Wine Enthusiast Importer-Connection

PRIVACY POLICY

Effective February 1, 2020

Welcome to Importer-Connection.com. The Wine Enthusiast Importer Connection ("we", "us" or the "Company") is committed to protecting your privacy! This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, share and protect your personal information, including information gathered through your use of Importer-Connection.com, and affiliated websites winemag.com, wineenthusiast.com, wineexpress.com and thirstynest.com ("Websites") that link to this Privacy Policy and any services we may provide (collectively, "Services"). This Privacy Policy covers data, including personal information, collected through our Services and all other means whether online or offline. By using our Services, you accept the practices described in this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use our Services.

This policy may be updated from time to time without prior notice, so please check back periodically. If you continue to use our Services after such changes have been made, you hereby provide your consent to the changes.

1. Information We Collect About You And How We Collect It

You may provide your personal information to us when you contact us by phone, email, via our websites or any other way in order to use our Services to search within or place orders through our services, contact us with inquiries, respond to surveys, participate in one of our promotional sweepstakes or otherwise access our services. This information may include:

Identifying Information. For example, we may collect your first and last name, unique personal identifier, online identifier, mailing address, email address and telephone number, including your mobile phone number.
Payment Information. We may collect your credit card information, including billing address.
Event Information. For example, we may collect specific information such as name, date and mailing address associated with your event registry.
Information You Post. For example, we may collect information you post in a public space on our sites including our customer review and question and answer sections.
Social Media Information. We may collect information you post on our social media pages. We may also collect your social media profile information. Also, keep in mind that if you voluntarily disclose personal information online, for example, in a forum made available via social media, that information can be viewed and used by others.
Information You Submit. For example, we may collect information when you contact us through the "Live Chat" feature on our certain of our sites. You may also provide marketing and communications data, including your preferences for receiving mailings from us.
Device Information. We may collect the type of device you use to access our Websites. This may include your device identification number, IP address or mobile operating system.
Commercial Information. For example, we may collect information about the products or services you purchased, obtained or considered, as well as other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies.
Internet or other Network Activity Information. We may collect information related to your browsing history and other information regarding your interactions with our Websites or advertisements.
Information We Collect Automatically and Use of Cookies. Certain non-personally identifiable information about our visitors is collected by the standard operation of our internet services and through the use of "cookies". Click here for more information on our cookies policy, the types of cookies we use and to manage your cookies preferences.

2. Use of Information We Obtain

We may use the information we obtain about you to:

Provide our Services, including but not limited to the fulfillment of orders;
Improve the content of our Services and enhance your experience;
Communicate with you about our Services, and respond to your inquiries;
Send correspondence (including, for example, email on behalf of ourselves and/or reputable organizations whose products or services are complementary to our Services);
Personalize your use and interaction with our Services;
Analyze trends and statistics;
Operate, evaluate, develop, manage and improve our business;
Maintain and enhance the safety and security of our Services and prevent misuse;
Comply with and enforce applicable legal requirements, relevant industry standards or policies; and
Otherwise manage and enhance our Services or as otherwise permitted by law or as we may notify you.

3. How We Share Your Information

We will not disclose your personal information except as described. We may share your information in the following ways:

Internally. We may share your information within The Wine Enthusiast family of companies.
On Our Websites. For example, we may display information you post in our customer review or question and answer sections of our websites.
With Our Service Providers. We may share your information with third parties who perform services on our behalf. For example, this may include third party merchandise vendors, providers of order fulfillment and package delivery services for our products or payment processors. It may also include companies that send emails on our behalf, process subscriptions to our magazine, provide marketing assistance, data analysis or search results. We do not authorize these service providers to use or disclose your personal information except as necessary to perform services on our behalf or comply with legal requirements.
For Marketing Purposes. This may include third parties whose products and services are complementary to ours and in which we believe you may be interested.
To Comply With The Law Or to Protect Ourselves. We also may disclose personal information about you (1) if we are required to do so by law or legal process (such as a court order or subpoena); (2) in response to requests by government agencies, such as law enforcement authorities; (3) to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights; (4) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss; (5) in connection with an investigation of suspected or actual illegal activity; or (6) otherwise with your consent.
With any Successors To All Or Part Of Our Business. We reserve the right to share or transfer any personal information we have about you in connection with a prospective or actual sale, merger, transfer or other reorganization of all or parts of our business (including in the event of a divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or liquidation).

4. Your Rights With Respect to the Personal Information We Have Collected.

You have the right to:

Know what personal information we have about you and request a copy of the same;
Update or change any incorrect personal information;
Ask us to stop collecting, processing and using your personal information in certain ways;
Request the portability of your personal information; and
Raise concerns about automated decision making processes.

If you wish to do any of the above, please send an email request to privacy@wineenthusiast.net. We may request you provide us with information to verify your identity before responding to your request. We may refuse to comply with a request if the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive or repetitive in nature. We may also retain your personal information to comply with laws, prevent fraud, resolve disputes, trouble-shoot problems, assist with investigations or enforce our contracts.

If you are a California resident, please see our explanation of your right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information in the "Your California Privacy Rights" section below.

5. Use of our Services by Children.

Our Services are not intended for children under the age of 16, and we do not intend to collect personal information from or about children under the age of 16. If a child under the age of 16 has provided us with personal information, that child’s parent or legal guardian should contact us at privacy@wineenthusiast.net if they would like the information submitted by the child deleted from our records or database. If you are age 21 or younger, you are not authorized to submit any content or information to us without the explicit consent of your parent or guardian. Also, our Websites wineexpress.com and thirstynest.com are not intended for use by anyone under the age of 21. No one under the age of 21 is allowed to use these sites, provide any personal information or receive email distributions with respect to these Websites.

6. Opting Out of Future Communications.

You may opt-out of receiving email marketing communications from us by using the "unsubscribe" link in our emails, or by emailing us at privacy@wineenthusiast.net. To opt-out of physical mailings and telephone communications, or to add your name to our do-not-share list, you may email us at the above address or call us at 800-648-6058. We will be sure your name is removed from our list (and the list we may share with third parties) as soon as possible after we receive your request. Please be aware, however, that even after your request is processed, we may, for a time, retain residual information about you in backup and/or archival copies of our database.

7. Do Not Track ("DNT").

Our websites are not designed to respond to DNT signals received from browsers.

8. Protection of Personal Information.

We are committed to using our best efforts to maintain the security of your personal information. To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the appropriate use of information, we adhere to industry standard practices and procedures to help safeguard and secure the information we collect. Although we use our best efforts to protect the security of your personal information and our systems, due to the inherent open nature of the internet, no transmission via the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result of this and other factors beyond our control, we cannot guarantee the security of the information you transmit to or through our services. Therefore, you assume that risk by using our services. Our Websites are secured and verified by Trustwave and GoDaddy Secure Certificate Authority.

9. Information from Users Outside of the USA and Consent to Transfer Jurisdiction.

Our Services are operated in the USA. If you are located in another jurisdiction, please be aware that information you provide will be transferred to, and stored and processed in the USA. By using our Services, you consent to the transfer, processing and storage of your information in the USA, where privacy laws may not be as comprehensive as those in your country of citizenship or residence. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

If you are a resident of the EEA or Switzerland, you are entitled to certain rights under the "General Data Protection Regulation" or "GDPR" enacted in April, 2016. These include, without limitation, the right to (1) Access your personal data, (as that term is defined under the GDPR), (2) Request deletion of your personal data, (3) Restrict processing of your personal data, and (4) to receive your data in a portable manner. We will only process your personal data as described in this Privacy Policy and only for the duration necessary. To exercise any of these rights, please contact us as described in the "How to Contact Us" section below. If applicable, you may make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority in the country where you are based.

10. Security of Personal Information on Third-Party Websites.

Our Services may contain links to other websites that are not under our control or supervision. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites. Third-part websites may have their own privacy policies and consumer service policies, or no policies at all. We encourage you to be aware when you access any such third-party links and to read the privacy policies of the third-party websites to see how your personal information will be handled before providing them with your personal information.

11. Retention Of Your Information.

We store and maintain your information for the purposes for which it is processed by us. The length of time for which we maintain information depends on the purposes for which we collected and use it and/or required to comply with applicable laws.

12. How To Contact Us.

If you wish to contact us to update your information, or if you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy and/or the practices described herein, please feel free to email us at privacy@wineenthusiast.net or contact us by telephone at 800-648-6058.

You may also write to us at the following address:
The Wine Enthusiast Companies
Attention: Privacy Compliance
200 Summit Lake Drive, 4th Floor
Valhalla, N.Y. 10595

13. Effective Date and Modifications.

This Privacy Policy is effective February 1, 2020. Please note that we may modify this Privacy Policy at any time, at our sole discretion, by posting the modified Privacy Policy on our Services. The modifications will be effective upon posting, unless some other date is specified. You should review this Privacy Policy periodically so that you are aware of any modifications. If we make a material change to the Privacy Policy, you will be provided with appropriate notice in accordance with legal requirements. Your use of any of our Services constitutes your full acceptance of the Privacy Policy in its then-current form.

Your California Privacy Rights

If you reside in California, you also have the right to ask us once a year if we have shared personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make a request, please refer to the instructions below regarding how to make a request.

California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. ("CCPA")

If you reside in California, then you have the following rights:

You have the right to opt-out of the use of your personal information for targeted or behavioral advertising which may be deemed a sale of information under the CCPA. Please note that advertising, including targeted advertising, enables us to provide you certain content for free and allows us to provide you offers relevant to you. If you would like to opt-out of our use of information for such purposes that may be considered a "sale" under California, you may do so by emailing us at privacy@wineenthusiast.net or calling us at 800-648-6058.

You have the right to request deletion of your personal information.

You have the right to request us to disclose to you the following, no more than twice in a 12-month period, and, in all cases, for the preceding 12 months:

Categories of personal information we collected about you.
Categories of sources from which we collected the personal information.
Business or commercial purpose for collecting your personal information.
Categories of third parties with whom we shared the personal information.
Specific pieces of personal information we collected about you.
Categories of personal information we disclosed for a business purpose.
Categories of personal information we have used for targeted or behavioral advertising and categories of third parties to whom such information was provided.

We will not discriminate against you because you exercised your rights under this section of the Privacy Policy.

For purposes of exercising your rights above, please note the following regarding how we collect and use your personal information as described in this policy.

We collect the following categories of personal information and disclose the same categories of personal information for a business purpose: Identifying information; Payment information; Event information; Information you post or submit; Social media information; Internet or other electronic network activity; Commercial information.
We use the following categories of personal information in connection with targeted or behavioral advertising: Identifying information, Information you post or submit, Social media information, Internet or other electronic network activity.

Please note that certain information may be exempt from such requests under California law. For example, we need certain information in order to provide the Services to you. We also will take reasonable steps to verify your identity before responding to a request. You are also permitted to designate an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf. In order for an authorized agent to be verified, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may also follow up with you to verify your identity before processing the authorized agent’s request.

How to Make Requests for Deletion of Personal Information and Requests for Personal Information We Collect, Disclose or Sell

If you wish to submit a request under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, please feel free to submit a verified request by one of the following means.

You may call our toll-free number 800-648-6058.
You may also contact us by email or mail at the following:
The Wine Enthusiast Companies
Attention: Privacy Compliance
200 Summit Lake Drive, 4th Floor
Valhalla, N.Y. 10595
privacy@wineenthusiast.net

Information We Collect Automatically, Use of Cookies and Online Analytics

Cookies are small amounts of data that are sent to your browser from a web server and stored on your computer’s hard drive or other devices for the purpose of facilitating and enhancing your communication and interaction with our Services and to assist with marketing efforts. To support our Services, we or our service providers may use one or more of the following browser cookies for the purposes set below. You have the option of disabling cookies by accessing the tools provided to you in your Internet options. However, please note that you may not have full access to our Services if you change your cookies settings to disable them.

Analytics and Performance Cookies: These cookies are used to collect information about traffic to our Services and how users use our Services. The information gathered includes the number of visitors to our Services, the websites that referred them to our services, the pages that they visited on our Services, the time of day they visited our Services, whether they have visited our Services before, and other similar information. This information is aggregated, and does not identify individual users. We use this information to help us improve how our services work and to gather demographic information. We use Google Analytics for this purpose. Google Analytics uses its own cookies. You can find out more about Google Analytics cookies here. You can find out more about how Google protects your data here. You can prevent the use of Google Analytics relating to our Services by downloading and installing the browser plugin available through this link.
Essential Cookies: These cookies are essential to provide you with services available through our Services and to enable you to use some of the features. For example, they allow you to log in to secure areas of our Services and help the content you request to load quickly. Without these cookies, the functionality that you requested cannot be provided, and we only use these cookies to provide you with this functionality.
Functionality Cookies: These cookies allow our Services to remember the choices you make when using our Services, such as remembering your login details. These cookies are used to provide you with a more personal experience and to avoid you having to re-enter your preferences upon each visit to our Services.
Social Media Cookies:These cookies are used when you share information using a social media sharing button on our Services, and when you engage with our content through a social media networking website such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
Targeting Cookies:These cookies are used to deliver relevant ads, track email marketing or ad campaign performance and efficiency. For example, we and our ad partners may rely on information gleaned through these cookies to serve you ads that may be interesting to you on other websites or to otherwise assist with our marketing or behavioral advertising efforts. Our ad partners may also place cookies or other tracking technologies on your electronic device to collect information about you. We may also allow other third parties such as ad networks and ad servers to serve tailored ads to you on our services. We sometimes provide our user information, such as email addresses to service providers who may "match" this information in de-identified form to cookies (or mobile ad identifiers) in order to provide you with more relevant ads when you visit other websites and mobile applications.

We neither have access to, nor does this privacy policy govern, the use of cookies or other tracking devices you use to access our services by these non-affiliated third parties. If you are interested in more information about targeted browser advertising and how you can generally control cookies from being put on your electronic device, you may visit the Network Advertising Initiatives Consumer Opt-Out link or the "Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Opt-Out" link. The Digital Advertising Alliance also offers a tool for opting out of the collection of cross-app data on a mobile device for interest-based advertising. To exercise choices for the companies participating in this tool, download the AppChoices App here. We do not control these opt-out links or whether any particular company chooses to participate in these opt-out programs. We are not responsible for any choices you make regarding these mechanisms or the continued availability or accuracy of these mechanisms.