Last Updated: April 13, 2012 ( Click here to see what's changed.)
Amazon.ca knows you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we'll do so carefully and sensibly. This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting Amazon.ca, you're accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.
What Personal Information About Customers Does Amazon.ca Gather?
The information we learn from customers helps us personalize and continually improve your Amazon experience. Here are the types of information we gather.
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Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. Click Here to see examples of what we collect. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the information you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customizing future shopping for you, improving our stores, and communicating with you.
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Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many Web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses Amazon.ca or advertisements and other content served by or on behalf of Amazon.ca on other Web sites. Click here to see examples of the information we receive.
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Mobile: When you download or use apps created by Amazon or its subsidiaries, we may receive information about your location and your mobile device, including a unique identifier for your device. We may use this information to provide you with location-based services, such as advertising, search results, and other personalized content. Most mobile devices allow you to turn off location services. For more information about how to do this, click here.
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E-mail Communications: To help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail from Amazon.ca if your computer supports such capabilities. Also, in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers, we compare our customer list to lists received from other companies. If you don't want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences.
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Information from Other Sources: We might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information. Click here to see examples of the information we receive.
What About Cookies?
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Cookies are unique identifiers that we transfer to your device, to enable our systems to recognize your device and to provide features such as 1-Click purchasing, personalized advertisements on other Web sites (e.g., Amazon Associates with content served by Amazon.ca), and storage of items in your Shopping Cart between visits.
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The Help feature on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies, by changing the add-on's settings or visiting the Web site of its manufacturer. Because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of Amazon.ca's essential features, we recommend you leave them turned on. For instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be able to add items to your Shopping Cart, proceed to Checkout, or use any Amazon.ca products and services that require you to Sign in.
Does Amazon.ca Share the Information It Receives?
Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we're not in the business of selling it to others. We share customer information only as described below and with subsidiaries Amazon.com, Inc., controls that are either subject to this Privacy Notice or follow practices at least as protective as those described in this Privacy Notice.
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Affiliated Businesses We Do Not Control: We work closely with our affiliated businesses. In some cases, these businesses may operate stores at Amazon.ca or sell offerings to you at Amazon.ca. In other cases, we operate stores, provide services, or sell product lines jointly with these businesses. You can tell when a third party is involved in your transactions, and we share customer information related to those transactions with that third party.
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Third-Party Service Providers:We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, providing search results and links (including paid listings and links), processing credit card payments, and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.
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Promotional Offers: Sometimes, we send offers to selected groups of Amazon.ca customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we don't give that business your name and address. If you don't want to receive such offers, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences.
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Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores, subsidiaries, or business units. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets but remains subject to the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Notice (unless, of course, the customer consents otherwise). Also, in the unlikely event that Amazon.com.ca, Inc. or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information of course will be one of the transferred assets.
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Protection of Amazon.ca and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with law; enforce or apply our Conditions of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Amazon.ca, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit-risk reduction. Obviously, however, this does not include selling, renting, sharing, or otherwise disclosing personally identifiable information from customers for commercial purposes in violation of the commitments set forth in this Privacy Notice.
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With Your Consent: Other than as set out above, you'll receive notice when information about you might go to third parties, and you'll have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.
How Secure is Information About Me?
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We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you enter.
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We reveal only the last four digits of your credit card numbers when confirming an order. Of course, we transmit the entire credit card number to the appropriate credit card company during order processing.
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It's important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and your computer. Be sure to sign off when you've finished using a shared computer. Click here for more information on how to sign off.
What About Third-Party Advertisers and Links to Other Web Sites?
Our site includes third-party advertising and links to other Web sites. For more information about third-party advertising at Amazon.ca, including personalized or interest-based ads, please read our Interest-Based Ads policy.
Which Information Can I Access?
Amazon.ca gives you access to a broad range of information about your account and your interactions with Amazon.ca for the limited purpose of viewing and, in certain cases, updating that information. Click here to see some examples. This list will change as our Web site evolves.
What Choices Do I have?
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As discussed above, you can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or to take advantage of such Amazon.ca features as Customer Reviews and Wish Lists.
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You can add or update certain information on pages such as those referenced in the "Which Information Can I Access?" section, above. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of the prior version for our records.
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If you don't want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please adjust your Customer Communication Preferences. (If you don't want to receive Conditions of Use and other legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Notice, those notices still will govern your use of Amazon.ca, and it's your responsibility to review them for changes.)
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If you do not want us to use personal information that we gather to allow third parties to personalize advertisements we display to you, please adjust your Advertising Preferences.
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The Help feature on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. Additionally, you can disable or delete similar data used by browser add-ons, such as Flash cookies, by changing the add-on's settings or visiting the Web site of its manufacturer. Because cookies allow you to take advantage of some of Amazon.ca's essential features, we recommend you leave them turned on. For instance, if you block or otherwise reject our cookies, you will not be able to add items to your Shopping Cart, proceed to Checkout, or use any Amazon.ca products and services that require you to Sign in.
Are Children Allowed to Use Amazon.ca?
Amazon.ca does not sell products for purchase by children. We sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you're under 18, you may use Amazon.ca only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.
Does Amazon.ca Participate in the Safe Harbour Program?
Any personal information provided to or to be gathered by Amazon.ca is controlled by Amazon.com.ca, Inc. of 410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109 and stored in the U.S. Amazon.com, Inc. and its controlled U.S. subsidiaries, including Amazon.com.ca, Inc., are participants in the Safe Harbour program developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and (1) the European Union and (2) Switzerland, respectively. These Amazon Group companies have certified that they adhere to the Safe Harbour Privacy Principles agreed upon by the U.S. and (1) the E.U. and (2) Switzerland, respectively. For more information about the Safe Harbour and to view our certification, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor Web Site. If you would like to contact Amazon.com and its controlled U.S. subsidiaries directly about the Safe Harbour program, please send an e-mail to safeharbour@amazon.com.
Conditions of Use, Notices, and Revisions
If you choose to visit Amazon.ca, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Notice and our Conditions of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the state of Washington. If you have any concern about privacy at Amazon.ca, please contact us with a thorough description, and we'll try to resolve it.
Our business changes constantly, and our Privacy Notice and the Conditions of Use will change also. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, but you should check our Web site frequently to see recent changes. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Notice applies to all information that we have about you and your account. We stand behind the promises we make, however, and will never materially change our policies and practices to make them less protective of customer information collected in the past without the consent of affected customers.
Related Practices and Information
Examples of Information Collected
Information You Give Us
You provide most such information when you search, buy, post, participate in a contest or questionnaire, or communicate with customer service. For example, you provide information when you search for a product; make an order; provide information in Your Account (and you might have more than one, if you've used more than one e-mail address when shopping with us); communicate with us by phone, e-mail, or otherwise; complete a questionnaire or a contest entry form; compile Wish Lists or other gift registries; and provide and rate reviews. As a result of those actions, you might supply us with such information as your name, address, and telephone number; credit card information; names of people to whom purchases have been shipped, including address and telephone number; names of people (with addresses and telephone numbers) listed in 1-Click settings; content of reviews and e-mails to us; and financial information.
Automatic Information
Examples of the information we collect and analyze include the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet; login; e-mail address; password; computer and connection information, such as browser type, version and timezone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system, and platform; purchase history, which we sometimes aggregate with similar information from other customers to create features such as Bestseller Lists; the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through, and from our Web site, including date and time; cookie number; products you viewed or searched for; and the telephone number used to call our customer service number. We may also use browser data such as cookies, Flash cookies (also known as Flash Local Shared Objects), or similar data on certain parts of our Web site for fraud prevention and other purposes. During some visits we may use software tools such as JavaScript to measure and collect session information, including page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page. We may also collect technical information to help us identify your device for fraud prevention and diagnostic purposes.
Mobile
Most mobile devices provide users with the ability to disable location services. Most likely, these controls are located in the device's settings menu. For information about specific devices, click here. If you have questions about how to disable your device's location services, we recommend you contact your mobile service carrier or your device manufacturer.
Information from Other Sources
Examples of information we receive from other sources include updated delivery and address information from our carriers or other third parties, which we use to correct our records and deliver your next purchase or communication more easily; and credit history information from credit bureaus, which we use to help prevent and detect fraud and to offer certain credit or financial services to some customers.
Information You Can Access
Examples of information you can currently access easily at Amazon.ca include up-to-date information regarding recent orders, personally identifiable information (including name, e-mail, password, communications preferences, address book, and 1-Click settings), payment settings (including credit card information, gift certificate, gift card, and check balances), e-mail notification settings, Wish Lists, and recommendations.
