Privacy Policy

Great Blue Heron Inc.

Privacy Policy

January 1, 2024

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This Privacy Policy describes how Great Blue Heron, Inc. and its affiliate companies (collectively, “GBH,” “we,” “our,” or “us”), use and share information about you that we collect when we sell you products, encourage you to engage with our mission to save our home planet, or otherwise interact with you. This includes information collected online at greatblueheronoutdoors.com as well as in retail stores (collectively, the “GBH Services”).

 

HOW WE COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT YOU

We, or vendors providing services on our behalf (e.g., companies that help us process credit card payments), may collect information about you such as your name, your contact information, your shipping information, your billing information (such as credit card account data that our service providers collect), and information about how you engage with our websites, stores, and activism campaigns and other offerings that are part of the GBH Services.

 

We collect this information when you provide it to us through your use of the GBH Services, for example, when you visit our websites, place an order, make a donation, sign up to receive emails or advocacy alerts, attend an event in a retail store, engage with an environmental or other advocacy campaign, join a mailing list to receive catalogs, sign up to receive text messages, or choose to receive other information from us.

 

We may also automatically collect certain information when you use GBH Services. For example, we collect information about the devices you use to connect to our services (such as the IP address of your computer or numeric identifier of your mobile device) and about how you use GBH Services (such as what time you visit our websites and what types of content you are interested in). We, and our advertisers and ad servers, may also collect information outside the GBH Services to measure the success of our advertising campaigns. We may combine the information we collect with additional information from other third-party sources.

 

HOW WE USE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU THAT WE COLLECT

We may use the information that we collect for a variety of purposes, including to provide the GBH Services (such as to process and ship your orders); to respond to your inquiries and customer service requests; to provide, maintain, and improve our products and services; to communicate with you about activism campaigns, alerts, initiatives, or other efforts to pursue GBH’s mission; to analyze and improve the GBH Services; to protect against fraud and other unlawful activity; for content personalization purposes, including to send you information related to particular merchandise, causes, alerts, initiatives, and activism issues and campaigns; to facilitate donations and other interactions with our partners; for marketing purposes; to improve business intelligence; and to support specific causes or public policy activities or initiatives. If you register for email or if you provide your email address to us, we will send you emails about a variety of topics such as store events, new products, special sales, promotional offers from our affiliates or other selected business partners, environmental issues, and employment opportunities. If you are part of an SMS/text messaging campaign or program, you can find information below about your choices with respect to such campaigns or programs. Please also see below for other choices you have regarding how we collect, use, and share the information we collect.

 

Our website also uses third-party analytics vendors such as Google Analytics. Please click here for more information about how data is collected and processed in connection with the Google Analytics service. We and our third-party vendors or partners use analytics data for a variety of purposes such as to improve the design and content of our websites, to help us learn things like what pages are most attractive to all of our visitors and what promotions visitors like to see, and to gauge the success of our advertising campaigns.

 

We do not use the information collected from the GBH Action Works site or other areas of the GBH Services that are identified as related to activism efforts, such as opportunities to donate to activist groups, to send you advertising and marketing for GBH commercial products, such as GBH apparel, packs, accessories, and other gear, or similar retail offers for commercial products.

 

HOW WE SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU THAT WE COLLECT

We do not disclose the information we collect to third parties, except as described in this policy:

 

To companies that provide services to us or perform functions on our behalf (such as processing credit card payments and donations or taking orders) and have agreed to use your information only for the purposes we request;

To our subsidiaries and affiliates and certain non-affiliated partners (such as environmental groups that we support) for content personalization and marketing purposes;

To other selected reputable companies, we may disclose your name, postal address, transaction data, and product interests so that they or others can mail you information that may interest you;

With environmental and other purpose-driven groups to help them connect and communicate with you;

When we believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with applicable law or a court order, subpoena, warrant, or other legal process;

When we believe disclosure is appropriate to enforce our Terms of Use and other agreements and policies, to protect against fraud or other unlawful activity, or to protect our rights and the rights of third parties;

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, partial or total sale of assets, or other corporate change;

To perform analytics on how the GBH Services are used;

To improve business intelligence;

To support specific causes or public policy activities or initiatives; and

For purposes disclosed at the time we collect the information.

We may disclose de-identified or aggregated information to third parties at our discretion. The GBH Services or our offerings on social media platforms may include commenting, forums, sharing, or other similar features. Information that you provide using these features may be available to other users or the general public.

 

YOUR CHOICES ABOUT HOW WE USE AND SHARE INFORMATION ABOUT YOU THAT WE COLLECT

There are several ways you can control our use of your information in connection with marketing and promotions, including if you decide you would like to stop hearing from us.

 

To remove your name from our lists. You can choose to decline communications from us at the point that we request your information. After we have collected your information, you can choose to stop our communications or our service or stop us from sharing your information with other companies for their marketing purposes. To exercise any of these options, please contact us as set out in the “Contact Us” section below.

 

To stop email communications. If you receive email communications from us and want to opt out of receiving such communications in the future, you can click the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the promotional email. You may also select “Update My Preferences” at the bottom of the promotional email to tailor the communications we send you, including to opt out of all such promotional communications. Please note that selecting “Unsubscribe” only opts you out of emails from that particular email address, so you will continue to receive emails from other GBH affiliates (e.g., GBH Provisions). You will need to unsubscribe from those emails directly, or use the “Update My Preferences” option, to opt out of receiving further emails. Any opt-outs will not affect subsequent “opt-ins” to other emails. Please also note that you cannot opt out of non-promotional emails.

 

To stop text messages and calls. You can opt-out of receiving text messages or calls to your phone number at any time by (i) for text messages, texting “STOP” in response to any text message you receive from us; and (ii) for calls, requesting opt-out during any call you receive from us or contacting us as set out in the “Contact Us” section below and specifying you want to opt-out of calls. Please note that your opt-out is limited to the phone number used and the specific GBH Service associated with the opt-out, and that your opt-out will not affect subsequent subscriptions.

 

Other choices. Please see below to learn about your choices with regard to our use of cookies and interest-based advertising.

 

CORRECTING OR UPDATING YOUR INFORMATION

With certain of your information–like the information you give us to fulfill an order–you have the option to change or correct your information. If you would like to request changes to the information that you have previously provided to us, please contact us as set out in the “Contact Us” section below.

 

COOKIES AND OTHER SIMILAR TECHNOLOGY

We may use “cookies,” “web beacons,” and other similar technologies to collect information in connection with the GBH Services and our advertisements. A “cookie” is a text file that helps distinguish your browser from others and enables us to serve you better. For example, we use cookies to save products in your shopping cart while you browse our websites and to measure the effectiveness of our marketing and advertising campaigns. Similarly, a “web beacon” is a technology that can recognize specific cookies and convey information about your browser. We may also use technologies, such as our own cookies, to provide you with personalized online display advertising tailored to your interests.

 

Some browsers accept cookies automatically. You may be able to set your browser to reject and/or delete cookies. For instructions, check your browser’s technical information. However, if you reject or delete cookies, this may disable or interfere with features of the GBH Services or other websites you visit. We recommend that you leave cookies “turned on” so we can offer you a better shopping experience on our sites.

 

INTEREST-BASED ADVERTISING

We may work with third-party advertising companies that collect and use information about your online activities across websites and mobile applications over time, in order to deliver more relevant advertising when you are using the GBH Services and elsewhere on the Internet. This practice is known as interest-based advertising. You may visit www.aboutads.info to learn more and to opt out of this type of advertising by companies participating in the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) self-regulatory program. We do not operate or control this site and are not responsible for the opt-out choices available there. Note that electing to opt out will not stop advertising from appearing in your browser or applications. It may make the ads you see less relevant to your interests. If you delete, block, or otherwise restrict cookies or use a different computer, mobile device, or Internet browser, you may need to renew your opt-out choice.

 

THIRD PARTIES AND SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS HAVE THEIR OWN POLICIES

Our websites may contain links to third-party online properties. Such third parties have their own policies that govern their collection, use, and disclosure of information. We suggest that you read their privacy policies to learn about their practices.

 

Social media provides tools that many of our customers use and enjoy, and we include links to various social media platforms on our websites. If you interact with these social media tools through our websites, your experience on those social media sites will be governed by the privacy and other policies of those sites. The privacy settings you have chosen on those sites will determine the degree to which your information is made public. We therefore encourage you to choose your privacy settings on those sites accordingly.

 

SAFEGUARDING YOUR INFORMATION

We have reasonable physical, electronic, and administrative measures in place to help safeguard the security of the information we collect. Nevertheless, transmission via the Internet is not completely secure and we cannot guarantee the security of information about you.

 

INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER

We are based in the U.S. and the information we collect is governed by U.S. law. If you are accessing the GBH Services from outside the U.S., please be aware that information collected may be transferred to, processed, stored, and used in the U.S. and other jurisdictions. Data protection laws in the U.S. and other jurisdictions may be different from those of your country of residence. Your use of the GBH Services, or decision to provide information through the GBH Services, therefore constitutes your consent to the transfer to and from, processing, usage, sharing, and storage of information about you in the U.S. and other jurisdictions as set out in this Privacy Policy.