Information Collection & Use

Registration
In order to use this Web site, you must first complete the registration form [and/or create a user name and password].  During registration you [are required to] give[s] contact information (such as name and email address). We use this information to contact you about the services on our site in which you have expressed interest.
    HTI Buying Group is the sole owner of the information collected on htibuyinggroup.comhtibuyinggroup.com. HTI Buying Group collects personally identifiable information from our users at several different points on our Web site.

Orders
If you purchase a product or service from us, we request certain personally identifiable information from you on our order form. You must provide contact information (such as name, email, and shipping address) and financial information (such as credit card number, expiration date).   
We use this information for billing purposes and to fill your orders.  If we have trouble processing an order, we will use this information to contact you. 

Uses of Information
THE USE OF THE INFORMATION COLLECTED ON THE HTI BUYING GROUP, INC. SITE IS USED SOLEY TO PROCESS SEMINAR REGISTRATIONS, RETAIL MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS, VENDOR MEMBERSHIP RENEWALS, AND CATALOG PAYMENTS.
OUR SERVICES ARE THAT OF A BUYING GROUP COPERATIVE (ASSOCIATION), WHICH NEGOTIATES CORPORATE VENDOR PRICE CONCESSIONS WITH ITS VENDOR MEMBERS AND MAKES THOSE DISCOUNTS, EXTENDED TERMS, AND FREIGHT ALLOWANCES AVAILABLE TO IT RETAIL MEMBERS BY AGREEMENT WITH ITS VENDOR MEMBERS. NONE OF THESE AGREEMENTS ARE AVAILABLE ON THE WEBSITE AND ARE ONLY RELEASED TO HTI BUYING GROUP MEMBERS BY AGREEMENT WITH THE PROVIDING VENDOR VIA POSTAL COMMUNICATION AND ONLY AFTER A RETAIL MEMBERSHIP HAS BEEN ENTERED INTO BETWEEN THE HTI BUYING GROUP, INC. AND THE RETAIL STORE. 
HTI BUYING GROUP, INC. ALSO DEVELOPS AND PRINTS A CONSUMER HOUSEWARES CATALOG FOR RETAIL MEMBERS WHO WANT TO PURCHASE IT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO THE RETAIL STORE’S CUSTOMERS.
NAMES OF BUSINESSES, CONTACTS AND CONTACT METHODS, TELEPHONE NUMBERS, FAX NUMBERS, EMAIL ADDRESSES ARE ONLY PROVIDED TO OTHER MEMBERS SO THEY MAY CONDUCT BUSINESS BETWEEN EACH OTHER.


Communications from the Site

Special Offers and Updates
We will occasionally send you information on products, services, special deals, and/or promotions.  Out of respect for your privacy, we present the option not to receive these types of communications.  Please see the “Choice and Opt-out.”

Newsletters
If you wish to subscribe to our newsletter(s), we will use your name and email address to send the newsletter to you.  Out of respect for your privacy, we provide you a way to unsubscribe.  Please see the “Choice and Opt-out” section.

Service-related Announcements
We will send you strictly service-related announcements on rare occasions when it is necessary to do so.  For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance, we might send you an email.    Generally, you may not opt-out of these communications, which are not promotional in nature.  If you do not wish to receive them, you have the option to deactivate your account.

Customer Service
We will communicate with you in response to your inquiries, to provide the services you request, and to manage your account. We will communicate with you by email or telephone, in accordance with your wishes.

Profile
We store information that we collect through cookies, log files, clear gifs, and/or third party sources to create a “profile” of your preferences.  We tie your personally identifiable information, and your purchasing history, to information in the profile, in order to provide tailored promotions and marketing offers and to improve the content of the site for you.    We do not share your profile with other third parties. 


Information Sharing and Disclosure

Aggregate Information (non-personally identifiable)
We share aggregated demographic information about our user base with our partners and advertisers.  This information does not identify individual users.  
We do not link aggregate user data with personally identifiable information.   

Personally identifiable information:
We DO NOT Share Personally Identifiable Information with Third Parties  

Agents 

  We use an outside shipping company to fulfill orders, and a credit card processing company to bill you for goods and services. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any other purposes.

Other Third Parties  

NO THIRD PARTIES ARE INVOLVED WITH THE HTI BUYING GROUP, INC.

Legal Disclaimer
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site

Choice/Opt-out
We provide you the opportunity to ‘opt-out’ of having your personally identifiable information used for certain purposes, when we ask for this information.  For example, if you purchase a product/service but do not wish to receive any additional marketing material from us, you can indicate your preference on our order form.  
If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in each newsletter or communication or by emailing us at htibuying@verizon.net, or you may contact us at [PHONE], htibuying@verizon.net, or [POSTAL MAIL] to opt-out. 
You will be notified when your personal information is collected by any third party that is not our agent/service provider, so you can make an informed choice as to whether or not to share your information with that party.

Log Files
As is true of most Web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files.  This information includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.   
We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users’ movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole.    We do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information. We use a third-party tracking service called Google Analytics that uses cookies to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate.

Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a user’s computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies on this site. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site. We use both session ID cookies and/or persistent cookies.  We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session ID cookie expires when you close you browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browser’s “help” file. We set a persistent cookie to store your passwords, so you don’t have to enter it more than once.  Persistent cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site.    If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but your ability to use some areas of our site, such as shopping cart, will be limited.

Clear Gifs (Web Beacons/Web Bugs)
We use clear gifs in our HTML-based emails to let us know which emails have been opened by recipients.  This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of certain communications and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns.  If you would like to opt-out of these emails, please see “Choice and Opt-out.”

Links to Other Sites
This Web site contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by HTI Buying Group. Please be aware that we, HTI Buying Group, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites.    We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information.   

This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this Web site.

Co-branded sites
HTI BUYING GROUP, INC. DOES NO CO-BRANDING

Access to Personally Identifiable Information
If your personally identifiable information changes, or if you no longer desire our service, you may correct, update, delete or deactivate it by making the change on our member information page or by emailing our Customer Support at htibuying@verizon.net or by contacting us by telephone or postal mail at the contact information listed below.

Security
The security of your personal information is important to us.  When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL).  We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it.  No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however.  Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.  If you have any questions about security on our Web site, you can send email us at htibuying@verizon.net

Business Transitions
In the event HTI Buying Group goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your personally identifiable information will likely be among the assets transferred.  You will be notified via htibuying@verizon.net of any such change in ownership or control of your personal information.

Changes in this Privacy Statement
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.    We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently.  If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.

Contact Us
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at htibuying@verizon.net