Privacy Policy
General
Whole Foods Market thinks your privacy is important. Please read this section of our website to learn more about Whole Foods Market's philosophy and privacy policy. We understand that the protection of privacy is a major concern to many of our customers. For more than 20 years Whole Foods Market has worked hard to gain your trust by selling only the highest quality foods and products, and we want to do everything reasonably possible to keep your trust. To build on our relationship, Whole Foods Market wants you to understand a little bit about how our website interacts with visitors and how we will use any information gathered when you visit our website.
Types of Information Gathered
Whole Foods Market may gather the following types of information: (1) information given voluntarily while using a feature of this website, for example, during a registration process; (2) information gathered as a result of voluntary participation in a survey or poll, or when communicating with our webmaster or customer service Team Members; and (3) information gathered automatically when visitors visit our website.
Registration
In order for you to receive certain benefits of our website you may first be asked to supply certain information such as your zip code. Whole Foods Market wants to supply you with information that benefits you and the more relevant information we have about you the better we are able to do this.
Whole Foods Market currently has an electronic newsletter and may launch similar products in the future. If you choose to receive our electronic newsletter, you will be asked for certain information so that we can customize your newsletter to suit your needs. Upon registering for the electronic newsletter, you will be asked for your name, email address, zip code, and other information specified in the enrollment process. You may be asked to tell us a little about your interests, including but not limited to, what sorts of articles you like to read, the sorts of wellness choices you currently make, and other questions of this nature. This information is used to deliver you a personalized electronic newsletter that we believe will be of interest to you. The more of this information you choose to share with us, the better we can craft a newsletter specifically for you.
If you choose not to share information with us the newsletter will simply be more generic. For example, if you are primarily interested in articles about the environment, we can't deliver those to you unless you share your interest with us. Similarly, if you are a vegetarian and request recipes without disclosing this fact, we can't guarantee that all recipes we send you will be meat-free. Providing us with this type of information is voluntary and you may change supplied information or unsubscribe at any time from any portion or all of Whole Foods Market's online services.
Surveys And Polls
From time to time, Whole Foods Market website users may be asked to participate in voluntary surveys and polls. As a part of this process you may be asked to supply personal information such as demographic information and lifestyle preferences. These surveys will be strictly voluntary and you can choose to disclose this information or not.
Cookies
Whole Foods Market may automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser, which may include your IP address, Whole Foods Market's cookie information, session time, click path analysis, and the pages you request. Whole Foods Market will only use this type data in an aggregate form which does not identify you personally.
Updating Personal Information
Whole Foods Market understands that you may want to change or access your personal information. You may do so here or by following the directions on your fl@vors e-newsletter. To protect your privacy and security, we will verify your identity before granting access or making changes to your personally-identifying information.
Whole Foods Market's Use of Information
Whole Foods Market may use information gathered through its website for the following general purposes: (1) to customize content delivered to you; (2) to contact and provide service to you as well as improve the overall delivery of Whole Foods Market's services; and (3) to conduct research for other purposes related to Whole Foods Market's core business. In no case will Whole Foods Market use personally identifying information for its own use or the use of any other party, except to provide the services you request or as required by law. Whole Foods Market only reviews usage of our online content in the aggregate (meaning information summarized into large groups of users with no personally identifying information) to determine the most popular website features and to help us develop new content and service ideas.
Information Sharing
Whole Foods Market will not sell or otherwise share personally identifying information with other people or nonaffiliated companies except to provide services to you at your request, or as required by law. Whole Foods Market will share this information with certain business partners to provide requested service that we do not provide directly. Whole Foods Market will only share personally identifying information with these business partners if they agree not to disclose the information to other parties and agree not to use this information to solicit.
Whole Foods Market may share aggregate data collected through its website that does not personally identify any party with our research partner, and may from time to time share this type data with other business partners.
Children
Parent should always supervise their children while online. Whole Foods Market's website is not designed nor intended to collect personal information from children under the age of thirteen. So that we may comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, we ask that children under the age of thirteen not provide any personal information on this website.
Links
This website contains several links to other websites not controlled by Whole Foods Market. We have attempted to choose our linked partners with great care; however, Whole Foods Market is not responsible for the privacy practices of any linked site. You should read the privacy policy of each linked website to understand the related policy. This privacy policy applies solely to information collected through Whole Foods Market's website.
Security
Whole Foods Market has attempted to take all reasonable steps to have physical, electronic and procedural safeguards in place to protect personal information gathered through this website. This includes compliance with related federal regulations and may include use of industry-standard SSL-encryption to protect certain transmission data we deem sensitive.
Questions and Comments
Whole Foods Market is always interested in what our customers have to say. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us at customer.questions@wholefoods.com
Changes to Privacy Policy
This document was last updated July, 2004. Whole Foods Market may update this privacy policy at any time. If so, Whole Foods Market will post the updated privacy policy on this site. Whole Foods Market encourages you to review this privacy policy from time to time for any changes.