Security and Privacy

Privacy Notice

Sophia Institute, Inc. ("Sophia Institute^®") knows that you care how information about you is used and shared, and we appreciate your trust that we will do so carefully and sensibly. This notice describes our privacy policy. By visiting the sophiainstitute.com Web site, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Notice.

  What Personal Information About Customers Does sophiainstitute.com gather?

  The information we learn from customers helps us personalize and continually improve your shopping experience at sophiainstitute.com. Here are the types of information we gather.

•   Information You Give Us: We receive and store any information you enter on our Web site or give us in any other way. You can choose not to provide certain information, but then you might not be able to take advantage of many of our features. We use the information that you provide for such purposes as responding to your requests, customizing future shopping for you, improving our stores, and communicating with you.

• Automatic Information: We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. For example, like many Web sites, we use "cookies," and we obtain certain types of information when your Web browser accesses sophiainstitute.com. A number of companies offer utilities designed to help you visit Web sites anonymously. Although we will not be able to provide you with a personalized experience at sophiainstitute.com if we cannot recognize you, we want you to be aware that these tools exist.

• E-mail Communications: To help us make e-mails more useful and interesting, we often receive a confirmation when you open e-mail from sophiainstitute.com if your computer supports such capabilities. We also compare our customer list to lists received from other companies, in an effort to avoid sending unnecessary messages to our customers. If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please notify us accordingly via e-mail at info@sophiainstitute.com.

•   Information from Other Sources: For reasons such as improving personalization of our service (for example, providing better product recommendations or special offers that we think will interest you), we might receive information about you from other sources and add it to our account information. We also sometimes receive updated delivery and address information from our shippers or other sources so that we can correct our records and deliver your next purchase or communication more easily.

What About Cookies?

·          Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer's hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser and to provide you certain online shopping features.

·          The "help" portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of sophiainstitute.com's features, and we recommend that you leave them turned on.

  Does Sophia Institute^® Share the Information It Receives?

  Information about our customers is an important part of our business, and we are not in the business of selling it to others. We share customer information only with the companies with whom Sophia Institute, Inc. works or is affiliated, as described below.

  ·          Affiliated Businesses We Do Not Control: We work closely with our affiliated businesses, which are linked to the sophiainstitute.com Web site. In some cases, these businesses may operate stores or sell offerings to you at sophiainstitute.com. In other cases, we may operate stores, provide services, or sell product lines jointly with these businesses. You can tell when another business is involved in your transactions, and we share customer information related to those transactions with that business.

·          Agents: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Examples include fulfilling orders, delivering packages, sending postal mail and e-mail, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments, maintaining and/or hosting the sophiainstitute.com Web site or our e-mail servers, and providing customer service. They have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for other purposes.

·          Promotional Offers: Sometimes we send offers to selected groups of Sophia Institute customers on behalf of other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address. If you do not want to receive such offers, please notify us accordingly via e-mail at info@sophiainstitute.com.

·          Business Transfers: As we continue to develop our business, we might sell or buy stores or assets. In such transactions, customer information generally is one of the transferred business assets. Also, in the unlikely event that Sophia Institute, or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information will of course be one of the transferred assets.

·          Protection of Sophia Institute^® and Others: We release account and other personal information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with law; enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Sophia Institute, the sophiainstitute.com Web site, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

·          With Your Consent: Other than as set out above, you will receive notice when information about you might go to third parties, and you will have an opportunity to choose not to share the information.

How Secure Is Information About Me?

·          We work to protect the security of your information during transmission by using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information you input.

·          We transmit your entire credit card number and related credit information to the appropriate credit card processing company on a secure basis during order processing.

·          It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.

  What Information Can I Access?

  Sophia Institute may give you access to the following information about you for the limited purpose of viewing and, in certain cases, updating that information. This list will change as our Web site evolves.

·          Your Account

·          Account Maintenance

  What Choices Do I Have?

·          As discussed above, you can always choose not to provide information, even though it might be needed to make a purchase or to take advantage of certain sophiainstitute.com features.

·          You can add or update certain information on pages such as those listed in the "What Information Can I Access?" section above. When you update information, we usually keep a copy of the prior version for our records.

·          If you do not want to receive e-mail or other mail from us, please notify us accordingly via e-mail at info@sophiainstitute.com. (If you do not want to receive Terms of Use and other legal notices from us, such as this Privacy Notice, those notices will still govern your use of sophiainstitute.com, and it is your responsibility to review them for changes.)

·          The "help" portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. However, you may not be able to use some features of sophiainstitute.com if you do not use cookies.

·          The Federal Trade Commission provides useful information about online privacy on its own Web site (www.ftc.gov).

Children

  Sophia Institute does not sell products for purchase by children. We sell children's products for purchase by adults. If you are under 18, you may use sophiainstitute.com only with involvement and/or supervision of a parent or guardian.

 Terms of Use, Notices, and Revisions

  If you choose to visit the sophiainstitute.com Web site, your visit and any dispute over privacy is subject to this Notice and our Terms of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of the law of the State of New Hampshire USA. If you have any concern about privacy at sophiainstitute.com, please send us a thorough description to info@sophiainstitute.com, and we will try to resolve it. Our business changes constantly. This Notice and the Terms of Use will change also, and use of information that we gather now is subject to the Privacy Notice in effect at the time of use. We may e-mail periodic reminders of our notices and conditions, unless you have instructed us not to, but you should check our Web site frequently to see recent changes.