Privacy Statement Information Collection and Use Carrier is the sole owner of the information collected on this site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed in this statement. Carrier collects information from our users at several different points on our web site. Registration and Contact Forms A user may also have the option to register their products via the web sites (product registration). During product registration a user is required to give their contact information (such as name, address, and email address) and the model and serial number of the product being registered. Optional demographic information may also be collected. A user has the option to submit a question or concern via the web sites using a customer service / contact form. The user is required to provide name and email address and contact information so that we can answer their question or request. Also, the customer service/contact form may also be routed to our 3rd party service provider, Alert Communications, who assists Carrier Corporation in answering customer requests from our web sites. Product registration and customer service/contact form information is collected by Carrier Corporation. An automatic email confirmation is sent to the user when they submit each form. Cookies A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's machine containing information about the user. By having our site set a cookie the user would not have to enter their personal information more than once, thereby saving time while on our site. If a user rejects the cookie, they may still use our site. The only drawback to this is that the user will be limited in some areas of our site; for example, the user will not receive personalized service. Cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance their experience on our site. Log Files We use IP addresses to analyze trends, administer the site, track user's movement, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Log files capture the cookie ID and IP address but are not linked in the web traffic analysis. Sharing We will share aggregated demographic information with our partners. This is not linked to any personal information that can identify any individual person. If we should decide in the future to use an outside shipping company to ship product orders, and a credit card processing company to bill users for products, and an outside company to provide on-line financing application and approval for some of our products we will notify you on this website in accordance with the "Notification of Change" section below. In no event will these companies retain, share, store or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes. We partner with other parties to provide specific web related services. When the user uses these services on our web site, we will only share names, or other information that is necessary for the third party to provide the service. Services may include online surveys, searching, dealer locators, 'contact us' or 'customer service' forms. These parties are not allowed to use personally identifiable information except for the purpose of providing the requested services. Orders Carrier collects your contact information (like name and shipping address) and financial information (like credit card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill a customer's order. If we have trouble processing an order, this contact information is used to get in touch with the customer. Carrier uses a 3rd party to process credit card approvals and another 3rd party to fill and ship the order to you. When you place an order for promotional merchandise (such as hats, shirts, etc.) with our logo, you are using a 3rd party web site, American Identity, who provides this storefront service. American Identity requires that you sign up for an account on their site including your contact information. Your credit card information is required by them to place an order. Please go to the American Identity website to view their privacy practices. Tell-A-Friend If our site should elect to use a referral service in the future we may ask them for their name and email address and the friend's name and email address so that an automatic email can be constructed. We may be sending the friend a one-time email, from the user, inviting them to visit the site. The names and email addresses are not stored or shared with anyone. We do not share the email addresses with other companies. Links With Our Sites Carrier's web site contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we (Carrier Corporation) are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by the web sites listed in the first paragraph of this policy document. Surveys From time-to-time our site requests information from users via surveys. Participation in these surveys is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested includes user information (email address, such as visitor or customer type, reason for purchase) and demographic information (zip code, age level). Survey information will be used for purposes of monitoring or improving the use and satisfaction of this site, and better understanding customer demographics. Security This web site takes stringent precautions to protect our users' information. When users submit sensitive information via the web site, your information is protected both online and off-line. When our registration/order form asks users to enter sensitive information (such as credit card number), that information is encrypted and is protected with encryption software, SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). While on a secure page, such as our order form, the lock icon on the bottom of Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer becomes locked, as opposed to unlocked, or open, when you are just 'surfing'. While we use SSL encryption to protect sensitive information online, we also have stringent protection policies for protecting user information off-line. All of our users' information, not just the sensitive information mentioned above, is restricted in our offices. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, our billing clerk or a customer service representative) are granted access to personally identifiable information. Furthermore, employees are kept up-to-date on our security and privacy practices. Any time new policies are added, our employees are notified and/or reminded about the importance we place on privacy, and what they can do to ensure our customers' information is protected. Finally, the servers that we store personally identifiable information on are kept in a secure environment. If you have any questions about the security at our web site, you can send an email to privacy administration Supplementation of Information In order for Carrier to better understand customer demographics, it is necessary for us to supplement the information we receive with information from 3rd party sources. In order for Carrier's web site to enhance its ability to tailor the site to an individual's preference, we combine information about the purchasing habits of users with similar information from our partners, i.e. Linkshare, to create an aggregated segmentation of information. Newsletter and Special Offers We may send users who register at the Carrier site or register their products a welcoming email to confirm their registration. Registered customers may elect to receive information on products, services, announcements and special offers. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see our Choice/Opt-in section below. Users who have provided personal information on the Carrier web sites may occasionally be contacted with product offers if they have elected to receive this information. We will communicate with the user to provide requested services with regards to issues relating to their requests via email or phone. Correction/Updating Personal Information If a user's personally identifiable information changes (such as a zip code or phone number), or if a user no longer desires our service, we will, upon request, correct, update or remove that user's personal data provided to us. This can be done on-line by updating the Site Registration Form or Product Registration Form previously submitted. Or you can send us a message by calling or writing Customer Service. Choice/Opt-in Our users are given the opportunity to 'opt-in' to having their information used for purposes directly related to our site at the point where we ask for the information. Our site registration, and product registration and customer contact forms (on www.carrier.com, www.residential.carrier.com, and www.buy.carrier.com ) have 'opt-in' boxes so that users can select to receive product offers or information if they desire. Users may update their site registration, product registration, or customer service selections including the 'opt-in' selection at www.carrier.com at the following links: Register for Personalized Service, Register Your Product, or by contacting Customer Service. Users of our site also receive a pop-up window to alert them when they are visiting an external site and their information is being collected by an outside party. We do this so our users can make an informed choice as to whether they should proceed with services that require an outside party, or not. Notification of Changes If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will prominently post those changes on our homepage so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under circumstances, if any, we disclose it. If at any point we decide to use personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we would notify users by way of an email. Users will have a choice as to whether or not we use their information in this different manner. We will use information in accordance with the privacy policy under which the information was collected.