Privacy policy

THEBEARBUDDY.COM [‘TheBearBuddy’, ‘we’, ‘our’, ‘us’] is a trading name of The TheBearBuddy AS, with a registered address in Dubai, UAE. We respect the privacy rights of our online visitors [‘you’, ‘your’, ‘yours’] and recognise the importance of protecting the information collected from our visitors. We have adopted this privacy policy to guide how we collect, store, and use the information that you provide us with [‘Privacy Policy’].
We provide the following information to enable our online visitors to be fully informed of this Privacy Policy. By visiting THEBEARBUDDY.COM’s Site [the “Site”], you accept the Privacy Policy, the Cookie Policy [defined below] and the Terms. For the purpose of this document ‘Terms’ has the same meaning as defined in the Terms and Conditions governing use of, and purchases made via, the Site.

GENERAL INFO

  • All credit/debit cards’ details and personally identifiable information will NOT be stored, sold, shared, rented or leased to any third parties’’
  • www.TheBearBuddy.com will not pass any debit/credit card details to third parties’’
  • www.TheBearBuddy.com  takes appropriate steps to ensure data privacy and security including through various hardware and software methodologies. However www.TheBearBuddy.com (website) cannot guarantee the security of any information that is disclosed online’’
  • www.TheBearBuddy.com  is not responsible for the privacy policies of websites to which it links. If you provide any information to such third parties different rules regarding the collection and use of your personal information may apply. You should contact these entities directly if you have any questions about their use of the information that they collect.’’
  • “The Website Policies and Terms & Conditions may be changed or updated occasionally to meet the requirements and standards. Therefore, the Customers’ are encouraged to frequently visit these sections to be updated about the changes on the website. Modifications will be effective on the day they are posted. 

THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

This Privacy Policy does not apply to other external sites maintained by other companies or organisations to which we link to or are associated with. THEBEARBUDDY.COM is not responsible for any personal information you submit to third parties via the Site. Please ensure that you read and agree to the Privacy Policy of such other companies or organisations before submitting your details.

INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT

THEBEARBUDDY.COM may collect personal information in different ways. When you interact with us by visiting the Site to browse, make an online purchase, sign up or log-in to your account on our websire, complete any online forms [such as registration forms, competitions, and surveys], opt to receive newsletters, rewards, and special offers, check out as a guest [in which case we merely collect transaction-based data enabling us to send your purchase to you] or even simply communicate with us on our social channels [email, telephone, instant chat, social media or otherwise], we are eligible to collect information about you. 

The information we collect about you may include your name, address or location, phone number and email address, date of birth, gender, purchase information, images and financial information, and other relevant information.

We do not require you to provide any personal information related to any other person that is not essential and directly related to the provision of the service ordered, unless we are required to collect such information under the expressed instructions of a competent authority, in the interest of public or national security.
By creating an account with us, you are giving us consent to collect of some of your personal data. If you place an order with us, you are giving us consent to hold personal information including your name, email address, phone numbers, home address, delivery and billing address[es] so that we can process and fulfil your order.

Saved card payment details are never shared with third parties or employees of THEBEARBUDDY.COM and are only used to process your order, using our secure payment partner's systems.

We may also obtain information as a result of authentication or identity checks. Sometimes we may ask for your direct telephone number including mobile. This number may be shared with our delivery partner. These details allow us to process your order and to let you know the status of your order.

We may receive information about you from your other accounts or other sites, including our partner boutiques, social media providers like Facebook and Instagram, advertising networks and analytics partners, and payment and delivery service providers, amongst others. By linking your account on the site to your Facebook or Instagram accounts, you are giving us permission to obtain certain information and content from these accounts. The specific types of information that we may obtain depends on your settings for that account or site and will be subject to their privacy policies.

Our IT systems reserve the right to automatically collect information about you each time you visit the site through the use of cookies and information provided by your device. Cookies can help improve your experience with the site and make it easier to interact with us by automatically storing your location and language preference and saving items in your bag as you navigate through pages on the site. Further details about the use of cookies are found below. The information provided by your device will differ depending on which type of device you are using [whether it’s a PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, or otherwise] and the settings on that device, but includes the type of device you have [such as an iPhone X or Samsung Galaxy S10], the device’s IP address, the browser you are using, your mobile network provider [for mobile devices], the pages you have visited, your time zone and country location, and crash or download error reports.

We may require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and which does not materially impact your rights, freedom or interests. For example, we may use your purchase history to send you more personalized content/ material/ information.  We may also combine the shopping history of many customers to identify trends and ensure we can keep up with the demand or develop new products/ services to cater to your needs. This data is always stored anonymously.

We may store some of the user transaction records and personal information in our secure servers in Germany for a period of five years to help improve our services for customers in the future. All data is secured with high a level of protection.
 

USAGE OF YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We shall take all reasonable and appropriate measures to prevent the unauthorised disclosure or the unauthorized use of your personal information.
We limit access to your personal information to our trained and authorized personnel, such as employees, directors, independent contractors and consultants, who are bound to protect your personal information from unauthorized use and disclosure under the terms of a written agreement.

We may use your personal information for processing of orders, payments and to provide you with a personalised shopping experience. We will also use your details [name, address, phone number, email address, and financial information –such as debit or credit card details] to fulfil and deliver your orders and manage your account. Personal information that you provide may be disclosed to a credit reference or fraud prevention agency, which may keep a record of that information. We may also use your information to communicate with you about current orders and provide you with customer service support when needed. Where there is a legal obligation to do so, we may disclose your information to any relevant regulatory body.

We may also use your personal information to send you marketing materials and updates but only ever in accordance with your preferences [as detailed later on in our policy]. We do not sell or provide your details to any third-party marketing companies.

We may use your personal details [including your name, address, email address, and phone number] to send you polls and surveys to find out your views of the site and services. We may also carry out analysis of, and research into, the ways that you use the site, so we can optimise the site and your experience. We may use third parties to carry out any research, analysis, and surveys, or to deliver incentives in return for your participation in polls, as further set out below; and The Data Privacy Law allows this as part of our legitimate interest in understanding our customers and providing the highest levels of customer service and experience.
If you choose not to share your personal data with us or refuse certain contact permissions, we might not be able to provide some services you’ve asked for.
If you request us to disclose your own personal information to you, we shall disclose it free of charge and without delay after an adequate verification process.
 

SHARING PERSONAL DATA WITH OTHERS

We may disclose your personal information if such disclosure is permitted or requested by law, expressly permitted by you, or made in the course of making a credit check with a reputable credit reporting agency.

With your intial approval, we share your personal data with trusted affiliates or third parties [for example, delivery couriers, for fraud management, to handle complaints, to help us personalize our offers to you. If these are not directly approved by you, we shall firstly obtain our prior consent before proceeding to share any information with a third party involved. In circumstances where it is necessary to provide your information to affiliates or other third parties who are directly involved in the provision of services ordered by you, such parties are required to take all reasonable and appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality and security of your information and to use it only as required for the purposes of providing the services you ordered.

We may provide your information to our advertising and social media partners [including Facebook, Twitter and Instagram] for data collection to select and serve relevant adverts about our products and services to you and others.
Here’s the policy we apply to those organisations to keep your data safe and protect your privacy:

  • We provide only the information they need to perform their specific services
  • They may only use your data for providing the services we specify in our contract with them
  • We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times. In particular, we require them to take all reasonable and appropriate measures to protect the confidentiality and security of your information
  • We ensure that the contract between them and us holds the former responsible for the privacy and protection of your information
  • If we stop using their services, any of your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

  • IT companies who support the site
  • Delivery couriers
  • Direct marketing companies who help us manage our electronic communications with you
  • Google/Facebook to show you products that might interest you while you’re browsing the internet. This is based on either your marketing consent or your acceptance of cookies on the sites

COOKIES POLICY

Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser which allows the server to uniquely identify the browser on each page. This will help us collect information and store your online preferences to better optimize your shopping experience.
There are five types of cookies:

  1. Customer preference Cookies - These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the site and use its features by helping to remember preferences you make [user name, language or location] when browsing or shopping online. This makes your browsing experience simpler, easier and more personal to you.
  2. Functionality Cookies – These cookies remember choices you make such as the country you visit the site from, language and search parameters such as size, colour or product line. These can then be used to provide you with an experience more appropriate to your selections and to make the visits more tailored and pleasant. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other sites.
  3. Performance Cookies – These cookies collect anonymous information and analyze how our customers use the site. This allows us to continuously improve the site and your shopping experience. We use Google Analytics cookies to help us understand areas such as site navigation and shopping experience. Data stored by these cookies do not show personal information from which your individual identity can be established.
  4. Targeting Cookies – These cookies are used to deliver adverts relevant to you. In addition, they limit the number of times you see an advertisement as well as helping us measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns. The cookies are usually placed by third party advertising networks.
  5. Third-party service provider Cookies - These cookies allow you to share what you’ve been doing on the site on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These service providers help us to provide you with a better, faster, and safer experience. These service providers may use these technologies in the ways described above and in addition may help us and you to avoid fraud

By using the THEBEARBUDDY.COM Site, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your device and access them when you visit the Site in the future.

If you want to delete any cookies that are already on your computer, please refer to the help and support area on your internet browser for instructions on how to locate the file or directory that stores cookies.

Please note that by deleting our cookies or disabling future cookies you may not be able to access certain areas or features of the Site.  

MARKETING OPT-IN AND OPT-OUT PROVISION


When you first register with us you will be able to choose whether or not to receive marketing communications from us or our third parties. Whenever you receive a marketing communication or newsletter from us [which may be by Email, SMS, Telephone or Direct Mail], you will be given an opportunity to unsubscribe. Such alerts will only include marketing information from and about THEBEARBUDDY.COM. We do not sell or otherwise pass your details to third parties for marketing purposes. Marketing communications you subscribe to will only be sent by THEBEARBUDDY.COM.

At all times, we will offer you the opportunity to unsubscribe out of any service or updates to which you have subscribed. Any e-mail we send you will contain an easy automated unsubscribe link so that you can opt-out of that particular mail list. Simple scroll down to the bottom of the email and click on the ‘Unsubscribe’ link.

CHANGING PERSONAL INFORMATION
For registered customers, information can be amended directly through the site; after logging in using the ‘Sign In’ menu on the home page, your personal information will be made available for review and change in the ‘Details’ section. Only you or, upon your request, the Customer Care department, may access your personal data from the Site. Information may be changed online within ‘My Account’.

WITHDRAWING CONSENT

Whenever you have given us your consent to use your personal data, you have the right to change your mind at any time and withdraw that consent. To withdraw consent, please CONTACT US.

LEGITIMATE INTEREST

In cases where we are processing your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you can ask us to stop, for reasons associated to your individual situation. We must then do so, unless we believe we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue processing your personal data. 

COPYRIGHT AND TRADE MARKS

All content available on the Site, including, but not limited to, text, graphics, logos, buttons, icons, images, audio clips, data compilations, and software, and the compilation thereof [which are considered ‘Content’ further defined below] is the property of THEBEARBUDDY.COM, our affiliates, our partners or our licensors, and is protected by Italian, U.A.E., and international copyright laws.

The trade marks, logos, and service marks displayed on the Site [collectively, the ‘Trade Marks’] are the registered and unregistered marks of THEBEARBUDDY.COM, our affiliates, our licensors or our partners, in Italy, the U.A.E. and other countries, and are protected by U.A.E. and international trade mark laws. All or any other trademarks not owned by us, our affiliates, our partners or our licensors that appear on the Site are the property of their respective owners, who may or may not be affiliated with, connected to, or sponsored by us.

Except as required under applicable law, neither the Content, the Trade Marks, nor any other portion of the Site may be used, reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold, accessed, modified, or otherwise exploited, in full or in part, for any purpose without our prior written consent.

For the avoidance of doubt, THEBEARBUDDY.COM does not make any warranty or representation of any kind with respect to the ownership or legitimate usage of said Trade Mark and expressly disclaims any liability with respect to any alleged infringement of any third-party property rights.

CONTENT

THEBEARBUDDY.COM’s ‘Content’ is defined as any graphics, photographs, including all image rights, sounds, music, video, audio or text on the Site. THEBEARBUDDY.COM tries to ensure that the information on the Site is accurate and complete. We do not promise that all our content is accurate or error-free and make no promises that the content and functionality of the Site THEBEARBUDDY.COM will be error-free.

USER GENERATED CONTENT

By posting on any of our social media channels you agree to be solely responsible for the content of all information you contribute. You also grant us the right to use any content you provide for its own purposes including republication in any form or media. Comments may be moderated and may take up to 72 hours to be displayed but we do not commit to checking all content and will not be liable for third party posts. If you have a complaint about any posts, CONTACT US.

We reserve the right at its sole discretion not to publish, or to remove, [without limitation] any comment including those that it believes may be unlawful, defamatory, racist or libelous, hateful, violent, detrimental to people/institutions/religions/or to people's privacy, which may cause harm to minors, or is detrimental to the trademarks/patents and copyrighted content, contains personal data, or improperly uses the medium for promoting and advertising businesses. The site is available to the public; information you consider confidential should not be posted to the site 

THIRD PARTY LINKS

THEBEARBUDDY.COM is not responsible for the content of any off-site pages or any other sites linked to or from the Site. Links appearing on the Site are for convenience only and are not an endorsement by THEBEARBUDDY.COM, affiliates or partners of the referenced content, product, service, or supplier. Your linking to or from any off-site pages or other sites is at your own risk. We are in no way responsible for examining or evaluating, and we do not warrant the offerings of, off-site pages or any other sites linked to or from the site, nor does THEBEARBUDDY.COM assume any responsibility or liability for the actions, content, products, or services of such pages and sites, including, without limitation, their privacy statements and terms. You should carefully review the Terms and Privacy policies of all off-site pages and other sites that you visit.

GENERAL

You acknowledge and agree that THEBEARBUDDY.COM’s Privacy Policy and The Cookie Policy, and the Terms and Conditions constitute the complete and exclusive agreement between us concerning your use of the Site and any purchases made by you.

If any provision of the Privacy Policy, or the Terms is held to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part, then the relevant agreement shall continue to be valid as to the other provisions and the remainder of the affected provision. Any waiver of any of the provisions of the Privacy Policy and/ or the terms by THEBEARBUDDY.COM shall not be deemed a waiver of any subsequent breach or default and shall in no way affect the other provisions of the relevant agreement.

Nothing contained in the Privacy Policy or the terms shall be construed as creating any agency, partnership, or other form of joint enterprise between us.

THEBEARBUDDY.COM reserves the right to update or amend the Privacy Policy at any time and we encourage you to revisit the Privacy Policy periodically to ensure that you are kept up to date and aware of our rights at all times. Any changes are effective immediately upon posting to the Site. Your continued use of the Site constitutes your agreement to all such terms.

THEBEARBUDDY.COM reserves the right to refuse to supply Products to any person if they are in breach of any of the Privacy Policy, or the Terms.

If you require further information about the Privacy Policy, please contact us on post@TheBearBuddy.com