Privacy

Our goal is to provide you with the best shopping experience possible. Privacy is very important to us. This Privacy Statement will describe the types of information we collect, how we use your information to improve your shopping experience, the limited circumstances under which we might disclose information you provide us and the security efforts we take to safeguard your information.

Here are the types of information we gather.

We receive and store any information you enter on TipShopping.com or give us in any other way. You provide information to TipShopping.com when you register, sign-in, search, purchase products, apply for credit, participate in a contest or questionnaire, sign up for our e-mail newsletters, or communicate with customer service. As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as your name, address, and phone number; gender; credit card information; e-mail address; or people to whom purchases have been shipped (for example, a gift recipient), including address and phone number.

We automatically receive and store certain types of information whenever you visit TipShopping.com. For example, like most Web sites, we use "cookies." Examples of the information we collect and analyze include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information such as browser type and version, operating system, and platform; purchase history; Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through, and from TipShopping.com, including date and time; cookie number; products you viewed or searched for; and phone number used to call our 800 number.

We use data collection devices such as "cookies" on certain pages of TipShopping.com. "Cookies" are small files placed on your hard drive that assist us in providing customized services. We also offer certain features that are only available through the use of a cookie. We also use cookies to allow you to enter your password less frequently during a session. Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session. You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although in that case you may not be able to use certain features on TipShopping.com and you may be required to reenter your password more frequently.

For certain reasons, such as providing you special offers that we think will be of interest, we might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information. We also sometimes receive updated delivery and address information from our shippers or other sources so that we can correct our records and deliver your next purchase or communication more easily.

We use information in the file we maintain about you, and other information we obtain from your current and past activities on TipShopping.com. By visiting our site, you agree that we may use personally identifiable information about you to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to analyze site usage, improve our content and product offerings, and customize TipShopping.com's content, layout, and services. These uses improve TipShopping.com and better tailor it to meet your needs. You agree that we may use your information to contact you and deliver information to you that, in some cases, is targeted to your interests, such as administrative notices, product offerings, and communications relevant to your use of the TipShopping.com.

As a matter of policy, we do not sell or rent any personally identifiable information about you to any third party. However, the following describes some of the ways that your personally identifiable information may be disclosed.

TipShopping does not, generally, manufacture any of the products listed on TipShopping.com. We may share our data, including personally identifiable information about you, with these manufacturers when necessary, for example, to complete or ship your order or assist manufacturers with your questions concerning products offered by TipShopping.

We work closely with certain business partners and carefully selected vendors to provide you with access to their product offerings or to their online stores (for example, the Partners listed on TipShopping.com and NBC products available at TipShopping.com/NBCStore). We may share our data, including personally identifiable information about you, with these business partners or selected vendors, and they may use this information to offer you products and/or services that may be of interest to you. If you choose to access the Partners, disclose information to the Partners, place orders from the Partners, and/or grant them permission to collect information about you, then their use of your information is governed by their applicable privacy policies. To prevent our disclosure of your personally identifiable information to one of these third parties, you can choose not use their services or order their products. Because we do not control the privacy practices of these third parties, you should evaluate their practices before deciding to use their services or place orders with them for their products.

We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, performing credit checks and approvals, processing credit card payments, collecting on delinquent accounts and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.

As we continue to develop our business, we might buy the online and/or off-line retail operations of others. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets. Also, in the unlikely event that TipShopping or substantially all of its assets are acquired by or transferred to another entity, customer information would likely be one of the transferred assets.

We may disclose information about you to law enforcement or other government officials as we believe necessary in connection with an investigation of illegal activity that may expose you or us to legal liability. In addition, if you have purchased products from us on extended payment terms, it may be necessary for us to file certain information about you with state or local government offices to perfect our security interest in the products so purchased, or to provide certain information about you to collection agencies in the event of non-payment or a payment dispute.

TipShopping.com regularly offers links to other Web sites, which may include the Partner Web sites of our business partners or selected vendors. These Web sites have their own policies regarding privacy and, if you choose to visit one of these linked sites, you may choose to review the privacy policy on that site. In addition, you may have linked to TipShopping.com through another site, such as by means of a banner advertisement for TipShopping.com on that other site. In such cases, the site you linked from may collect information from people who click on the banner or link. You may want to refer to the privacy policies on those sites to see how they collect and use this information.

You can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or to take advantage of other TipShopping.com features. TipShopping.com offers the ability to correct or change the information collected through your use of TipShopping.com. Instructions are listed in " My Account" area under "Account Details." You can change this information at any time and as often as necessary. If you experience problems or have any questions about our services, contact us by clicking here to go to our Ask A Question page and then choose General Comments and Ideas. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of the prior version for our records.

TipShopping.com, in conjunction with partner NBC.com, offers free electronic newsletters as a service to our users. In addition, TipShopping.com may periodically send you information and product promotions via e-mail. You may cancel your subscription to our electronic newsletter or end product related e-mails from TipShopping at any time by following the instructions contained at the end of every such newsletter or e-mail. You may also elect to remove your e-mail address from our newsletter and e-mail mailing lists by sending us an email.
To send us an email, please click here.

TipShopping.com uses industry standard practices to safeguard the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information, including "firewalls" and Secure Socket Layers (SSL). TipShopping.com treats data as an asset that must be protected against loss and unauthorized access. We employ many different security techniques to protect such data from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the company. However, "perfect security" does not exist on the Internet. It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your computer.

Every credit card purchase you make at TipShopping.com will be safe. Under the Fair Credit Billing Act, your bank cannot hold you liable for more than $50.00 of fraudulent credit card charges. If your bank does hold you liable for any of this $50.00, TipShopping will cover the entire liability for you, up to the full $50.00. We will only cover this liability if the unauthorized use of your credit card resulted through no fault of your own from purchases made while using TipShopping.com. In the event of unauthorized use of your credit card, you must notify your credit card provider in accordance with its reporting rules and procedures.

Children are not eligible to use TipShopping.com and we ask that minors (under the age of 18) do not submit any personal information to us. If you are a minor, you can use TipShopping.com only in conjunction with your parents or guardians

If you choose to visit TipShopping.com, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Statement and our Terms of Use policy. If you have any concern about privacy at TipShopping.com, please send us a thorough description of your concern. Our business changes constantly. This Privacy Statement will change also, and use of information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Statement in effect at the time of use. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check TipShopping.com frequently to see recent changes.