PRIVACY POLICY
Cheese Merchants takes steps intended to meet privacy principles and requirements with regard to personal information under applicable privacy legislation. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it. The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you what Personal Data we may collect and how it may be used. This statement only applies to this Website. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information of any kind that we collect by means (including offline means) or from sources other than those specified herein. If you choose to use the Website, your use is hereby deemed acceptance of Cheese Merchants’ practices described in this Privacy Policy.
We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy frequently for such modifications. By your continued use of the Website, you agree to abide by any such modifications to the Privacy Policy, which are binding on you. Any unauthorized use or violation of the Privacy Policy automatically terminates your right to access the Site immediately.
PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
Information You Voluntarily Submit to the Website: It is not necessary to provide any Personal Data to use the Website. You can visit much of the Website without telling Cheese Merchants who you are or submitting any Personal Data. However, in order to take advantage of certain features available through the Website, it may be necessary to provide Personal Information. We collect Personal Data from you when you voluntarily provide such information, such as when you contact us with inquiries, send a comment or question or enroll in a feature.
Personal information may include, but is not limited to, the below:
First name
Last name
Your email address
Location information, including state of residence
Zip code
Phone number
Our legal basis for processing this information is your consent, and by voluntarily providing us with Personal Data, you are consenting to our use of it in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If you provide Personal Data to us, you acknowledge and agree that such Personal Data may be transferred and stored from your current location to the offices of Cheese Merchants and the authorized third parties referenced below.
Cookies. We use, and allow certain other companies to use, cookies on the Website to analyze our traffic, to recognize your device, improve its performance and enhance your user experience. We may also share information about your use of our Website and our Services with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. This section explains what cookies are, how we use cookies and similar technologies on our Website and our Service and what you can do to manage how cookies are used. By accessing our website, you agree that this Cookies Policy will apply whenever you access our website.
A cookie is a small text file which is sent to your computer or mobile device (referred to in this policy as a “device”) by the web server so that a website can remember some information about your browsing activity on the Website and through the Services. The cookie will collect information relating to your use of our Website, information about your device such as the device’s IP address and browser type, demographic data and, if you arrived at our Website and Service via a link from a third party site, the URL of the linking page.
Strictly Necessary cookies: These are cookies which are essential for the running of our Website and Services. Without these cookies, parts of our Website and Service would not function. These cookies do not track where you have been on the internet and do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing purposes.
First party analytics cookies: These cookies allow us to employ data analytics so we can measure and improve the performance of our site and provide more relevant content to you. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor down to an individual level that is available to us. These cookies are not passing personally identifiable information to any external third party other than in limited cases when we engage a service provider to act on our behalf but who is then unable to use the data for their own purposes (eg. Google Analytics).
Performance cookies: Performance cookies are generally third-party cookies from vendors we work with or who work on our behalf that collect information about your visit and use of the Cheese Merchants website, for instance which pages you visit the most often, and if you get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is anonymous and is only used to improve how the website works. Third party vendors may have access to this data and may use it to improve their overall services and offerings.
Functionality cookies: These cookies allow a site to remember choices you make (such as your username, language or the region you are in) and provide more enhanced, personal features. These cookies cannot track your browsing activity on other websites. They don’t gather any information about you that could be used for advertising or remembering where you’ve been on the Internet outside our site.
Advertising and social media cookies: Advertising and social media cookies (including web beacons and other tracking and storage technologies) are used to (1) deliver advertisements more relevant to you and your interests; (2) limit the number of times you see an advertisement; (3) help measure the effectiveness of the advertising campaign; (4) retargeting to Cheese Merchants website/information and (5) understand people’s behavior after they view an advertisement. They are usually placed on behalf of advertising networks with the site operator’s permission. They remember that you have visited a site and quite often they will be linked to site functionality provided by the other organization. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit.
Cheese Merchants reserves the right to amend cookies used in conjunction with its website and you are encouraged to review this Privacy Statement and Cookies Policy for periodic updates describing any changes to cookies used.
Active Information Collection: Cheese Merchants actively collects information from its visitors by permitting you to communicate directly with us via email and/or feedback forms. Some of the information that you submit on the website may be personal information. Collection, use and disclosure of information actively collected from you have been described.
Passive Information Collection: As you navigate through Cheese Merchants’ website, certain anonymous information can be passively collected (that is, gathered without you actively providing the information) using various technologies, such as cookies, Internet tags or web beacons, and navigational data collection (log files, server logs, clickstream). Your Internet browser automatically transmits to the website some of this anonymous information, such as the URL of the website you just came from, the Internet Protocol (IP) address, time of visit, date of visit, the pages visited within the Site, and the browser version your computer is currently using. Cheese Merchants’ website may also collect anonymous information from your computer through cookies and Internet tags or web beacons. You may set your browser to notify you when a cookie is sent or to refuse cookies altogether, but certain features of the website might not work without cookies. By using our website you are considered to consent to the use of cookies and other passive information collection.
The Cheese Merchants website may use and combine such passively collected anonymous information to provide better service to Site visitors, customize the Site based on your preferences, compile and analyze statistics and trends, and otherwise administer and improve the Site for your use. Such passively collected anonymous information is not combined with personal information collected elsewhere on the website, unless you have consented to have your personal information collected in conjunction with this passive information.
How you can manage or opt-out of cookies
Cookies, including those which have already been set, can be deleted from your hard drive. You can also change the preferences/settings in your web browser to control cookies. In some cases, you can choose to accept cookies from the primary site, but block them from third parties. In others, you can block cookies from specific advertisers, or clear out all cookies. Deleting or blocking cookies may reduce functionality of the Website and the Services. To learn more about how to reject cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org or go to the help menu within your internet browser. If you experience any problems having deleted cookies, you should contact the supplier of your web browser.
Use of personal information
Cheese Merchants generally uses personal information for the following purposes:
To operate and maintain the Website;
To respond to your comments or inquiries;
To send you information, such as verification or partner information, newsletters. Each email promotion will provide information on how to opt-out of future mailings;
To send you administrative communications, such as administrative emails, confirmation emails, technical notices, updates on policies, or security alerts;
To provide you with user support;
To manage our business, including customer, consumer and partner relations;
For internal training and quality control;
To track and measure advertising on the Website; or,
To protect, investigate, and deter against unauthorized or illegal activity.
Cheese Merchants may use your Personal Data that you submit for only limited purposes. Cheese Merchants uses Personal Data you provide to provide you with the information and services that you request. Also, Cheese Merchants may use your Personal Data in aggregate form to help evaluate and modify existing services and to help develop additional services that are likely to be of interest to visitors of the Website.
Collection of your personal information
Cheese Merchants collects personal information for the following commercial purposes:
To establish and maintain responsible commercial relations and to provide ongoing service and communication;
To understand customer needs, trends and preferences;
To evaluate, develop, enhance, market or provide Cheese Merchants’ offerings;
To manage and develop Cheese Merchants’ business and operations;
To meet legal and regulatory requirements;
To protect Cheese Merchants against error and fraud;
for any other purpose to which an individual consents; and
for any other legitimate grounds for collection or use of personal information.
Disclosure of your personal information
Cheese Merchants may disclose personal information, including in the following circumstances to:
Disclosure of personal information
Service Providers
Cheese Merchants may transfer personal information to outside agents or service providers (including affiliates of Cheese Merchants acting in this capacity) that perform services on our behalf, for example data processing services such as mailing, call center, billing, marketing, information technology or data hosting or similar services, or otherwise to collect, use, disclose, store or process personal information on our behalf for the purposes and uses described in this Privacy Statement. Some of these service providers or affiliates may be located in other jurisdictions, and your personal information may be collected, used, disclosed, stored and processed in such jurisdictions for the purposes and uses described in this Privacy Statement. Reasonable contractual or other measures we may take to protect your personal information while processed or handled by these service providers are subject to legal requirements in the applicable jurisdiction. For example, we may be required due to lawful requirements to disclose personal information to government authorities in those countries.
Legal, Regulatory, etc.
Cheese Merchants may disclose your personal information as necessary to meet legal, regulatory, industry self-regulatory, insurance, audit and security requirements, and as otherwise with your consent or as permitted or required by.
Your consent
Consent to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information may be given in various ways. Consent can be express (for example, orally, electronically or on a form you may submit describing the intended uses and disclosures of personal information) or implied (for example, when you provide personal information necessary for a service you have requested or the purpose is obvious). You may be asked to provide your specific consent in some special and specific circumstances where notice has been provided to you about our intentions with respect to your personal information and you have not withdrawn your consent for an identified purpose, such as by using an “opt-out” option provided, if any. Consent may be given by your authorized representative (such as a legal guardian or a person having a power of attorney). Generally, by providing us with personal information, you are deemed to consent to our collection, use and disclosure of such personal information for the purposes and uses identified or described in this Privacy Statement, if applicable, or otherwise at the time of collection. For residents of the EU, subject to the GDPR, consent will be express if personal information is collected for purposes and uses other than as set out in this Privacy Statement.
You may withdraw your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information at any time, subject to contractual and legal restrictions and reasonable notice. Note that if you withdraw your consent to certain uses of your personal information, we may no longer be able to provide certain information or services. Note also that where we have provided or are providing information or services to you, your consent will be valid for so long as necessary to fulfill the purposes and uses described in this Privacy Statement or otherwise at the time of collection, and you may not be permitted to withdraw consent to certain necessary uses and disclosures (for example, but not limited to, maintaining reasonable business and transaction records).
Email Marketing and Newsletters
We may provide you with an opportunity to “opt in” to receive additional email communication from us. If we offer an “opt-in” mechanism for such communication pursuant to which you expressly choose to receive it, we also offer you an “opt-out” mechanism to provide you the opportunity to indicate that you do not want us to send you such further communications.
This may include on the Website, subscribing to our newsletter or email marketing, which may be used for advertising purposes. All email marketing communication sent may contain tracking pixels. The pixel is embedded in emails and allows an analysis of the success of online marketing campaigns. Because of these tracking pixels, Cheese Merchants may see if and when you open an email and which links within the email you click. Also, this allows Cheese Merchants to adapt the content of future emails and newsletters to the interests of the user. This behavior will not be passed on to third parties.
About children and teenagers
We do not intend to collect personal information from individuals under the age of 13 without parental consent and take active steps to comply with applicable laws, including the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). We may, from time to time, offer a contest where children under the age of 13 can enter in which case the personal information is used for purposes of administering the contest and determining a winner. In these cases, we instruct the participant to provide the email address of their parent or guardian. When a participant under the age of 18 is selected as a prize-winner in a contest or sweepstakes, an e-mail is sent to the parent or guardian. This e-mail contains a form that requests the participant’s real name and address and a parental permission form. For the participant to receive the prize, the parent or guardian must complete and submit the permission form. We do not sell the personal information.
If a child under 13 has provided us with personal information without parental consent, we ask that a parent or guardian of the child contact us to request that this personal information be deleted from our records. We will use reasonable efforts to delete the child’s personal information from our existing files. We will also use reasonable efforts to delete all contact and other personal information obtained from a teenager (under the age of 18) if a parent or guardian notifies us that they wish to withdraw consent for the collection of a teenager’s personal information.
We encourage parents to talk to their children about their use of the Internet and the personal information they disclose to websites or otherwise.
Security
We take reasonable steps to protect your personal information using physical, electronic or procedural security measures appropriate to the sensitivity of the personal information in our custody or control, which may include safeguards to protect against loss or theft, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, use or modification. Authorized employees, agents and mandataries of Cheese Merchants who require access to your personal information in order to fulfil their job requirements will have access to your personal information.
Access, correction and contacting us
Your access to and use of the Website may also be subject to any separate agreements or terms and conditions you have signed or agreed to with Cheese Merchants. Please refer to those agreements as needed.
This website may contain links or references to websites to which this Privacy Statement and Cookies Policy does not apply. Cheese Merchants is not responsible for the data collection and use practices of companies or organizations to which this website may provide links.
Social media platforms provide tools that many of our customers and consumers use and enjoy, and we include links to various social media platforms on our Website. If you interact with these social media platforms through our Website, your experience on those platforms will be governed by the privacy and other policies of those platforms. We encourage you to choose your privacy settings on those sites accordingly.
Regardless of any other provision in this Privacy Policy, we reserve the right to disclose any personally identifiable or non-personally identifiable information about you 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) protect, in an emergency, the health and safety of our customers or the general public. This includes exchanging information with third parties and organizations in connection with credit risk reduction and fraud protection.
Updates to Privacy Policy
Cheese Merchants reserves the right to update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If Cheese Merchants decides to change this Privacy Policy, Cheese Merchants will post those changes at the Site. You are encouraged to review this Privacy Policy regularly for any changes. Your continued use of this Website will be subject to the then-current Privacy Policy. This Privacy Statement and the Cookies Policy is effective as of December 2023. If you have questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@cheesemerchants.com or contact us at the following address:
Cheese Merchants
1301 Schiferl Rd.
Bartlett, IL 60103
Attn: Customer Service
Email: info@cheesemerchants.com
ADDENDUM: California Privacy Rights
Applicability
This section applies only to California consumers. For purposes of this section “Personal Information” has the meaning given in the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”). It describes how we collect, use, and share California consumers’ Personal Information in our role as a business, and the rights applicable to such residents. The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) requires businesses to disclose whether they sell Personal Information. Cheese Merchants is a business, and does not sell Personal Information. We may share Personal Information with third parties if those third parties are authorized service providers or business partners who have agreed to our contractual limitations as to their retention, use, and disclosure of such Personal Information.
If you are unable to access this Privacy Policy due to a disability or any physical or mental impairment, please contact us and we will arrange to supply you with the information you need in an alternative format that you can access.
How We Collect, Use, and Share your Personal Information
We collect the following statutory categories of Personal Information:
Identifiers, such as name, e-mail address, mailing address, and phone number if you choose to provide this information such as through contact/feedback forms on our Website. We collect this information directly from you or from third party sources.
Commercial information, such as subscription records. We collect this information directly from you.
Internet or network information, such as browsing and search history. We collect this information directly from your device.
Geolocation data, such as IP address. We collect this information from your device.
Other Personal Information, in instances when you interact with us online, by phone or mail in the context of customer or consumer inquiries, complaints or questions, and participation in customer surveys or contests.
The business and commercial purposes for which we collect this information are described above in the Privacy Statement under the headings “Use of Personal Information” and Collection of Your Personal Information”. The categories of third parties to whom we “disclose” this information for a business purpose are described above in the Privacy Statement under the heading “Disclosure of Personal Information”.
Your California Rights
You have certain rights regarding the Personal Information we collect or maintain about you. Please note these rights are not absolute, and there may be cases when we decline your request as permitted by law.
The right of access means that you have the right to request that we disclose what Personal Information we have collected, used and disclosed about you in the past 12 months.
The right of deletion means that you have the right to request that we delete Personal Information collected or maintained by us, subject to certain exceptions.
The right to non-discrimination means that you will not receive any discriminatory treatment when you exercise one of your privacy rights.
Cheese Merchants does not sell Personal Information to third parties
How to Exercise your California Rights
You can exercise your rights yourself or you can alternatively designate an authorized agent to exercise these rights on your behalf. Please note that to protect your Personal Information, we will verify your identity by a method appropriate to the type of request you are making. We may also request that your authorized agent have written permission from you to make requests on your behalf, and we may also need to verify your authorized agent’s identity to protect your Personal Information.
Please contact info@cheesemerchants.com, if you would like to:
Access this policy in an alternative format;
Exercise your rights;
Learn more about your rights or our privacy practices; or
Designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf.
For more information on Cheese Merchants’ approach to personal information, including how your information is protected, you can email info@cheesemerchants.com.