Privacy Policy

At Designs by Alfreda, we care deeply about privacy. We believe in transparency, and we’re committed to being upfront about our privacy practices, including how we treat your personal information. This policy explains our privacy practices for https://designsbyalfreda.com (which we’ll refer to as the “Site”), Designs by Alfreda Payments and Designs by Alfreda’s public Application Program Interface (the “API”). We’ll refer to the Site, Designs by Alfreda Payments, the API, as the “Services.” This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (API users) who may also collect or receive data in connection with your use of the Services.

1. Our Privacy Policy

We process your personal information to run our business and provide our users with the Services. By accepting our Terms of Use (and in some jurisdictions, by acknowledging this policy), you confirm that you have read and understand this policy, including how and why we use your information. If you don’t want us to collect or process your personal information in the ways described in this policy, you shouldn’t use the Services..

Designs by Alfreda’s Terms of Use require all account owners to be at least 18 years of age. Minors under 18 years of age and at least 13 years of age are permitted to use Designs by Alfreda’s Services only if they have permission and direct supervision by the owner of the account. Children under age 13 are not permitted to use the Services. You are responsible for any and all account activity conducted by a minor on your account. We do not knowingly “sell,” as that term is defined under applicable law.

By using the Services, you acknowledge that Designs by Alfreda will use your information in the United States, where Designs by Alfreda operates.

2. Information Collected or Received

In the course of providing our Services, we collect or receive your personal information in a few different ways. We obtain the categories of personal information listed below from the following sources: directly from you, for example, from forms you complete or during registration; indirectly from you based on your activity and interaction with our Services, or from the device or browser you use to access the Services. Designs by Alfreda uses the personal information it receives and collects in accordance with the purposes described in this policy.

You can also choose to provide information to a third party via Designs by Alfreda’s API. While users of Designs by Alfreda’s API are required to follow Designs by Alfreda’s API Terms of Use, including having appropriate privacy and security controls, Designs by Alfreda does not have a direct partner relationship with these third parties and their processing of information is subject to their own privacy policies. You should understand the privacy and security practices of any third party before you share information with them.

Registration, Account Setup, Service Usage: In order to use the Services, you will need to submit a valid email address. If you register, you will need to submit a name associated with your account. You may modify that name through your account settings. You need to provide this information to enable us to provide you with the Services. Additional information, such as billing and payment information (including billing contact name, address, telephone number, credit card information), a telephone number, and/or a physical postal address, may be necessary in order for us to provide a particular service. For example, we need a physical postal address if you are buying something on the Site for delivery. For buyers, Designs by Alfreda requires this information from you in order to provide you with the Services (including, to verify ownership of an account, to mitigate fraud and abuse, to comply with regulatory obligations, or to complete a transaction as a buyer). We may store credit card information and other information provided to us during checkout, for billing and payment purposes, and to process your transaction. To authenticate a payment, you will need to respond to a prompt from your card issuer and provide additional information, such as a correct response to a question, a password, or a passcode. Designs by Alfreda may request information from buyers to ensure compliance with our policies and applicable law. In order to use certain products on Designs by Alfreda, you may be required to complete an application; information that you submit through the application process will not be displayed publicly and will only be used internally by Designs by Alfreda, unless otherwise specified.

Profile: You may provide your name and other personal information (such as birthday, gender, location) in connection with your account and activity. You can edit or remove this information through your account settings. The name associated with your account (which you may modify in your account settings) is publicly displayed and connected to your Designs by Alfreda activity.

Automated Information: Designs by Alfreda automatically receives and records information from your browser when you visit the Site, or use certain features of the Services, such as your IP address, cookies, and data about which pages you visit and how you interact with those pages in order to allow us to operate and provide the Services. This information is stored in log files and is collected automatically. This information is used to prevent fraud and to keep the Services secure, to analyze and understand how the Services work for members and visitors, and to provide advertising, and a more personalized experience for members and visitors.

Connecting your Designs by Alfreda account to third-party applications or services is optional. If you choose to connect your account to a third-party application, it is subject to your agreements with that third party (like their Terms of Use and privacy notices), and Designs by Alfreda can receive information from that application. We may also collect public information in order to connect with you, such as when we communicate with you over social media. We may use that information as part of providing the Services to you. You can also choose to share some of your activity on Designs by Alfreda on certain social media networks which are connected to your Designs by Alfreda account, and you can revoke your permission anytime in your account settings. Certain third-party applications that you use to create or sign into your account may provide you with the option to discontinue receiving messages from us or allows you to forward those messages to another email address. If we are unable to send you critical messages about your account, we may suspend or terminate your account.

Non-Member Information: Designs by Alfreda receives or obtains information (for example, an email address or IP address) about a person who is not yet a registered Designs by Alfreda member (a “non-member”) in connection with certain site features such as a member invites a non-member to visit the Site, a member uploads non-member information using the contact uploader feature, a non-member engages in a transaction, a member sends a gift card code to a non-member, or a non-member uses Guest Checkout to make a purchase. Non-member information is used only for the purposes disclosed when it was submitted to Designs by Alfreda, for purposes necessary to the functioning of Design by Alfreda’s Services or where Designs by Alfreda has a legitimate interest, as disclosed in the “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” Section below, or to facilitate action authorized by a member or the non-member.

3. Findability

You can choose to import your contacts from your mobile device or personal email address book, or a social network account to Designs by Alfreda. We do not retain the login information for your email service, mobile device, or social network site. You can search for people you know by email address or phone number on the Site or through the contact information you import.

4. Messages from Designs by Alfreda

On occasion, Designs by Alfreda will need to contact you. Primarily, these messages are delivered by email, Designs by Alfreda Messages, or by push notifications for a variety of reasons, including marketing, transactions, advocacy, and service update purposes. If you no longer wish to receive push notifications, you can disable them at device level. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications via email or Messages in your account settings or by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing email you receive. To ensure you properly receive notifications, we will need to collect certain information about your device, such as operating system and user identification information. Every account is required to keep a valid email address on file to receive messages.

Some messages from Designs by Alfreda are service-related and necessary for members and Guest Checkout users. You understand and agree that Designs by Alfreda can send you non-marketing emails, Designs by Alfred Messages, or messages, such as those related to transactions, your account, security, or product changes. Examples of service-related messages include an email address confirmation/welcome email when you register your account, notification of an order, service availability, modification of key features or functions, relaying Messages with buyers, and correspondence with Designs by Alfreda’s Support team.

When you register for an account, or provide us with your email address or phone number such as for a Guest Checkout purchase, you receive notice of and agree (in some jurisdictions and situations, by an additional unambiguous consent) to receive marketing emails and messages from us. You can unsubscribe at any time from marketing emails or messages through the opt-out link included in marketing emails or messages. Members can also control which marketing emails or messages they receive from Designs by Alfreda through their account settings. Please note that some changes to your account settings may take a few days to take effect.

5. Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure

We respect your privacy. Designs by Alfreda will not disclose your name, email address, or other personal information to third parties without your consent, except as specified in this policy.

You can control your privacy settings through the opt-out buttons in your account settings privacy tab, and the Privacy Settings link in the footer of most site pages and our homepage. Please note that some changes to your privacy settings may take a few days to take effect.

Legal Bases

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information for the purposes described in this policy. We rely on a number of legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include where:

Necessary to perform the contractual obligations in our Terms of Use and in order to provide the Services to you;
You have consented to the processing, which you can revoke at any time;
Necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend any impending or asserted legal claims;
Necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners (described in more detail below);
You have expressly made the information public;
Necessary in the public interest, such as to prevent crime; and
Occasionally necessary to protect your vital interests or those of others (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

We principally rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at anytime).

Our Legitimate Interests

Where we process your information on the basis of legitimate interests, we do so as follows:

Providing and Improving our Services: We use your information to improve and customize our Services, including sharing your information for such purposes, and we do so as it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests of improving our Services for our users. This is also necessary to enable us to pursue our legitimate interests in understanding how our Services are being used, and to explore and unlock ways to develop and grow our business. It is also necessary to allow us to pursue our legitimate interests in improving our Services, efficiency, interest in Services for users, and obtaining insights into usage patterns of our Services. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases.

Keeping our Services Safe and Secure: We use your information for safety and security purposes, which can include sharing your information for such purposes, and we do so because it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests or those of a third party in ensuring the security of our Services, preventing harm to individuals or property, or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage to Designs by Alfreda’s systems, or those of our users or our partners. This includes enhancing protection of our community against spam, harassment, intellectual property infringement, crime, and security risks of all kinds. We use your information to provide and improve the Services, for billing and payments, for identification and authentication, and for general research and aggregate reporting.

Buying: As part of the buying process, the sharing of your information with some of our third party partners such as our shipping and payment partners to enable us to provide the Service to you. Such partners will process your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies. In some instances, while they are subject to Designs by Alfreda’s privacy and security requirements for vendors, these partners, not Designs by Alfreda, are responsible for the protection of personal information under their control. By making a purchase on Designs by Alfreda, you are directing us to share your information in this way. Since this is an important part of the Services we provide, we need to do this in order to perform our obligations under our Terms of Use. As described in Designs by Alfreda’s Terms of Use, you have a limited license to use that information only for Designs by Alfreda-related communications or for Designs by Alfreda-facilitated transactions to your email or physical mailing list.

Site Customization: We may learn about the types of products that you’re interested in from your browsing and purchasing behavior on (and off) the Site or Apps and use such information to suggest potential purchases as a result. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases.

Legal and Safety: Designs by Alfreda may also retain, preserve, or release your personal information to a third party in the following limited circumstances: in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet legitimate national security or law enforcement requirements; to protect, establish, or exercise our legal rights or defend against impending or asserted legal claims, including to collect a debt, or a material violation of our policies (including our Intellectual Property Policy); to comply with a subpoena, court order, legal process, regulation, or other legal requirement; or when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, threats to our rights or property, or violations of Designs by Alfreda’s Terms of Use. For example, if permitted due to the forgoing circumstances, your information may be shared with tax authorities or other governmental agencies. In the cases set out above, our use of your information may be necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interest in keeping our Services secure, preventing harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage. Such use may also be necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims or to facilitate the collection of taxes and prevention of tax fraud. It may also be necessary in the public interest (such as to prevent crime) or to protect vital interests (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

If Designs by Alfreda receives a lawful, verified request for a member’s/customer’s records or information in one of the limited circumstances described in the previous paragraph, Designs by Alfreda may disclose personal information, which may include, but may not be limited to, a member’s name, address, phone number, email address, company/trading name and, where appropriate, bank account and transaction details.

Aggregated Information: Designs by Alfreda may share demographic information with business partners, but it will be aggregated and de-personalized so that personal information is not revealed.

Service Providers: Designs by Alfreda also needs to engage third-party companies and individuals (such as research companies, and analytics and security providers) to help us operate, provide, and market the Services. These third parties have only limited access to your information, may use your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are obligated to Designs by Alfreda not to disclose or use your information for other purposes. Our engagement of service providers is often necessary for us to provide the Services to you, particularly where such companies play important roles like helping us keep our Service operating and secure. In some other cases, these service providers aren’t strictly necessary for us to provide the Services, but help us make it better, like by helping us conduct research into how we could better serve our users. In these latter cases, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to make our Services better.

Business Reorganization: In some cases, Designs by Alfreda may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interests, particularly our interest in making decisions that enable our business to develop over the long term. In these types of transactions (such as a sale, merger, liquidation, receivership, or transfer of all or substantially all of Designs by Alfreda’s assets), member information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. If Designs by Alfreda intends to transfer information about you, Designs by Alfreda will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Site and the App, and you will be afforded an opportunity to opt out before information about you becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Third Parties: Third-party plug-ins also collect information about your use of the Site. The site may request cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the third-party site. In addition, certain cookies and other similar technologies on the Site are used by third parties for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer or mobile device each time you use the Services. Please be aware that when you use third-party sites or services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those sites or services. The third-party technologies are subject to that third party’s privacy policy. We rely on your consent to drop and read these cookies when not technically necessary or when not required based on another purpose such as legitimate interest.

This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (such as other members who sell using the Services, certain third-party providers on whom we rely to provide certain services, or API users) that Designs by Alfreda does not own or control or individuals that Designs by Alfreda does not employ or manage, except as otherwise provided for in the Terms or as required by law. If you provide your information to such third parties in connection with your use of the Services, different practices may apply to the use or disclosure of the information that you provide to them. While Designs by Alfreda requires these third parties to follow Designs by Alfreda’s privacy and security requirements, Designs by Alfreda does not control the privacy or security policies of such third parties. To the full extent applicable in your jurisdiction, Designs by Alfreda is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of these sellers, API users, or other websites on the internet, even those linked to or from the Services. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and ask questions of third parties before you disclose your personal information to them. For the purposes of European law, these sellers, third party providers, and API users are independent controllers of data, which means that they are responsible for providing and complying with their own policies relating to any personal information they obtain in connection with the Services.:

Model Clauses

The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses (also known as Model Clauses), which provide safeguards for personal information that is transferred outside of Europe. We often use these Model Clauses when transferring personal information outside of Europe.

7. Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and after it is received, for example encryption is used for certain information (such as credit card numbers) using TLS (transport layer security). Unfortunately, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Your account information is protected by a password. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your account and information by choosing your password carefully and by keeping your password and computer secure, such as by signing out after using the Services.

8. Retention

Designs by Alfreda will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, for as long as your account is active (i.e., for the lifetime of your Designs by Alfreda account), or as needed to provide the Services to you. If you no longer want Designs by Alfreda to use your information to provide the Services to you, you may close your account. Designs by Alfreda will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your information to comply with applicable tax/revenue laws), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this policy.

Please note that closing your account may not free up your email address, username, etc. reuse on a new account. We also retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period of time, except in cases where they are used for site safety and security, to improve site functionality, or we are legally obligated to retain them for longer time periods.

Right to Access & Portability: You can access certain personal information associated with your account by visiting your account privacy settings. You can request a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format and information explaining how that information is used.
Right to Correction: You have the right to request that we rectify inaccurate information about you. By visiting your account settings, you can correct and change certain personal information associated with your account.
Right to Restrict Processing: In certain cases where we process your information, you may also have the right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your personal information.
Right to Deletion: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, except information we are required to retain by law, regulation, or to protect the safety, security, and integrity of Designs by Alfred.
Right to Object: If we process your information based on our legitimate interests as explained above, or in the public interest, you can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. Where we use your personal data for direct marketing purposes, you can object using the unsubscribe link in such communications or changing your account email settings.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on consent, you can choose to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information using specific features provided to enable you to withdraw consent, like an email unsubscribe link or your account privacy preferences. If you have consented to share your precise device location details but would no longer like to continue sharing that information with us, you can revoke your consent to the sharing of that information through the settings on your mobile device. This is without prejudice to your right to generally permanently close your account and delete your personal information.

Limiting use of, or deleting, your personal information may impact features and uses that rely on that information. However, we will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights, including otherwise denying you goods or services, providing you with a different level or quality of services, or charging you different prices or rates for services. If you need further assistance, you can contact Designs by Alfreda. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

Please note that we may verify your identity before we are able to process any of the requests described in this Section, and in our discretion, deny your request if we are unable to verify your identity. As a part of this process, government or other identification may be required. You may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. In order to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requester’s valid government issued identification, and the authorized agent’s valid government issued identification, and we may verify the authenticity of the request directly with you.

Email & Messages

You may also control the receipt of certain types of communications from Designs by Alfreda in your account settings. Designs by Alfreda may send you messages about the Services or your activity. Some of these messages are required, service-related messages for members (such as transactional messages or legal notices). Other messages are not required, such as newsletters. You can control which optional messages you choose to receive by changing your account settings, and you can learn more in the “Messages from Designs by Alfreda” Section of this policy. If you no longer wish to use the Services or receive service-related messages (except for legally required notices), then you may close your account.

We use both technically necessary (for the functioning and security of the Services) and non-technically necessary cookies and similar technologies.

Identifiers, including name, email address, shop name, IP address, and an ID or number assigned to your account.
Other individual records such as phone number, billing address, or credit or debit card information
Demographics, such as your age or gender, or, where you have provided such information to Designs by Alfreda voluntarily, demographic information about your race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity, provided in relation to specific marketing and advocacy projects and campaigns.This category includes data that may qualify as protected classifications.
Commercial information, including purchases and engagement with the Services.
Internet activity, including your interactions with our Services and what led you to our Services.
Sensory visual data, such as pictures posted on our Service.
Geolocation data provided through location enabled services such as Wi Fi and GPS.
Inferences, including information about your interests, preferences and favorites.

The Purposes for Our Collection

We collect and use these categories of personal information for our business and commercial purposes described in the “Information Uses, Sharing and Disclosure” Section above, including providing and improving the Services, maintaining the safety and security of the Services, processing purchase and sale transactions, and for advertising and marketing services.

Do Not Track Signals

Your browser settings may allow you to automatically transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to online services you visit. Note, however, there is no industry consensus as to what site and app operators should do with regard to these signals. Accordingly, unless and until the law is interpreted to require us to do so, we do not monitor or take action with respect to “Do Not Track” signals. For more information on “Do Not Track,” visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

9. Privacy Policy Changes

We may amend or update this policy from time to time. If we believe that the changes are material, we’ll let you know by doing one (or more) of the following: (i) posting the changes on or through the Services, (ii) sending you an email or message about the changes, or (iii) posting an update in the version notes on the Apps’ platform. We encourage you to check back regularly and review any updates.