Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy covers eMercedesBenz’ treatment of personal information that eMercedesBenz gathers when you are on the eMercedesBenz website and when you use eMercedesBenz services. This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that eMercedesBenz does not own or control, or to individuals that eMercedesBenz does not employ or manage.

Information Collected by eMercedesBenz

At eMercedesBenz, our purpose is to bring you relevant information pertaining to the Mercedes-Benz, Maybach and smart brands along with various other lifestyle products and services, and furthermore, to allow you to share your thoughts and opinions of this information with others.  To effectively accomplish this purpose, we collect personal information from you that allows us to provide you with a customized and efficient experience. We do not process this information in a way that is incompatible with this objective. We collect the following types of information from eMercedesBenz users:

• Information You Provide to Us:  We receive and store any information you enter on our website or provide to us in any other way. You can choose not to provide us with certain information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of various features.

• Registration: In order for you to use some eMercedesBenz services, such as the ability to comment on articles, you must complete a registration form. As part of this registration form, we require select personal information (namely, your e-mail address).

• User Profile: To allow you to express yourself beyond just the information collected during registration, we enable you to provide additional information, such as your name, location, etc. In addition, you may choose to include a photo of yourself in your profile. As indicated below, in the section titled “Sharing Your Information”, you can control how your information is displayed and used.

• Automatic Information:  We receive and store certain types of information whenever you interact with us. eMercedesBenz and its authorized agents automatically receive and record certain “traffic data” on their server logs from your browser including your IP address, eMercedesBenz cookie information, and the page you requested. eMercedesBenz uses this traffic data to help diagnose problems with its servers, analyze trends and administer the website.

Many companies offer programs that help you to visit websites anonymously. While eMercedesBenz will not be able to provide you with a personalized experience if we cannot recognize you, it’s important to note that these programs are available.

E-mail Communications

eMercedesBenz is extremely concerned about your privacy and we will never provide your email address to a third party without your explicit permission, as detailed in the “Sharing Your Information” section below. You may request to receive notification e-mails from eMercedesBenz which inform you of new stories that have been added to the site. In addition, in certain instances (e.g. regarding new registrations and forgotten user passwords) you may receive system emails.

Cookies

Cookies are alphanumeric identifiers that we transfer to your computer’s hard drive through your Web browser to enable our systems to recognize your browser and tell us how and when pages in our website are visited and by how many people. eMercedesBenz cookies do not collect personal information, and we do not combine information collected through cookies with other personal information to tell us who you are or what your screen name or e-mail address is.

The “help” portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie, or how to fully disable cookies. We recommend that you leave the cookies activated because cookies allow you use eMercedesBenz’ various commenting features.

Some of our business partners, like our advertisers, may use cookies on our website. We have no access to, or control over, these cookies.

Sharing Your Information

eMercedesBenz will neither rent nor sell your personal information to anyone and we will share your personal information only as described below.

• eMercedesBenz Personnel: eMercedesBenz personnel and authorized consultants and/or contractors may have access to user information if necessary in the normal course of eMercedesBenz business.

• Business Transfers: In some cases, we may choose to buy or sell assets. In these types of transactions, user information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. Moreover, if eMercedesBenz, or substantially all of its assets, were acquired, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred.

• Protection of eMercedesBenz and Others: We may release personal information when we believe in good faith that release is necessary to comply with a law; to enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other policies; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of eMercedesBenz, our employees, our users, or others.

• User Profile information: Information collected during registration and subsequent visits, such as your user name, may be displayed to other eMercedesBenz users when using various website features (such as commenting).

• API: eMercedesBenz will allow third parties access to all eMercedesBenz data that is publicly displayed on the eMercedesBenz website.

• Syndication: eMercedesBenz allows for the RSS syndication of all of its public content within the eMercedesBenz website.

• With Your Consent: Except as noted above, we will contact you when your personal information is shared with third parties or used for a purpose incompatible with the purpose(s) for which it was originally collected, and you will be able to opt out to prevent the sharing of this information.

Keeping Information Secure

Your eMercedesBenz account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. Protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by logging off once you have finished using a shared computer.

Only employees who need personal information to perform a specific job (for example, a customer service representative) are granted access to it. All of our employees are kept up to date on our privacy and security practices.

Ways to Control Display and Use of Your Information

As stated previously, you can always opt not to disclose information, but then you may be unable to use certain features on our website, such as commenting on articles.  By visiting your User Profile, you can correct, amend, add or delete personal information on our website. When you update information, however, we often maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records.  You may request deletion of your eMercedesBenz account by visiting our contact page.

As explained earlier, the “help” portion of the toolbar on the majority of browsers will direct you on how to prevent your browser from accepting new cookies, how to command the browser to tell you when you receive a new cookie, or how to fully disable cookies. Please note, however, that if your browser does not accept cookies, you will not be able to take advantage of some of our discussion features.

Children Under 18 Years of Age

You must be 13 years and older to register to use the eMercedesBenz website. As a result, eMercedesBenz does not specifically collect information about children. If we learn that eMercedesBenz has collected information from a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. We recommend that minors between the ages of 13 and 18 ask and receive their parents’ permission before using eMercedesBenz or sending information about themselves or anyone else over the Internet.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

eMercedesBenz may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time, at its sole discretion. Use of information we collect now is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is used. If we make changes to the Privacy Policy, changes will be posted on this page so you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances if any, it is disclosed.

Conditions of Use

If you decide to visit eMercedesBenz website, your visit and any possible dispute over privacy is subject to this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use, including limitations on damages, arbitration of disputes, and application of state law.

Effective Date of this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of January 1, 2006 and last updated January 1, 2010.

Related pages:

• Terms of Use
• Trademark Information