Privacy Agreement


Ebates was founded by two former Deputy District Attorneys who take privacy and security very seriously. We at Ebates know that these issues are essential to making this site a success for us and our members. Rest assured that privacy, security and integrity are first and foremost at Ebates.

  1. What data we collect and why
  2. How your information is used
  3. Who sees your personal information
  4. How we keep your information secure
  5. Your privacy with Ebates
  6. Your privacy with our merchants and advertisers
  7. Our policies on email
  8. Cookies and how are they used
  9. Your choices and responsibilities
  10. Integrity
  11. Changes to Privacy Policy


1. What data we collect and why

Our vision at Ebates is to maximize the rewards for all of our members and to provide them with as many benefits as possible. The first key way in which we provide value is to forward the commissions we receive from our merchants to you. Instead of keeping these funds for ourselves, we make our money primarily from marketing partnerships with our merchants, and advertising.

When first registering with Ebates, you will be asked to provide your name, address, income and age. This information helps us understand your interests and develop an understanding of what might appeal to you. Based on these demographics, we are able to determine what types of merchants and specials would benefit our members most.

When a member shops or visits one of our merchants, Ebates may track this information to have a summary of our member's buying interests. This information will be used by Ebates to make relevant and personalized offers to our members. As with any other information that you supply to Ebates, none of the information that we collect will be released in any personally identifiable way, only in aggregate or anonymous form.

2. How your information is used

We collect information to provide better, more relevant offers to you, whether it is targeted advertising, new merchants that we think our members may like, or choosing new partnerships.

3. Who sees your personal information

Only a very limited number of Ebates employees ever have access to your personal information. Primarily this information is accessed to provide customer service or to send you your Big Fat Check.

We may use contractors or vendors to help us provide some of the services at our site. If we need to disclose personal information for them to provide the services, it is with the requirement that the information is kept confidential and is used only for those services.

4. How we keep your information secure

Ebates uses a secure, encrypted connection (called an SSL connection. on all pages where you transmit personal data to us. The security of your personal information is important to us. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number. on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). Whenever you access any of your account pages or change any of your user information, it is done over an SSL connection to Ebates. In spite of the fact that all important data is sent over an SSL connection, you may notice that on merchant pages, the "padlock" icon in the corner of your browser sometimes does not appear. This is a display issue only, and is caused by the fact that the merchant session is running inside a frame. Rest assured that any time you enter your credit card information at a merchant site, it IS an SSL connection secure connection.

Ebates fully GUARANTEES the use of your credit cards when shopping through Ebates at any of our affiliated merchants. If, as a direct result of your shopping through Ebates, someone uses your credit card information to make fraudulent purchases, Ebates will reimburse you for any costs the credit card company charges you. Please refer to the user agreement for complete information. Additionally, all of our database servers that contain customer information reside only on Ebates' physically secured premises or in our equally secured locations at our service provider. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Web site, click here to send us an email.

5. Your privacy with Ebates

Ebates will never ask for your username, password or any other personal information in an unsolicited phone call, email or letter. Further, any contact with Ebates customer service in which personal information is exchanged with a customer service representative will be used only for the purpose of satisfying that request. Any personal information you provide will not be recorded or used for any reason beyond that of the stated request without your consent.

Refer-A-Friend - If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend about our site, we will ask you for your friend's name and email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site. Ebates stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program. Your friend may contact us at http://www.ebates.com/help/customer_care/generic_form.do to request that we remove this information from our database.

Changes in this Privacy Statement - If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post these changes to this privacy statement, the homepage, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make changes to this policy, we will notify you, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.

6. Your privacy with our merchants and advertisers

Ebates contains links to various other sites. Each of these sites has a privacy policy that may differ from that of Ebates. The privacy practices of other websites linked to Ebates are not covered by this privacy policy.

Unless you choose to opt in to offers from a particular merchant, Ebates will not disclose any of your personal information to our merchants. If you wish to receive special offers directly from a merchant, neither this privacy policy nor our opt-out policy applies to those communications. Instead, please refer to the relevant merchant's privacy and opt-out policy. If you opt in to such communications, Ebates will provide your contact information to the merchants you request offers from. If you do not opt in to communications from a specific store, the only information that may be shared between Ebates and one of our listed merchants is information that pertains to orders in the furtherance of tracking your order and providing you with a correct reward. Order information, including order numbers and amounts, may be available to either Ebates, the merchant, or third party affiliate program management companies for accurate tracking purposes. This information will not be released by Ebates to other parties unless requested by you. We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site or to protect Ebates and its members from losses.

Ebates does not record any personal information passed from our members to our merchants when you are shopping through Ebates.

7. Our policies on email

Ebates does not support spamming by our members and we explicitly prohibit it in our member agreement. If you would like to report an incident of spamming, please contact us. We will investigate and take suitable action at our discretion.

We ourselves send out three kinds of emails. Our members may receive:
1. email essential to the maintenance of your account (most commonly when we need your address to mail you a check);
2. email notifying you about credits and debits to your account (most commonly when we credit you with a cash back rewards); and
3. email newsletters and special offers from Ebates and our merchants and other partners. You always have the option of opting out of types 2 and/or 3 by visiting your Account page and changing your communication preferences.

Please understand that, though we may have some small influence over our members, we fundamentally cannot control the online or offline actions of our members or other parties, especially when it comes to their use of email or participation in moderated or unmoderated newsgroups. While we will investigate complaints sent to us and take appropriate action with our members, we will typically not provide any information to third parties about our conversations with our members. We encourage people to resolve disputes directly with each other and discourage people from attempting to use Ebates to police their mailbox or newsgroup.

8. Cookies and how are they used

Cookies are small text files that a web site can write to your computer. We may use cookies to identify you and allow you to log in once to Ebates and shop without having to log in again. Cookies are also used by many of our merchants to identify you as an Ebates member.

Ebates requires its members to have cookies enabled in order to accumulate cash back rewards.

9. Your choices and responsibilities

Periodically we may send you emails on new Ebates features or special offers. On every one of these emails you will be given the choice to unsubscribe from Ebates mailings. Choice of membership is yours at all times, and you are free to remove yourself as a member of Ebates at any time. Simply follow the directions in any of our emails.

You may also choose to what degree you would like us to contact you. When we ask for your account info, you may choose that we contact you with special offers, contact you about your orders, or not contact you for either.

It is the member's responsibility to update and maintain accurate contact information in their account. You can make changes by visiting your account page and entering corrections. Email and street addresses that are entered into a member's personal profile page are the addresses that will be used for all contact including the mailing of Big Fat Checks. Ebates is not responsible for checks that are sent to incorrect addresses, if the address in question was the address listed in that member's account at the time of issuance.

We will post all changes to this Privacy Agreement here at our site. Please check for revisions when you visit our site again so that you will always be aware of our policies and any changes that might occur.

10. Integrity

Having represented the People of the State of California collectively for ten years in a never ending fight for justice, the founders of Ebates know that your word is who you are and integrity is the cornerstone of any enterprise whether public, private or personal. As such, you have our word that we will protect your privacy and safeguard your shopping at all times.

11. Changes to privacy policy

Ebates is a licensee of the TRUST3 Privacy Program. TRUSTe is an independent, non profit organization whose mission is to build user's trust and confidence in the Internet by promoting the use of fair information practices. This privacy statement covers the site WWW.EBATES.COM . Because this web site wants to demonstrate its commitment to your privacy, it has agreed to disclose its information practices and have its privacy practices reviewed for compliance by TRUSTe.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this statement, you should first contact Alessandro Isolani by Email. If you do not receive acknowledgment of you inquiry or your inquiry has not been satisfactorily addressed, you should then contact TRUSTe at http://truste.org/consumers/watchdog_complaint.php. TRUSTe will then serve as a liaison with the Web site to resolve your concerns.

Kevin Johnson
Chief Executive Officer

Ebates Shopping.com, Inc.
333 Bryant Street, Suite 250
San Francisco CA, 94107
(415-908-2200)