PRIVACY POLICY

Introduction - Specialty Books, Inc. is committed to protecting your privacy. We have established this Privacy Policy and are providing it to you so that you can understand the manner in which we collect and use your information and the efforts we use to protect it. Please note that this policy is for Specialty Books, Inc.; it does not apply to other sites that you may link to from our site. Please check the privacy policies on those sites for more information.

Business Information - Specialty Books, Inc. is an online college bookstore located in Athens, Ohio, in the United States of America. In addition to the community here at Athens, we serve students, staff, and faculty from other Higher Education Universities, as well as our internet and mail order customers from around the country and around the world. The address for our main store appears below.

Specialty Books, Inc.
6000 Poston Road
Athens, OH 45701

Personal Information Collected - Specialty Books, Inc. recognizes the need for consumers to control the use and management of personal information. By personal information we mean information that can be used to identify or contact an individual. This includes a first and last name, a physical address, an email address, a student id number, or a phone number. If you are visiting our site to browse merchandise or find information about our business or our products, you do not need to provide any personal information. If you decide to make a purchase, however, we do collect this information so that we can provide you with the product or service you requested and so that we can contact you with information regarding your order.

Automatic Information Collected - Our website makes use of various technologies to collect information about types and versions of internet browsers used when accessing our web site. This information, and information about internet IP addresses, as well as date and time web pages are visited are stored in various security and traffic logs. Our service provider reviews these logs, using statistical analysis, in an effort to track and predict traffic patterns and estimate resource needs. Unless we are tracking down a technical problem or we suspect either fraudulent behavior or illegal conduct we do not trace specific user sessions.

Personal Information Use - Specialty Books, Inc. uses personal information provided by you so that we can service your order. Also note that we may need to transfer that information to our agents or employees of our service providers. For example, we may need to provide your address to a wholesaler or a shipping company that will ship a product directly to you. We will only transfer the information to the extent necessary to provide the requested information, service, or product to you. We will not sell or trade your information to unrelated third parties. When you submit an order you will receive an email confirmation from our system. As your order status changes you may also receive notifications via email. These notifications are considered part of our service and may not be disabled. We may also periodically send you email notifications concerning products or services offered by our bookstore. Any such notification will include instructions for opting out of future mailings.

Third Parties - We do partner with other third parties to provide various products and services. When you sign up for these services or products we will share required personal information that is necessary for the third party to provide the product or service to you. We take reasonable steps to ensure that these third parties are obligated to protect your information on our behalf. It is also against our policy to sell or trade information collected online without consumer consent. We may, however, release personal information if we are legally required to do so. If we are legally compelled to release information to a third party, Specialty Books, Inc., may or may not notify you of this release. Notification will be at the discretion of Specialty Books, Inc. and will be based on the nature and conditions surrounding the release of information.

Information Control - Your customer profile is accessible from our website and you may update it at anytime. Our web site provides you with the ability to change your phone numbers, physical addresses, and email address information stored in your profile. You may also write to us at the address listed at the bottom of this policy to request that we make the change for you.

Children - Specialty Books, Inc.'s website is targeted to college students and as such is not meant to attract children. We do not intend to collect personal information from anyone we know to be under thirteen years of age. If you are the parent or guardian of a child under thirteen years of age and believe that your child has disclosed personally identifiable information to us, please contact us so that we may remove the child's information.

Supplemental Technologies - Our website uses cookies, session identifiers, JavaScript(tm), and browser detection technology to provide consumers with a more pleasant online experience. Many browsers provide consumers with the ability to disable some or all of these technologies. Disabling them, especially in the case of JavaScript(tm), may prevent you from viewing some web pages. Note that the cookies we use do not place any personally identifiable information on your computer. Our site also does not participate in Ad Networks or use Web Bugs/Web Beacons to track consumer activity.

Confidentiality and Security - Specialty Books, Inc. takes reasonable steps to ensure that your information is protected. On our website we use industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption when collecting your personal information. Our website is hosted in a data center which makes use of multiple levels of redundant firewalls and database encryption to protect information. Internally, we limit access to your information to those employees or agents who we believe have reasonable need to use the information to provide products or services to you, or to perform their jobs.

Notifications - When your order is placed on our website we will send you an email notification. When your order status changes you may also receive notifications via email. These notifications are considered part of our service and may not be disabled. We will send the email but we cannot guarantee delivery. You are responsible for providing a valid email address and for updating it when your address changes. Specialty Books, Inc. may, depending on the importance and urgency of the notification, choose to contact you via telephone or postal mail. When doing so we will use the phone number and/or address associated with your account or transaction.

History - Specialty Books, Inc. first established a privacy policy in June of 2000. We periodically make changes to the policy to reflect additions or changes to our practices. You may review the current policy at anytime by returning to this web page. This policy was last changed on December 23, 2004.

Compliance - This privacy policy complies with ecommerce industry best practice guidelines and with California's Privacy Protection Act of 2004. If you have any questions or concerns about this policy please contact us using the information provided below.

Contact - Please direct all privacy related questions and concerns to the following address:

Specialty Books, Inc.
ATTN: Privacy Issues
6000 Poston Road
Athens, OH 45701

Or, email the Webmaster.