General Mills Online Privacy Policy
At General Mills, we are very sensitive to the privacy concerns of visitors to all
of our websites, including our pages and applications on third-party social-networking
services such as Facebook or Twitter and our applications on mobile devices. We
know that maintaining your trust requires that we protect your privacy. This Privacy
Policy explains our online information practices at this website and the choices
that you, as a visitor to this website, can make about the collection and use of
your information.
We may employ cookie technology, web beacons, transparent GIF images, and similar
devices to facilitate website administration and navigation, to better understand
and improve the effectiveness of our site, and to provide an enhanced online experience
for our visitors.
The cookies we may use on this site include:
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Purpose
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Strictly necessary cookies
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These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and
use its features, such as accessing secure areas of the website.
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Website analytics/performance cookies
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These cookies collect information about how visitors use the website (for instance,
which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages).
These cookies do not collect information that identifies a visitor. All information
these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to
improve how the website works
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Functionality cookies
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These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user
name, language, or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features.
These cookies may also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts,
and other parts of web pages that you can customize. They may also be used to provide
services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The
information these cookies collect may be anonymized and they cannot track your browsing
activity on other websites.
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By using our website, you agree that we can place these types of cookies on your
device.
Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but can be configured not to do so or
to notify the user when a cookie is being sent. If you wish to disable cookies,
refer to your browser help menu to learn how to disable cookies. Please note that
if you disable cookies, you may be unable to access some customized features on
our website.
Devices like web beacons and transparent GIF images are tiny or transparent graphics
that allow us to count the number of users who have visited a particular web page
or to access certain cookies. We may use these graphics on our websites to count
users and to recognize users by accessing our cookies. Being able to access our
cookies allows us to personalize our website and improve your experience at our
website. We may also include these graphics in HTML-formatted e-mail messages that
we send to determine which e-mail messages were opened.By using our website, you
are consenting to our use of these beacons and similar technologies as described
above.
Personal information we may ask you for and how we might use it
When you visit our website, we collect personal information from you (such as your
name, address, phone number, e-mail address, etc.) when you voluntarily provide
it to us. Depending on the purpose for which the information was provided, we may
use the information to communicate with you regarding our products, services, and
promotions, to provide you with other information or materials that you request,
to customize your interactive experience, and/or to improve our product and service
offerings.
Here are the circumstances in which we might ask for personal information from our
consumers though our website, the types of information we obtain, and how we might
use the information:
- If you contact one of our Customer Service Representatives through our website,
we may ask you for personal information such as your name, address, phone number,
or e-mail address so that we can respond to your questions or comments. (Of course,
if you send us an e-mail, we will at a minimum obtain your e-mail address.)
- You may be asked to provide personal information if you:
- register as a user of our website or to post content to our website;
- agree to receive an online newsletter or other information or material from us;
- register for a sweepstakes, contest, or other promotion;
- register to join a club;
- participate in a survey, a consumer research panel, or similar type of activity;
or
- ask to receive an online newsletter or other information or material from us; or
- otherwise participate in features of our website that ask for personal information.
- If you purchase or otherwise request a product, publication, or promotional offering
from us or take advantage of a rebate or similar offer, you may be required to provide
your contact and/or payment information (such as a credit card number) in order
for us to process your request.
Your participation in any of these activities (and therefore your provision of personally
identifiable information) is entirely voluntary. We may use the information you
provide to respond to your questions or comments, to administer our promotions and
websites, to fulfill your request, subscription, or order, to provide you with a
customized interactive experience, or to otherwise provide or improve our products
and services.
We will not send you any online newsletter or similar e-mail marketing communication
unless you opt in or expressly ask to receive such a communication from us. And
if you do choose to receive any such e-mail communication from us, you will always
have the opportunity to “unsubscribe” from receiving the e-mail at any time.
When we might provide other parties with your personal information
If you give us your explicit consent to do so, we may share your personal information
with other marketers at unaffiliated companies. If you do not affirmatively consent
to this, we will not share your information with such other marketers.
We may provide your personal information to third parties who provide services on
our behalf. These parties may use the information solely in conjunction with the
specific services they provide for us (e.g., fulfillment of an order, responding
to your question or comment, providing a sweepstakes prize, deployment of a consumer
survey, investigation of a complaint, etc.).
Some of these third parties may be involved in administering or supplementing our
databases and will need to have access to the information in order to do so. For
example, we may retain a third party to verify the accuracy of information within
our databases or to gather additional information about individuals within our databases
from commercially available sources.
We reserve the right to transfer any information we have about you in the event
that we sell or transfer all or a portion of our business or assets to a third party.
We also reserve the right to share information within General Mills amongst our
various businesses.
We reserve the right to disclose any personal information as needed if such information
is requested by law enforcement agencies or if we are required to do so by law,
regulation, subpoena, court order, or by a government entity. We also may disclose
personal information to third parties if we have reason to believe that disclosing
such information is necessary to conduct investigations of possible breaches of
law or legal rights, to cooperate in any legal investigation, or to identify, contact,
or bring legal action against someone who may be violating the terms of use of our
website or any other terms applicable to any activity or feature of our website.
Personal information we may receive from third-party social-networking services
If you choose to access or make use of third-party social-networking services (such
as Facebook or Twitter), we may receive personal information about you that you
have made available to those services, including information about your contacts
on those services. For example, some social-networking services allow you to push
content from our website to your contacts or to pull information about your contacts
so you can connect with them on our website. Some social-networking services also
will facilitate your registration for our website or enhance or personalize your
experience on our website. Your decision to use a social-networking service will
always be voluntary. However, you should make sure you are comfortable with the
information your third-party social-networking services may make available to our
website by visiting those services’ privacy policies. Any personal information we
receive through third-party social-networking services may be used as described
above
Security for credit card data and transaction information
At General Mills, we are committed to keeping your online transactions safe and
secure. In order to reasonably assure the privacy and security of your credit card
and other personal data when making an order, we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
technology. SSL uses encryption technology to create a secure connection between
your computer and ours. We have also put procedures in place to safeguard the information/data
we collect from you. We cannot absolutely guarantee the security of any information
you provide online; you provide it at your own risk.
Links to other sites
Our website may contain links to the websites of our subsidiaries and affiliates,
and to websites that are owned and operated by third parties. These other websites
may have their own privacy policies and are not be governed by this Privacy Policy.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of websites owned
and operated by any such third parties. Other websites may collect and treat information
collected differently, so we encourage you to carefully read and review the privacy
policy for each website you visit.
User-generated content and public profile features
This website may, from time to time, contain interactive areas where website users
might submit comments or other content (including information about the user that
might be displayed in the user’s public profile within an online community) that
may be posted on the website or otherwise published. Users who do this should be
aware that when they voluntarily disclose personally identifiable information (e.g.,
name, e-mail address, etc.) in content submitted for posting or publication, the
information can be read and used by others. This may result in unsolicited messages
from other posters or parties. We make no representations and undertake no obligations
as to the security or use of information you voluntarily include when submitting
content.
Send-to-a-friend tools
This website may, from time to time, include a send-to-a-friend application that
makes it easy for you to forward information or materials from our website to friends
or family by e-mail. In order to address your e-mail message, the application may
ask you to input the recipient’s e-mail address and/or similar information (including
your e-mail address). This information is only used by the application to address
your message so that it can be properly sent. General Mills does not retain any
of this information for any purpose.
Children's privacy
This website is not directed to children and we will not request any information
from children under 13 at this website. General Mills does have other websites that
are geared in whole or in part to a child audience. Our commitment to the privacy
of children is described more fully in the privacy policies of those websites. General
Mills and its affiliated companies take special care to protect the privacy of children
under the age of 13. We also recommend that parents monitor their children’s Internet
activities and learn and employ software or other tools which can help their children
enjoy the fun and entertainment of an on-line experience without compromising their
personal safety or allowing them to use the Internet in a manner inconsistent with
their parents’ preferences.
Changes in our online privacy policy
We reserve the right to change or replace this Privacy Policy at our sole discretion
at any time. Please check back from time to time to ensure that you are aware of
any updates or changes in this Privacy Policy. Unless stated otherwise, our current
Privacy Policy applies to all information gathered via this website.
Your consent to the terms of this privacy policy
By using this website, you signify your assent to all of the terms of this Privacy
Policy and this website’s Terms of Use. If you do not agree with any term of this
Privacy Policy or our Terms of Use, please do not use this website or submit any
personally identifiable information.
How you can access or correct your information
You can request to access, review, correct, update or have your personally identifiable
information deleted from our database by sending an email to corporate.response@generalmills.com.
To protect your privacy and security we will also take reasonable steps to verify
your identity before granting access or making corrections.
How to contact us
Should you have any questions or concerns about this General Mills Privacy Policy
or the collection of information, please email corporate.response@generalmills.com.