Privacy policy

We want you to be familiar with how we collect, use and disclose Personal Information (as defined below). This Privacy Policy describes our practices in connection with Personal Information we collect through websites operated by us or our U.S. affiliates, from which you are accessing this Privacy Policy (the “Websites”), through the software applications made available by us for use on or through computers and mobile devices (the “Apps”), through our social media pages and apps, if any, through HTML-formatted email messages that we send to you that link to this Privacy Policy, as well as through your offline interactions with us where notice is legally required (collectively, including the Websites, Apps, Social Media Pages and offline interactions, the “Services”). 

Personal Information

“Personal Information” is information that identifies you as an individual or relates to an identifiable individual, including:

•  Name
• Postal address (including billing and shipping addresses)
• Telephone number
• Email address
• IP address (we may also derive your approximate location from your IP address)
• Credit and debit card number
• Profile picture
• Social media account ID
• Travel information, including trip flight information

Collection of Personal Information

We and our service providers may collect Personal Information in a variety of ways, including:

• Through the Services: We may collect Personal Information through the Services, e.g., when you sign up for a newsletter or make a purchase.
• Offline: We may collect Personal Information from you offline, such as when you visit our stores, attend one of our trade shows, place an order over the phone or contact customer service.
• From Other Sources: We may receive your Personal Information from other sources, such as our U.S. affiliates, public databases, joint marketing partners, social media platforms (including from people with whom you are friends or otherwise connected) and from other third parties. In addition, if you elect to connect your social media account to your Website account, certain Personal Information from your social media account will be shared with us, which may include Personal Information that is part of your profile or your friends’ profiles.

If you submit any Personal Information relating to other people to us or to our service providers in connection with the Services, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

How We Use Personal Information

We and our service providers use Personal Information for the following purposes:

•  To respond to your inquiries and fulfill your requests, such as to complete your transactions and provide you with related customer service.
• To send administrative information to you, such as changes to our terms, conditions and policies, as well as marketing communications that we believe may be of interest.
• To personalize your experience on the Services by presenting products and offers tailored to you and to facilitate social sharing functionality.
• To allow you to participate in sweepstakes, contests and similar promotions and to administer these activities. Some of these activities have additional rules containing additional information about how we use and disclose your Personal Information.
• For our business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, developing new products, enhancing, improving or modifying our Services, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and operating and expanding our business activities.
• To enter into, track, and perform agreements with suppliers and manage supplier relationships.
• To maintain our business-to-business interactions.
• We may aggregate and/or anonymize Personal Information so that it will no longer be considered Personal Information. We do so to generate other data for our use, which we may use and disclose for any purpose, as it no longer identifies you or any other individual.

Disclosure of Personal Information

Your Personal Information may be disclosed:

• To our affiliates for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.
• To our third-party service providers who provide services such as website hosting, data analysis, payment processing, order fulfillment, information technology and related infrastructure provision, customer service, email delivery, auditing and other services.
• To third parties, to permit them to send you marketing communications, consistent with your choices.
• To third-party sponsors of sweepstakes, contests and similar promotions.
• We may share your Personal Information with third parties that serve ads to you after you have completed an online purchase.
• By you, on message boards, chat, profile pages and blogs and other services to which you are able to post information and content (including, without limitation, our Social Media Pages). Please note that any information you post or disclose through these services will become public and may be available to other users and the general public.
• To your friends associated with your social media account, to other website users and to your social media account provider, in connection with your social sharing activity. By connecting your Services account and your social media account, you authorize us to share information with your social media account provider, and you understand that the use of the information we share will be governed by the social media provider’s privacy policy.

Other Uses and Disclosures

We also may use and disclose your Personal Information as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) to comply with applicable law, which may include laws outside your country of residence, to respond to requests from public and government authorities, which may include such authorities outside your country of residence, to cooperate with law enforcement, or for other legal reasons; (b) to enforce our terms and conditions; and (c) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of our affiliates, you or others. We may furthermore use, disclose or transfer your information to a third party in connection with any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

We may also use and disclose Personal Information collected through the Services in other ways, with your consent.

Other Information

“Other Information” is any information that does not reveal your specific identity or does not directly relate to an identifiable individual, such as:

•  Browser and device information
• App usage data
• Information collected through cookies, pixel tags and other technologies
• Demographic information and other information provided by you that does not reveal your specific identify
• Information that has been aggregated in a manner that it no longer reveals your specific identity

If we are required to treat Other Information as Personal Information under applicable law, then we may use and disclose it for the purposes for which we use and disclose Personal Information, as detailed in this Policy.

Collection of Other Information

We and our service providers may collect Other Information in a variety of ways, including:

•  Through your browser or device: Certain information is collected by most browsers or automatically through your device, such as your Media Access Control (MAC) address, computer type (Windows or Mac), screen resolution, operating system name and version, device manufacturer and model, language, Internet browser type and version and the name and version of the Services (such as the App) you are using. We use this information to ensure that the Services function properly.
• If applicable, through your use of the App: When you download and use the App, we and our service providers may track and collect App usage data, such as the date and time the App on your device accesses our servers and what information and files have been downloaded to the App based on your device number.
• Using cookies: Cookies are pieces of information stored directly on the computer that you are using. Cookies allow us to collect information such as browser type, time spent on the Services, pages visited, language preferences and other traffic data. We and our service providers use the information for security purposes, to facilitate navigation, to display information more effectively and to personalize your experience. We also gather statistical information about use of the Services in order to continually improve their design and functionality, understand how they are used and assist us with resolving questions regarding them. Cookies further allow us to select which of our advertisements or offers are most likely to appeal to you and display them while you are on the Services. We may also use cookies or other technologies in online advertising to track responses to our ads. 
• If you do not want information collected through the use of cookies, most browsers allow you to automatically decline cookies or be given the choice of declining or accepting a particular cookie (or cookies) from a particular website. If, however, you do not accept cookies, you may experience some inconvenience in your use of the Services. You also may not receive advertising or other offers from us that are relevant to your interests and needs. 
• Using pixel tags and other similar technologies: Pixel tags (also known as web beacons and clear GIFs) may be used to, among other things, track the actions of users of the Services (including email recipients), measure the success of our marketing campaigns and compile statistics about usage of the Services and response rates. 
• Analytics: We use Google Analytics, which uses cookies and similar technologies to collect and analyze information about use of the Services and report on activities and trends. This service may also collect information regarding the use of other websites, apps and online resources. 
• Using Adobe Flash technology (including Flash Local Shared Objects (“Flash LSOs”)) and other similar technologies: We may use Flash LSOs and other technologies to, among other things, collect and store information about your use of the Services. If you do not want Flash LSOs stored on your computer, you can adjust the settings of your Flash player to block Flash LSO storage using the tools contained follow the instructions (which may explain, for example, how to delete existing Flash LSOs (referred to as “information” on the Macromedia site), how to prevent Flash LSOs from being placed on your computer without your being asked, and (for Flash Player 8 and later) how to block Flash LSOs that are not being delivered by the operator of the page you are on at the time). Please note that setting the Flash Player to restrict or limit acceptance of Flash LSOs may reduce or impede the functionality of some Flash applications, including those used in connection with the Services. 
• Physical Location: We may collect the physical location of your device by, for example, using satellite, cell phone tower or WiFi signals. We may use your device’s physical location to provide you with personalized location-based services and content. We may also share your device’s physical location, combined with information about what advertisements you viewed and other information we collect, with our marketing partners to enable them to provide you with more personalized content and to study the effectiveness of advertising campaigns. In some instances, you may be permitted to allow or deny such uses and/or sharing of your device’s location, but, if you do, we and/or our marketing partners may not be able to provide you with the applicable personalized services and content.

Uses and Disclosures of Other Information

We may use and disclose Other Information for any purpose, except where we are required to do otherwise under applicable law. In some instances, we may combine Other Information with Personal Information. If we do, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information as long as it is combined.

Third Party Services

This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of any third parties, including any third party operating any website or service to which the Services link. The inclusion of a link on the Services does not imply endorsement of the linked site or service by us or by our affiliates.

In addition, we are not responsible for the information collection, use, disclosure or security policies or practices of other organizations, such as Facebook, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Blackberry or any other app developer, app provider, social media platform provider, operating system provider, wireless service provider or device manufacturer, including with respect to any Personal Information you disclose to other organizations through or in connection with the Apps or our Social Media Pages. 

Third Party Advertising

We may use third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements regarding goods and services that may be of interest to you when you access and use the Services and other websites or online services, based on information relating to your access to and use of the Services and other websites or online services on any of your devices, as well as on information received from third parties. To do so, these companies may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser (including through the use of pixel tags). They may also use these technologies, along with information they collect about your online use, to recognize you across the devices you use, such as a mobile phone and a laptop. If you would like more information about this practice, and to learn how to opt out of it in desktop and mobile browsers on the particular device on which you are accessing this Privacy Policy.

Security

We seek to use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures to protect Personal Information within our organization. Unfortunately, no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contacting Us” section below.

Choices and Access

Your choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information

We give you choices regarding our use and disclosure of your Personal Information for marketing purposes. You may opt-out from:

•  Receiving electronic communications from us: If you no longer want to receive marketing-related emails from us on a going-forward basis, you may opt-out by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing communication.
• Our sharing of your Personal Information with affiliates for their direct marketing purposes: If you would prefer that we not share your Personal Information on a going-forward basis with our affiliates for their direct marketing purposes, you may opt-out of this sharing by contacting us at support@souqbooks.com
• Our sharing of your Personal Information with unaffiliated third parties for their direct marketing purposes: If you would prefer that we not share your Personal Information on a going-forward basis with unaffiliated third parties for their direct marketing purposes, you may opt-out of this sharing by contacting us at support@souqbooks.com

We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing-related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out.

How you can access, change or suppress your Personal Information

If you would like to request to review, correct, update, suppress/delete or restrict/object to processing of Personal Information that you have previously provided to us, or if you would like to transfer your Personal Information to another company (to the extent this right to data portability is provided to you by applicable law), you may contact us by writing support@souqbooks.com .

In your request, please make clear what Personal Information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your Personal Information suppressed from our database or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of your Personal Information. For your protection, we may only implement requests with respect to the Personal Information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion (e.g., when you make a purchase or enter a promotion, you may not be able to change or delete the Personal Information provided until after the completion of such purchase or promotion). There may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed.

Retention

We will retain Personal Information for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

Use of Services by Minors

The Services are not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information online from individuals under 13.

Jurisdiction and Cross-Border Transfer

The Services are controlled and operated by us from the United States and are not intended to subject us to the laws or jurisdiction of any state, country or territory other than that of the United States. Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers, and, by using the Services, you consent to the transfer of information to countries outside of your country of residence, including the United States, which may have data protection rules that are different from those of your country. In certain circumstances, courts, law enforcement agencies, regulatory agencies or security authorities in those other countries may be entitled to access your personal information.

Sensitive Information

We ask that you not send us, and you not disclose, any sensitive Personal Information (e.g., Social Security numbers, information related to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or other beliefs, health, biometrics or genetic characteristics or criminal background) on or through the Services or otherwise to us. 

Third Party Payment Service

We may use a third-party payment service to process payments made through the Services. If you wish to make a payment through the Services, your Personal Information may be collected by such third party and not by us, and will be subject to the third party’s privacy policy, rather than this Privacy Policy. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, this third party’s collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information.

Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Privacy Policy. The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this Privacy Policy indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Any changes will become effective when we post the revised Privacy Policy on the Services.  

CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@souqbooks.com

Because email communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails to us.

Additional Information Regarding California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia

Collection, Disclosure, Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

This section applies to individuals who are California residents (other than residents whose Personal Information we collect in a human resources context), as well as to consumers who are residents of Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia.

The following chart details which categories of Personal Information we collect and process, as well as which categories of Personal Information we disclose to third parties for our operational business purposes, including within the 12 months preceding the date this Privacy Policy was last updated. The chart also details the categories of Personal Information that we “sell” to third parties or “share” for purposes of cross-context behavioral or targeted advertising, including within the 12 months preceding the date this Privacy Policy was last updated.

We do not knowingly sell or share the Personal Information of minors under 16 years of age.

Individual Requests

If you are a California resident or a Colorado, Connecticut, Utah or Virginia consumer, you may, subject to applicable law, make the following requests:

1.   You may request to know whether we process your Personal Information and to access such Personal Information. You may request that we disclose to you the following information:

• The categories of Personal Information we collected about you and the categories of sources from which we collected such Personal Information;
• The business or commercial purpose for collecting, sharing or selling Personal Information about you;
• The categories of Personal Information about you that we sold or shared and the categories of third parties to whom we sold or shared such Personal Information; and
• The categories of Personal Information about you that we otherwise disclosed and the categories of third parties to whom we disclosed such Personal Information.

2.   You may request to correct inaccuracies in your Personal Information.

3.   You may request to have your Personal Information deleted.

4.   You may request to receive a copy of your Personal Information, including specific pieces of Personal Information, and, where applicable, to obtain a copy of your Personal Information in a portable, readily usable format.

5.   You may request to opt out of targeted advertising or the “sharing” of your Personal Information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

You may request to opt out of the “sale” of your Personal Information, as defined under the applicable privacy law

We will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising your rights. To make a privacy request, please contact us support@souqbooks.com. We will verify and respond to your request consistent with applicable law, taking into account the type and sensitivity of the Personal Information subject to the request. We may decline to honor your request where the law or right you are invoking does not apply or where an exception applies. We may need to request additional Personal Information from you, such as order or transaction history, warranty registration information, or other forms of personal identification, in order to verify your identity and protect against fraudulent requests. If you maintain a password-protected account with us, we may verify your identity through our existing authentication practices for your account and require you to re-authenticate yourself before disclosing or deleting your Personal Information. If you make a request to delete, we may ask you to confirm your request before we delete your Personal Information.

To request to opt out of any future sale of your Personal Information, any future sharing of your Personal Information for purposes of cross-context behavioral advertising or any future processing of your Personal Information for purposes of targeted advertising.

Appeal Process

If you are a Colorado, Connecticut or Virginia consumer, and if we refuse to take action on your request, you may appeal the refusal within a reasonable period after you have received notice of it. You may file an appeal by contacting us via support@souqbooks.com.

Authorized Agents

If an agent would like to make a request on your behalf as permitted under applicable law, the agent may use the submission methods noted in the section entitled “Individual Requests.” Not all kinds of requests can be made by authorized agents in all states. As part of our verification process, we may request that the agent provide proof concerning his or her status as an authorized agent. In addition, we may require that you verify your identity as described in the section entitled “Individual Requests” or confirm that you provided the agent permission to submit the request.

De-Identified Information

Where we maintain or use de-identified data, we will continue to maintain and use the de-identified data only in a de-identified fashion and will not attempt to re-identify the data.