| |  | | privacy policy |  | Your privacy and the security of your personal information are very important to us. We want you to be as comfortable as possible visiting our Website and using our Online Products. We are dedicated to protecting the privacy of those who visit our Website and use our Online Products. This Privacy Policy governs the Australian and New Zealand websites operated by us (our "Website") and explains how we collect your personal information on our Website, how we protect such information, and the choices you have concerning the use of such information. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. The Website is for use by residents of Australia and New Zealand only. Except as disclosed in this Privacy Policy, we will not sell, share, license, trade, or rent your personal information to others. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, "we", "us", and "our" means WeightWatchers.com, Inc. ("WeightWatchers.com"), Fortuity Pty Ltd (ABN 55 007 148 683), Weight Watchers New Zealand Limited and Weight Watchers International, Inc. ("Weight Watchers International").
We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes to this Privacy Policy here so that you may know what information we gather, how we might use that information, and whether we will disclose that information to anyone. Please refer back to this Privacy Policy on a regular basis. By using our Website or any of our products, offerings, features, tools or resources that we provide on our Website (collectively, our "Online Products"), you agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
Please remember that this Privacy Policy applies only to information collected by our Website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third parties or third party websites, even if those other websites are accessed from this Website.
The following are links to the provisions of our Privacy Policy, which you should read as a whole. For immediate access to a particular topic in this Privacy Policy, click on that provision title below.
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| WHAT INFORMATION ABOUT ME IS COLLECTED ON OUR WEBSITE?
We collect two types of information: personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information.
Personally Indentifiable Information
Personally identifiable information is information from which your identity is apparent or can reasonably be ascertained and includes personal information under applicable Australian and New Zealand privacy laws ("Personally Identifiable Information"). Such Personally Identifiable Information may include your name, address, email address, telephone number, birth date (primarily for eligibility purposes) and billing and credit card information. We may request Personally Identifiable Information (which may include health information and other sensitive information) from you when you register on our Website or in connection with Online Products we may make available on our Website from time to time. In all of these cases, we will collect Personally Identifiable Information from you only if you voluntarily submit such information to us. Unless you give us permission to do so, we will not sell, share, license, trade or rent your Personally Identifiable Information other than as specified in this Privacy Policy.
Non-Personally Identifiable Information
When you become a community user of our Website, or in connection with Online Products we may make available on our Website from time to time, we also may collect information that by itself cannot be used to identify or contact you, such as demographic information (like age, profession or gender) and health information (like current weight) ("Non-Personally Identifiable Information"). Non-Personally Identifiable Information may also include user IP addresses, browser types, domain names, and anonymous statistical data involving the use of our Website. Non-Personally Identifiable Information is used to help us understand who uses our Website and to improve and market our Website in general and our Online Products in particular.
Information from Other Sources
We may also supplement the information we collect with information from other sources to assist us in evaluating and improving our Website and Online Products, to determine your preferences so that we can tailor our Website and Online Products to your needs, and/or to study nutritional, weight loss, behavioural and fitness questions in general.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN CONSEQUENCES IF I DO NOT PROVIDE PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION?
You do not have to provide us with any Personally Identifiable Information to visit our Website. However, if you choose to withhold requested information, you may not be able to visit all sections of our Website or use all of our Online Products, such as posting messages on our message boards. In addition, we may not be able to provide you with some of the other Online Products dependent upon the collection of such information, such as a personalised WeightWatchers.com.au or WeightWatchers.co.nz home page.
| WHO OPERATES THIS WEBSITE AND WHERE ARE OUR SERVERS LOCATED?
This website is operated by WeightWatchers.com. When you provide us with your Personally Identifiable Information, this information may be collected, stored and processed on servers located outside of Australia and New Zealand.
WHERE AND WHEN IS INFORMATION COLLECTED ON OUR WEBSITE (INCLUDING THROUGH THE USE OF COOKIES AND ACTION TAGS)?
We may collect information (including information that is Personally Identifiable Information) from you in different manners and at different places and times on our Website, such as when you become a community user on our Website. We also may collect information from you in connection with, or through, other Online Products we may make available on our Website from time to time. The following is a description of the areas and/or manners in which we primarily collect information about you.
Becoming a Community User.
To access certain Online Products on our Website, such as our message boards, you must first complete certain steps to become a community user. During these steps, you may be required to provide us with information (including Personally Identifiable Information) such as name, postcode and email address. This information is used to help us understand who uses our Website, to improve our Website and our Online Products and/or to contact users about requested Online Products.
Cookies and Action Tags.
We also collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information passively using "cookies" and "action tags".
"Cookies" are small text files that are placed on your computer to identify your Web browser and the activities of your computer on our Website and other websites. Cookies are used to personalise your experience on our Website (such as dynamically generating content on webpages specifically designed for you), to assist you in using our Online Products (such as saving time by not having to reenter your name upon each visit to our Website), and to allow us to statistically monitor how you are using our Website to help us improve our online offerings. We also may use cookies to target certain advertisements to your browser which may be of interest to you or to determine the popularity of certain content.
In addition to cookies that we place on your computer, cookies may also be placed on your computer by third parties that we use to display or serve advertisements on our Website or to collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information for advertising-related services. In the course of serving advertisements on this Website, a third party advertiser may place or recognise a unique "cookie" on your browser. Neither these third parties nor their cookies collect Personally Identifiable Information on our Website, and we do not share Personally Identifiable Information with them without your permission.
| You do not have to accept cookies to use our Website. Although most browsers are initially set to accept cookies, you may reset your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to reject cookies generally. Most browsers offer instructions on how to do so in the "Help" section of the toolbar. While you are not required to accept our cookies to access our Website, if you reject cookies, certain products, offerings, features, or resources of our Website (including certain Online Products) may not work properly and you may experience some loss of convenience.
"Action tags," also known as web beacons or gif tags, are a web technology used to help track website usage information, such as how many times a specific page has been viewed. Action tags are invisible to you, and any portion of our Website, including advertisements, or email sent on our behalf, may contain action tags. We may select and use from time to time different third parties to track website usage through action tags on our Website and on our advertisements on other websites.
By using cookies and action tags together, we are able to gain valuable information to improve our Website and our Online Products and measure the effectiveness of our advertising and marketing campaigns. We do not disclose any of your Personally Identifiable Information to our advertising partners.
Finally, please note that advertisers and other third parties may also use their own cookies or action tags when you click on their advertisement or link to their website or service, on or from our Website. This Privacy Policy does not govern the use by such third party websites or providers of third party advertising.
Online Products.
We collect information, some of which may be Personally Identifiable Information, that you voluntarily provide to us when you choose to use some of our Online Products. We also collect information that you provide voluntarily through responses to special Online Products such as surveys, questionnaires, self-assessment quizzes, contests and the like. Some of these Online Products may ask you for health related information. We collect this information in order to personalise your online experience.
Public Forums.
We feature public forums such as chat rooms, message boards, bulletin boards, recipe swaps or similar activities where you and other users of our Website can communicate with one another. You should be aware that any information shared in a public forum such as a chat room, message board, bulletin board or recipe swap is public information and may be seen or collected by third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. You should think carefully before disclosing any information in any public forum on our Website. If you do disclose any Personally Identifiable Information in such a context, you consent to such collection by third parties and release and indemnify us in respect of all collection, use and disclosure of the Personally Identifiable Information by any third party.
| Log Files.
We also collect Non-Personally Identifiable Information through our Internet log files, which record data such as user IP addresses, browser types, domain names, and other anonymous statistical data involving the use of our Website. This information may be used to analyse trends, to administer the Website, to monitor our Website's use, and to gather general demographic information. We may link this information to Personally Identifiable Information for these and other purposes such as personalising your experience on our Website and evaluating our Online Products in general.
DOES OUR WEBSITE COLLECT INFORMATION FROM CHILDREN?
We are committed to protecting the privacy of children. Our Website is not designed for or directed to children. Our Website is directed to individuals who are 18 years and older and is for use by such individuals only. We do not collect Personally Identifiable Information from any person we actually know is under the age of 18. We urge all parents or guardians to participate in their children's exploration of the Internet and to teach their children about protecting their personal information while online.
WHAT DOES OUR WEBSITE DO WITH THE INFORMATION IT COLLECTS?
In general, we use the information collected on our Website to help us understand who uses our Website and how it is used, to personalise your online experience, to assist you in using our Online Products, and to improve our Website.
If you become a community user of our Website, we may use your information to send you a welcoming email that may confirm your user name and password. In addition, if you identify yourself to us by sending us an email with questions or comments, we may use your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) to respond to your questions or comments, and we may file your questions or comments for future reference. We may also use the information collected to send you important service announcements and updates regarding our Website or Online Products. You will not be able to unsubscribe from these service announcements and updates as they contain important information relevant to your use of our Website and/or our Online Products.
We may also use the information gathered on our Website to perform statistical analysis of user behaviour, to analyse and evaluate issues relating to nutrition, weight loss, behaviour and fitness, or to evaluate and improve our Online Products. We may link some of this information to Personally Identifiable Information for internal purposes only or to assist you in your personal weight loss efforts.
| WHEN DOES OUR WEBSITE DISCLOSE INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES?
Except as set forth in this Privacy Policy or as specifically agreed to by you, we will not disclose any information we gather from you on our Website.
Affiliates
We may disclose information (including Personally Identifiable Information) about you to our Affiliates within the United States, Australia, New Zealand or elsewhere. For purposes of this Privacy Policy, "Affiliates" means any person or entity which directly or indirectly controls, is controlled by or is under common control with WeightWatchers.com or Weight Watchers International, whether by ownership or otherwise. Any information relating to you that we provide to our Affiliates will be treated by those Affiliates in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy. We may share your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) with franchisees of Weight Watchers International, but only where we indicate to you at time of information collection that such information may be provided to a franchisee, or if we otherwise obtain your consent. Unless we obtain your consent at the time of information collection or otherwise, any franchisee to whom we disclose your information will be obliged to adhere to this Privacy Policy.
Laws and Legal Rights.
We may also disclose your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) if we believe in good faith that we are required to do so in order to comply with an applicable statute, regulation, rule or law, a subpoena, a search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other valid legal process. We may disclose Personally Identifiable Information in special circumstances when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against someone who may be violating our Terms & Conditions, or to protect the safety and/or security of our users, our Website or the general public.
Third Parties Generally.
We may provide to third parties information about you that does not allow you to be identified or contacted, including where such information is combined with similar information of other users of our Website. For example, we might inform third parties regarding the number of unique users who visit our Website, the demographic breakdown of our community users of our Website, or the activities that visitors to our Website engage in while on our Website. The third parties to which we may provide this information may include potential or actual advertisers, providers of advertising services (including website tracking services), commercial partners, sponsors, licensees, researchers and other similar parties.
| Outside Contractors.
We may employ independent contractors, vendors and suppliers (collectively, "Outside Contractors") to provide specific services and products related to our Website, such as hosting and maintaining our chat rooms, providing credit card processing and fraud screening, and developing applications for our Website and e-mail services. These Outside Contractors may sometimes have limited access to information collected on our Website, including your Personally Identifiable Information, in the course of providing products or services to us. Access to your Personally Identifiable Information by these contractors is limited to the information reasonably necessary in order for the Outside Contractors to perform their limited function for us. We also require that these contractors (i) protect the privacy of your Personally Identifiable Information consistent with this Privacy Policy, and (ii) not use or disclose your Personally Identifiable Information for any purpose other than providing us with products or services for which we contracted.
Third Party Sellers.
In addition, through our Website, you may be given the opportunity to purchase (or to obtain more information regarding) certain content, products or services which are sold through a person or company other than us or our Affiliates (collectively, "Third Party Sellers"). We will attempt to make it clear to you when you are dealing with a Third Party Seller by opening a new browser or otherwise notifying you that you are leaving our Website. For example, if you see a phrase such as "powered by" or "brought to you by" followed by the name of a person or company other than WeightWatchers.com, then you are likely on, or about to enter, a website hosted or operated by a person or company other than us. Third Party Sellers may request that you submit certain information to them in order to purchase their products or services or to obtain additional information from them. You do not need to submit this information or purchase any products or services from Third Party Sellers to access our Website. By submitting the requested information, you affirmatively consent to have that information collected by the Third Party Seller. This information is used by the Third Party Seller and may be subject to a different privacy policy. We do not otherwise share or disclose your Personally Identifiable Information to Third Party Sellers.
Sale of Business.
We reserve the right to transfer information (including your Personally Identifiable Information) to a third party in the event of a sale, merger or other transfer of all or substantially all of the assets of WeightWatchers.com or Weight Watchers International, provided that the third party agrees to adhere to the terms of this Privacy Policy.
| DOES THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLY WHEN I LINK TO OTHER WEBSITES?
Our Website contains links to other websites not owned or operated by WeightWatchers.com (for example, if you "click" on a banner advertisement, you will likely be taken off our Website), including links to websites operated by franchisees of Weight Watchers International. We will attempt to make it obvious to you when you leave our Website and enter these websites by opening a new browser or otherwise notifying you that you are leaving our Website. However, please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such websites. We encourage you to be aware when our Website links to other websites and to read the privacy policies or statements of each and every website. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by our Website.
IS THE INFORMATION COLLECTED ON OUR WEBSITE SECURE?
We want your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) to remain as secure as reasonably possible. We strive to provide secure transmission of your information from your computer to our servers through industry-standard techniques. To help ensure the integrity and privacy of the Personally Identifiable Information you provide to us via the Internet at the time you elect to become a community user, we use Secured Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology in transmitting such Personally Identifiable Information over the Internet to our servers. We secure the Personally Identifiable Information you provide on servers located in controlled, secure environments, protected from unauthorized access, use, or alteration. Only employees who need access to your information to perform a specific task or function are granted access to such information. In addition, all WeightWatchers.com employees must abide by this Privacy Policy and are kept up-to-date on security practices. Any employee who violates this Privacy Policy is subject to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
Notwithstanding the above commitments to protect your information (including Personally Identifiable Information) from loss, misuse or alteration by third parties, you should be aware that there is always some risk involved in transmitting information over the Internet. There is also some risk that others could find a way to thwart our security systems. As a result, while we strive to protect your information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security and privacy of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.
| WHAT CHOICES DO I HAVE REGARDING THE COLLECTION, DISCLOSURE AND DISTRIBUTION OF PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION?
Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will only use Personally Identifiable Information for the purposes described above or as otherwise disclosed at the time we request such information from you. You must "opt-in" and give us permission to use your Personally Identifiable Information for any other purpose. If you opt-in to receiving any communication, you may change your preference and "opt-out" of receiving such communications by changing that option in the My Preferences feature of our Website (available from the Message Boards), following the directions provided in association with the communication, or by contacting our Privacy Coordinator at the address set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.
Users of our Website are notified when Personally Identifiable Information is being collected by third parties on our Website. We do this so you can make an informed choice as to whether you should disclose information to a third party.
CAN I ACCESS, UPDATE OR CORRECT MY PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION?
You can always contact us in order to (1) access your Personally Identifiable Information, (2) update or correct your Personally Identifiable Information, (3) change your preferences with respect to communications and other information you receive from us, or (4) delete the Personally Identifiable Information maintained about you on our systems, by accessing My Preferences or contacting our Privacy Coordinator at the address set out at the end of this Privacy Policy. Such updates, corrections, changes and deletions will not have an effect on other information that we maintain, or information that we have provided to third parties in accordance with this Privacy Policy prior to such update, correction, change or deletion.
You should be aware that it is not technologically possible to remove each and every record of the information you have provided to us from our system. The need to back-up our systems to protect information from inadvertent loss means that a copy of your Personally Identifiable Information may exist in a non-erasable form that will be difficult or impossible for us to locate. We promise that promptly after receiving your request, all Personally Identifiable Information stored in databases we actively use and other readily searchable media will be updated, corrected, changed or deleted, as appropriate, as soon as reasonably practicable.
| HOW WILL I KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY?
If we decide to change this Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on our Website so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use Personally Identifiable Information in a manner significantly different from that stated in this Privacy Policy, or otherwise disclosed to you at the time it was collected, we will notify you by email, and you will have a choice as to whether or not we use your Personally Identifiable Information in the new manner. We may also make non-significant changes to our Privacy Policy that generally will not affect our use of your Personally Identifiable Information. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Policy, you should not use our Website.
| WHO DO I CONTACT IF I HAVE ANY PRIVACY QUESTIONS?
If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy or feel that we are not abiding by the terms of our posted Privacy Policy, please contact our Privacy Coordinator in any of the following ways:
| Email our Privacy Coordinator at:
| | privacy@weightwatchers.com.au | | | | Or, write to our Privacy Coordinator at:
| | WeightWatchers.com, Inc. | | Columbus Circle Station, PO Box 21053 | | New York, New York 10023 | | Attn: Privacy Coordinator - Australia | | | | Or, fax our Privacy Coordinator at: | | (212) 315-0700 | | Attn: Privacy Coordinator - Australia |
BY USING OUR WEBSITE, YOU SIGNIFY YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, YOU SHOULD NOT USE OUR WEBSITE. YOUR CONTINUED USE OF OUR WEBSITE FOLLOWING THE POSTING OF CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY WILL MEAN THAT YOU ACCEPT THOSE CHANGES.
(Last modified June 18, 2003) | |
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