The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Online Privacy Policy

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company† takes your privacy seriously and is committed to safeguarding your privacy online. Because we do gather certain types of information from visitors to our sites, we have developed a privacy statement to help you understand the terms and conditions surrounding the collection and use of that information. This statement discloses the types of information we gather, how it is used, and how you can gain access to any data that we’ve collected about you at any time.

Guiding principles

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company respects the privacy of individuals who visit our web sites, send us email, or participate in features/services we offer online. Accordingly, our policy regarding online privacy has been developed using the following guiding principles:

The collection and use of personal information by The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company complies with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company collects information online primarily to provide our visitors with a more relevant experience on our sites. When doing so, we will make every reasonable effort to avoid excessive or irrelevant collection of data.
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company will take reasonable physical, electronic and managerial measures to safeguard and secure any information you provide to us (e.g. data will be stored in protected databases on secured servers with restricted access).
The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company will not share any information you’ve provided to us with anyone without your consent other than to provide the service you’ve requested. At the time you register for any such service, you will be notified of, and asked to consent to, the sharing of your information with any particular third party necessary to the provision of the requested service.

Information collected

Non-Personally Identifiable Data: Any time you visit The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites, we may gather certain non-personally identifiable information regarding the means you use to access our site. This information may include the type and version of your browser, your service provider, your IP address, and any search engine you may have used to locate the site. We use this information to help diagnose problems with our server, administer the web site, and compile broad statistical data.The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company gathers certain navigational information about where you go on our Web sites. This information enables us to determine which areas of the web sites are most frequently visited and helps us to tailor the sites to the needs and interests of our online visitors. This tracking data may be used to tailor information presented to you on our sites based on your previous use of the sites and your interests in particular topics. In addition, we gather tracking information from our monthly e-mail newsletters via user tracking and click tracking. This information enables us to determine both the subscriber newsletter open rate and subscriber clicked through back to our site.

Use of Cookies: The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may use a browser feature known as a ‘cookie’. Cookies are small files placed on your hard drive that assist The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company in providing you with a customised browsing experience. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company uses cookies to provide you with the convenience of not having to re-enter information, such as user IDs and passwords, multiple times during your visits to The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites. Cookies can also be utilised to help The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company provide you with information targeted to your interests, based upon your prior browsing on The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites. The ‘help’ section of the toolbar on most browsers will inform you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to have the browser notify you upon the receipt of a new cookie, or how to disable the use of cookies completely. As The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites have been designed to take advantage of the use of cookies, should you configure your browser to decline their use, certain features of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Web site may not function correctly and you may be required to reenter any user IDs and passwords more frequently.

Information Voluntarily Provided: Any information you provide to us (i.e. name, email address, etc.) when you enroll in an E-Mail Reminder Service, request information, register on our site, enter one of our contests, or use any of the other interactive portions of our web sites, is securely maintained on our web server and internal systems. This information may be used to provide you with information you’ve requested about our company, our products and our services, or to provide you with special notices. When we request information on our sites, some requests are marked as ‘Required’; this information is necessary to allow you to participate in the program or service you’ve requested. You may opt out of receiving future communications at any time (see Opt-Out Procedures below). This data may also be used to tailor your experience on our sites by providing content that is relevant to your interests and geographic region. Finally, we may create aggregated information from information you provide us (such as demographic data) for use in updating and maintaining our web sites. This aggregated information will not be shared with others except as noted below (see the ‘Disclosure of Personal Information’ and ‘Use of Cookies’ sections).

Information Collected from Other Sources: To help us better understand and respond to your needs and interests, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may in the future receive information about you from other sources. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company will ask any provider of such information to represent and warrant that the information has been gathered and maintained in accordance with all necessary legal requirements. Any such information will be maintained by The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company in accordance with the standards set forth in this privacy policy along with other personal information you’ve provided.

How we communicate with you

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may send authorised communications to you on the basis of the information you provide to us through email or regular mail. We will not contact you by telephone, fax, or other means unless you have explicitly requested us to contact you in that manner. You may also optout of email and regular mail communications from us at any time (see ‘Opt-Out Procedures’ below).

Disclosure of personal information

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company understands the importance of your privacy. We collect and maintain the personal information of our consumers for the use of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and its subsidiaries. We do not sell, rent, or trade consumer information to third parties, other than as described below, and never without your consent.

Business Partners: The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may partner with select retailers and other companies at various times to provide expanded services to our site visitors. As part of such a relationship, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may share with these companies the use of certain interactive web site functions (e.g. the E-Mail Reminder Service). Information provided by site visitors through the use of such interactive functions may be available to both The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company and its partners.
Agents: The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may use other companies and individuals to perform certain functions on our behalf. Examples include administering email services and running special promotions. Such parties only have access to the personal information needed to perform these functions and may not use or store the information for any other purpose.
Business Transfers: In the event that The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company sells or transfers a particular portion of its business assets, consumer information may be one of the business assets transferred as part of the transaction. If substantially all of the assets of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company are acquired, consumer information may be transferred as part of the acquisition.
Compliance with Law/Safety: The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company may disclose specific personal information based on a good-faith belief that such disclosure is necessary to comply with or conform to the law or that such disclosure is necessary to protect the users of our web sites, the sites themselves, or the public.
With Consent: Other than as set forth in this Privacy Policy, you will be notified when any personally identifiable information about you may be shared with third parties, and you will be given the opportunity to decline to share that information.

Policies on children

Children under the age of 16 are welcome to use The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Web sites. However, we will ask that a registrant under the age of 16 obtains the consent of a parent or guardian before they become fully registered with one of our web sites. Orders for goods or services will not be accepted from children under 16 without first obtaining a parent/guardian’s verifiable and explicit consent.

Accessing The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company Web Sites from Outside of the UK

If you are visiting The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites from a location outside of the United Kingdom, your connection will be through and to servers located in the United Kingdom. Any information you provide during your visit will be processed and maintained on our web server and other internal systems located within the United Kingdom.

External links

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites may contain links to other sites. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such web sites. To help ensure the protection of your privacy, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company recommend that you review the privacy policy of any site you visit via a link from one of our web sites.

Passwords

A personal data record created through your registration with a The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web site can only be accessed with the unique password associated with that record. To protect the integrity of the information contained in this record, you should not disclose or otherwise reveal your password to third parties.

Public forums

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company web sites may make chat rooms, forums, message boards, and/or news groups available to its users at various times. Please remember that, unless otherwise stated, any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information in these areas.

Opt-out procedures

You may always optout of receiving future communications from The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company. Our web sites allow users to optout of receiving such communications at the point where personal information is requested, or through other means as identified.

Correcting, updating and removing information

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company supports the individual’s right to protect their privacy. Accordingly, any personal information you provide us will be made available for your review on request. Additionally, you may update, modify or remove this information at any time by using the contact us. enquiry form.

Notification of changes

This privacy policy may be revised over time as new features are added to the web sites and as Internet privacy standards evolve. To ensure that you are fully informed about how your personal information is used, our privacy policy will always be available for review on our Web sites. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your personal information, we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our pages.