document: title: privacy policy
text: PLEASE NOTE THAT OUR PRIVACY POLICY has changed effective September 9, 2008.

If you submitted personally identifiable information to us prior to September 9, 2008, and desire opt out of having that previously submitted personally identifiable information from being treated under the new policy, please contact us at legal@apartmenttherapy.com.

Welcome to apartmenttherapy.com. apartmenttherapy.com ("Website") is an interactive online service operated by Apartment Therapy, LLC ("us", "we", or "our"). Please read the following to learn more about our Privacy Policy, which includes compliance with California Privacy Rights (see also http://www.privacyprotection.ca.gov).

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting personally identifiable information you may provide us through our Website. We have adopted this Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy") to explain what information may be collected on our Website, how we use this information, and under what circumstances we may disclose the information to third parties. This Privacy Policy applies only to information we collect through our Website and does not apply to our collection of information from other sources.

This Privacy Policy, together with the Terms of Use posted on our Website, sets forth the general rules and policies governing your use of our Website. Depending on your activities when visiting our Website, you may be required to agree to additional terms and conditions.

We generally keep this Privacy Policy posted on our Website and you should review it frequently, as it may change from time to time without notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy. WHEN YOU ACCESS OUR WEBSITE, YOU AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY, OR TO ANY CHANGES WE MAY SUBSEQUENTLY MAKE, IMMEDIATELY STOP ACCESSING OUR WEBSITE. If, at any point, we decide to use your personally identifiable information in a manner materially different than what was stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users of this change by e-mail to the last e-mail address provided to us. Users will have a choice (by means of an opt out opportunity) as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected if you opt out of the new policy.

  1. ### INFORMATION WE COLLECT

Our Website typically collects two kinds of information about you: (a) information that you provide that personally identifies you; and (b) information that does not personally identify you, that we automatically collect when you visit our Website or that you provide us.

    1. #### Personally Identifiable Information:

Our definition of personally identifiable information includes any information that may be used to specifically identify or contact you, such as your name, mail address, phone number, etc. As a general policy, we do not automatically collect your personally identifiable information when you visit our Website. In certain circumstances, we may request, allow or otherwise provide you an opportunity to submit your personally identifiable information in connection with a feature, program, promotion or some other aspect of our Website. For instance, you may: (a) provide your name, mail/shipping address, email address, credit card number and phone number when registering with our Website, using our online store, or in connection with a contest entry; (b) provide certain demographic information about you (e.g., age, gender, purchase preference, usage frequency, etc.) when participating in a survey, poll or joining a club; or (c) post a product rating and recommendation on our Website. Certain information may not be personally identifiable when standing alone (e.g., your age), but may become so when combined with other information (e.g., your age and name). Whether or not you provide this information is your choice; however, in many instances this type of information is required to participate in the particular activity, realize a benefit we may offer, or gain access to certain content on our Website.

    2. #### Non-Personal Information:

Our definition of non-personal information is any information that does not personally identify you. Non-personal information can include certain personally identifiable information that has been de-identified; that is, information that has been rendered anonymous. We obtain non-personal information about you from information that you provide us, either separately or together with your personally identifiable information. We also automatically collect certain non-personal information from you when you access our Website. This information can include, among other things, IP addresses, the type of browser you are using (e.g., Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, etc.), the third party website from which your visit originated, the operating system you are using (e.g., Vista, Windows XP, Macintosh OS, etc.), the domain name of your Internet service provider (e.g., America Online, NetZero, etc.), the search terms you use on our Website, the specific web pages you visit, and the duration of your visits.

  2. ### HOW WE USE & SHARE THE INFORMATION COLLECTED

    1. #### Personally Identifiable Information:

The personally identifiable information you submit to us is generally used to carry out your requests, respond to your inquiries, better serve you, or in other ways naturally associated with the circumstances in which you provided the information. We may also use this information to later contact you for a variety of reasons, such as customer service, providing you promotional information for our products or those of our parent company, subsidiaries or other affiliated companies ("affiliated companies"), or to communicate with you about content or other information you have posted or shared with us via our Website. You may opt-out from receiving future promotional information from us or our affiliated companies, or direct that we not share your information with any affiliated companies, as set forth below.

In certain instances we may also share your personally identifiable information with our third party vendors performing functions on our behalf (or on behalf of our affiliated companies) -- e.g., vendors that process credit card orders, deliver our merchandise, administer our promotions, provide us marketing or promotional assistance, analyze our data, assist us with customer service, etc. Our vendors agree to use this information, and we share information with them, only to carry out our requests. In addition, we may share your personally identifiable information with participating sponsors to a program or promotion (e.g., a sweepstakes or contest) you enter via our Website, and with third parties who assist us in using the content or other information you have posted or shared with us via our Website (e.g., production companies we may use). Further, we may share your personally identifiable information with third parties such as our co-promotional partners and others with whom we have marketing or other relationships. Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, or as set forth when you submit the information, your personally identifiable information will not be shared or sold to any third parties without your prior approval.

    2. #### Non-Personal Information:

We use non-personal information in a variety of ways, including to help analyze site traffic, understand customer needs and trends, carry out targeted promotional activities, and to improve our services. We may use your non-personal information by itself or aggregate it with information we have obtained from others. We may share your non-personal information with our affiliated companies and third parties to achieve these objectives and others, but remember that aggregate information is anonymous information that does not personally identify you.

  3. ### OTHER USES & INFORMATION

    1. #### IP Addresses:

An IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Internet. Web servers (computers that "serve up" web pages) automatically identify your computer by its IP address. When visitors request pages from our Website, our servers typically log their IP addresses. We collect IP addresses for purposes of system administration, to report non-personal aggregate information to others, and to track the use of our Website. IP addresses are considered non-personal information and may also be shared as provided above. It is not our practice to link IP addresses to anything personally identifiable; that is, the visitor's session will be logged, but the visitor remains anonymous to us. However, we reserve the right to use IP addresses to identify a visitor when we feel it is necessary to enforce compliance with our Website rules or to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property, our Website, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety of our Website's users or the general public.

    2. #### Cookies, etc.:

"Cookies" are small text files from a website that are stored on your hard drive. These text files make using our Website more convenient by, among other things, saving your passwords and preferences for you. Cookies themselves do not typically contain any personally identifiable information. We may analyze the information derived from these cookies and other technological tools we employ (such as clear gifs/web beacons) and match this information with data provided by you or another party. We may provide our analysis and certain non-personal information to third parties (who may in turn use this information to provide advertisements tailored to your interests), but this will not involve disclosing any of your personally identifiable information. Please note that advertisers that serve advertisements on our Website may also use their own cookies and other technological tools which are subject to the advertiser's privacy policies, not this Privacy Policy.

If you are concerned about the storage and use of cookies, you may be able to direct your internet browser to notify you and seek approval whenever a cookie is being sent to your hard drive. You may also delete a cookie manually from your hard drive through your internet browser or other programs. Please note, however, that some parts of our Website will not function properly or be available to you if you refuse to accept a cookie or choose to disable the acceptance of cookies.

    3. #### Email Communications:

If you send us an email with questions or comments, we may use your personally identifiable information to respond to your questions or comments, and we may save your questions or comments for future reference. For security reasons, we do not recommend that you send non-public personal information, such as passwords, social security numbers, or bank account information, to us by email. However, aside from our reply to such an email, it is not our standard practice to send you email unless you request a particular service or sign up for a feature that involves email communications, it relates to purchases you have made with us (e.g., product updates, customer support, etc.), we are sending you information about our other products and services, or you consented to being contacted by email for a particular purpose. In certain instances, we may provide you with the option to set your preferences for receiving email communications from us; that is, agree to some communications but not others. You may "opt out" of receiving future commercial email communications from us by clicking the "unsubscribe" link included at the bottom of most emails we send, or as provided below; provided, however, we reserve the right to send you transactional emails such as customer service communications.

    4. #### Transfer of Assets:

As we continue to develop our business, we may sell or purchase assets. If another entity acquires us or all (or substantially all) of our assets, the personally identifiable information and non-personal information we have about you will be transferred to and used by this acquiring entity, though we will take reasonable steps to ensure that your preferences are followed. Also, if any bankruptcy or reorganization proceeding is brought by or against us, all such information may be considered an asset of ours and as such may be sold or transferred to third parties.

    5. #### Other:

Notwithstanding anything herein to the contrary, we reserve the right to disclose any personally identifiable or non-personal information about you if we are required to do so by law, with respect to notices and counternotices pursuant to our DMCA notice and takedown policy and procedures and/or if we believe that such action is necessary to: (a) fulfill a government request; (b) conform with the requirements of the law or legal process; (c) protect or defend our legal rights or property, our Website, or other users; or (d) in an emergency to protect the health and safety of our Website's users or the general public.

    6. #### Your California Privacy Rights

Residents of the State of California, under certain provisions of the California Civil Code, have the right to request from companies conducting business in California a list of all third parties to which the company has disclosed certain personally identifiable information as defined under California law during the preceding year for third party direct marketing purposes. You are limited to one request per calendar year. In your request, please attest to the fact that you are a California resident and provide a current California address for our response. You may request the information in writing at:

Apartment Therapy, LLC  
270 Lafayette Street, Suite 1204  
New York, NY 10012  
Attn: California Privacy Request  
legal@apartmenttherapy.com

  4. ### PUBLIC FORUMS

We may offer chat rooms, message boards, bulletin boards, or similar public forums where you and other users of our Website can communicate. The protections described in this Privacy Policy do not apply when you provide information (including personal information) in connection with your use of these public forums. We may use personally identifiable and non-personal information about you to identify you with a posting in a public forum. Any information you share in a public forum is public information and may be seen or collected by anyone, including third parties that do not adhere to our Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for events arising from the distribution of any information you choose to publicly post or share through our Website.

  5. ### CHILDREN

The features, programs, promotions and other aspects of our Website requiring the submission of personally identifiable information are not intended for children. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13 and believe he or she has disclosed personally identifiable information to us please contact us at legal@apartmenttherapy.com. A parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13 may review and request deletion of such child's personally identifiable information as well as prohibit the use thereof.

  6. ### KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SECURE

We have implemented security measures we consider reasonable and appropriate to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Please be advised, however, that while we strive to protect your personally identifiable information and privacy, we cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any information you disclose or transmit to us online and are not responsible for the theft, destruction, or inadvertent disclosure of your personally identifiable information. In the unfortunate event that your "personally identifiable information" (as the term or similar terms are defined by any applicable law requiring notice upon a security breach) is compromised, we may notify you by e-mail (at our sole and absolute discretion) to the last e-mail address you have provided us in the most expedient time reasonable under the circumstances; provided, however, delays in notification may occur while we take necessary measures to determine the scope of the breach and restore reasonable integrity to the system as well as for the legitimate needs of law enforcement if notification would impede a criminal investigation. From time to time we evaluate new technology for protecting information, and when appropriate, we upgrade our information security systems.

  7. ### OTHER SITES / LINKS

Our Website may link to or contain links to other third party websites that we do not control or maintain, such as in connection with purchasing products referenced on our Website and banner advertisements. We are not responsible for the privacy practices employed by any third party website. We encourage you to note when you leave our Website and to read the privacy statements of all third party websites before submitting any personally identifiable information.

  8. ### CONTACT & OPT-OUT INFORMATION

You may contact us as at legal@apartmenttherapy.com if: (a) you have questions or comments about our Privacy Policy; (b) wish to make corrections to any personally identifiable information you have provided; (c) want to opt-out from receiving future commercial correspondence, including emails, from us or our affiliated companies; or (d) wish to withdraw your consent to sharing your personally identifiable information with others.

We will respond to your request and, if applicable and appropriate, make the requested change in our active databases as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that we may not be able to fulfill certain requests while allowing you access to certain benefits and features of our Website.

  9. ### SOLE STATEMENT 

This Privacy Policy as posted on this Site is the sole statement of our privacy policy with respect to this Site, and no summary, modification, restatement or other version thereof, or other privacy statement or policy, in any form, is valid unless we post a new or revised policy to the Site. 




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