Home Improvement Call Center (“HI3C”) Corp Privacy Statement

Your privacy is very important to us, and we are committed to ensuring that your privacy is respected and protected while visiting this site. As part of this commitment, we have prepared this Privacy Statement to explain the manner in which HI3C and its affiliated Companies (“HI3C”), collect, use, disclose, protect and otherwise treat the personal information of consumers. HI3C will not sell, distribute, barter or transfer any of your personally identifiable information to companies, organizations or any other parties outside of HI3C without your permission. This is outlined in more detail in the sections below.

HI3C recognizes and fully respects the privacy of each visitor to our web site and we are committed to protecting your privacy. Our privacy policy has been designed to help you understand the type of personal information we gather and how we collect, use and safeguard it. Our policy reflects the commitment we make to you to take commercially-reasonable steps to protect the privacy and confidentiality of the personal information you entrust to HI3C. Our Privacy Policy will continuously be reviewed, assessed and updated to reflect new emerging technologies, business practices, procedures and client needs. We reserve the right to alter our privacy policies and will post any alterations to these policy principles on our web site in a timely manner.

We will obtain your express consent before using or disclosing your personal information for any purposes not identified in this policy.

Collection and Use of Personal Information:

You are able to enjoy our publications, take advantage of our promotions and visit many areas of our web sites without providing us with any personal information.

However, we do collect personal information when you:

• subscribe to one of our services;
• purchase, return, or exchange products offered through one of our web sites;
• subscribe to one of our online newsletters, or register to participate in an online forum or community;
• submit content to one of our publications or on-line services;
• enter into a contest or sweepstakes;
• respond to one of our polls or surveys or
• contact our customer service department with an enquiry or suggestion.

HI3C will retain the collected information for as long as necessary to fulfill our identified purpose. Personal information that is no longer required for statutory or regulatory requirements or to fulfill the purposes we identified when we collected the information is destroyed, erased or rendered anonymous to prevent unauthorized parties from gaining access to the information. Further, the collected information will be provided in full to you, upon request, and purged from the HI3C system. The use of personal information shall be in accordance with this Privacy Statement or as required by law.

Subscriptions:

When you subscribe for one of our services or publications, we may ask you to provide your name, mailing address, e-mail address and credit card or other payment information for the purposes of fulfilling your subscription, sending you invoices, and contacting you about the expiry of your subscription.

Product Purchases:

When you purchase products offered through our web site or publication, we collect your credit card and other payment information and keep a history of your purchases. We use this information to process your orders, to better assist you when you visit or contact us in the future, as well as to improve our product offerings.

When you return or wish to exchange merchandise purchased via one of our websites or request a refund for one of our services, you may be asked to provide certain information, including your name, e- mail address, residential address and phone number. We collect and use this information for fraud prevention purposes, and to process your request.

Online Registration:

You do not have to register to browse some areas of our web site. However, registration may be required to receive online newsletters or to participate in certain web site features. When you register, you may be asked for personal information such as your name, e-mail address, and a user name and password that you select. We collect the information we need to identify who you are, to provide you with the service or information you requested, and/or to facilitate your participation in any on-line forum or community if provided.

Please remember that any information you disclose in a public forums or community area becomes public information and is immediately accessible to other users, so it is important for you to carefully consider what, if any, personal information you reveal in these areas. We may decide to use on-line forum and community content to advise of new events, or services being offered as well as to enhance our advertising, promotional, web content, and similar postings. Members are expected to comply with the rules governing the message board but we cannot control third parties’ use of information you may choose to provide in this public forum.

Promotions or Surveys:

When you enter any contest or sweepstakes (“promotion”) or participate in a survey or poll (“survey”) that we may make available, we may ask you to provide your name, address, phone number and e-mail address. We use the information we collect on promotion entry forms to administer your participation in the promotions, so that we can contact you if you are a prize winner, and for other purposes stated on the entry form. Our surveys may ask for opinions on various issues and may be sponsored by our advertisers and partners. Most information obtained through surveys is aggregated and used internally. We may share survey information with advertisers and marketing partners in an aggregated, non- personally identifiable form. In the event personal information is requested as part of a survey, such personal information is never provided to unaffiliated third parties without your consent. Contests may be co-sponsored by other companies with their own privacy policies. You should always read the entry form and contest rules before entering.

Optional Information:

Occasionally, we may request demographic information (like your age or gender) or information about your interests and purchasing preferences. In most instances, you do not have to provide us with this information to receive the publication, product or service you have requested. We use this optional demographic and preference information to tailor or improve our publications, product and service offerings, as well as for internal marketing research purposes.

HI3C may from time to time conduct voluntary surveys of visitors to our web site to obtain specific demographic information. Such information may be compiled and shared in an anonymous aggregate form with advertisers and other third parties but no personal details will be traceable or associated with specific individuals.

Customer Service:

When you call one of our customer service representatives, or e-mail us with an enquiry or question, you may be asked for information that identifies you, such as your name, address and telephone number, to help us promptly deal with your enquiry. We may opt to retain this information to assist you in the future. We may also use your feedback, suggestions and enquiries to monitor and/or improve our services, publications, product offerings, and our web sites.

Website Information:

Generally, you can visit our web sites without telling us who you are or providing us with any personal information. We collect the IP (Internet protocol) addresses of all visitors to our web sites and clickstream and other related information such as page requests, browser type, operating system and average time spent on our websites. We use this information to monitor and improve our web sites.

Cookies:

To enhance your experience on our web site, many of our web pages use “cookies”. Cookies are small text files that we place in your computer’s browser to store your preferences. Cookies, by themselves, do not tell us your e-mail address or other personal information unless you choose to provide this information to us by, for example, registering at one of our sites. Once you choose to provide a web page with personal information, this information may be linked to the data stored in the cookie. A cookie is like an identification card. It is unique to your computer and can only be read by the server that gave it to you.

Cookies and web server logs are used to collect information in aggregate so that it is not identifiable to any specific user. This information is used to improve your experience as a user on our sites, to improve the content of our web pages, to monitor the activity of our advertisements, to monitor traffic to and from our web sites, to customize the content and/or layout of our pages for each individual visitor and for purposes of internal review. The information gathered through cookies and web server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our web site, the web sites visited just before and just after our web site, browser information and your computer’s IP address.

(IP stands for Internet Protocol. This address is a unique string of numbers that identifies a computer on the Internet. All resources on the Internet must have an IP address.) This information is collected on an aggregate basis, meaning that none of this information is associated with you as an individual. It may be shared with other organizations but only in aggregate and/or statistical form. It is very important to note that companies placing advertising on our sites have the ability to assign cookies to you in a process that HI3C does not control.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies. You can set your browser option so that you will not receive cookies and you can also delete existing cookies from your browser. You may find that some parts of the site will not function properly if you have refused cookies.

Web Beacons:

Our web site may also use small pieces of software code called “web beacons” or “clear gifs” to collect anonymous and aggregate advertising information, such as counting page views, promotion views, or advertising responses. A web beacon is an electronic image called a single-pixel or clear GIF. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information, such as a user’s cookie number, time and date of a page view and description of the page where the web beacon is placed. You may render some web beacons unusable if you choose to reject their associated cookies. These web beacons may be used to deliver cookies that conform to our cookie policy above.

Disclosure of Personal Information:

We will not disclose, rent, sell or otherwise transfer your personal information without your consent, except as otherwise set out in this Privacy Statement.

Third party processors and agents:

Certain personal information may be transferred among our family of companies or other third parties solely for the purposes of processing your request or arranging delivery of your service, subscription, or product that you may have requested/ordered. We may also transfer (or otherwise make available) your personal information to third parties who administer our contests and prize redemptions, or who provide circulation audit and other services on our behalf. We may store and process personal information in North America in which we (or any of our affiliates, subsidiaries or agents) maintain facilities. All of our service providers are required to maintain the confidentiality and security of your personal information and to use it only in compliance with applicable data privacy laws, and are prohibited from using or disclosing your personal information for any purpose other than providing the services on our behalf or as otherwise required by applicable law.

Third Party Products and Services:

If you are a subscriber to one of our publications or on-line newsletters, we may obtain your permission to share your contact information with carefully selected marketing partners who will contact you by mail or e-mail with offers about products and services that may be of interest to you. You can remove yourself from such mailing lists by clicking on the appropriate link to “unsubscribe” for email or at the address listed at the bottom of this Privacy Policy for postal mail to the attention of Customer Affairs.

Sale of Business:

We reserve the right to transfer any personal information we have about you in the event of a merger with a third party or upon a sale or transfer of all or a portion of our business or assets to a third party acquirer, or an affiliated company.

Legal:

We may provide your personal information in response to a search warrant or other legally valid enquiry or order, or to an investigative body in the case of a breach of an agreement or contravention of law, or as otherwise required by law. We may also disclose personal information to assist us in collecting any debt owed by you, or otherwise where necessary for the establishment, exercise or in defense of legal claims.

Secondary Marketing:

From time to time we may obtain your permission to send you marketing information about our products and service offerings or those of our marketing partners. We may combine personal information we received from you with publicly available outside records to enhance our ability to market products and services that may be of interest to you.

If you are an online registrant:

You will have been asked at the time of your registration if you wish to receive messages from our advertising and promotional partners. If you indicated that you did, you will receive such messages. If at any time you wish to stop receiving these messages, simply click the “unsubscribe” link on the email and follow the instructions and you will be removed from the distribution list.

Third party Websites and Advertisers:

Our websites may provide links to third party websites. The inclusion of any link does not imply our endorsement of any other company, its websites, or its products and/or services. These linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies, which we recommend that you read carefully. We have no control over such websites and therefore have no responsibility or liability for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use, disclose or otherwise treat your personal information.

Our websites may use reputable third parties to present or serve the advertisements that you may see at its web pages and to conduct research about these advertisements. This Privacy Statement does not cover any use of personal information that such third parties may have collected from you or the methods used by the third-parties to collect that information (e.g., cookies, web beacons and clear gifs).

Security of Personal Information:

Although we take appropriate measures to safeguard the personal information in our custody and control, we need you to understand that we are unable to guarantee that your personal information will never be disclosed or accessed in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Statement. We have implemented measures in an effort to maintain the confidentiality of all personal information in our custody and control, including only providing access to personal information to employees and authorized service providers who require such information for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. We maintain administrative, technical and physical safeguards in an effort to protect against unauthorized access, use, modification and disclosure of personal information in our custody and control.

To provide you with an increased level of security online, access to your personal information on our websites may be protected with a password you select. We strongly recommend that you do not disclose your password to anyone, and that your password be changed every few months. We will never ask you for your password in any unsolicited communication. HI3C will take all commercially- reasonable efforts to ensure that information is used responsibly and only for its intended purpose.

Accessing and Correcting your Personal Information:

If you wish to access the personal information we have about you, or to correct factual errors in our records, please contact us as set out in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

In order to further protect your privacy, we will take reasonable steps to help verify your identity before granting access or making any corrections.

Changes to this Privacy Statement:

This Privacy Statement may be updated periodically to reflect changes to our personal information practices. The revised Privacy Statement will be posted on this website. We will treat your personal information in accordance with the privacy statement in place at the time of collection of such information, or as you otherwise consent.

How to Contact Us:

Feel free to contact our Customer Service department at any time if

• you have any questions or enquiries about this Privacy Statement,
• you wish to withdraw your name from an e-mail or other marketing list;
• you wish to access and/or correct your personal information,
• you have a complaint about the manner in which we treat your personal information.

Please contact us or send us correspondence at the following address.

Customer Service

7250 Keele Street, Suite 410 (second floor),

Concord, Ontario, Canada,

L4K 1Z8

fax: (905) 761-9883

phone: (905) 761-5429

Last updated on Jan 01, 2019