SEATTLE AQUARIUM SOCIETY WEBSITE PRIVACY STATEMENT & TERMS OF USE
The Seattle Aquarium (“Aquarium”, “our”, “we”, “us”) understands the importance of your privacy. Our privacy policy tells you what information we collect when you visit our website, how we use, share, and protect it, what choices you have about how your personal information is used, and how you can access and update the personal information we have about you.
If you do not agree to this privacy policy, please do not use this website. This privacy policy applies to personal information collected on any website where this privacy policy is posted. Certain aspects of this privacy policy also apply to the personal information we collect offline or when you connect to our public Wi-Fi.
For purposes of this privacy policy, “personal information” means information that identifies a particular individual, such as name, postal address, email address, or phone number. When other information, such as email newsletter choices, interests, etc., are directly associated with personal information, this other information also becomes personal information.
Personal Information We Collect
There are many features on this website for which no personal information is required. However, if you are interested in obtaining information from us or in participating in certain activities on this website (such as subscribing to our e-newsletter, becoming a member of the Seattle Aquarium, making a donation, or participating in certain special initiatives), you may need to provide us with your personal information. In most cases, we will only ask for your name, postal address, email address, telephone number, and, if you are making a purchase or donation, your payment information. Some activities or services we provide through this website may require additional personal information, such as your gender. In some circumstances, we may also combine personal information that you have provided to us with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources.
Our website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our website. We use transient (also called “session ID”) cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as making a repeat donation. You can choose to remove cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our site will be limited.
Other Types of Information We Collect
In addition to personal information you choose to provide to us, we also collect non-personally identifiable information through technology to make our website more interesting and useful to you. For instance, when you come to our website, we collect your internet protocol (“IP”) address. An IP address is often associated with the portal through which you enter the internet, like your ISP (internet service provider). Standing alone, your IP address is not personally identifiable. At times, we also use IP addresses to collect information regarding the frequency with which our visitors visit various parts of our websites. We may combine this information with personal information that you have provided to us and with other information that is publicly available or that we receive from other reputable sources in order to make our website and communications more targeted to your interests.
Our website also uses cookies. Cookies are small text files that are stored on a user’s computer and allow websites to remember information about users. We use cookies for a variety of purposes in order to enhance the quality of our website. We use transient (also called “session ID”) cookies to provide continuity from page to page. A session ID cookie expires when you close your browser. Cookies allow us to personalize your return visits to our site and to save you time during certain activities, such as making a repeat donation. You can choose to remove cookies through your browser options. However, if you do so, your ability to use some areas of our website will be limited
Finally, our website uses a variety of technologies for tracking purposes, including clear gifs (also known as web beacons). Clear gifs are small pieces of data that are embedded in images on the pages of websites. We use these technologies to tell us what parts of our website you have visited and to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our website. These technologies may involve the transmission of information directly to us or to a service provider authorized by us to collect information on our behalf. We also use these technologies in HTML emails that we send our visitors who have agreed to receive email from us, to determine whether our visitors have opened those emails and have clicked on links in those emails. The information these technologies collect may be combined with information that is personally identifiable so that we can make our website, and any emails you have agreed to receive, more interesting to you.
How We Use Personal Information
We may use your personal information to deliver the products and services that you request, enhance your experience on the website, provide you with informational and/or promotional materials that you might find interesting, and for internal business analysis and other business purposes consistent with this policy. These uses may generally be categorized as relationship maintenance uses and promotional uses. We describe these uses in more detail below.
RELATIONSHIP MAINTENANCE USES
We use your personal information to maintain and manage your account, deliver services that you have requested, and generally enhance your experience on our website. Collectively, we refer to these types of uses as “Relationship Maintenance Uses,” and they include all the ways in which we use your personal information to maintain and manage our relationship with you that do not involve sending promotional materials. Examples of Relationship Maintenance Uses include, without limitation:
- Processing and tracking your e-subscriptions
- Processing and tracking your online donations to the Seattle Aquarium
- Providing the services you request
- Sending you administrative communications
- Sending you surveys
- Sending you updates to our privacy policy
- Making changes to web-based features
PROMOTIONAL USES
We may also use your personal information to provide you with promotional information about activities, services and products offered by us, including promotional material that you have requested. Examples of promotional uses include, without limitation:
- Providing you with information about educational opportunities
- Providing you with email newsletters
We may provide you with Relationship Maintenance Uses and promotional materials by postal mail, email, telephone or other means. You may opt out of receiving communications from us by email, as explained below in the section entitled “Your Choices”.
You may always opt out of receiving subsequent promotional emails by clicking on the unsubscribe link that we provide in every such promotional email message. Please keep in mind, however, that when you purchase or request products or services from us, promotional materials may accompany delivery of that product or service. Any opt-outs that you may make will therefore not apply to these materials because they accompany products or services that you have requested.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
We will therefore share that information only with the following entities, and only in the manner described below.
SERVICE PROVIDERS
We contract with other companies to provide certain services on our behalf, including credit card processing, shipping, email distribution, and promotions management. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services, and they are permitted to use the information only for that specific purpose or as required by law, unless any additional use or sharing of the information is separately permitted under another provision of this privacy policy.
LEGAL PURPOSES; BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS
We may disclose any user or customer information, including personal information, when we believe that doing so is required by law; may be necessary to protect the property, rights, or safety of ourselves, visitors to our websites, or other persons; or will help to enforce any terms of use or contest, sweepstakes, promotions, games or other rules. It may also be necessary to disclose our customers’ personal information to third parties, such as credit card companies, to help resolve disputes that arise in the ordinary course of business. We may also transfer user or customer information, including personal information, in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, merger, consolidation or asset sale.
AGGREGATE INFORMATION (NON-PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE)
We may share with third parties aggregated information about you and other visitors to our website. When we do this, however, we make any personal information non-personally identifiable by combining it with information about other individuals or by removing characteristics that make the information personally identifiable to you. We share this information in order to improve our website and develop content and services that we hope will be of interest to you.
Your Choices
We provide you with the opportunity to opt out of having your personal information used or disclosed for certain purposes. Receiving promotional communications from us is optional. If you do not wish to receive promotional communications from us, please call or write to us at the address below. You may also use this address and phone number or website account to request that we update or change any of your personal information, or to request additional information regarding our disclosure of your personal information to certain third parties for promotional purposes.
Call us at (206) 386-4300
Write to us at:
Seattle Aquarium
1483 Alaskan Way, Pier 59
Seattle, WA 98101-2015
Include your name, address, telephone number, email address and a note of instructions.
If you have previously agreed to receive email and/or email newsletters from us, you may use the address and phone number above to notify us that you no longer wish to receive such email and/or email newsletters, or you may change your preferences by going to My Account and clicking on the “My e-Subscriptions” link.
Because we plan our communications in advance, it may take several weeks for your request to become effective. If, due to human error, you continue to receive our communications, please contact us again and we will make every effort to correct the situation.
Your California Privacy Rights
Shine the Light. California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits users that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosures of personal data to third parties for such third parties’ direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please contact us at info@seattleaquarium.org.
Do Not Track. Do Not Track (DNT) is a privacy preference that you can set in most web browsers. At this time there is no accepted standard on how to respond to web browsers’ DNT signals. As such, our website does not respond to DNT.
Links to Other Sites
We may provide links on our website to other sites we think you will enjoy. These sites operate independently of the Seattle Aquarium and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read these policies at any site you visit.
INFORMATION SECURITY
The security and confidentiality of your information is extremely important to us, and we take a number of steps to safeguard any personal information or credit card information that you provide to us. We use data encryption technology to help protect against loss, misuse or alteration of your credit card information. Secure socket layers (SSLs) encrypt the credit card information sent between your computer and our database. However, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, and therefore we cannot warrant or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this policy.
Users From Outside The United States
Our website is hosted in the United States and are governed by United States law. If you are using the website from outside the United States, please be aware that your personal information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located. The data protection and other laws of the United States and other countries might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. By using the website, you consent to your personal information being transferred to our facilities and to the facilities of those third parties with whom we share it as described in this privacy policy.
Children’s Privacy
We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13, nor do we solicit personal information from children. If you are a child, please do not send any personal information about yourself to us. If you are the parent or legal guardian of a child, we urge you to instruct your child to never give out their real names, address, phone numbers, or any other personal information on the Internet without your permission.
If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child, we will delete that information as soon as possible. Please email us at info@seattleaquarium.org if you believe we have collected personal information from a child.
Personal Information Contained in User Content
Some sections of our website may allow users to post or transmit messages, comments, screen names, computer files and other materials. We do not monitor such transmissions, and therefore cannot be responsible for any personal information or other information that may be contained in such transmissions.
Changes in This Privacy Policy
We may amend this privacy policy at any time. If we make any material changes in the way we collect, use and/or share your personal information, we will notify you by sending you an email at the last email address that you provided us and/or by prominently posting notice of the changes on the websites covered by this privacy policy. In any event, changes to this privacy policy may affect our use of personal information that you provided us prior to our notification to you of the changes. Changes will be effective when they are posted but they will not apply retroactively.
Contact Us
If you have questions or wish to send us comments about this privacy policy, please write us at:
Seattle Aquarium
1483 Alaskan Way, Pier 59 Seattle, WA 98101-2015
(206) 386-4300
info@seattleaquarium.org
