A Trusted Friend in a Complicated World

Privacy Policy

The policies below are applicable to readersdigest.com (rd.com) and other websites on the World Wide Web originating in the United States and owned and operated by Trusted Media Brands, Inc. (collectively “TMBI Sites”) unless otherwise indicated. Our Privacy Policy will tell you what information we collect when you visit TMBI Sites, how we use it and what choices you have about how that information is used. We urge you to read our entire Privacy Policy so that you will understand both our commitment to you and your privacy, and how you can participate in that commitment.

Collection of Personally Identifiable Information

Some functions and services offered through TMBI Sites require that you provide certain personally identifiable information (PII). PII that we collect includes email address, name, postal address, telephone number, date of birth and credit card number. We may also collect other information about you that we associate with your PII such as your interests, preferences and demographics. For example, we may collect information about your interests in certain health and lifestyle topics. We collect this PII for example, when you order a product, enter a contest or sweepstakes, request a catalog, or register for a mailing list.

Use of Personally Identifiable Information

We may use your personally identifiable information and other information we collect about you for purposes described in this policy or disclosed to you on TMBI Sites or in connection with our services. For example, we may use your information to:

• operate and improve TMBI Sites, products and services;

• understand you and your preferences to enhance your experience and enjoyment using TMBI Sites, products and services;
• process and deliver contest entries and rewards;
• respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service;
• provide and deliver products and services you request;
• send you related information, including confirmations, invoices, technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
• communicate with you about new contests, promotions and rewards, upcoming events, and other news about products and services offered by Reader’s Digest and our selected partners;
• link or combine it with other personal information we get from third parties, to help understand your needs and provide you with better service;
• investigate and take action against fraudulent or illegal activity or improper conduct.

Reader’s Digest may save your credit card information for use when you log in to make future purchases.

Reader’s Digest may store and process personal information in the United States and other countries.

Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information

Reader’s Digest may share your PII for the following purposes and under the following circumstances.

• We may share your PII with our affiliates, our technical consultants, third-party auditors and other third parties who act on our behalf, for example, to make TMBI Sites available, enhance their functionality, or provide associated services and/or who deal with you in delivering content, samples, products, and gifts and prizes, have access to and may use this information to provide us with services.

• Occasionally, Reader’s Digest may make names and postal addresses we collect through the TMBI Sites along with certain other information about you such as your interest in particular health or lifestyle topics available to reputable companies whose products and/or services may interest you, unless you opt out of being included in our postal mailing list. (See the section below on opting out of postal mailings).

• We may transfer your personally identifiable information and other information in connection with or during negotiation of any merger, financing, acquisition or dissolution, transaction or proceeding involving sale, transfer, divestiture or disclosure of all or a portion of our business or assets to another company.

• We will consider, and may release, personal information to third parties: to (i) comply with laws or to respond to lawful requests and legal process, (ii) to protect the rights and property of Reader’s Digest our agents, customers, members, and others including to enforce our agreements, policies and terms of use or (iii) in an emergency to protect the personal safety of Reader’s Digest employees, customers, or any person.

Reader’s Digest may also provide aggregate statistics and deidentified data about our customers, including traffic patterns and related site information, to reputable third parties for their own purposes, including statistical analysis.

Your Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information

Please be aware that when you connect and share your actions, comments, content and information, for example, through discussion board postings on TMBI Sites, those actions are not private. Others may capture personal information you post, including your email address, and may use the data to identify or contact you, including to send you emails. Reader’s Digest cannot control such actions by others. Please be mindful of your own privacy needs as you choose who to connect with and what to share and make public. If you share information about others, please be sure to respect their privacy and get consent for any information you may share about them.

Choices about Our Use and Sharing of Personally Identifiable Information

If you do not wish to receive promotional and newsletter emails from Reader’s Digest you may click on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of those emails.

You can also change your promotional and newsletter email preferences by clicking here to go to the E-Mail Preference Center form.

If you opt-out of promotional or newsletter emails from Reader’s Digest, we may continue to send you certain communications such as service announcements and administrative messages, relating to Reader’s Digest and rd.com that are necessary to our relationship with you.

For all other requests for changes relating to your PII, including opting out of postal mail, telemarketing calls, and our sharing PII with our partners, contact customer service at [email protected] or at:

Reader’s Digest
PO Box 6095
Harlan, IA 51593

Phone #: 877-732-4438
Reader’s Digest
PO Box 50005
Prescott, AZ 86301-5005

You may also use the postal address above for general customer service questions.

Third Party Activities

If you submit PII through a form on any RD site to request information from an advertiser or other third party, choose to otherwise share your PII with a third party such as by sharing stories you read by connecting with social networking services, or click on a link on an RD site to go to a third party site that may collect information about you, Reader’s Digest is not responsible for the privacy practices of, including any marketing or other use of your PII by, those third parties. To learn more about any other company or organization’s privacy practices, we suggest you contact them directly about their privacy policy.

Notice to California customers – Your California Privacy Rights
California’s “Shine the Light” law, Civil Code section 1798.83, requires certain businesses to respond to requests from California customers asking about the businesses’ practices related to disclosing personal information to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes. Alternately, such businesses may have in place a policy not to disclose personal information of customers to third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes if the customer has exercised an option to opt-out of such information-sharing. We have such a policy in place. As discussed above, if you wish to opt-out of our sharing of your information with third parties for the third parties’ direct marketing purposes or to find out more about your opt-out rights, please contact us at the email address or postal address described above.

Third Party Advertising

We may also use third parties to serve ads on TMBI Sites. Certain third parties may automatically collect information about your visits to this and other websites, your IP address, your ISP, the browser you use to visit TMBI Sites (but not your name, address, email address or telephone number). They do this by using cookies, clear gifs or other technologies. Information collected may be used, among other things, to deliver advertising targeted to your interests and to better understand the usage and visitation of the TMBI Sites and the other sites tracked by these third parties. This policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, cookies or clear gifs in third party ads, and we encourage you to check the privacy policies of advertisers and/or ad services to learn about their use of cookies and other technology. If you would like more information about this practice and to know your choices about not having this information used by these companies, click here: http://www.networkadvertising.org. One of the third party ad servers that delivers ads to you is Doubleclick.

Third Party Cookies Notwithstanding anything else in this policy, we or a data provider we have engaged may place or recognize a unique cookie on your browser to enable you to receive customized ads or content. These cookies contain no personally identifiable information. The cookies may reflect de-identified demographic or other data linked to data you voluntarily have submitted to us, e.g., your email address that we may share with a data provider solely in hashed, non-human readable form. To opt-out of these cookies, please go to aboutads.info/choices.

Reader’s Digest Ads on Third Party Sites. We may use information collected using third party cookies and Web beacons on our Web Sites and in our emails to deliver Reader’s Digest brands advertising displayed to you on third party sites. We also may use cookie information to know when you return to our Web Site after visiting these third party sites. We use this information and other information about you, to try to understand your interests and show you relevant Reader’s Digest advertising about products and services you may need.

Cookies, Web Beacons and Server Logs

Reader’s Digest, related Web hosting providers, and advertisers and ad serving and tracking companies sometimes utilize “cookie” technology on TMBI Sites. Cookies are bits of data stored on your hard drive that contain no personally identifying information but which help enhance your Web-browsing experience. Not all Web browsers accept cookies, and those that do usually provide a preference or setting that allows you to refuse and remove most types of browser cookies. If your browser does not accept cookies, you may still enjoy TMBI Sites.

We may also use local shared objects, also known as Flash cookies, to store your preferences such as volume control for videos, or display content based upon what you view on the TMBI Sites to personalize your visit. Third party partners provide certain features on the TMBI Sites and may display advertising based upon your Web browsing activity, using Flash cookies to help track and store information about you. Flash cookies are different from browser cookies because of the amount of, type of, and how data is stored. Cookie management tools provided by your browser usually will not remove Flash cookies. To learn how to manage privacy and storage settings for certain Flash cookies click here.

We may collect information using Web beacons. Web beacons are electronic images that may be used on TMBI Sites or in our emails. We use Web beacons to deliver cookies, count visits, understand usage and campaign effectiveness and to tell if an email has been opened and acted upon.

Server logs capture certain non-personally identifying data, such as the time and date of a Web visit, the browser and operating system being used, and the Web URL a user linked from. This information is used in aggregate form to help us plan system enhancements when necessary and to provide content that is compatible with our visitors’ Web-browsing systems. We also collect information about keyword searches performed by visitors on the TMBI Sites. We do not collect your name or email address as a result of using a search feature. We may keep logs of all words searched to help us learn what kinds of information rd.com visitors are seeking, and to improve our service to visitors.

Privacy Precaution Warning

Please note that no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. As a result, we cannot guarantee the security of the information that you transmit via our online services.

Notice to EU Visitors

RDA has registered for Safe Harbor certification with the US Department of Commerce. Click here to see our Safe Harbor Privacy Policy.

Privacy Policy Changes

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to change, modify, add, or remove portions of this policy at any time. Please bookmark this page and check it periodically. We will post any changes to this privacy policy on our site.

Policy last updated March 2012

Legal Notice and Terms and Conditions

Please also read the TMBI Sites’ Terms of Use to understand the additional terms and conditions which apply to use of the sites.