Privacy Policy

Guittard Chocolate Company (“Guittard,” “we,” or “us”) recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy needs of users of Guittard.com (the “Site”), subscribers to our mailing lists, and participants in our surveys and contests (collectively, “Users”). This policy describes the Personal Information (e.g. name, address, email address, phone number, etc.) we gather about you, what we do with it, the safeguards we have in place to protect it, and how you can control our use of such Personal Information. You will have an opportunity to unsubscribe whenever we communicate with you. By providing your personal details to us, you signify your acceptance of our Privacy Statement as set out below. If you do not agree to this statement, please do not provide your personal details to us. Guittard is a small, family-owned business that doesn’t fall under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), but voluntarily respects consumers privacy by not selling consumers information or participating in interest-based advertising.

Who may use the site

Our Site is not intended or designed to attract users under the age of 13. Guittard does not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 13. If individuals under 13 years of age wish to participate in contests or promotions, they must obtain the consent of their parent or guardian. If you are under 13, we ask that you not send us any Personal Information unless you have parent or guardian permission. In the event that we learn that such information has been sent to our Site, we will not create a profile or otherwise retain the child’s information.

Our Site is intended for users from the United States and those not governed by privacy policies of other countries. Users from the other countries are advised not to disclose Personal Information to our Site. Information sent to us will be housed on servers located in the state of California, in the United States. Do not send us information unless you consent to the application of U.S. law and to the use and disclosure of your information consistent with this Privacy Statement.

How we collect and use information

Personally Identifiable Information (“PII”)

We may collect personally identifiable information (“PII”) such as your name, your contact information, your shipping information, and your billing information (such as credit card account data). We collect PII when you provide it to us, for example when you interact with our Site, place an order, or sign up for our mailing list.

We use the PII that we collect to provide services (such as to process and ship your orders or respond to customer service requests), to analyze and improve our online platforms and to conduct marketing. If you register for email or if you provide your email address to us, we will send you emails about a variety of topics such as product launches, classes and events, special sales, promotional offers, and/or sustainability topics. Please see below for your choices regarding how we collect, use, and share your PII.

We share email activity data with our marketing email provider to help them better target email deployments to consumers. While our marketing email provider has access to email address and email activity and may share bulk/non-specific activity data, no Email addresses or specific email actions are ever shared with other third parties. Should a consumer wish to opt out of this sharing, that consumer simply needs to opt out of marketing email from us.

Non-Personal Information

We automatically collect certain non-personal information when you use the Site. For example, we collect information about the devices you use to connect to the Site (such as the IP address of your computer or numeric identifier of your mobile device) and about how you use the Site (such as what time you visit). We, and our advertisers and ad servers, may also collect non-personal information outside the Site to measure the success of our advertising campaigns. We use the non-personal information that we collect for a variety of purposes such as to provide and improve the Site, and to analyze our advertising.

Our Site also uses third-party analytics vendors such as Google Analytics. Please click here for more information about how data is collected and processed in connection with the Google Analytics service. We and our third-party vendors or partners use analytics data for a variety of purposes such as to improve the design and content of our websites, to help us learn things like what pages are most attractive to all of our visitors and what promotions visitors like to see, and to gauge the success of our advertising campaigns.

Information You Post

All information that you share about yourself, whether PII or not, in a public open forum – such as on a social network – will be considered public information for the purposes of this policy. If you don’t want it to be public, please don’t post it.

How we share information

We do not disclose your PII to third parties, except as follows:

• After giving you notice and an opportunity to choose not to share the information;

• To companies that provide services to us or perform functions on our behalf (such as processing credit card payments or taking orders) and have agreed to use your information only for the purposes we request;

• For us to send offers to Guittard customers;

• When we believe disclosure is appropriate to comply with applicable law, legal process, and/or governmental authorities;

• When we believe disclosure is appropriate to enforce our Terms of Use and other agreements, or to protect our rights, our customers, our property, our employees, or others; and

• If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy, partial or total sale of assets, or other corporate change.

We may disclose de-identified, aggregated, or other non-personal information to third parties in our discretion. The Site or our offerings on social media platforms may include commenting, forums, sharing, or other similar features. Information that you provide using these features may be available to other users or the general public.

Your choices

With your PII – like the information you give us to fulfill an order – you have the option to change or correct your information and the choice of not hearing from us again. There are several ways you can control our use of your PII in connection with marketing and promotions.

To remove your name from our lists. You can choose to decline communications from us at the point that we request your PII. After we have collected your PII, you can choose to stop our communications or our service. To exercise any of these options, please contact us by mail, email, or telephone using the contact information below.

To stop email communications. If you receive email communications from us and want to opt out of receiving such communications in the future, you can click the “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the promotional email. Other choices. Please see below to learn about your choices with regard to our use of cookies and interest-based advertising.

Correcting or updating your information

If you would like to request changes to the PII that you have previously provided to us, please contact us by mail, email, or telephone using the contact information below.

Cookies

We may use “cookies,” “web beacons,” and other similar technologies to collect information in connection with the Guittard Services and our advertisements. A “cookie” is a computer file that acts as an identification card for your computer to distinguish your browser from others and enable us to serve you better. For example, we use cookies to save products in your shopping cart while you browse our websites and to track the effectiveness of our marketing and advertising campaigns. Similarly, a “web beacon” is a technology that can recognize specific cookies and convey information about that browser. We do not use these technologies to collect PII.

Most browsers accept cookies automatically. You may be able to set your browser to reject and/or delete cookies. For instructions, check your browser’s technical information. However, if you reject or delete cookies then this may disable or interfere with features of the Site or other websites you visit. We recommend that you leave cookies “turned on” so we can offer you a better shopping experience on our website.

Links to third parties and social media

Our website may contain links to third-party online properties. These links are for your convenience only and are not under our control. Such third parties have their own policies that govern their collection, use, and disclosure of information. You acknowledge and agree that our Site is not responsible for the availability of external Web sites or resources, and our Site does not endorse such Web sites, their contents, advertising, products, or other materials. We suggest that you read their privacy policies to learn about their practices.

Social media provides tools that many of our customers use and enjoy, and we include links to various social media platforms on our website. If you interact with these social media tools through our website, your experience on those social media sites will be governed by the privacy and other policies of those sites. So, the privacy settings you have chosen on those sites will determine the degree to which your information is made public. We encourage you to choose your privacy settings on those sites accordingly.

Do not forget that our Facebook page, Twitter stream and Instagram stream are all public forums. Do not post anything you would not want others to see (e.g your phone number, address, screen name etc). Harassment, hate speech and inappropriate sexual or other content is not acceptable. You agree that Guittard and the Site are not responsible for anything you post or any result of your postings. If you reveal information about yourself or others that creates danger, you will have to take responsibility for the results. Guittard cannot do so.  

Safeguarding your PII

We have reasonable and appropriate physical, electronic, and administrative measures in place to safeguard the security of your personal information. However, when you communicate with customer service via email, these communications may not be encrypted. For that reason, we ask that you do not share sensitive information via these communication channels.

Updates to the Privacy Policy

If we modify this Privacy Policy, we will post the revised Privacy Policy online. You should check regularly to see if this Privacy Policy has changed.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can email, write, or call us:

customerservice@guittard.com

Guittard Customer Service

10 Guittard Road

Burlingame CA 94010

1-800-HOT-CHOC