This privacy policy was last updated on 12 September 2008.
At META BEDDING, we are committed to protecting your privacy and making it clear how we use your information. This privacy policy describes the kinds of information that the Tempur group companies (“META BEDDING”) may collect about you; when and how we use that information; how we protect it; who we disclose it to and why; and your rights to access and control our use of your information.
1. The types of information we collect
Tempur collects both “personal information” and “non-personal information” about its customers, registrants and visitors. There are differences in how we treat each type of information, as further explained in this privacy policy.
Personal information
Personal information means any information that enables you to be identified as an individual. The personal information META BEDDING collects about you may include your name, address (both billing and shipping addresses), e-mail address, payment card information, phone number and information about the products you purchase from us. The sections “Information you provide to us” and “Information we collect from other sources” further explain what types of information we may collect from you and when we may do this.
Non-personal information
Non-personal information means certain anonymous information that META BEDDING collects about visitors’ use of its website and about users of its smart phone applications. This non-personal information does not enable META BEDDING to identify any visitor as an individual. Non-personal information includes the pages that our website visitors access, how many clicks it takes them to reach specific information, and the kinds of purchases they make on our site and through our smart phone applications. We share non-personal information about your website visits with vendors who help us administer our website or help us market our products. Our collection of non-personal information is further explained in the section “Information collected through our website and smart phone applications”.
2. Information you provide to us
We collect personal information that you provide to us when you visit the site and when you do business with us. For example:
When ordering and making a purchase
When you place an order with us, either using our website or by phone, we may collect your name, shipping and billing addresses, e-mail address, phone number, payment card information, and the details of your order. We collect this personal information to process your order, including collecting payment and shipping products to you.
When creating an online account
When you set up an online shopping account, we may collect your name, shipping and billing addresses and e-mail address. We collect this personal information for account setup and administration purposes.
When signing up for promotional mail and e-mail
When you sign up for promotional mail and e-mails or request a product information kit from us, we may collect your name, mailing address and e-mail address. We collect this personal information so we can send you product information and notice of special promotions in accordance with your marketing preferences. In addition, we may also collect certain analytics information from recipients of our promotional e-mails to better understand what marketing is of interest to our customers, where this is permitted by applicable law.
If you change your mind and wish to unsubscribe from marketing communications that we send to you, you can do so either by following the ‘unsubscribe’ instructions included in each marketing e-mail we send to you or, alternatively, by contacting us and instructing us to amend the marketing preferences we hold for your account.
When registering a product
When you register a META BEDDING product with us, we may collect your name, address, contact number, email address, birth date and information about the specific item you purchased, including information like the serial number. We collect such information to record your purchase of the product and to administer and process any warranty claims. We may also ask you to provide personal preference information, which includes questions about your household and purchase decision, but the provision of this information by you is entirely optional. We collect personal preference information because it helps us in developing new products and marketing that meet consumers’ needs.
When contributing to our website
When you submit product reviews, product testimonials, or other content to our website, we may collect personal information including your name, e-mail address and the content of your review or testimonial. We collect this personal information because it helps us ensure we are giving accurate and authentic feedback about our products.
When applying for financing
If you apply for META BEDDING Financing or any alternative form of financing that we may offer, we will collect certain personal information from you relating to your application. We will pass this personal information directly to the bank(s) or other finance provider(s) offering the relevant financing services for us. We will not store information relating to your credit application on our servers: rather we send it to the relevant administering finance provider. Except for the finance provider(s) administering the lines of credit (or where required by applicable law or regulation), we do not share information about any financing application you make either internally or externally with anyone else.
3. Information we collect from other sources
When you sign up to receive marketing from third party companies (for example, to receive product catalogues from them), some of those companies share personal information about you with their trusted partners for marketing purposes. They may do this only if such sharing is in accordance with your marketing preferences and applicable law.
From time to time, we may receive personal information from trusted partners, all of them screened for their business practices, who share the names and addresses of people that have agreed to receive our printed product catalogues. We may also receive other information from these trusted partners, including updated delivery and address information for our customers, which we use to keep our records up-to-date and to ensure that we deliver catalogues and promotions accurately.
We will never knowingly collect personal information about you from third parties where this is contrary to the marketing preferences they hold for you or to applicable law.
4. Information collected through our website and smart phone applications
When you visit our website or use our smart phone applications, we collect limited non-personal information about your visit. This may include information about your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address or your smart phone’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (“IMEI”) address, as well as details about cookies and action tags served to your computer through our website.
IP and IMEI addresses
An IP address is the number automatically assigned to your computer or mobile phone whenever you access the Internet. Similarly, an IMEI address is a unique number assigned to mobile phones that is used by GSM networks to help them identify valid mobile devices. These addresses are automatically transmitted to us by your computer and/or mobile phone whenever you access our website or use our smart phone applications. We use this information to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our website and smart phone services; however, this number does not identify your name, email address, or any other personal information about you.
Cookies and targeted advertising
Cookies are small computer files that act as an identification card for your computer. They are widely used to make websites work, or to work more efficiently. When you visit our site, unique cookies are served to your browser. The purpose of these cookies is to distinguish your browser from other browsers that visit our site so that we can provide you with enhanced and sometimes more personalised website functionality and to enable us to improve our website offering. Cookies may remain on your hard drive after you leave our website.
Cookies may be served to your browser either directly by us (these are called first party cookies) or by third parties acting on our behalf (these are called third party cookies). First party cookies enable us to recognise you when you come back to our site and remember the products you place in your shopping cart, both while you are viewing other areas on our website and when you return to our site. We also use third party cookies (including cookies served by Google, Inc. for its Google Analytics service and Coremetrics, Inc. for its Coremetrics Analytics service) to gather aggregate usage information about the numbers and frequency of visitors to our website and individual pages of our website, in order to improve the appearance and usability of the website. For further details about how Google uses and protects information collected for its Google Analytics service, please visit http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.html. Similarly, for further details about how Coremetrics uses and protects information collected for its Coremetrics Analytics service, please visit http://www.coremetrics.com/company/privacy.php. Alternatively, if you prefer to opt-out of tracking by these third parties for analytics purposes, please visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout (Google Analytics) and http://www.coremetrics.com/company/privacy.php#optout (Coremetrics Analytics) respectively.
We also use third party digital advertising agencies (along with their ad serving technology partners and partnered networks of publishers) to serve third party cookies through our website. Third party cookies enable our third party digital advertising agencies to collect information about your activities across our website and other websites that have partnered with them so that they can provide you with customized banner ads that are tailored to your specific interests. However, these cookies do not collect information that enables you to be identified as an individual, nor do we combine information collected through these cookies with other personal information about you.
Action Tags
Action Tags are small image files (also known as ‘clear gifs’ or ‘web beacons’) that our third party digital advertising agencies use to recognize specific third party cookies that they place on your browser (either through our site or through sites that have partnered with our third party digital advertising agencies). They convey information that a browser with a recognized cookie has accessed a page or a part of a page on our website, depending on where the action tag is located on our site. For instance, an action tag located on our purchase confirmation page will record that a browser with a recognized cookie has made a purchase. Action tags do not, however, tell us that a specific, identified person has purchased a product because the cookie is only the web browser’s identification card. It does not obtain any information that enables you to be identified as an individual. We use Action Tags to measure the effectiveness of our digital advertising campaigns and to make our website more relevant to visitors by seeing what pages are visited and whether visits result in a purchase. In conjunction with cookies, Action Tags also allow our digital advertising agencies to select and serve banner advertisements to your browser that you find most interesting and relevant.
How to control cookies and targeted advertising
You have the right to choose whether or not to accept cookies. You can exercise this right by amending or setting the controls on your web browser to reflect your cookie preferences. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to sign up for or use certain features of the website that depend on your web browser accepting cookies (such as keeping products in your cart). Refusing cookies will also mean that our third party digital advertising agency is unable to profile your interests or serve you with targeted advertising. To find out information about your rights to control cookies and targeted advertising, we recommend that you visit the following third party educational resources: www.youronlinechoices.eu and www.allaboutcookies.org.
5. How to access and control your information
You have the right to access the personal information we hold about you and to ask us to add to, correct, update or remove this information. In addition, you have the right to instruct us not to contact you for direct marketing purposes, even if you have previously consented to receive this.
You can exercise these rights by visiting our online contact preferences centre