Effective Date: November 22, 2010

Augusta Cooperative Farm Bureau, Inc understands that your privacy is important to you and values your trust. This Security and Privacy Policy explains how personal information about you is collected, used and disclosed by Augusta Cooperative Farm Bureau, Inc (Augusta Co-op). Personal information covered by this policy includes information that is collected when you sign up to become an Augusta Co-0p member, shop in our stores, use our sites, sign up for activities and events, or when you otherwise interact with us. We may supply different or additional notices of personal information practices specific to certain programs or activities.

Contents

  • Personal Information Collected
  • Our Use of Personal Information
  • Sharing of Personal Information
  • Your Choices
  • Children’s Privacy Policy
  • Security of Personal Information
  • Changes to this Policy
  • Contact Us

Personal Information Collected

We collect personal information you provide to us when you:

  • purchase, order, return, exchange or request certain information about Augusta Co-op’s products and services
  • Request warranty or tax exempt information
  • Contact Augusta Co-op
  • Visit, register on, or participate in the features of Augusta Co-op’s websites
  • Enter into a contest or sweepstakes or respond to an online survey
  • Provide Augusta Co-op with any information contributed to our sites on your behalf
  • Provide Augusta Co-op with other contact information.

The types of personal information we collect include include name, postal address, phone number, fax number, e-mail address, photo, account information such as membership, credit card and online registration, demographic information, and information about your interests and preferences. Such information may be collected in the following manner.

1. Shopping at Augusta Cooperative Farm Bureau, Inc. (Augusta Co-op)

Augusta Co-op keeps a history of your purchases unless you purchase under the anonymous account. Even with an anonymous account purchase, certain historical information may be kept. Augusta Co-op uses this information to process your orders, to ensure proper delivery, to better assist you when you visit or call us as well as to improve our product and service offerings.

When you return previously purchased merchandise or request a refund or exchange, you may be asked to give your name, address, telephone number and provide other information that identifies you, such as your driver’s license. Augusta Co-op collects this information to help prevent fraud.

When you call one of Augusta Co-op’s retail location or contact an Augusta Co-op field representative about a product, delivery, an installation, a billing question or for customer service, you may be asked for information that identifies you along with additional information we need to help us promptly answer your questions, such as your name, email information, mailing address and a telephone number where we might contact you. Augusta Co-op may retain this information to assist you in the future or for its other business needs.

2. Online Registration

(a) Registration is an optional but highly recommended service provided by Augusta Co-op through its sites. You do not have to register to browse or shop online. When you register, you are asked for certain personal information which may be used to assist us in our provision of services.

(b) Newsletters. When you register, you will have the opportunity to receive future marketing information from Augusta Co-op and to sign up for email newsletters that cover certain subjects that are of interest to you.

(c) Updating Your Profile. If you need to view, change, update or delete any of your registration information, log in and click “My Account” at the top of the screen. You will be taken to a page where you can access your information so that you can edit it.

3. Contests, Questions or Surveys

When you ask a question, participate in a survey or enter a contest or sweepstakes at a retail location, an Augusta Co-op sponsored event or through our sites, we may collect your personal information. This information is used to administer your participation in a contest or sweepstakes.

4. Extended Warranty Services

If you purchase an Extended Warranty Service through a brand of equipment that we sell, you will be required to provide personal information to third party Service Providers.

When you use one of Augusta Co-op’s online sites, certain types of information is received automatically. This includes IP address, type of browser you use, access time, page you visited before visiting our site, cookies, click tracking and tracer tags. We may also collect information about your computer’s operating system and information about your usage and activity on our site.

We automatically collect data using cookies. A “cookie” is a small data files that our sites transfer to your computer. We use the data we collect using cookies to support the integrity of the registration and buying process on our sites, retain your preferences and account settings, and improve our sites and your experience. Should you decide not to accept cookies from our site, you will limit the functionality we can provide you when you visit our sites.

A third party agent may also deliver cookies and collect data such as a Flash Player from Adobe Systems. View the respective company’s privacy and security to learn more about that particular company’s protection of your privacy.

Our Use of Personal Information

Augusta Co-op uses the personal information collected about you for a variety of purposes including:

  • Administer your membership and communicate with you about member benefits
  • Provide and deliver products and services, process and complete transactions and send you related information, including purchase confirmations, invoices, updates, security alerts, recall notices, and support and administrative messages.
  • Respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service
  • Send you communications about Augusta Co-op and products, services, offers, promotions, news, upcoming events, and geographically relevant information
  • Process and deliver contest entries and prizes
  • Maintain and administer your Augusta Co-op online account
  • Operate and improve our sites and services

Sharing of Personal Information

Augusta Co-op may share personal information about you outside of Augusta Cooperative Farm Bureau, Inc. as follows:

  • If your purchases are being shipped to you, we share information with the carrier (UPS, FedEx, or USPS) selected in order to facilitate the shipment of the order to you.
  • In the event of a search warrant or other legal valid inquiry or order, or to an investigative body in the case of a breach of an agreement or contravention of law, or as otherwise required by law.
  • Community sections of Augusta Co-op’s website are designed as an open and public forum for sharing information with other people. When you submit information for a community forum, that information may be displayed publicly. – Personal information may be shared as part of a corporate business transaction such as a merger or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company, joint venture, corporate reorganization, financing or sale of company assets. It may also be shared in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership in which personal information could be transferred to third parties as one of the business assets in the transaction.
  • A very limited part of our operations may be provided by third party providers such as Farm Plan and payment processsing services. These companies may have access to your personal information only on a confidential basis and only to the extent necessary to perform their functions.
  • Augusta Co-op’s sites may include links to our business partners, vendors and advertisers. The inclusion of any link does not imply Augusta Co-op’s endorsement of any other company, its websites, and its products and/or services. The linked websites have separate and independent privacy policies which we encourage you to read carefully. We have no control over such websites and therefore have no liability or responsibility for the manner in which the organizations that operate such linked websites may collect, use or disclose and otherwise treat your personal information. Third party providers may need access to some of your personal information. We will only provide the minimum amount of information needed to complete the requested service or transaction.
  • When you place your orders on augustacoop.com, the order information including your card number, account number, and delivery address is transmitted through the internet using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. SSL technology works with your browser to encrypt your order information before transmitting it to our server.

Augusta Co-op does not rent, sell, or share information to third party vendors for the purpose of direct mail, e-mail marketing or spamming.

Your Choices

You may opt out of receiving promotional e-mails from Augusta Co-op by following the instructions in those e-mails. If you opt out, Augusta Co-op may still send you non-promotional e-mails such as e-mails about your purchases, account, membership or our ongoing business relations.

If your personal information changes, we invite you to correct or update your information. If you have an online account only, you can make changes to your online profile by logging into your online account. You can also contact us at (540)885-1265 ext 231 or 232 or webmaster@augustacoop.com during normal business hours. If you have an established in-store account with Augusta Co-op, you will need to contact Augusta Co-op directly to make changes to your account Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM Eastern Time. You can request changes to your in-store account including password information in one of three ways.

  1. Visit Augusta Co-op’s main office at 1205B Richmond Rd – Staunton, VA 24401
  2. Call (540)885-1265 ext 236 or 238
  3. E-mail rgilmer@augustacoop.com

You can choose to stop collection of data by “cookies” on our site by setting your browser to remove and reject “cookies.” This may not affect third party “flash cookies” used in connection with videos you may view on our sites. If you choose to remove or reject “cookies”, this could affect certain features or services of our sites.

Children’s Privacy Policy

Please do not allow children under the age of 18 to purchase any goods through augustacoop.com. Augusta Co-op does not intend to collect any personally identifiable information from children under the age of 13 through augustacoop.com. All children under the age of 13 are not permitted to provide any personally identifiable information or participate in programs or communities related to our sites. If we determine that a child under 13 has provided personal information in violation of this policy, we will delete that information as soon as practical. If you become aware that such information has been provided by a child under 13, please notify us by contacting us Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM by calling (540)885-1265 ext 231 or (877)908-5649 or by e-mailing us at webmaster@augustacoop.com. Please insert “Privacy Policy Request” on the subject line of the e-mail.

Security of Personal Information

Augusta Co-op endeavors to use commercially reasonable physical, electronic and prodedural measures to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction while it is under our control. However, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Changes to this Policy

Augusta Co-op may change this policy from time to time at our sole discretion. Any updates to our Privacy and Security Policy will be posted under the privacy policy links of augustacoop.com so that you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances we disclose it. If we make any changes to this Policy, we will notify you by changing the “Effective Date” date above or as required by law. Continued use of our sites, stores, or other Augusta Co-op services following our posting of the change notice or an updated Privacy and Security Policy will constitute binding acceptance of those changes.

Contact Us

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about this Policy or about our privacy practices, you may call us at (540)885-1265 ext 231 or 237 or (877)908-5649 or e-mail us at webmaster@augustacoop.com during normal business hours. You may also direct your privacy-related comments or questions to the following address:

Augusta Cooperative Farm Bureau, Inc
Attention: Internet Services
1205B Richmond Rd
Staunton, VA 24401