Online Privacy Policy
Updated December 2004.
Use of this site signifies your acceptance of the terms and conditions.
Mattel, Inc. and its family of companies ("Mattel") are
committed to protecting your online privacy when visiting a website operated
by us. We do not collect and keep any personal information online from
you unless you volunteer it and you are 13 or older. We also do not collect
and keep personal information online from children under the age of 13
without consent of a parent or legal guardian, except in limited circumstances
authorised by law and described in this policy. Please review the information
below to familiarise yourself with our policies on website privacy, so
that you can take full advantage of all the fun activities available at
our sites for you and your family. Please remember that this site and the
servers that make this site available are located in the U.S. By using
this site you agree to the transfer, collection, processing and use of
data by this site.
A SPECIAL NOTE FOR PARENTS AND LEGAL GUARDIANS:
Mattel adheres to the Children's Online Privacy Protection
Act of 1998 and the guidelines of the Children's Advertising Review Unit
(CARU) of the Council of Better Business Bureaus, Inc. in each of our websites
for children. You can help by spending time online with your children and
monitoring your children's online use. Please help us protect your child's
privacy by instructing them never to provide personal information on this
site or any other without your permission.
If you are under 18, please be sure to read this policy
with your parents or legal guardians and ask questions about things you
do not understand. Children under 13 should get your parent's or legal
guardian's permission before giving out your e-mail address or any personal
information to Mattel or to anyone else on the Internet.
1. Does Mattel Collect Any Personal Information About Me If I'm 13 Or Older?
Mattel doesn't require anyone to share any personal information
about themselves in order to enjoy any of our websites. That means you
can visit our sites without any need to register with us. However, most
of our sites contain special sections and privileges for members that register.
We do not collect any personal information from you or your teenager unless
it is voluntarily provided, for instance when signing a guest book, registering
for contests, downloads, or free demos, completing our online customer
surveys or purchasing products. The personal information we ask for is
usually first and last name, postal address, telephone number and an e-mail
address. See below for how we use this information. Remember, only people
who are 18 or older may purchase products from our online stores.
2. What Ordering Information Does Mattel Collect In Our Online Stores?
We may offer opportunities to purchase products in our
online stores. Customers must be over the age of 18 with a valid credit
card. Visitors under 18 can use the Wish List function while browsing our
online stores but cannot make purchases. When a customer places an order
or requests a catalogue online, we collect information associated with
the transaction, which will include the customer's name, postal address,
products ordered, delivery address, and credit card information. We ask
for this information so that we may fulfil the order or catalogue request.
We use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to protect credit card data
during transmission to our website, and adopt careful internal procedures
to safeguard this information in our system.
Customers have the option of registering certain information
for future orders while completing their online order. For the customers
who choose to register, we will capture their login name, password, name
and postal address, alternate delivery addresses, and credit card information.
When registered customers return to the site to place subsequent
orders, they can identify themselves with their login name and password.
If a customer includes a child's date of birth and e-mail address, this
information will only be used to help us provide products and services
that meet customer needs.
When a customer places an order online, we will send a
confirming e-mail message. We may also send an occasional e-mail featuring
a special promotion or product that may be of interest to customers. Any
customer who prefers not to receive an online order confirmation or promotional
e-mail should indicate this preference on the online store order form.
If you do receive an e-mail from us that you would rather not receive,
simply follow the "unsubscribe" instructions included in the e-mail.
3. Does Mattel Collect Any Personal Information About Anyone Under 13?
We do not collect personal information online from children
under 13 without consent of a parent or legal guardian except in special,
limited circumstances. If your child is under 13 and wants to use our sites
with special activities, like scavenger hunts, personalised pages, games
or clubs, we might ask your child to "register." They can often do so anonymously
by just providing a user name and password, but sometimes we need their
first name and e-mail address. When we ask for your child's first name,
your child is encouraged to use a "screen name" (not their real
name) that only they know. Sometimes we will ask your child to make up
a special password so that only they can see their customised areas on
the site. With your verifiable consent, we may collect personal information
from your child such as a last name, address or e-mail address when the
information is necessary for a particular activity. If we need more than
just your child's first name (or screen name) and e-mail address for your
child to participate in a particular online activity, we will ask your
child for your e-mail or postal address so that we can notify you of your
child's request and get your permission. When we ask for your permission,
we will tell you what we will do with the information you or your child
provides us, and we will tell you how you can review your child's information
and ask us to delete the information. We don't keep your (or your child's)
e-mail address unless you tell us it is okay.
Mattel might collect an e-mail address and first name (or
screen name) from your child under 13 without your consent, but only in
the following special cases:
If a child under 13 sends a request to us, we keep their
e-mail address for long enough to respond to them. Mattel deletes this
information from our system after we answer their question.
If a child under 13 signs up for an e-mail newsletter,
or other activity that requires multiple online contact with the child,
we also ask the child for a parent's or legal guardian's e-mail address
so we can notify you and give you an opportunity to opt out.
Occasionally, Mattel has special site activities or promotions
like sweepstakes or contests that are open to children even if they are
under 13. In these activities, we are not allowed to ask for more information
from your child than what is necessary for your child to participate in
the activity.
In the latter situation we require your child to give us
your e-mail address, too, so that we can tell you that they have registered
in a promotion or for a service. If we need more than an e-mail address
and first name (or screen name) to enter your child in the promotion or
offer the service, we will notify you, explain what information we need
and why, and generally ask that you (not your child) provide it. For instance,
we might ask you for your postal address so that we can send to you, for
your child, any prizes your child wins, or for your telephone number so
that we can tell you when your child has won. Any information you or your
child give us in the above special circumstances will be deleted from our
database once the promotion, programme or activity is concluded, and after
any legally required period for keeping such information is complete.
We do not require a child to disclose more information
than is reasonably necessary to participate in a contest, game or other
activity as a condition of participation. If you no longer wish your child
to participate in an e-mail newsletter, simply click on the link that is
provided for removal or contact us at Service@mattel.com.
Upon proper identification, parents or legal guardians may review the personal
information we have collected about their child, request deletion, or refuse
to allow further collection or use of the information. Click here to print a copy of our Personal Information Review Access Request,
fill it out completely and post it to:
Personal Information Review Access Request
Mattel, Inc.
International & Regulatory Affairs
333 Continental Boulevard
M1-1202
El Segundo, CA 90245
However, if you ask us to delete your child's information,
we may have to ask your child not to participate in our activities.
4. What Does Mattel Do With The Information We Collect?
We use the personal information we collect for the purposes
indicated at the time you or your teenager or child (with your consent)
provides such information. For instance, if you register in a contest,
we will use the registration information to notify contest winners, or
if you purchase a product, we will use the information to fulfil the order.
Occasionally, and only with consent at the time we ask for information,
we might also e-mail or mail you or your teenager or your child to provide
information on upcoming Mattel products, website updates and promotions.
With your consent, we may also share information with other Mattel brands
and Mattel family companies so that they can let you and your family know
about products that might be of interest. If you want to stop receiving
such updates and product information at any time, just contact us at Service@mattel.com or call us at 800-524-8697.
Our mailings and e-mail will also include information allowing you
to ask not to receive such information in the future.
5. Does Mattel Share Information About Me With Others?
If you consent, Mattel may provide your information to outside companies
that offer products or services that may be of interest, and if your
teenager 13 or older consents, we may likewise provide their information.
Except as described in this policy, we never share personal information
that we receive online from children under 13 with other companies outside
Mattel. We will remove your name from the list we provide to outside
companies if you contact us at Service@mattel.com or call us at 800-524-8697
, and we will do the same for your teenager's name if they request
removal. In special circumstances, Mattel may give other companies access
to our information database, but only if necessary to allow them to provide
database or server maintenance or security, help us process and fulfil
orders or requests, or provide other similar services to Mattel. If we
do provide access, we require those other companies to sign confidentiality
agreements promising to keep secret any information they see. If Mattel
believes that anyone's behaviour on our sites may damage us or our sites
or anyone else, we may disclose the relevant personal information in
order to prevent this harm. In that case, we might try to identify the
wrongdoer, contact them or bring legal action against them. We may also
disclose personal information if we believe that the disclosure is required
by law, or in response to a legal request.
6. How Does Mattel Use Cookies?
A "cookie" is a small file that we save on your computer's hard
drive that contains non-personal information. Our cookies help to give you
faster access to pages you have already visited; they allow you to personalise
your pages and us to customise our offerings; and they help you to participate
in some activities or events on the site. For instance, some of our sites
have scavenger or treasure hunts, and we need to use cookies to keep track
of your progress. If you leave the site and then return, cookies will tell
us what things you have already collected so that you do not have to start
all over again. Cookies keep track of items in your shopping cart and wish
list in our online stores. We also use cookies to help us figure out how
many people visit our sites, which of our Web pages they stop at and how
long they stay there. This information helps us figure out which of our Web
features are successes and what sites might need improvement. For administrative
purposes, we collect IP addresses, which is the automatic number assigned
to your computer when you surf the Web. Certain Internet Service Providers
may assign the same IP address to many users. The IP address allows us to
count the total number of "hits" on our sites. However, your IP
address and cookie are not connected to any personally identifiable or online
contact information like a name and address, so you and your family remain
anonymous. We also use other technology, called clear GIFs, to provide us
with other important anonymous information, such as when an e-mail has been
opened.
7. Does Mattel Ever Collect Information Without Consent?
Mattel does not collect information passively through cookies
or other tracking mechanisms except in the circumstances described above.
Cookies DON'T contain any personal information about a specific user. We
don't use cookies or other non-consensual methods to take personally identifiable
or online contact information about you or your family off of your computer.
Except for certain activities like treasure hunts, which we talked about
above, Mattel doesn't use cookies for direct marketing or promotional purposes.
Cookies are also not used to collect information specifically about you
or your family for sharing with third parties.
8. Do Mattel's Third-Party Advertisers Use Cookies?
In the course of serving advertisements to this site, our
third-party advertisers may place or recognise a unique cookie on your
browser.
And finally...
We want you and your family to have fun surfing all our
sites and urge you and your family to follow common sense whenever disclosing
personal information - on this site or anywhere on the Internet.
Thanks for reading our privacy policy. We hope you have
a better understanding of the many activities offered on our websites and
the ways in which we really are committed to safeguarding online privacy.
Remember, we may change our policy from time to time. When this happens
we will notify you of the new policy by posting it on our sites.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact
us!
Mattel, Inc.
Consumer Relations
636 Girard Avenue
East Aurora, NY 14052
In the U.S.: 800-524-TOYS (800-524-8697)
In Canada: 800-665-6288
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