Online privacy policy

Privacy Policy

Consumers Union, publisher of the family of Consumer Reports products and services, is an independent, nonprofit testing, research, and information organization serving consumers. Since 1936, our mission has been to test products, inform the public, protect consumers and advocate on their behalf. Our Privacy Policy continues our commitment to serve you and explains how we protect your privacy.

This Policy reflects how we collect and use consumer information provided to us. Consumers interact with us online through our Web sites, in response to direct-mail or other promotions, through communication with customer service, by making a donation, or by taking a survey. We want you to understand how we will protect and safeguard your privacy in the interactions you may have with us.

Our privacy pledge to you

We know that you care how information about you is collected, used and shared, and we are committed to handling that information carefully and sensibly. We do not sell, share, or rent your information to others in any way that we have not mentioned in this Privacy Policy.

This Policy was last updated on February 27, 2009. It has been updated to provide you with additional details and to address our use of information collected through all channels.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully so that you understand our privacy practices regarding:

On-line sites, products and services, as well as print products and services covered by this Privacy Policy
Information we collect and how we collect it
How your information will be used
Sharing your personally identifiable information
How you can correct your information
Our email policies
Surveys
Security
Donations
Children's privacy
International privacy
Changes to this Privacy Policy
How to contact us about privacy

Sites, products and services covered by this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy applies to all of the Consumer Reports family of print and online information products and services, including those listed below.

Our Print Magazines & Newsletters

Consumer Reports Magazine

Consumer Reports on Health

Consumer Reports Money Adviser

Shopsmart Magazine

Consumer Reports Books, Calendars and Reprints

Development of New Products

Consumer Reports continually develops new information products and services that complement our current offerings. Examples of these types of new features have included new blogs, online video services, online user-reviews, and mobile news service on the iPhone. All such new products and services, online and off, will be covered by this Privacy Policy.

Please note that some Consumers Union products and sites are NOT covered under this Policy, and have their own privacy policies. These include:

Consumer advocacy programs and campaigns developed by Consumers Union, and their associated Web sites. Most of these sites are accessible from our main advocacy Web site, at ConsumersUnion.org.

The sites, products and services covered by this Privacy Policy are referred to within the Policy as "Consumer Reports," "Consumers Union," "we," "us," "our sites," "our Web sites," "our products," and "our products and services."

Our Web sites may contain links to third-party Web sites for your convenience and information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of those other sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any company before submitting your personal information.

Information we collect and how we collect it

Many of the services on Consumer Reports sites are offered without our collecting any personally identifiable information from you. You can use any of our sites and view some of our content anonymously. For instance, you can access many free reports online without providing any personal information.

The information we gather falls into three main categories: (1) personal information you voluntarily supply to us such as when you subscribe or renew your subscription to a product, order a product or service, register for an online discussion, enter a contest or sweepstakes, make a donation or engage in other activities through our Web sites; (2) tracking information we collect as you navigate through our sites; and (3) customer service information we collect to resolve a problem or answer a question.

Personally identifiable information

There are many features on our sites for which no registration is required. However, you will need to provide us with personal information about yourself if you are interested in obtaining certain information, products, or services or participating in certain activities, such as purchasing a subscription to one of our publications, making a donation, or participating in sweepstakes, contests or other special initiatives. When you do this, we collect personally identifiable information about you, which may include your name, mailing address, email address, telephone number, payment card information, and a user name and password.

If you do provide us with personal information we may use this to help customize your experience online or provide you with personalized email and direct-mail messages. We may use this information to implement your renewal of a subscription or service. We may track what online, email or direct-mail content you are interested in. We conduct such tracking to focus our communications and provide you content, services and offers we believe may be of interest to you.

We may supplement information you give us with information from other sources, such as information to validate or update your address, payment card or other demographic and lifestyle information. We use this information to help us maintain the accuracy of the information we collect, to target our communications so that we can inform you of products and services that may be of interest, and for internal business analysis or other business purposes consistent with our mission.

You may also provide us with information about other people. For example, you might submit a person's name and email address to share an online article or you might order a product or service as a gift either online or offline for another person and we will ask you for that person's name, postal address, and email address in order to complete delivery of the gift to the recipient.

We do not collect individually identifiable health information unless you specifically volunteer it, for example, in response to an invitation to share your experience or in connection with a survey.

Aggregate information collected through technology

When you use any Consumer Reports site we may collect tracking information such as your browser type, the type of operating system you use, the domain name of your Internet service provider, and pages visited on the site. None of this information identifies you personally; we collect it for aggregate reporting on site activity. For example, we may want to know how long the average user spends on our sites or which pages or features get the most attention. We use this information to make our sites more useful to you.

Most aggregate information is collected via cookies or other technical methods. We use cookies, Web beacons, and other technologies for analysis and personalization services. Consumer Reports also places ads on other Web sites that may use cookies. To learn more, read Consumer Reports' use of cookies and Web beacons.

Consumer Reports licenses content from various licensors for our products and sites. Most such third-party content is hosted directly by Consumer Reports. In a few cases, however, the company licensing content to Consumer Reports may host the content on their Web servers, although our subscribers gain access to the content through Consumer Reports sites. In such cases, the content licensor may collect aggregate tracking information such as domain name and IP (Internet Protocol) addresses for those who access the hosted content. Information shared under these circumstances is provided primarily to safeguard the security of the other host sites, as well as that of Consumer Reports. Those companies are restricted from using the data they collect in any way other than to protect the security of their content or for certain other limited uses. They may not share or resell any information collected.

How your information will be used

We want you to understand how we will use your information, and if you tell us that you do not want us to use this information for any further contact with you beyond fulfilling your requests, we will respect your wishes.

Our primary goal in collecting information is to provide you with a customized experience and to make our products, programs and services more useful to you.

Consumer Reports information use

Consumer Reports uses personally identifiable information collected through all channels for the purpose for which it was collected. For example, if you provide us with responses to a survey, we use your responses in combination with those of other survey respondents solely for the research purposes of that survey. We use the information you provide when ordering products and services to communicate with you about the status of your order, complete transactions and fulfill your requests. If you contact us for help or for additional information about a particular product or service, we will use the information to reply to you. Except for information provided in connection with responding to a survey (which is kept in strict confidence and not used for any non-research purposes), we may also use the information you provide to send you promotional materials by postal mail, email or telephone only for Consumer Reports or Consumers Union's products, programs, or services that we believe may be of interest to you. If you prefer not to receive these promotional communications, you can opt-out of email promotions by following the unsubscribe instructions included in each communication or you can indicate your preference not to receive direct mail or telephone calls from us by writing to:

Consumers Union Customer Relations
Attn: Marketing Communications
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703

Be sure to include your full name, address, telephone number and account information.

It may take several weeks for your request to become effective. If, for any reason, you continue to receive these communications, please contact us again and we will make every effort to correct the situation.

We use the information you provide about others to enable us to send them your gifts or the online content you requested. From time to time, we also may use this information to send direct-mail offering our products, programs or services to them.

Sharing your personally identifiable information

We take very seriously our responsibility to maintain your privacy with respect to your personally identifiable information. We will share that information only with the following entities, and only in the manner described below.

If you have an online subscription to one of our sites, purchase and download any of our online reports and services, or enter an online contest or sweepstakes, Consumer Reports will not exchange or rent for promotional purposes any information that specifically identifies you.

Sharing with other companies for direct-mail promotional offers

If you subscribe to Consumer Reports magazine or our print newsletters or purchase any of our print publications either by mail, phone, or online, we may exchange or rent your name and mailing address information (but not your email address) with other reputable companies that offer marketing information or products through direct-mail. We screen all such offers and strive to select trustworthy, reputable companies who offer high quality products or services of interest to you. If you prefer that we do not share this information, please tell us so by calling us at 1-800-234-1645 or writing to:

Consumer Reports, Mail Preference Service
PO Box 2109
Harlan, IA 51593

Be sure to include your full name and address and account information along with your request.

Sharing with service providers

We contract with other companies to provide certain services on our behalf, including payment-card processing, shipping, mail and email distribution, processing and monitoring of user product reviews and Ratings, analytics or promotions management. For some of our surveys, we may contract with other companies to issue survey participation invitations on our behalf, to host surveys for us, or perform other information-gathering, processing and validation-related services. We provide these companies only with the information they need to perform their services. These service providers are restricted from using data in any way other than to provide services for Consumer Reports, and they may not share or resell this data.

Sale of a business or sharing for legal purposes

From time to time, we may purchase a business or sell one or more of our businesses and your personally identifiable information may be transferred as a part of the purchase or sale. In the event that we purchase a business, the personally identifiable information received would be treated in accordance with this Privacy Policy, if it is practicable and permissible to do so. In the event that we sell a business, we will include provisions in the selling contract requiring the purchaser to treat your personally identifiable information in the same manner required by this Privacy Policy (including any changes to this Privacy Policy made prior to the purchase date).

We reserve the right to share your personal identifiable information with legal authorities if required by law, for example, to comply with a court order or subpoena, or if we determine in our sole discretion that it is necessary to investigate, prevent or take action regarding suspected illegal activities, any violations of our User Agreement (including this Privacy Policy), or in connection with any safety or security concerns.

How you can correct your information

Consumers Union believes in providing you with the ability to access and edit the personal information that we maintain on your account. To update the information retained about you, please log in online and visit My account. Or, for any other requests, write to us at:

Consumers Union Customer Relations
Attn: Account Information
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703

To protect your privacy and security, we will verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

Our email policies

Account- and services-related email

We will send you emails relating to your account. These include emails such as order confirmations, renewal/expiration notices, and payment-card problem notifications. If you register for online discussions, submit user product reviews or Ratings, or register for other online services, you may receive emails specific to your participation in those activities.

Email newsletters

We offer several email newsletters. If you no longer wish to receive a specific newsletter, follow the "Unsubscribe" instructions located near the bottom of each newsletter.

Promotional emails

We may also email you messages that we think may be of interest to you about other Consumers Union products, services and programs.

You can choose not to receive additional types of messages in the future by either (1) following the "unsubscribe" instructions located near the bottom of each email, or (2) logging in and doing the following:

Click on My account.
Select your Consumer Reports product and enter your user name and password or magazine account number.
Click on "Manage email preferences".
Select or de-select the email updates you would like to receive or stop receiving.
Click the "Update preferences" button.

HTML verification and email tracking

When receiving email from us, we may place a small piece of code in that email to determine whether or not you can accept HTML images and whether or not you viewed and/or clicked on links contained in the email. This process does not leave any information on your computer, nor does it collect information from your computer.

Email opt-outs

In the event you decide to unsubscribe from our newsletters or promotional emails we will honor your request as quickly as possible.

Emails from you

You may choose to send us emails. You should be aware that information disclosed in emails may not be secure or encrypted and thus may be available to others. We suggest that you exercise caution when deciding to disclose any personal or confidential information in emails. Never include a credit or debit card account number or other financial account number in an email.

Surveys

We have supplementary policies that specifically address information collected through participation in our surveys because we treat survey response information differently. We conduct different types of surveys individually or through our agents. We conduct surveys in both print and electronic formats.

When you participate in one of our surveys, you may provide us with the following types of information: (1) demographic information, such as your age, gender, and geographic location, (2) information about yourself and about your experiences with products and services (some of which information may be personally identifying) and (3) your views and opinions on various topics.

The following principles govern our use of the information we collect through surveys:

First, your survey responses will be used only in combination with those of other survey respondents to produce information to help consumers in today's marketplace. Your individual responses will remain confidential to CU (and our agents and service providers) and will not be used for non-research purposes.

Second, you will not receive marketing or other non-research materials as a result of participating in a survey, although it is possible that you may receive such materials as a result of your general relationship as a customer or subscriber of CU's products, as a member of Consumers Union or as a donor to our organization.

There are two general exceptions to these principles:

(1) As part of our quality control efforts, if you participate in a survey, you may be contacted by CU or its agents to validate that you did take part in the survey; and

(2) With your prior affirmative consent (if provided in your initial survey response), our researchers may follow up with you based on your specific answers to a survey. For example, if you tell us you have a particular car model and we have additional questions about that car, we may select you to participate in a second survey, but only if you provided us with affirmative permission to do so in the initial survey.

If you wish to decline participation in future surveys, we will honor your opt-out request as quickly as possible. If you are a print (or other offline e.g., telephone) survey participant, you may opt out of receiving future offline surveys by calling us at 1-800-234-1645 or by writing to us at:

Consumers Union Customer Relations Attn: Privacy
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703

If you are an online survey participant, we provide you with instructions on how to opt out of receiving future invitations in each email survey invitation. If you opt out of any online survey, it will opt you out of all of our online surveys with one important exception: the online version of our Annual Questionnaire. For information on how to opt out of that survey, see below.

Opting out of Annual Questionnaire and Ballot (print version)

Please note that you must separately opt out of receiving the print version of our Annual Questionnaire, which is a survey we send to our subscribers each year. The Annual Questionnaire is handled separately because it contains the ballot for the election of our Board of Directors. If you opt out of the Annual Questionnaire, you will no longer receive a ballot for the election of our Board of Directors unless you separately contact us for a ballot by calling us at 1-800-234-1645 or writing to us at the address indicated above. Please keep in mind that if you elect to continue receiving the Annual Questionnaire and Ballot, you can complete and return the ballot portion without completing the survey portion.

Opting out of Annual Questionnaire and Ballot (online version)

The online version of our Annual Questionnaire is handled separately because like the print Annual Questionnaire, it also contains the ballot for the election of our Board of Directors. If you no longer wish to receive the online Annual Questionnaire, you must separately opt-out of that survey by following instructions at the bottom of the email invitation. If you opt out of the Annual Questionnaire and Ballot, you will no longer receive a ballot for the election of our Board of Directors unless you contact us for a ballot by calling us at 1-800-333-0663 or writing to us at the address indicated above. If you elect to continue receiving the online Annual Questionnaire and Ballot, you can complete and return the online ballot without completing the survey portion.

Security

We work to protect your personal information from loss, misuse or unauthorized alteration. We have put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and help prevent unauthorized access, maintain data security, and appropriately use the information we collect through all channels.

Security of the Personal Information You Provide

Payment card information

We use data encryption technology to help protect against loss, misuse or alteration of your sensitive credit or debit card information. We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which creates an encrypted connection for the transmission of any credit or debit card information you input online and we use encryption protection for any payment authorizations for transactions we request through any channel. Once we collect your credit card or debit card information, it is stored on restricted-access computers that are not directly accessible via the Internet.

Personal Information

We protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information by using industry-recognized security safeguards such as firewalls, coupled with security procedures to protect your information from loss, misuse or unauthorized alteration. If, however, you subscribe to or purchase a CU product or service through a company or service other than Consumers Union or Consumer Reports, such as a magazine subscription service or an online book or magazine store, then the privacy policy of that entity will be the applicable policy.

Please keep in mind that any message you post in any public discussion group, user product review, blog, or other public posting area on our sites may be available to anyone with Internet access. If you don't want people to know your name or email address, for example, do not include them in any message you post publicly or incorporate them in a user name. One exception is our ConsumerReports.org Forums, which currently operate on a “real-name” basis. When subscribers post a message, their billing names appear as message author. Posts by non-subscriber visitors appear with the name they entered when they registered.

Information use by our employees and agents

Our employees are trained and required to safeguard your information. Using physical, electronic and procedural safeguards, our policies restrict access to personal information only to those employees who need to access it for business purposes.

Security enforcement

Any unauthorized access to or use of any Consumer Reports or Consumers Union Web sites or to the information collected and maintained by us should be immediately brought to our attention by contacting us via email or by writing to us at Consumers Union Customer Relations, Attn: Security, 101 Truman Avenue, Yonkers, NY 10703. We will investigate, and, if necessary, take action to halt any violation of the security of your personal information of which we become aware.

In the unlikely event that we believe the security of your sensitive personal information, such as payment card information, in our possession or control may have been compromised, we will apply the same notification policy to all of those individuals affected. We will endeavor to provide required notice as soon as possible under the circumstances and will ensure that in addition to any other methods, notices are posted on our ConsumerReports.org and (if applicable) our other Consumer Reports Web sites and our Consumers Union Web sites.

Security of access to your online and print account information

When you set up an online account with us, you are asked to establish a user name and password.

When you later log on to your account, you will be asked to enter your user name and password to protect the security of your online account. If you want to change your password or other subscriber information, you may do so at any time through My account. If you have forgotten your user name and wish to log on, you will be asked to provide the email address you used when you created the account (or an updated email address that you have previously provided), and an email containing your user name will be sent promptly to that email address. If you wish to log on to your account and have forgotten your password, the online system will request both your email address and your user name, and we will promptly send you an email with a temporary password. You will be prompted to reset it to a new password.

If you have a print subscription that is managed online, you will need to provide us with your account number to make any changes to your password or other subscriber information. Both online and print subscribers may also call our customer support to retrieve forgotten account information or to otherwise make changes to their information. In that case, you will be asked to provide your name or email address, as well as the street or post office address we have on record for you, prior to a customer service representative providing or changing your user name or password.

It is your responsibility to control the dissemination and use of your user name and password and to control access to and use of your account. We urge you to keep your user name and password confidential and not disclose them to anyone. Be sure to sign off when finished using our sites, especially if you are using a shared or public computer. We will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with this provision, for example, a third party's unauthorized access to certain of your account information, such as your billing address.

IMPORTANT - Although we take these steps to protect your personal information, no method of transmitting or storing electronic data is ever completely secure, therefore we cannot promise or guarantee that such information will never be accessed, used or released in a manner that is inconsistent with this Privacy Policy.

Submission of user product reviews and ratings

The ConsumerReports.org Web site offers a Review Tool that allows ConsumerReports.org subscribers to submit product reviews and ratings ("Reviews") and to read Reviews submitted by other subscribers. In order to post a Review, Consumer Reports requires you to provide us with a user name (which should be different from your real name) and your geographical location. Only your user name and geographical location will be posted with your Review. Please keep in mind that any information you include in a Review is available to the public. If you don't want people to know your real name or email address or any other personally identifiable information, do not include that information in the text of any of your Reviews. If you submit Reviews, please be aware that we may share your submissions with other Web sites or provide links to your submissions from other Web sites.

Donations

If you make a tax-deductible donation to Consumer Reports Foundation or Consumers Union, none of the information from that donation will be rented or exchanged with any other company or organization except our consumer advocacy affiliate, the Consumers Union Action Fund, Inc. (CUAF).

You may be contacted by mail, phone or email to make an additional donation to Consumer Reports Foundation, to Consumers Union or to CUAF or to subscribe to our publications, books and other services.

If you do not wish to receive any postal mail solicitations from us please write:

Consumer Reports Development Office
No Mail Solicitations
101 Truman Ave.
Yonkers, NY 10703

If you do not wish to receive telephone solicitations from us please write:

Consumer Reports Development Office
No Telephone Solicitations
101 Truman Ave.
Yonkers, NY 10703

If you do not wish to receive email solicitations from us please write:

Consumer Reports Development Office
No Email Solicitations
101 Truman Ave.
Yonkers, NY 10703

Children's privacy

Our Web sites are general audience sites, and we do not knowingly collect information about children. Should a child whom we know to be under 13 make known to us his or her personally identifiable information, we will use that information only to respond directly to that child to inform him or her that we must have parental consent before receiving his or her personally identifiable information.

International privacy

Consumers Union is a New York not-for-profit organization headquartered in Yonkers, New York, USA. We may have site visitors and registrants as well as subscribers and buyers of our publications and products from countries around the world in addition to the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, the personal information you provide to us will be transferred to the United States and governed by applicable U.S. laws and regulations and this Privacy Policy. Some of this information may be transferred to, processed and stored temporarily by our service providers in other countries. By submitting your personal information, you consent to its transfer to and storage in the United States and other countries designated by Consumers Union, its governance by U.S. laws and regulations, and its use in accordance with the purposes for which it was originally collected and as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may be amended from time to time. Any modifications will be reflected online, so check back often. If we make a significant or material change in the way we use your personal information, we will make you aware by prominently posting a notice on our Web sites. We will provide thirty (30) calendar days advanced notice of any material change to the way we use personal information.

How to contact us about privacy

If you have any questions or concerns about the Consumer Reports Privacy Policy, its implementation, or would like a written copy, please feel free to contact us at:

Consumers Union Customer Relations
Attn: Privacy
101 Truman Avenue
Yonkers, NY 10703

Or, if you would like to contact us via email, please visit www.consumerreports.org/email.

If you feel that we have not followed our Privacy Policy, please let us know. Additionally, you may contact your state or local consumer protection office, The Direct Marketing Association's Committee on Ethical Business Practices at mgoldberger@the-dma.org, the Better Business Bureau, or The Federal Trade Commission, by phone at (202) FTC-HELP (202-382-4357) or online at www.ftc.gov.