Privacy and Security
Privacy Policy
Last Update: (3/14/23)
At American Meadows Inc. and High Country Gardens (“American Meadows”), we value not only your business, but also your privacy. This Privacy Notice describes the types of personal information we collect or obtain, the reasons why we collect or obtain this information, how we may use the information, with whom we may share this information, how we safeguard this information, and more. We will not collect, obtain, use, or share personal information except as described in this Notice, unless you consent.
We encourage you to read this Notice carefully so you can understand our policies and practices regarding your personal information. Please also note that by choosing to access or use our websites, you agree to those policies and practices. If you do not agree with them, you may choose not to access or use our websites.
We may change this Notice periodically (see “Changes to this Notice,” below). You agree to any changes we make if you continue to access or use of our websites after we make them, so please be sure to check this Notice periodically for any updates.
1. Information We Collect or Obtain
We collect or obtain several types of information from and about users of websites, including
- Contact information including name, address, e-mail address, and telephone number (home, work, mobile).
- Other personal information you provide such as birthday information, or information about your preferences or interests.
- Geolocation information
- Payment information including billing information such as credit card information (number, expiration date, and CVV), and PayPal information.
- Automatically-collected information as described below under “Cookies and Other Tracking.”
We need this information in order for you to use our websites and for us to provide the online sale of seeds, bulbs, plants, and related goods and services to you.
We collect or obtain the information described above from a variety of sources, including:
- You directly, based upon information you provide when you create an account, register for our newsletter, correspond with us (email, phone, online chat), make a purchase, or participate in surveys, reviews, or contests.
- Third-party data providers such as Google and other digital marketing vendors such as Facebook or Criteo.
- Cookies and pixel tags used on our websites.
2. Why We Collect, and How We Use, Personal Information
We collect or obtain the information described above for a variety of purposes:
- To communicate with you about your purchase and interest in the products, plants, and seeds we sell
- To assist you with using our sites to shop for plants, seeds, bulbs, and other items, keep track of your orders (such as keeping items in your cart), and facilitate your purchases
- To conduct marketing outreach and retargeting to identify and provide you with information about other products and services you may be interested in
- To conduct promotional competitions (such as photos or votes submitted for a photo contest)
- To improve your experiences on our websites
- To improve our products and services
- To collect payments for our products and services
- To keep internal records
- For the purposes described below under “Cookies and Other Tracking”
- For the purposes described below under “Disclosure of Personal Information”
3. Cookies and Other Tracking
When you visit or use our websites, we collect information from you by automatic means, including cookies, pixel tags, or similar files. These are small text or electronic files (some of which may be placed on the website user’s device or browser) that allow us to recognize and remember things about users, count users who have visited our website, determine how they got here, track their activity in the website and gauge interests, gather technical information about their devices, browsers, IP addresses, etc., assess our website’s performance, and help protect our sites against certain attacks.
The cookies used on our websites also may identify other devices you use to visit our website, which helps us to ensure that our site functions correctly for any device you may be using. Cookies do not give us access to your computer.
Specifically, the American Meadows and High Country Gardens websites use cookies collected in-house and also provided by the following:
- Amazon Web Services
- Bing Ads
- BlueCore
- Google Analytics
- Google Tag Manager
- HotJar
- Magento
- New Relic
- Noibu
- PHP Applications
- RichPanel
- WeltPixel
You can review a list of all cookies we use, as well as what they are used for, by clicking here
We use information from cookies for analytics, user experience improvements, and marketing purposes. We may also offer benefits such as providing curated product offerings based on information collected from cookies. Cookies can be managed, deleted, or modified through your internet/browser settings. Please note that if you choose to reject cookies, you may be unable to fully utilize all of our websites' features and information.
4. Sharing and Disclosure of Personal Information
The information we collect and/or obtain about you when you use our websites (see “Personal Information We Collect or Obtain” above) may be shared or disclosed with the following third partie , so that we can provide you our goods and services:
- Shipping carriers – We disclose identifiers and contact information to shipping carriers for the purpose of delivering our goods to you.
- Payment processors – We work with braintree and paypal to process payments you make to us.
In addition, as explained under “Cookies and Other Tracking” above, we provide information on your usage of the websites to Google, Facebook, Criteo, and other digital marketing vendors for marketing and analytics purposes
We do not sell your personal information for monetary consideration under any circumstances.
We also may disclose information about you if necessary to comply with applicable laws and regulations; to respond to any legal process or other lawful request for information we receive; to protect vital interests of you or another natural person; to detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, or other illegal activity; to defend our legal interests where necessary for our legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of others; or to otherwise protect our rights. We may transfer personal information we have about you in the event we sell or transfer some or all of our business or assets.
5. Retention of Personal Information
We maintain personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to achieve the purposes listed under the “Why We Collect, and How We Use, Personal Information” section above, to provide customer service, to perform any other necessary tasks under to fulfill orders, or to satisfy our legal obligations, including PCI compliance. After that period, we may delete or anonymize, de-identify, or dispose of your information.
6. Notice Regarding Children’s Privacy
We do not knowingly or intentionally request, collect, use, or share personal information from children under 13 years of age. If we discover or are notified that this has occurred, we will immediately delete the information from our servers and instruct any third parties with whom we have shared the information to do so as well.
7. Access, Correction, Deletion, and Other Rights Concerning Personal Information
In General: To learn what personal information we have about you, and to update, correct, or delete that information, please contact us as indicated in the “How To Contact Us” section below. Please note that under certain circumstances we may not be able to honor requests to delete certain information.
You may restrict our use of your information for targeted advertising purposes by contacting us as indicated in the “How To Contact Us” section below.
Regardless of where you reside, we will consider all requests you make regarding your information and will respond within the time period required by applicable law. Please note, however, that certain information may be exempt from such requests, such as if we need to keep the information to comply with our own legal obligations or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims. Your rights and our responses also may vary based on your state or country of residency. Please note that you may be located in a jurisdiction where we are not obligated, or are unable, to fulfill a request. In such a case, your request may not be fulfilled.
We also reserve the right to verify your identity before responding to a request, which may include, at a minimum, depending on the sensitivity of the information you are requesting and the type of request you are making, verifying your name, email address, phone number, or other information.
If you would like further information on requests concerning your information, or if you would like to make such a request, please contact us as indicated in the “How To Contact Us” section below.
Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and Utah Residents: As a resident of each of these states, you have the right to:
- Confirm whether we process your personal information
- Access and delete certain personal information
- Obtain a copy of personal information you have provided to us in a portable and, to the extent technically feasible, readily-usable format, under certain circumstances
- Opt-out of personal data processing for targeted advertising and sales
- Not be discriminated or retaliated against, or have adverse action taken against you, for making requests about your information or exercising other rights concerning your information
Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia Residents: As a resident of these states, you have the right to:
- Correct inaccuracies in your personal information, taking into account the information's nature processing purpose
- Opt-out of profiling in furtherance of decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects on you
- Appeal any denial of a request to exercise your rights under this Notice. To appeal, you must submit the appeal request within thirty (30) days after a you receive the denial by contacting us as provided in the "How To Contact Us" section below.
California Residents: The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) provide you with the following rights, unless certain exceptions apply under these laws:
- To be notified, at the time of or before collection, of (1) the categories of personal information we collect, (2) the purposes for which we collect or use the information, (3) whether we sell the information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising; and (4) how long we retain the informatio
- To request that we inform you – for the period covering the past 12 months – about (1) the categories of information we have collected about you; (2) the categories of sources of that information; (3) the business or commercial purpose for collecting that information; (4) the categories of third parties to whom we disclose that information; and (4) in a readily useable format, the specific pieces of information we have collected about you
- To request that we inform you – for the period covering the past 12 months – about (1) the categories of information about you that we have sold, shared with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising, or disclosed for a business purpose; and (2) the categories of third parties to whom we have sold, shared, or disclosed information about you
- To request that we delete certain information we have about you
- To request that we correct any inaccurate information we have about you
- To request that we provide you with information about financial incentives that we offer to you, if any, for the collection, use, or sharing of your information
- To not be discriminated or retaliated against, or have adverse action taken against you, for making requests about your information or exercising other rights concerning your information
- To opt out of the sale of information about you
- To opt out of the sharing of information about you with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising
- To limit the use of any sensitive personal information we have collected about you
Nevada Residents: Although we do not sell your information under any circumstances, Nevada law allows you to direct us not to sell your “covered information” (as defined under Nevada law) to any person who licenses or sells that information to additional persons, by contacting us at the designated email address provided in the "How To Contact Us" section below.
CCPA and CPRA also allow you to designate an authorized agent to submit certain requests on your behalf. In order for an authorized agent to be verified, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may also follow up with you to verify your identity before processing the authorized agent’s request.
Any of the above requests made to us must be verifiable before we have any obligation to fulfill them. A request must provide details sufficient to enable us to reasonably verify that you are the person about whom we have collected the requested information and also to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to the request. Requests can be submitted as provided in the "How To Contact Us" section below.
8. Additional Notice for California Residents
This section provides additional disclosures about our collection and use of personal information as that term is defined in CCPA and CPRA.
In the past twelve months, we have collected the categories of personal information listed in the “Personal Information We Collect or Obtain “ section above, and in that same period we have disclosed those categories of information to the categories of third parties listed in the “Disclosure of Personal Information” section above.
We do not sell (as that term is defined in CCPA and CPRA), and have not sold, personal information of California residents, including minors under 16 years of age.
We do not collect, use, or disclose “sensitive personal information” (as that term is defined in CPRA).
We do not share (as that term is defined in CPRA) personal information with third parties for cross-context behavioral advertising.
Finally, California’s “Shine The Light” law provides California residents the right under certain circumstances to request a disclosure regarding the sharing of certain categories of personal information (as that term defined in the law) with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. We do not share your personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes within the meaning of that law.
9. Protection of Your Information
We maintain reasonable safeguards in order to protect your personal information from accidental or unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, destruction, or loss. These safeguards include the PCI compliance requirements established by the PCI Security Standards Council (e.g., firewalls, encryption, passwords, anti-virus software), access limitations and restrictions for personal information and for our technical systems, offsite data storage, and Comodo website security technology .
10. Changes to this Notice
We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time in order to reflect changes to our practices or for other operational, legal, or regulatory reasons. Whenever we make any changes to this Notice, we will update the “Last Updated” date above. For any material changes to this Notice, we will place a banner on our websites for a week after the change is made to notify you of the change. We encourage you to check our Privacy Notice often to always be up-to-date on the current version and to review any updates we have made.
11. How to Contact Us
If you have any question, comments, or concerns about this Privacy Notice or our privacy practices, or if you would like us to update information we have about you or any preferences you might have given us, you can reach us here:
American Meadows / High Country Gardens
2438 Shelburne Road
Suite 1
Shelburne, VT 05482