Privacy & Security Policy
We take your privacy seriously! As a member of the Gospel Communications Network, we follow their member policies regarding privacy, security, ecommerce, linking, content and promotion.
Privacy
We automatically collect your domain name (where possible), but not your e-mail address when you visit our website at www.ivpress.com. We also collect aggregate information on what pages are accessed and what paths are followed on our website, but we do not attempt to identify or monitor your individual visit(s). The information we collect is used to correct errors and to improve the content and design of our website for all who use it.
When you communicate with us via e-mail or fill out an interactive form on our website, we collect the information you provide, such as your name, e-mail address, survey responses or customer service requests. This information is used to respond to your specific request, to improve the content and design of our website, to send you announcements about new titles and features (if you have requested that service or bought books directly from us in the recent past), and to tailor our book publishing program to better meet customer needs and interests. Information you provide in the course of participating in a special promotion or contest may be used by us to later alert you to related books or services; we will always specify what these additional uses may be before you submit your information on a promotion or contest webpage so that you can make an informed choice about your participation.
When you order books on our website we also collect transactional data such as account numbers, billing and shipping addresses and telephone numbers. This information is used only to process and deliver your order, to contact you if we have a question about your order or payment, and/or to establish internal purchasing accounts for repeat orders. We may also use this information to mail you our latest catalog or other sales flyers related to the kinds of books you have ordered from us.
We make limited use of "cookies" and "session identifiers" on our website. Our webstore software requires the use of these computer-generated alpha-numeric identifiers in order to keep track of items in an individual shopping basket and in order to return customers, after they have completed a purchase, to the correct re-entry page on our website. We do not currently use "cookies" or "session identifiers" to recognize returning users or to "personalize" our website. If you prefer to set your web browser to decline "cookies," you will be able to view all pages of our site without problem, but you will not be able to buy books in our webstore.
We do not currently have business relationships with any advertising or marketing (including telemarketing) companies who collect independent data on traffic to our website. Our web host, Gospel Communicatons Network, does have access to the same general information we monitor such as individual page hits, popular paths through our site, page views by time period or day of the week, etc. This information may be provided to independent ratings services such as Nielsen Net Ratings, Inc. But none of this information identifies individual visitors to our website.
Additionally, we link from our website to several popular online booksellers and other commercial, private and not-for-profit sites who may have different privacy and security policies from our own. We are not able to monitor the content and practices of all the sites we link to, so we encourage you to investigate any website before you offer personal information or conduct a financial transaction.
If our privacy policy changes in the future we will post such changes at this location on our website. Any data collected from that time forward will be subject to our new policy. But we will not use data collected prior to a policy change for any new purposes.
Access
Upon request we will provide you with access to all information that we maintain about you. You can request to review or correct this information via phone, fax, mail or e-mail (please see our Contact Us page). However, we will not release any information until we have verified your identity. We ask that you include a phone number and postal address in your request to facilitate that verification process.
Security
We regret that we cannot provide a guarantee of security for all e-mail transmitted to and from our website. Please be aware that information you e-mail directly to one of our addresses or submit using one of our website forms may be legitimately viewed by ISP owners/service staff, Gospel Communications Network technicians and various InterVarsity Press personnel before reaching its intended recipient. Additionally, it may be viewed by those who gain illegitimate or illegal access without our knowledge. We do employ widely-recommended security provisions, such as firewalls, logins/passwords and virus detection software to prevent security breaches. And our e-mail order forms use PGP encryption to safeguard credit card information transmitted to us through e-mail generated on our website. But as news reports continually remind us, there is no such thing as "absolute security" on the Internet.
Our webstore has several additional protections. It takes advantage of "secure socket layers" webserver technology provided by our host, Gospel Communications Network. The login for your webstore account is known to us, but the password you create is known only to you (note: some customers, like IVP authors and InterVarsity staff members, can use their "in-house" accounts to order books from the IVP webstore; passwords for these accounts are retrievable by us). Additionally, we do not allow billing/shipping address changes to be made online; if a change is requested, we will verify it by contacting you via phone or regular mail before proceeding. Credit card information that you submit when buying books in our webstore will be transmitted ONLY over secure channels, never using e-mail. (If you utilize one of our online forms instead of our webstore for book orders we recommend that you call us later with your credit card information because these forms are submitted through unsecured e-mail systems.) We will not save your credit card information for your future purchases.
Responsiveness
If you feel that we are not complying with this privacy and security policy, please notify us (instructions are available on our Contact Us page). We would like the opportunity to respond to your concern and correct any errors in our handling of your personal information.