What Personal Information Does Amazon Payments Gather?
The information we learn from you helps us provide, personalize, and continually improve the Services. Here are the types of information we gather:
- Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our website, provide using the Services, or give us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to use the Services. We use the information that you provide for such purposes as opening your account, processing your transactions, responding to your requests, and communicating with you.
- Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many websites, we use “cookies,” and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses our Services. When you interact with a third-party site that uses one of our Services, such as Checkout by Amazon, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends.
- Mobile: When you download or use apps we create or are created by our affiliates, 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.
- Our Communications with Users: Among other things, we communicate with users on a regular basis via e-mail, and we communicate by phone to resolve user complaints or investigate suspicious transactions. We also use your e-mail address to send you notice of payments that you send or receive through our Services, to send information about important changes to our Services, and to send notices and other disclosures required by law. You agree to receive such communications electronically. We may send you promotional messages about new services, offers or opportunities that may interest you. If you do not want to receive promotional messages or other mail from us, please adjust “your communication preferences” under Your Account on Amazon.com. However, we reserve the right to send you notices for customer service reasons, including notices about your account or transactions using our Services. Also, to help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we may receive a confirmation when you open or receive e-mail from us. We also compare our customer list to lists received from other companies, in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers.
- Information from Other Sources: We might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information.
What About Cookies?
- Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser so we can recognize you as an Amazon Payments user if you return to our site using the same computer and browser.
- The “Help” portion of the toolbar 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 website of its manufacturer. However, you then may lose the ability to utilize some of our service features, and we recommend that you leave cookies turned on.
Does Amazon Payments Share the Information It Receives?
Information about our users is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others. We share customer information only as described below and with the family of companies owned and controlled by Amazon.com, Inc.
- Disclosure to Other Users: Depending on which payment service you use, you may need to disclose your e-mail address to other users so they can send payments to you. When you send payments, your name, and/or e-mail address may be disclosed to the intended recipient. Once a transaction is complete, this information will be displayed in the transaction list of the user receiving payment.
- Purchases: We do not disclose your financial information (such as credit card information) to any seller or other recipient of payments you make without your prior consent. When you make a purchase, we may make certain other personal information about you available to the recipient to complete the transaction (such as name, e-mail and shipping address), in the event of a dispute regarding the transaction, or as part of a fraud investigation. The use of information that we provide to a recipient will be governed by the agreements or policies of that recipient.
- Third-party Service Providers: We employ financial institutions, other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf and transactions that you request or authorize. Examples include sending postal mail and e-mail, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing payment transactions, verifying identity, fraud screening and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.
- Promotional Offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. If you do not want to receive such offers, please adjust your customer communication preferences under Your Account on the Amazon.com.
- Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy businesses, subsidiaries, or business units. In such transactions, user (or other 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, you consent otherwise). Also, in the event that Amazon Payments or substantially all of its assets are acquired, user information will of course be one of the transferred assets.
- Protection of Amazon Payments and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law; enforce or apply our User Agreement and other agreements or policies; or protect the rights, property, or safety of our business, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction as well as sharing information with our attorneys, auditors and other representatives. 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.
- With Your Consent: Other than as set out above, you will receive notice when information about you might go to third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.
How Secure Is Information About Me?
- We work to protect the security of personal information you provide to our websites during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input. We restrict access to your personally identifiable information to employees who need to know that information in order to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to guard your nonpublic personal information.
- It is important for you to take steps to protect against unauthorized access to your account. You should keep confidential your password, security questions, and any other credentials used to access your account (your “Credentials”). The security of your Amazon Payments Account relies on your protection of your Credentials. DO NOT SHARE YOUR CREDENTIALS. If you do share your Credentials with a third party for any reason, the third party may have access to your account and your personal information, and you may be responsible for actions taken using your Credentials. If you believe someone else has obtained access to your Credentials, please change them immediately by logging in to your account and changing your Profile settings, and also contact us right away.
