MDS of Michigan Privacy Policy

This Policy was last updated on: May 22, 2023

MDS of Michigan, Inc. (“MDS”, “we” or “us”) provides quality mechanical, electrical, and rubber power transmission products and solutions to our customers.

Your privacy is very important to us. Part of our operation of this Site involves the collection and use of  information about you. This Privacy Policy explains what type of information we collect through the Site and what we do with that information to allow you to make choices about the way your information is collected and used.

Residents of certain countries have a number of specific rights and choices relating to their privacy. See the Supplemental Privacy Notice below for further information.

Information We Collect
In general, you can visit this Site without identifying who you are or revealing any information about yourself. However, we collect information from you when you use our Services and interact with our Site.

Information collected online can generally be categorized as anonymous or personally identifiable. “Anonymous Information” is information that cannot be connected to the identity of a specific individual. An example of Anonymous Information is the fact that, while this Site may record the number of visits to a particular page that occur in a given period of time, it does not necessarily tell us the names or other identifying information of every visitor. Personally identifiable information (“Personal Information”) is information that specifically identifies a particular user, such as their name, address, or phone number.

Many users of this Site will choose not to provide any Personal Information; therefore, those individuals are anonymous to us, and any data collected about their use of this Site is Anonymous Information. Other users may provide information Personal Information to us, for example, to place an order to the Site, and in doing so may provide information relating to their purchase transaction, including the following:

  • Their identity data (such as their name, telephone number, email address, mailing
    address);
  • Their professional or employment-related data (such as their company name, job title,
    and company contact information); and
  • Their financial data (such as billing address, payment card details, account numbers, and
    expiration dates).

Some users may further create a user account to simplify future purchase transactions, and so we collect information related to that account, such as their username and password. We also collect internet and other electronic network data and information regarding how users navigate our site, which is described in more detail in the next section.

How We Collect Information
We collect information in the following ways:

  • Volunteered Information. When you contact us through the Site, create a customer account, purchase some of our products, or communicate with us in any other way, you are voluntarily releasing information to us, some or all of which may be Personal Information.
  • Data Collected Automatically. When you use the Site, we automatically collect certain data and information regarding your use of the Site. This information may include device identifiers such as IP addresses, location information, browser type, approximate geolocation, device information such as your operating system, a history of the pages you view and other information regarding your use of the Site. We may use cookies to collect such information, as described in more detail below. If you visit the Site from a mobile device, an identifier is assigned through Google Analytics, using technologies similar to cookies, to collect such information. We also use Google Tag Manager, which enables tags for third party scripts that may place cookies on your device. This Site does not respond to “Do Not Track” signals.
  • “Cookies”, Pixels, and Tags. When you use the Site, we may store some data on your computer to automatically recognize your device the next time you visit.  Cookies and Pixel Tags are small data files that assign you a unique identifier. This information enables your computer to have a “dialogue” with our Site and permits us to administer our Site more efficiently and to provide a more tailored and user-friendly service to you. For example, we use customer relationship management “CRM” cookies and Google Analytics cookies (discussed further below) to collect information from the Site. We may also track pixel tags from other social media and other platforms in order to improve the marketing messages that we provide to you to better match your interests. You can remove or block cookies in some circumstances, but this may limit functionality of the Site. All browser settings are slightly different, so to manage cookies, you should refer to the relevant settings within your browser. If you would like to obtain more detailed information about types of cookies, how they are used, and how you can manage your cookie preferences, you may want to visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. You can also opt out of a third party vendor’s use of cookies by visiting www.networkadvertising.org/choices or http://optout.aboutads.info. You can opt out of the use of Google Analytics cookies by installing the Google Analytics optout browser add-on. You can find more information about this at https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/181881?hl=en
  • Information from Third Parties. We may also obtain Personal Information about you from our affiliates or third parties, such as partners with whom we offer mixed/joint services, our service providers, advertisers, social networks (when you grant us permission to access your data on one or more networks), or publicly available sources and data providers.

How We Use Information We Collect
We use information we collect about Site visitors to help us operate the Site, to provide services and products that you have requested, to complete transactions requested by you, to respond to your inquiries, and for our own marketing purposes, which include tailoring the marketing you see to better match your interests.  If you provide your contact information to us, you agree that we may contact you with information regarding our services, including but not limited to newsletters, advertisements and other marketing materials. We may also use the information to provide you with certain communication, such as service announcements and administrative messages.  We also use information we collect to monitor and analyze data trends and usage.  We also use your Personal Information to investigate and help prevent security incidents, to enforce our rights, and to otherwise comply with applicable law.

We use Google Analytics and associated tools (including Google Tag Manager) to track visitor statistics, to help analyze how the Site is used, to improve the performance of the Site and users’ experience, and to help us show you advertisements that are relevant to you.  Through these tools, we collect information including but not limited to the collection of device-specific information, log information, location information, cookie-related information, and visitor behavior information.  The information generated about your use of the Site (including IP address) is transmitted to Google, and this information is then used to evaluate the Site, to compile statistical reports on Site activity, and to provide advertisements (including in search results, banner ads on third party websites, or in other forms) based on your use of the Site.  We also use this information to better understand use of this Site and topics of interest among site visitors. You can view Google’s privacy policy here, and you may opt out of your data being used by Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/

We work with digital advertising and marketing companies to provide you with ads that align with your interests and to enhance your experience with us. These ads may be displayed on websites or applications operated by us or by third parties, and they may be based on information about your activities and preferences collected by us or by third parties. We may combine information we collect from your devices with other information we have about you, such as your customer account information and your interaction with the Site, to provide you with a consistent shopping experience. Certain coalitions of advertisers have created guidance for online advertisers and provided a mechanism for such advertisers to comply with users’ choices regarding interest based ads by allowing consumers to opt out of receiving interest-based advertising  from members of the coalitions. You may use these links to opt out of receiving interest-based advertising from members of these coalitions:

Digital Advertising Alliance opt out
Network Advertising Initiative opt out

You will need to exercise these opt outs on each browser on each device for which you wish to opt out of interest-based advertising.

How We Share Information
We do not sell Personal Information, but we do share Personal Information with others for legitimate business purposes. We will not give any Personal Information to any third parties without your consent or except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.

We may engage trusted third party service providers to perform functions and provide services to us and to you on our behalf.  We may share information we collect with those service providers to the extent necessary to perform these functions and provide these services, consistent with the protections in this Privacy Policy.  These service providers may assist in processing transactions you request. We also use third party service providers to host our website and our blog, to help us communicate with and provide marketing and advertisements to you, for cloud storage, and to provide customer relationship management services to us. We may also share your Personal Information with our lawyers and other professional advisors.

We may also share your Personal Information with third parties who use it for their own purposes if you provide consent. Subject to applicable law, and as we deem appropriate, we may also share or disclose your Anonymous Information, public information, and aggregated information that is not reasonably linkable to you or your device with third parties.

If we sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business, or if we buy or merge with another business, we may share your Personal Information. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may collect, use, and share your Personal Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

We may be legally required to disclose or share your Personal Information without your consent in some circumstances, for example, to comply with a court order or law enforcement. We may also share your Personal Information when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or property, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or respond to a government agency, law enforcement, judicial or public authority, or other legal request, or to comply with the law.

Cross-Border Transfers
Our business is located in the state of Michigan in the United States of America. If you are located outside of the United States, please note that this Site is hosted on our computer servers in the United States, therefore, your information may be processed and stored in the United States.  As a result, United States federal and state governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies may be able to obtain disclosure of your information through laws applicable in the United States.  Your use of this Site will constitute your consent to the transfer of your information in the United States, which may provide for different data protection rules than in your country. The United States may not necessarily have data protection laws as comprehensive and protective as those in your country of residence; however, our collection, storage and use of your Personal Information will at times continue to be governed by this Privacy Policy.

Links to External Websites; Plugins
Third party websites, including those that are accessible via a link on this Site, may use cookies or collect other information when you go to those websites. We do not control the collection or use of your information by these third party websites, and our Privacy Policy does not extend to external websites or companies. You should contact the operators of those websites directly if you have any questions about their collection or use of information about you.

Children
We do not knowingly collect information from children under 18 years of age.  We will only use or disclose Personal Information about a child to the extent permitted by law, to seek parental consent pursuant to local law and regulations or to protect a child.

Security
We take reasonable technical and organizational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, or alteration of Personal Information, and our systems are protected by industry standard firewall and password protection. We require third parties we contract with to support our business operations to employ reasonable security measures as well. We do not, however, guarantee that unauthorized, inadvertent disclosure will never occur, as we cannot fully eliminate security risks associated with data breaches due to system failures, unauthorized access by third parties, or mistakes.

Retention
Your Personal Information is stored on servers that are operated and maintained by third parties under contract with us. We retain this information for the duration of your business relationship with us, and for a period of time thereafter to analyze the information for our own operations, and for historical and archiving purposes. We periodically delete web visitor data but retain marketing information and purchase history indefinitely. We will honor customers’ requests to delete data, though we do reserve the right to retain certain data where we are permitted to do so by applicable law (for example, data relating to transactions processed on your behalf).

Applicable Law
As described in further detail in our Website Terms of Use, your use of the Site shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Michigan without giving effect to any choice or conflict of law provision or rule. There are some states (including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Virginia and Utah) that have laws granting their residents certain rights related to their Personal Information. Our Michigan business does not currently conduct business in those states, and we do not currently control or process a sufficient volume of Personal Information about residents of those states in order for these laws to apply. However, if you have questions about this Privacy Policy or if you would like to request that we
delete your Personal Information, please contact: sales@mdsofmi.com.

Notices
You agree that we may contact you via email to notify you of updates, changes, and notifications required by applicable law.

Changes to This Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to update or change our Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason and you should check this Privacy Policy periodically. Changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on this Site. Your continued use of the Site after we post any modifications to the Privacy Policy on this page will constitute your acknowledgment of the modifications and your consent to abide and be bound by the modified Privacy Policy.

Contact Information: If you have any requests, complaints or concerns about us or about this Privacy Policy, please contact: sales@mdsofmi.com.

Supplemental Privacy Notice for European Economic Area and United Kingdom Residents
This Section shall apply to you if you are a resident of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom. This section supplements the information provided elsewhere in this Privacy Policy and includes information applicable only to “personal data” of “data subjects” as those terms are defined in the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), as amended. The applicability of GDPR to a particular individual or circumstance may vary.

If you are a resident of the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, you may have specific rights regarding your Personal Information, including:

  • The right to know what personal information we collect and with whom we share your Personal Information. You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information, including the categories of Personal Information we collected about you, our business or commercial purpose for collecting that Personal Information, and the specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you. You have the right to request the categories of third parties with whom we share that Personal Information.
  • The right of access and portability. You have the right to request a copy of the Personal Information we have collected from you, and under certain circumstances to receive a copy of the Personal Information in a structured, commonly used, and machine readable format, and the right to transmit the Personal Information to another controller without hinderance, where the processing is carried out by automated means.
  • The right to deletion. You have the right to request that we delete any of your Personal Information we collected from you, subject to certain exceptions. For example, your right to request the deletion of Personal Information does not apply where we need to retain the Information to provide goods or services to you, to comply with the law, to detect or resolve security or functionality-related issues, to conduct research in the public interest, to safeguard the right to free speech, or to carry out actions for internal purposes that you might reasonably expect.
  • The right to correct inaccurate personal information. You have the right to request that we correct inaccurate Personal Information, subject to certain exceptions. We may delete the contested Personal Information as an alternative to correcting it where doing so would not negatively impact you, or where you consent to the deletion.
  • The right to object. In certain circumstances, you have the right to object to the processing of your Personal Information and to request the restriction or suspension of such processing. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. Where we use your Personal Information for direct marketing purposes, you can always object using the unsubscribe link in such communications, or using the tools set forth above in the Privacy Policy.
  • The right to revoke consent. If you have provided consent for the processing of your Personal Information, you have the right (under certain circumstances) to withdraw your consent at any time, which will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before your consent was withdrawn. In certain cases, we may continue to process your information after you have withdrawn consent if we have a legal basis to do so or if your withdrawal of consent was limited to certain processing activities. For example, we may keep processing information if we need to do so to comply with a legal obligation.

If you wish to invoke a right under the GDPR, you may contact us using the contact details set forth in the Privacy Policy above. Please use the subject line “GDPR Query” in the subject line and include in your email a sufficiently detailed description of the GDPR right with which you seek assistance. We may need to contact you for further information and reserve the right to charge a fee for certain requests. We will notify you if your request has been granted or declined, or if exemptions apply. If you make a request pursuant to this section but GDPR does not apply, we will provide you notification of its inapplicability in our response to your request. You have the right to make privacy complaints directly to a supervisory authority in your country.