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Privacy Policy

Last Modified: July 23, 2009. This Privacy Policy is effective as of July 23, 2009 ("Effective Date").

The Privacy Policy applies to personal information that may be collected when you interact with Barnes & Noble, Inc. or any of its subsidiaries ("Barnes & Noble"). Protecting the privacy and security of your personal information is a priority at Barnes & Noble, and we believe that a single, comprehensive privacy policy that is straightforward and clear is in the best interests of our customers and our businesses. As a result, as of the Effective Date this Privacy Policy replaces the separate privacy policies of Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Barnesandnoble.com, Barnes and Noble.com Professional, Technical & Business Bookstore, the Barnes & Noble Member program, the Barnes & Noble Gift Card website, Quamut.com, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., Lark Books, and SparkNotes.com. To review prior versions of those privacy policies, please click on the links above.

By doing business with or interacting with Barnes & Noble in the manner described in this Privacy Policy at any time on or after the Effective Date, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy and you expressly consent to the application of this Privacy Policy to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of all your personal information as described.

Barnes & Noble reserves the right to modify or amend this Privacy Policy at any time, but you can be assured that, should it be necessary to do so, we will always do so in accordance with the Barnes & Noble Privacy Principles of Clarity, Security and Integrity.

This Privacy Policy addresses the following questions:

1. What is the personal information that we collect?
2. Why do we collect personal information?
3. How do we collect your personal information?
4. How do we use personal information?
5. With whom do we share personal information?
6. How do we secure personal information?
7. How do we respect your choices about your personal information?
8. Whom do I contact if I have questions or concerns?

1. What is the personal information that we collect?

Personal information is information that can be used to identify, contact or locate you. For example, personal information can include your name, e-mail address, billing address, shipping address, phone number, or credit card information.

2. Why do we collect personal information?

We collect your personal information in an effort to provide you with a superior customer experience and, as necessary, to administer our business. It allows us to provide you with easy access to our products and services, with a particular focus on the items and programs that may be of most interest to you. For more information as to why we collect personal information, please see the section below entitled: "How do we use your personal information?"

Your personal information also allows us to communicate with you about special offers, promotions, and other marketing programs and news that may be of interest to you.

3. How do we collect your personal information?

(a). Information that you provide to us

As a general matter, you can browse in our stores and on our websites without submitting your personal information to us. However, there are a number of circumstances in which you may need to provide us with your personal information. The most common of these circumstances include:

  • Making a purchase or placing an order online or in our stores
  • Creating an online account or joining a Barnes & Noble online interactive community
  • Enrolling in our Member program
  • Enrolling in our Educator program
  • Submitting a customer review, a list, or other user-created content
  • Participating in Barnes & Noble Book Clubs
  • Signing up for Keep Me Posted! Newsletters and Alerts
  • Signing up for Barnes & Noble Gift Reminders
  • Applying for a Barnes & Noble MasterCard
  • Signing up for Invite-a-Friend Emails
  • Creating a "My B&N" Profile
  • Contacting customer service
For your convenience, we have provided a summary description of each of these circumstances below.

Making a purchase or placing an order

When you make a purchase or place an order in our stores or place an order online without an account, you may need to submit personal information to us.

Creating an online account

You can create a password-protected Barnes & Noble.com account to complete your online order, to purchase or download eBooks, digital magazines, digital newspapers, digital journals and other periodicals, blogs, other digital content ("Digital Content") or Barnes & Noble's eReader Software, to save items to an online Wish List, or to join a Barnes & Noble.com online interactive community. You can also create a password-protected SparkNotes.com or Quamut.com or ecosystemlife.com account. To create any of these accounts, we will ask you to provide us with personal information. If you use your online account to make a purchase or download, we will use the personal information stored in your account and/or require you to input additional personal information, such as credit card information, to complete your order or download.

Enrolling in our Member loyalty program

When you enroll in our Member loyalty program, we will ask you to submit personal information as part of your Member profile. The personal information you submit is held in a Member database. When you use your membership, the transaction information for your purchase, including personal information, is copied and stored in the Member database so that we can administer the Member program.

Enrolling in our Educator Program

When you enroll in our Educator Program, we will ask you to submit personal and school/institution information as part of your Educator profile. The personal and school information you submit is held in a database. When you use your discount card, the transaction information for your purchase, including personal information, is copied and stored in the database so that we can administer the Educator program

Submitting a customer review or participating in Barnes & Noble Book Clubs

You may choose to submit an online customer review or to participate in Barnes & Noble Book Clubs. Because any information you choose to post with your customer review or in the Book Clubs will be available on the Internet, we can make no assurances that others will not use, or misuse, that information.

Signing up for Keep Me Posted! Newsletters and Alerts

You may choose to sign up for free Keep Me Posted! Newsletters and Alerts filled with recommendations and reviews for books, music, movies and more. If you do so, we will ask you to provide your e-mail address in the Keep Me Posted! Preference Center.

Signing up for Barnes & Noble Gift Reminders

You may sign up for free Barnes & Noble Gift Reminders to keep track of birthdays and other important dates. To do so, we will ask you to provide your e-mail address and to select a password.

Applying for a Barnes & Noble MasterCard

When you apply for a Barnes & Noble MasterCard, you will need to submit personal information directly to Barclays Bank Delaware, the issuer of the MasterCard. Personal information that you provide directly to Barclays Bank Delaware is subject to the bank's privacy policies, practices and procedures, not Barnes & Noble's.

In addition, we disclose certain personal information to Barclays Bank Delaware in connection with the administration of the Barnes & Noble MasterCard program. Barclays Bank Delaware does not have the right to use the personal information we provide beyond what is necessary to assist us or to administer this program. Barclays Bank Delaware is contractually obliged to maintain the confidentiality and security of the personal information we provide and is restricted from using such information in any way not expressly authorized by us.

Signing up for Invite-a-Friend Emails

Our Invite-a-Friend feature is located in various areas of the website. This feature appears as an 'Email' link on the pages listed below. By clicking on 'Email', customers can email a link to a friend which will invite the friend to view the Barnes & Noble.com page or attend the event described on that page:
  • Product Page
  • My B&N Profile Page
  • My B&N EssentiaList
  • My B&N Favorite Books List
  • My B&N Favorite DVDs List
  • My B&N Favorite Music List
  • My B&N Reading Now List
  • Wish List
  • Store Event
To remove yourself from these mailings, call our Customer Service Center at 1-800-THE-BOOK (1-800-824-2665). International customers should call us at 201-559-3882.

When you contact customer service, we may ask you to provide, or confirm, personal information so that we can better serve you.

(b) Information automatically collected

There are circumstances in which we automatically receive and collect personal information from you. The most common of these circumstances include:
  • Cookies
  • Using pixel tags or clear Graphics Interchange Format files, known as GIFs
  • Occasionally from business partners, contractors, shared databases, and other third parties
For your convenience, we have provided a summary description of each of these circumstances below.

Information automatically collected when you visit our websites

When you visit our websites, we automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website. For example, we may receive and collect: the name of the domain and host from which you access the Internet; the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using; the date and time you access our websites; and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our sites. We use this information to monitor the usage of our websites and as necessary for our business. This information does not include personal information.

Information collected using cookies

Like many online retailers, we use cookies to personalize and enhance your browsing and shopping experience. Cookies are small files that we place on your computer's hard drive to collect information about your activities on our websites. Cookies help us to: (1) speed navigation, keep track of items in your shopping cart and provide you with content that is tailored to you; (2) remember information you gave us so that you don't have to reenter it; (3) determine the effectiveness of some of our marketing efforts and communications; and (4) monitor the total number of visitors, pages viewed, and the total number of banners displayed.

Browsers are typically set to create cookies automatically. You can choose to have your browser notify you when cookies are being written to your computer or accessed, or you can disable cookies entirely. If you disable cookies, however, you will not be able to place items in a Barnes & Noble.com shopping cart, and therefore you will not be able to place an order with us online. Also, by not using cookies, some Barnes & Noble website features and services may not function properly.

Site Analytics: We work with a third party service provider to help us better understand how you use our website. This third party service provider will place cookies on your computer to collect information. The information this third party service provider collects will tell us things like which search engine referred you to our website, how you navigated around our website, what you purchased and what traffic is driven by banner ads and emails. This information will help us to better serve you and provide you with more personalized information and product offerings. Barnes & Noble.com does not allow this third party service provider to collect your credit card information, e-mail address or password information. This third party service provider may only use your personal information to perform services for us. This third party service provider is contractually required to maintain all of the information it collects and analyzes for us securely and in confidence. This third party service provider may not share your personal information with anyone else, or use it for any other purpose, except on an aggregate, non-personal basis. For more information, view this third party's privacy policy.

Please note that this third party service provider collects data on our website using first-party data collection. As a result, blocking cookies from third-party domains will not block these first-party cookies. As a visitor to Barnes & Noble.com, you may choose to opt-out of this third party's analysis of your browsing and purchasing behavior on our website. Click here.

In addition, third party distributors of banner ads on our websites may also place or access cookies on your computer. If you would like to learn more about the third party distributors of banner ads on any Barnes & Noble website, and to understand your choices about having such distributors' cookies turned off, please visit www.networkadvertising.org. Please understand that Barnes & Noble does not control these third party cookies, and you should check the privacy policy of the Internet advertising company or advertiser to see whether and how it uses cookies.

Whenever you click on links and banners on any Barnes & Noble website that take you to a third party website, you will be subject to the third party's privacy policies, not Barnes & Noble's. This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Barnes & Noble.

Information collected using pixel tags or clear GIFs

To help us understand the effectiveness of certain of our communications and marketing efforts, we may use "message format" and "message open" sensing technologies that use pixel tags or clear GIFs (which are also called web beacons). These technologies allow us to know if your e-mail program is able to accept HTML e-mails and, if it is, to: (1) send you e-mails in that format; and (2) determine if you have opened our e-mail messages.

Information collected from outside sources

We may periodically collect personal information and other information about you from business partners, contractors and other third parties.

Information collected from visitors from outside the United States

If you are visiting Barnes & Noble from outside the United States and provide us with personal information, please note that your personal information will be transferred, stored and processed within the United States. The data protection laws in the United States may not be as comprehensive as those in your country. By doing business or interacting with Barnes & Noble, you are consenting to the transfer of your personal information to facilities located in the United States and other facility locations selected by Barnes & Noble.

Barnes & Noble does not knowingly collect personal information from children

Our products and services are marketed for and directed towards purchase by adults or with the consent of adults. Individuals under the age of 18 ("Minors") are not permitted to use Barnes & Noble websites without the supervision of a parent or legal guardian. Furthermore, we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from children under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to register for an online account or to post personal information on our websites. Should we learn that someone under the age of 13 has provided any personal information to or on any of the Barnes & Noble websites, we will remove that information as soon as possible.

4. How do we use your personal information?

Barnes & Noble uses your personal information to provide you with a superior customer experience at our stores and on and through our websites and, as necessary, to administer our business. For example, we use your personal information to:

  • Provide you with products and services and information, including the Barnes & Noble website and online interactive communities, Digital Content and software, and display associated content and advertising;

  • Administer our Member program;

  • Administer our Educator Program;

  • Provide superior customer service;

  • Conduct research and perform analysis in order to measure, maintain, protect, develop and improve our services;

  • Administer sweepstakes, contests, promotions or surveys;

  • Communicate with you about special offers, events, or new products or services that may be of interest to you;

  • Customize and enhance our websites and advertising;

  • Make communications necessary to notify you regarding security, privacy, and administrative issues;

  • Manage our business.
5. With whom do we share your personal information?

Protecting the privacy and security of your personal information is a priority at Barnes & Noble. BARNES & NOBLE DOES NOT SELL OR RENT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES.

Barnes & Noble shares your personal information with:

  • Other entities owned by Barnes & Noble, Inc., including subsidiaries of Barnes & Noble, Inc. Many of our customers purchase items from us both online and in our stores. We share your personal information within the Barnes & Noble, Inc. enterprise to help to ensure that you have a superior shopping experience no matter where you choose to shop with us.

  • Service providers, subcontractors and agents who perform services on our behalf. We provide personal information to third party service providers, subcontractors, and agents that work under contract on our behalf to provide certain services. These third parties do not have the right to use personal information we provide to them in any way that is not authorized by Barnes & Noble. They are contractually obligated to use such information only as necessary to assist us and to maintain the confidentiality and security of such information.

  • Third party providers of products and services. These are third party providers of products and services you may purchase from or through us (e.g., video games). These third parties do not have the right to use personal information we provide to them in any way that is not authorized by Barnes & Noble. They are contractually obligated to use such information only as necessary to assist us and to maintain the confidentiality and security of such information.

  • Third Party Membership Programs. We work with certain third party entities to help them administer their own membership or rewards programs by providing them with purchasing information about their customers who make purchase from Barnes & Noble. We disclose only the information that is necessary to make these third party programs work and to support your membership in them. This information usually includes your name and e-mail address as well as the dollar amount of the purchases made at Barnes & Noble. We require such entities to obtain your consent before we provide them with this information, which they usually do as part of their own membership or participation rules.

  • Credit Card Companies. Credit card transactions are handled by third party financial institutions and their vendors and contractors who receive credit card numbers and other personal information from us to verify the credit card numbers and process transactions.

  • Law enforcement officials and as required by law. Barnes & Noble may release personal information to third parties when we determine, in our judgment, that it is necessary to (a) comply with the law, regulation, legal process, or enforceable governmental request; (b) enforce or apply the terms of any of our policies or user agreements; or (c) protect the rights, property or safety of Barnes & Noble, our employees, our customers, users, or others.

  • Sales, Mergers, and Acquisitions. If Barnes & Noble becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets, personal information may be provided to the entities and advisors involved subject to a confidentiality agreement, andwe will provide notice before any personal information is finally transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

    Please be aware that in connection with magazine subscriptions placed on Barnes & Noble.com, in order to complete your transaction, we will need to forward your name, magazine order and shipping address to our subscription providers. The subscription providers will share your magazine order information as well as your name and address, or name and e-mail and mailing addresses with the magazine publisher and a magazine circulation auditor. Magazine publishers will use this information to fulfill your order and for other purposes. Your credit card information will not be shared with them.

    Please be aware that in connection with purchases of certain Digital Content through websites operated by Barnes & Noble, we may need to forward information about you (including, for example, your Internet Protocol (IP) address) to the digital content provider in order to enable you to download or purchase Digital Content from or through that provider. In each such instance, the Digital Content provider is obligated to use such information in accordance with its own privacy policy and applicable law.

6. How do we secure your personal information?

We take significant and appropriate security measures, including physical, technological and procedural measures, to help to safeguard your personal information and to prevent unauthorized access and disclosure. In addition, we use industry-standard technology, such as firewalls and encryption in the transmission of certain sensitive personal information, designed to prevent unauthorized persons from gaining access to your personal information, and, as technology develops, we intend to take additional measures to improve security.

We want you to feel confident whenever you visit us in our stores, on our websites or otherwise. While we are focused on the security of your personal information and follow strict standards, processes and procedures that are designed to protect your personal information, we cannot promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information will remain secure in all circumstances.

7. How do we respect your choices about your personal information?

When you interact with Barnes & Noble in certain ways, you may be eligible to receive certain marketing-related and promotional communications as well as special offers (collectively "Promotional Communications") from Barnes & Noble that may include advertisements from third parties. The most common of these circumstances include:

  • Making a purchase or download or placing an order
  • Creating an online account or joining the Barnes & Noble online community
  • Enrolling in our Member program
  • Signing up for Keep Me Posted! Newsletters and Alerts
  • Signing up for Barnes & Noble Gift Reminders
If, at any time, you wish to no longer receive Promotional Communications from Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Barnes & Noble.com, the Barnes & Noble Member program, the Barnes & Noble Educator program; the Barnes & Noble Gift Card website, Quamut.com, SparkNotes.com, or Sterling Publishing Company, Inc., please follow the instructions below.
  • For Barnes & Noble Booksellers: At any time, a customer may choose to opt-out of the receipt of any promotional communications by clicking on the opt-out link provided at the bottom of each e-mail and following the instructions, or by e-mailing our Customer Service Department by clicking here.

  • For Barnes & Noble.com: Any account holder can opt-out of the receipt of any promotional communications by logging onto their Account and following the instructions under "Change Your Communication Preferences". If you do not have a Barnes & Noble.com account, you may opt-out of the receipt of such communications by selecting the link at the bottom of any promotional e-mail communication and following the instructions.

  • For Barnes & Noble Member program: Any Member can opt-out of the receipt of any Member program promotional communications by logging on to their Barnes & Noble.com Account and following the instructions under "Change Your Communication Preferences." If you do not have a Barnes & Noble.com account, you may opt-out of the receipt of such communications by selecting the link at the bottom of any promotional e-mail communication and following the instructions.

  • For Barnes & Noble Educator program: Any Educator can opt-out of the receipt of any promotional communications by logging on to their Barnes & Noble.com Account, clicking "Communication Preferences," and following instructions under "Change Communication Preferences." If you do not have a Barnes & Noble.com account, you may opt-out of the receipt of such communications by clicking on the opt-out link provided at the bottom of each e-mail and following the instructions. If no opt-out link exists reply to the email with the word "Remove" in the subject line, or by e-mailing our Customer Service Department by clicking here.

  • For the Barnes & Noble Gift Card website: Any customer of the Barnes & Noble Gift Card website who receives promotional communications can opt-out of the receipt of any such communications by clicking on the opt-out link provided at the bottom of each e-mail and following the instructions or by sending an e-mail to giftcardprefs@bn.com.

  • For Quamut.com: Any Quamut.com customer who does not wish to receive promotional product and service communications can choose to remove their contact information from Quamut.com's contact list at any time by sending an e-mail to privacy@quamut.com.

  • For SparkNotes.com: Any SparkNotes.com customer who does not wish to receive promotional product and service communications can choose to remove their contact information from SparkNotes.com contact list at any time by going to www.sparknotes.com, clicking on "update your user profile," and following the instructions or by clicking on the opt-out link provided at the bottom of each e-mail and following the instructions.

  • For Sterling Publishing: If, at any time, you wish to no longer receive ENewsletters from Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., and/or Lark Books, please click on the link for opt-out instructions contained at the bottom of each ENewsletter.You can change your personal information and your communication preferences when you follow this link.

Even if you opt-out of receiving Promotional Communications, you may continue to receive e-mails relating to order confirmations, back order notifications, membership information, and/or other business-related communications.

Note for Community Users

Barnes & Noble provides you with the ability to access, correct or change the personal information in your community profile(s) at any time. However, you cannot currently change your profile name although you may re-register and choose a new name. To review or modify your profile information, please click here. Please be advised that Barnes & Noble may archive information it collects on its community and visitors. Additionally, by participating in the Barnes & Noble.com online interactive community, and using Barnes & Noble.com's various interactive offerings, including, the submission of customer reviews, participation in the Barnes & Noble.com Book Clubs, or signing up for Keep Me Posted! Communications, you agree to receive communications from Barnes & Noble, other users, and moderators related to the provision of these services.

8. Questions or comments and enforcement

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at privacy@barnesandnoble.com or call customer service at 1-800-THE-BOOK [1-800-843-2665].