Privacy Policy

Seed Savers Exchange, Inc. respects your privacy and is committed to ensuring your personal information is handled responsibly through compliance with this Policy. Seed Savers Exchange has implemented this Privacy Policy governing the personally identifiable information (“PII”) collected by your use of the website https://www.exchange.seedsavers.org/ (our “Website”). This Privacy Policy does not govern PII collected from any other source or in any other manner. The term “Personal Information” refers to information that personally identifies an individual.

In order to access certain materials or services on this site, you may be asked to provide your name, email, address, phone number or other information. It is your decision to provide this information. We will only use this information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Please be advised that you may opt-out of receiving certain information from Seed Savers Exchange. If you do not agree to this Privacy Policy, please do not use this website.

Overview

This Privacy Policy is intended to provide you with information as to: (i) the type of information that is collected, (ii) how collected information is used and with whom it is shared; (iii) how we intend to protect the information; and (iv) how you can access, modify, and/or delete such information.

Browsing our website

As you navigate through and interact with our Website, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This may include details of your visits to our Website, including but not limited to, traffic data, location data, logs, and other communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Website and the information about your computer and internet connection, including your IP address, operating system, and browser type. Seed Savers Exchange uses cookies to collect this non-identifying information. An internet “cookie” is a small text file created by a website that stores information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site. Seed Savers Exchange will use cookies that will be saved and remain on your computer until manually deleted or until expired (which could be months or years after placement). We use this information to measure our Website and store activity and to improve the usefulness of our site to visitors.

We may also use these technologies to collect information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or other online services (behavioral tracking). Seed Savers Exchange currently uses Google Analytics Demographics and Interest Reports to collect this information using Google Advertising cookies and anonymous identifiers and may use other tracking devices in the future. This information is only used in the aggregate (we do not tie this to an individual). Visit Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for information on how you can opt out of Google Advertising cookies and anonymous identifiers.

If visitors decline to accept cookies, they may still use our Website, but some portions of our site may be inaccessible.

Collection of personally identifiable information

Visitors must register in order to use certain features of our website, such listing and requesting seeds. During registration, you are asked to provide contact information such as name, email address, or zip code. We use this information to verify the authenticity of your email, and we may use your contact information for purposes such as responding to your seed requests, communicating with you, and publishing seed listings annually in our printed Yearbook. Other contact information (e.g., mailing address, phone number) may be used to verify your seed request or lister information.

Visitors who create an account with us have the ability to create and maintain their own password. That password is encrypted so we cannot see what it is. If your account remains idle for 16 hours, you will be automatically logged out. It is important for you to protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer. Be sure to sign off when finished using a shared computer.

Financial information is not used or retained on this site. If you choose to use PayPal, Venmo, CashApp, or Zelle to process payments on your account, you must provide information to the individual companies and therefore enter into terms of use for those companies.

Though we make every effort to ensure the secure collection and transmission of sensitive user information using industry-accepted data collection and encryption methodologies, Seed Savers Exchange cannot insure against invasion by security breakers of any manner.

We do not sell, share, rent or trade your information.