, P.O. Box 58852, Vernon, CA 90058, Telephone: 323-586-8302, Fax: 323-586-8363
General Terms and Conditions for Website Operated by Seeds of Change
Welcome to our web site! Seeds of Change offers an on-line information and communications service that we hope you will find entertaining and informative. There are a few rules of the (cyber) road that our visitors must follow when using our site, so we ask all our visitors to read these General Terms and Conditions ("Agreement") carefully.
Please be sure to read this Agreement carefully, especially the disclaimers and limitations of our liability, since use of this site constitutes your acceptance of, and agreement with, the terms and conditions set out in this Agreement.
We do not intend to make changes to our terms and conditions very often but reserve the right to do so. However, it is always a good idea to double-check when you visit our site to ensure that you have read and agree with our most current terms and conditions. Any change in our terms and conditions will be prospective only. We generally do not make any changes to our terms and conditions that have a retroactive effect unless legally required to do so. Your continued use of this site after that time will constitute your acceptance of any new or amended terms.
Intellectual Property Ownership
Copyrights
All copyrights and other intellectual property rights in the artwork, graphics, text, video and audio clips, trademarks, logos and other content available on this web site ("Content") are owned, or used with permission.
Although you can copy any part of this web site to your own computer for your personal use, you may not copy or incorporate any of the Content available on the web site into any other work, including your own web site, or use the Content in any other public or commercial manner. That means you may not post or redistribute any portion of our web site unless you have a license from us to do so. That also means that Seeds of Change retains full and complete title to all such Content, including any downloadable software or code, any images incorporated in or generated by the software, and all data accompanying it. You must not copy, modify, reproduce, upload, transmit, distribute, reverse-engineer, disassemble or otherwise convert it to another form.
You may not change any of the notices regarding copyright, trademarks or other marks that may accompany the Content. If you want to link to the home page of our site, that's OK, but please don't use our Content in your own site. You may not deep link (i.e., link to any page other than the home page) to our site without our specific written permission.
Trademarks
Unless otherwise specified, all trademarks used on this site are the property of Seeds of Change or our business partners.
Submissions
We will respect your rights regarding the protection of personal data, especially in relation to any application you may make for employment with Seeds of Change. We are glad to receive from you any stories, comments, suggestions, ideas, graphics, pictures or anything else, but do please remember that, by uploading or sending us such material through this site, you assign all your interest in it to Seeds of Change and, depending on which law applies, Seeds of Change will either own the material you send to us on this site or you will be deemed to have granted Seeds of Change an exclusive and perpetual license to use it.
That means that all stories, comments, suggestions, ideas, graphics, pictures or other information uploaded or sent to Seeds of Change through this site are automatically deemed to be either the property of Seeds of Change or can be used by it. This information is not confidential and we can use it as we see fit - that includes reproducing it, disclosing it, publishing it, or broadcasting it here or somewhere else, in this or any other medium now known or later invented. Under no circumstances are you entitled to any payment if we do use your submission for any purpose.
Use Restrictions
You may not engage in any activities through the web site which are unlawful, offensive, abusive, which violate the rights of third parties, or which inhibit other users from using and enjoying this web site. You may not monitor or copy Content on the web site, by using any robot, "bot," spider, crawler or other automatic device or manual process, without our written permission, or engage in any activity which interferes with the proper working of the web site. You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Seeds of Change and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers and employees from any damages, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from any third party claims resulting from, or arising out of, your use of the web site. We reserve the right to terminate your access to the web site at any time, without notice, for any reason whatsoever.
No Endorsements
Although this web site may refer to products or services of third parties or link to third party sites or information, we do not endorse or make any warranties or representations about them. Any links to other sites are provided for your convenience only. You need to make your own decisions regarding third party products, services and web sites.
Privacy Policy
Please ensure that you read our Privacy Policy in order to learn about what personal information we collect at this site, how we handle it and for what purposes we use it.
Use of This Site: Limitation of Liability and Disclaimer
Neither Seeds of Change nor any of its worldwide affiliates, nor anyone who helped develop, create, produce or deliver the content on this site is liable for any damages related to your use of or inability to use the site, even if advised of the possibility of such damages, unless they acted willfully or with gross negligence or that liability may not otherwise be lawfully excluded.
This includes but is not limited to:
- Damages intended to compensate you directly for any loss or injury
- Damages that do not flow directly from an action, but only from some of the consequences or results of such action (consequential damages); and
- Other miscellaneous damages and expenses, such as incidental, special, or punitive damages
- This exclusion will not cover liability for death or personal injury or liability for death or personal injury or liability for a breach of statutory or contractual duties.
We use reasonable efforts to ensure that accurate information is provided on this site, but do not guarantee such accuracy, and make no representations regarding the use or results of use of any Content on this site in terms of its accuracy, reliability or any other matter.
Without limiting the foregoing, and to the extent permitted by law, the functions contained in this site, the operations of this site and all content on this site are provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy or non-infringement (but excluding any implied warranty or condition which may not be lawfully excluded). There is no warranty against interference with your enjoyment of the information on this web site. There is no warranty that this web site, the information contained in it or our efforts will fulfill any of your particular purposes or needs.
While we reserve the right to remove any postings or any other information that we feel may be offensive or otherwise objectionable, we are not responsible for any material posted by any user or for any information whatsoever contained in any linked sites. You agree that Seeds of Change and its worldwide affiliates are not responsible or liable for any defamatory, offensive, infringing, or illegal conduct of any other visitor to this site or any other third party.
Other
If any provision of this Agreement is found to be void, unlawful or unenforceable for any reason, that portion shall be deemed severable from these terms and shall not otherwise affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. Seeds of Change enters into this Agreement on its own behalf and on behalf of each of its worldwide affiliates. Accordingly, Seeds of Change holds the benefit of and may enforce this Agreement on behalf of those affiliates. Seeds of Change reserves the right to pursue any remedy available to it at law or in equity if you breach this Agreement.
A Special Note to Parents
We care about personal privacy and take special care with young children. In the USA a child is defined as being under 13 years of age. We use as our internal standard the privacy guidelines developed by the US-based Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU). In areas where we may collect information from children we incorporate special notices urging kids to get parental permission before providing any information or ordering products, and urge you to monitor and supervise your children's Internet activities. We also ask children to tell us their age and may ask them to provide a parent's e-mail address so that we can contact the parent to notify them of our privacy policy, and/or obtain parental consent where required.
Any time we know that a child has given us personal information, it will not be shared with or sold to third parties, including our affiliates, absent parental consent. Personal information about children is available only to those who work at or on the site or who provide technical and other fulfilment support services to the site. We do not require a child to disclose more information than is reasonably necessary to participate in a contest, game or other activity as a condition of participation. Upon proper identification, parents may review the personal information we have collected about the child, request deletion, or refuse to allow further collection or use.
We support the CARU Guidelines on collecting information from children in the interactive environment. We also recommend that you, as parents, monitor your children's on-line activities and learn about and use software or other tools which can help you assure that children experience the fun and entertainment of an on-line experience in a manner that reflects your own preferences. We hope that you and your children enjoy our site and visit us often!
What Information Do We Collect From Children?
We will collect a child's e-mail address to respond to questions about the site, requests for homework help, and the like. The child's e-mail address is deleted immediately upon responding to the child's request.
We will also collect a child's e-mail address to sign the child up for our e-mail newsletter or for an on-line sweepstakes or contest, or to register to participate in certain features at our sites. Where we know the user is a child (we may ask for age or birth date to find this out), we ask the child to provide a parent's e-mail address and send an e-mail notice to the parent regarding the child's request. Those notices give the parent a chance to opt-out of the information-collection on behalf of the child, or, where necessary offer instructions on how to provide consent. To enter certain sweepstakes or contests, we may ask a child if they're a boy or a girl, or ask them what they like and don't like in general - hobbies, activities, taste preferences, school interests, pets, and the like. We may sometimes ask visitors to respond to polls or surveys. Often, information can be provided anonymously and won't be associated with a visitor's name, address, e-mail address or the like. Some contests may offer children a chance to express themselves creatively by sending or e-mailing stories or pictures. We will not post pictures of users whom we know are children along with personally identifying information on-line (such as full name, home address, or e-mail address) without parental consent.
We require credit cards for on-line transactions, so only adults over 18 may buy products on-line.
How Do We Use "Cookies"?
What Are Cookies?
"Cookies" are data files that a web site sends to your computer while you are viewing the site. These data files include information that allows our site to remember important information that will make your use of the site more efficient and useful to you. Our site uses cookies for a variety of purposes. We use cookie technology and IP addresses to obtain non-personal information from on-line visitors, and also to provide registered visitors with the best possible personalized on-line experience.
How Do We Use Cookies?
Visitors to our site use different web browsers and different computers. To make your visits as easy as possible with the technology you use, we automatically keep track of the type of browser (e.g., Internet Explorer, Netscape) and operating system (e.g., Windows, Macintosh) used by a visitor, and the domain name of the visitor's Internet service provider. We also track the total number of visitors to our site in an aggregate form to allow us to update and improve our site; personally identifiable information is not extracted in this process. This data tells us if more visitors prefer certain features or areas to others, which helps us keep our site fresh and interesting to the majority of our visitors.
We may also use cookies to help prevent children from entering certain areas or features intended only for adults or older teens.
How Do We Use Cookies To Personalize Your Experience At Our Site?
Cookie technology helps us deliver content tailored to a visitor's interests, and allows us to make ordering products, entering and participating in sweepstakes and contests, and offering other functions at our site easier for our visitors. We use cookies to remember and process the items in your shopping cart. Where permitted, we may associate personal information with a cookie file in such instances.
What If I Don't Want Cookies?
If you don't want cookies, you can set your computer to warn you each time a cookie is being sent or turn off all cookies through your browser (e.g., Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator). (Check your browser HELP menu to learn the correct way to change or update your cookies.) If you disable cookies, you may be unable to access some of the features noted above.
How Do We Use Personal Information?
We use personal information to respond to a child's question or request, such as a request for homework help, signing them up for our periodic e-mail newsletters, or entering them in a contest or sweepstake. We may use a parent's e-mail address provided by a child to notify parents that the child has won a sweepstake or contest, or to ask parents of winners for home address information to send a parental consent form or affidavit of eligibility to sign on behalf of their child. As noted above, we will not provide your child's personal information to third parties without your consent.
What About Chat Rooms, Message Boards, or Other Interactive Forums?
We use age-screening tools to block children from entering any chat room, bulletin or message board, or other interactive forum where personal information might be posted without parental consent. Our chat room rules will specify age or other requirements for participation, which are binding on all visitors.
What About Links To Other Sites?
In our children's areas, it is our policy to link only to other sites which follow careful policies on interactive marketing. Nevertheless, we are not responsible for the content or information collection practices of any other site.
Anything Else I Should Know?
We reserve the right to use, retain or disclose any information as needed to satisfy any law, regulation or legal request, to conduct investigations of consumer complaints or possible breaches of law, to protect the integrity of the site, to fulfill your requests, or to cooperate in any legal investigation.
What Should I Do If I Have Questions, Wish To Access, Update Or Delete Information You Have About Me Or My Child, Or Wish To Opt-out Of Receiving Future Communications?
If you would like us to access, update, change or delete information we have about you or your child (subject to applicable legal exceptions), or opt-out of further information collection from your child, please contact our Privacy Coordinator. Proper identification is required. All requests to access information about your child must be in writing, signed by you, and include your full name, address, and phone number, along with your child's e-mail address and screen name (if any).
You may write, fax or call our Privacy Coordinator at:
Nancy Nava
nancy.nava@effem.com
PO Box 58853
Vernon, CA 90058
1-323-586-8302 Phone
1-323-586-8363 Fax
Updated September 25, 2002
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