D. Sharing of Personal Information
We do not sell, rent, share or disclose personal
information to third parties without your
prior consent, except in the limited circumstances
described below:
Order Fulfillment
We may provide to a third party certain information
that is necessary to fulfill an order you
have placed with us. For example, if you
pay by a debit card, your card number and
sales transaction information are passed
on to the card processor and/or issuer (including
their service providers such as fraud verification
services). However, we give vendors, suppliers,
and others involved in the commerce distribution
chain only the information needed to provide
you the products or services you order, such
as shipping and/or billing address, e-mail
address, telephone number and product orders.
Moreover, we require them to keep the information
confidential and not to use it for other
purposes. We are not responsible for any
additional information you provide directly
to these parties, and we encourage you to
become familiar with their practices before
disclosing information directly to them
Other Disclosures
In addition, we may disclose personal information
in the good faith belief that we are lawfully
authorised to do so, or that doing so is
reasonably necessary to comply with legal
process or authorities, respond to any claims,
or to protect the rights, property or personal
safety of Costco Wholesale, our customers,
our employees or the public. Information
about our customers, including personal information,
may be disclosed or transferred as part of,
or during negotiations of, any merger, sale
of company assets or acquisition
Collection of Personal Information
We collect the personal information that
you provide us, such as when you:
Personal information is information that
identifies an individual or is directly associated
with a specific person or entity such as
a customer's name, address, telephone number,
e-mail address, debit card number, or information
about activities which can be directly linked
to that person, such as his or her purchases.
Personal information also includes information
such as your medical history. As a convenience
to our members, we allow the primary cardholder
to add his/her spouse or others to membership.
In all circumstances, other than your choice
to opt-out (see Choice below), reference
in this policy statement to "you"
or "your" also includes your spouse
and the others added-on to your membership
by you. Reference in this statement to "information
you provide" includes information provided
by you, your spouse or others added on.
Our definition of personal information does
not include "aggregate" information.
Aggregate information is data we collect
about a group or category of products, services
or customers, from which individual customer
identities have been removed. In other words,
information about how you use a service may
be collected and combined with information
about how others use the same service, but
no personal information will be included
in the resulting data. Likewise, information
about the products you purchase may be collected
and combined with information about the products
purchased by others. Aggregate data helps
us understand trends and customer needs so
that we can better consider new products
and services, and tailor existing products
and services to customer desires.
Costco's Commitment to Privacy
We respect your right to privacy. Your ability
to make informed choices about the uses of
your information is important to us. This
privacy statement explains our policy regarding
the collection, use, disclosure and protection
of personal information. The terms of this
privacy statement apply to information collected
from you, unless different terms are specified
as part of a special offer, or in another
form or contract we provide you and you consent
to those terms by participating in the special
offer or the program, or otherwise. The links
below provide detailed information about
our privacy practices:
