Privacy and Cookie Policy

1. Introduction
This policy covers the Pearl River Tea's use of any personal information which Pearl River Tea may collect when you use a Pearl River Tea site or product. The policy also gives you information about cookies; Pearl River Tea and third parties' use of cookies; and how you may reject such cookies. From time to time, you may be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address) in order to receive or use services on our website or purchase our products. Such services may include newsletters, free samples, competitions, etc.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Pearl River Tea and it’s service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. When using your personal information Pearl River Tea will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

Pearl River Tea makes a commitment to maintaining the privacy of our customers. Since interacting with our website requires collecting information from our customers, this privacy policy was created to explain our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you and inform you about the information we need and how the information will be used. All information given to Pearl River Tea is for internal use only. Your name, contact and other information will be used for order confirmation, newsletters, and business correspondence and, if required, credit card information will be used solely to process an order. Pearl River Tea will not release, sell, or pass along any personal information to any outside party for any reason.

2. Visitor Information
During the course of any visit to this site, the pages you see, along with a short text file called a 'cookie', may be downloaded to your computer. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Information supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better online user experience and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to New Product or Support pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight New Product or Support data on your second and subsequent visits.

3. What is a cookie?
A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows. Cookies record information about your online preferences. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the Pearl River Teacorp.com features. Each browser is different, so check the 'Help' menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

Cookies created by Pearl River Tea™ websites do not retrieve any personal information not expressly given by you. If you have set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse Pearl River Tea.com anonymously until such time as you wish to register for Pearl River Tea.com services. For further information on cookies please visit www.aboutcookies.org

4. Use and storage of your personal information
When you supply any personal information to Pearl River Tea (e.g. for competitions, newsletters or product orders) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else.

In general, any information you provide to Pearl River Tea will only be used within Pearl River Tea and by its agents and service providers. Generally, your information will only be disclosed where we are obliged by law. However, if you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to Pearl River Tea or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on Pearl River Tea.com, Pearl River Tea can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school, e-mail/Internet provider and law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, if you request that it be removed. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Pearl River Tea may also use your information to contact you for 'service administration purposes', this means that Pearl River Tea may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance or for some promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new products or services from Pearl River Tea.

5. Access to your personal information
If you reside within the United Kingdom, you have the right to request a copy of the personal information Pearl River Tea™ holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We reserve the right to charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer, The Pearl River Tea Company, PO Box 42016, London, E5 9SW. (Email: dataprotection@pearlrivertea.com).

6. Users 16 and under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to Pearl River Tea. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.