document: title: privacy policy
text: Carlson Hotels Worldwide Privacy Promise 

Carlson Hotels Worldwide believes in protecting your privacy. When we collect personal information from you -- whether online, over the phone or in person -- we follow the privacy principles of TRUSTe and the countries in which we do business. Carlson Hotels Worldwide also complies with the EU Safe Harbor framework administered by the Department of Commerce. These are our ten promises to you:

  1. Notice. Where we ask for your personal information, we'll tell you why we need your information, what we'll do with it and what options are available to you. 
  2. Relevance. We will require you to provide only those pieces of information that we need to perform the particular service you seek from us. 
  3. Retention. We will retain your information only so long as it is needed for business purposes or as required by law. 
  4. Choice. When we contact you for marketing purposes, we'll let you know how to remove your name from future marketing efforts. 
  5. Access. We will provide easy ways for you to access the information we've collected about you. 
  6. Accuracy. We will promptly correct inaccuracies in your personal information that we discover or you bring to our attention. 
  7. Security. We will follow generally accepted industry standards to protect your personal information during transmission and storage. 
  8. Sharing. When we share your information with other companies to help us provide our services to you, we will require them to comply with all applicable legal requirements regarding the privacy of your information. We will obtain your permission before sending your information outside of the Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies for purposes not related to the services we provide you. 
  9. International Transfer. If we send your information to one of our facilities in another country, we will protect it with the same high level of security. 
  10. Enforcement. We will regularly review how we're meeting these privacy promises and provide you a means to settle complaints about our privacy practices.



To access your information, ask questions about our privacy practices, change your marketing preferences or issue a complaint, contact us at:

> Carlson Hotels Worldwide  
> Customer Service  
> 11340 Blondo St.  
> Omaha, NE 68164
> 
> In the U.S. & Canada call toll free 888-201-1802.
> 
> Email \- privacy@parkinns.com.

If your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, contact the TRUSTe Dispute Resolution Process at www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the website to resolve your concerns.

To learn more about our privacy practices, see our Frequently Asked Questions.  
Last Updated: 25 October 2005

Frequently Asked Questions -- Data Privacy

Who are we?  
Carlson Hotels Worldwide is a subsidiary of Carlson Companies, the parent corporation of businesses operating in the hospitality, travel and relationship-marketing industries. Carlson Hotels Worldwide brands include Radisson Hotels & Resorts®, Country Inns & Suites by Carlson®, Park Inn® and Park Plaza® Hotels & Resorts, Regent Hotels® and Provisions. Carlson has a major interest in Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, the parent company of T.G.I. Friday's® and Pick Up Stix®. Carlson Hotels Worldwide is also a member of Carlson Companies' Gold Points Reward Network. Many of the hotels within the Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies are owned and operated independently of Carlson. If you would like to learn the privacy policy of a specific hotel, please contact that hotel.

How can someone learn about our privacy practices?  
Wherever we ask for your personal information, we'll let you know how you can find out about the steps we take to guard your information. If we're asking you for information online, such as on one of our websites, we'll provide a link to our Privacy Promise. If we're asking you to complete a paper form, we'll include a privacy notice with additional points of contact for your questions. If you're making a reservation by phone, our operators will be able to answer your privacy questions. Our hotel and restaurant managers know about our commitments to your privacy. They will be able to answer your questions and promptly address any of your concerns.

What personal information do we collect, how and why?  
Our sole purpose in collecting your personal information is to provide the level of hospitality you expect. By learning more about you and your preferences, we can provide you meaningful offers and deliver services that meet your highest standards.

We'll require only the minimum amount of information from you that we need to provide our services. If you're making a hotel or cruise reservation on one of our websites, we'll ask for your name, address, e-mail address, phone number and credit-card number, which we need to secure your reservation. We'll save that number to facilitate future reservations. If you provide us comments through the "Email Us" features on our websites, we'll provide a way for you to include your contact information, but you can also choose to provide anonymous comments. If you establish a website account with us, we'll ask for your basic contact information to facilitate future online reservations. If you enroll in our Express Yourself program, we'll ask for your room preferences. If you join our goldpoints plus loyalty program, we'll require you to provide basic contact information for identification purposes. If you use the "Plan an Event" feature on our websites, we'll ask for your basic contact information to process your request. If you request E-scapes or Hot Deals to be e-mailed to you, we'll ask for your vacation preferences to select the right offers to send you. We'll indicate the minimum required information on forms that we ask you to complete.

We believe that in order to make your stay with us pleasing and comforpolicy_texts, we must strive to anticipate your needs. To do this, we'll occasionally ask for your hospitality preferences. If you provide us comments through our guest cards, we'll use your information to improve our services. We try to identify guests who stay with us a number of times to let them know about special offers they may be eligible for. To learn more about the needs and wishes of hospitality customers and to accurately administer their records, we occasionally obtain customer information from companies outside our family of businesses, but will do so only if these companies have permission to share that information with us.

Another way we try to anticipate your needs is by conducting market research.  We will occasionally invite our past guests to participate in surveys or focus groups where we will ask for your opinions about your stays with us or about new services we are considering.  Your participation in our market research is always on a voluntary basis.

If you're visiting one of our websites, we track the IP address of the computer you're using and the places on our websites you visit. This information does not contain any personally identifiable information. We track this information without your name and use it to improve the visitor experience on our websites. Web beacons/clear gifs are used primarily as tracking mechanisms throughout the site. They allow us to monitor user clickstream activity on our site in order for us to make changes that will allow for the site visitors to more easily accomplish their tasks on our site.

If you submit a hotel review on one of our websites, your comments will be made public on the website.

Many of the hotels within the Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies are owned and operated independently of Carlson. Because they are separate businesses, we can't control all of the ways they may collect and use guest information. We do, however, require our franchised hotels to comply with all applicable legal requirements regarding the privacy of your information.

How do we use cookies?  
Like many commercial websites, we use "cookies". Cookies are small files placed on your computer that contain information you've provided to the website. For example, when you ask one of our websites to log you in automatically each time you visit the site, we'll place a cookie on your computer to enable that to happen. We may also use temporary cookies that expire after 30 days to track referrals to our websites.

We've engaged a third party to place cookies on our sites to track the effectiveness of our campaigns, but the information these cookies collect is not personally identifiable.  We also engage other companies to analyze our website traffic to help us improve our online experience. Whenever we contract with outside companies, we'll hold them accounpolicy_texts to protect our information with generally accepted industry standards.

Other third parties may set cookies on our websites in order to display ads. Due to the way the Internet technically operates, we do not control the information collected through these cookies.

Do we collect information from children?  
No. We do not knowingly request personally identifiable information from children.

How long do we keep your information?  
We'll keep information associated with your name for only as long as we need it. For each program we operate, we'll establish an information-retention plan. These plans will result in eliminating your name from our records after a defined point in the future, such as account inactivity, unless a law where you live requires us to retain it for a different length of time.

How do we use your information for marketing?  
If you've given us your postal address, we may initiate contact with you to invite you back again. At that time, we'll also let you know how to remove your name from our marketing efforts. We will only send offers to your e-mail address if you've first given us your permission.

How can you remove your name from our lists?  
Contact us at 888-201-1802 or e-mail privacy@parkinns.com.  Our e-mailed offers also include instructions for unsubscribing from future e-mailed offers. If you want to be removed  from our postal mailing list only, please provide us with your complete name and address.

How can you access the information we've collected about you?  
Request your information by calling 888-201-1802 or e-mailing privacy@parkinns.com.  If you've registered to become a goldpoints plus member through one of our hotel websites, you may also update your information at that website by accessing the "My Account" or "My Profile" sections. 

How can you make corrections or updates to your personal information?  
Contact us at 888-201-1802 or e-mail us at privacy@parkinns.com to request we update your personal information such as your name and address.

If you've registered to become a goldpoints plus member through one of our hotel websites, you may also update your information at that website by accessing the "My Account" or "My Profile" sections. We also try to ensure that our customer addresses remain current by checking them against the national change-of-address lists that postal services make available. To deactivate your online account with us, visit the Member Services area of the website where you have the account. We'll respond to your request within 30 days.

Do we share your information with other companies?  
We will not sell your information. We also won't share your information with businesses outside our Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies for purposes unrelated to providing the services you've sought from us, unless you've first given us your explicit permission.

One level of sharing occurs within the Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies. If you stay at a Park Inn in Atlanta, for example, your contact information will be kept at that hotel. It will also be processed and stored at Carlson Hotels' central computers. If you create a website account on Radisson.com, that information will be shared with other Carlson hotel companies. Our corporate staff, has been trained on our privacy and security standards, may then access that information and send you offers for our hotel brands for which you qualify. The staff at the hotel may in turn be trained under a hotel-specific privacy policy, because many of the hotels within the Carlson Hotels Worldwide family of companies are owned and operated independently of Carlson.

If you collect Gold Points by using our brands, basic processing information will be sent to Gold Points Corporation to enable it to keep track of your transactions and properly credit your account. Gold Points Corporation is a subsidiary of Carlson Marketing Group, itself a subsidiary of our parent Carlson Companies. Gold Points Corporation protects your information with generally accepted industry standards. Other companies that allow you to redeem your Gold Points for their products and services will have access to your name and point balance when you give them your Gold Points account number. To learn more about the companies that form the Gold Points Reward Network, visit the Gold Points website.

A different level of sharing occurs when we contract with other companies to help provide our hospitality services. For example, when you check out of one of our hotel rooms using a credit card, we'll authorize that payment through a third party. An outside telephone company also provides the telephone network we use to transmit information between our buildings and systems. We will use other companies to prepare and send surface mail and e-mail to customers and to conduct market research. Whenever we contract with outside companies, we'll hold them accounpolicy_texts to protect your information with generally accepted industry standards.

Occasionally we'll include a "tell a friend" feature in our promotions where we will ask you for your friend's name and e-mail address.  We'll automatically send your friend a one-time e-mail inviting your friend to visit the site.

In rare cases, we may be required by law enforcement or other government authorities to provide personally identifiable information to them. In these instances, we will comply with our obligations and seek to do so in a way that protects your information.

Do our Web sites send your information to other companies?  
Our Web sites do not use technologies called "spyware" that secretly collect and transmit information about you outside the domain of the website.

Be aware, however, that whenever you click on any advertisement on the Internet, the companies placing the ads may collect information about you through the use of cookies. Because of the way the Internet technically operates, we cannot control this collection of information. You should contact these advertisers or content providers if you have any questions about their use of the information they collect.

Carlson Hotels Worldwide does contract with other companies to supplement the services we offer on our Web sites. In these instances, your information may be routed through these companies. Whenever we contract with outside companies, we'll hold them accounpolicy_texts to protect our information with generally accepted industry standards.

Occasionally, we'll feature sweepstakes offers on our Web sites. If you enter these sweepstakes, Carlson Hotels Worldwide or our suppliers will hold your registration information. If you win the sweepstakes, we may provide your registration information to a sweepstakes partner company for the purpose of providing you your prize.

Carlson Hotels Worldwide does contract with other companies to supplement the services we offer on our websites. In these instances, your information may be routed through these companies. For example, Carlson Hotels uses PlanSoft to provide event-planning services and 10Best to provide trip-planning services on our websites. When you use these services, it appears that you're still on our website, but you're actually on our supplier's website. When this happens, our supplier websites will post a notice informing you that you are on their site. When we contract with outside companies, we'll hold them accounpolicy_texts to protect your information with generally accepted industry standards and use your information only for our authorized purposes.

Please see the Terms and Conditions of our websites you visit for additional information about the sites.

Do we transmit your information outside your country of residence?  
As a global company, our operations cross national boundaries by necessity. Our hotels and restaurants operate at over 1,000 locations in over 100 countries. We maintain our central data operations in North America. If you stay at a Radisson hotel in Canada, for example, your transaction will be processed by our computers in the U.S. If you call to make a reservation in the U.K., your call may be taken by an operator in Canada. In these cases, we'll ensure that all of our locations are protecting your information to the same high level of security.

What security controls do we use to protect your information?  
We use a combination of basic and advanced technical and procedural controls to prevent unauthorized people from seeing, altering or obtaining your personal information. We operate secure data networks protected by industry-standard firewalls and intrusion-detection sensors. We frequently update our antivirus mechanisms and security patches. Our privacy and security policies are regularly reviewed and enhanced, and only authorized individuals have access to the information provided by our customers. Any sensitive information, such as a customer's credit-card number, is encrypted during transmission.

How do we enforce our privacy promises?  
We undertake several initiatives to ensure our global operations are meeting our ten privacy promises. Our most important effort is to train our key personnel handling customer information on their roles and responsibilities in protecting your privacy. We also require our franchised hotels to comply with all applicable legal requirements regarding data privacy. Each year, we also assess the privacy and security practices of our customer-information systems. As an additional control, we've become members of TRUSTe, who maintains a dispute-resolution process for its members. If you have questions or concerns about Carlson Hotels Worldwide privacy practices, contact Carlson Companies at privacy@parkinns.com. If you do not receive acknowledgement of your inquiry, or if your inquiry is not satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe through the TRUSTe Dispute Resolution Process at www.truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will serve as a liaison with the website to resolve your concerns.

How do we make notification of changes to our privacy policy?  
The types of changes we make will determine what level of notification we make. If we make only minor changes to the policy, we'll replace this policy with the new policy and change the "last updated" date on the first page of the policy. If we make substantial changes to the policy, we'll notify customers that have provided us their e-mail addresses, in addition to the measures taken when only minor changes are made.