Privacy Policy
We know that your privacy is very important to you. We make it our business for it to be as important to us. We aim to be as clear as possible about how and why we use information about you on this website. If your questions are not fully answered by the information below, please contact us. We’ll be happy to help.
In order to make this information easier to read, we have organised it into a series of headings. Simply scroll through the page for full details.

Guiding Principles
Compliance with the Data Protection Act 1998 underlies all of our personal information privacy practices. We also have a set of guiding principles which govern how we use the information that we collect about you on this website. These principles are:

We aim to continuously improve our website for you. We use information about you to help us to do this.

We give you control over the information that we hold about you, who is allowed to see it and how it is used.

We will not use your information for any other reason unless you specifically allow us to by choosing to select the opt in boxes on our registration form.

We take all reasonable care to safeguard your information through security policies and secure business processes.

Collect information

To provide you with online services. Each service has different information requirements. Therefore the information we need, and what it is needed for, can differ. For full details please refer to the terms and conditions for each service.

To enhance or improve your experience on our website. When you indicate your preferences through our registration forms or through your use of our site, we will use this information to personalise the site to better meet your needs.

To provide you with information about products and services that we, or third parties we have carefully selected, believe will be of interest to you. We will only do this with your consent. You give us your consent by choosing to opt in on the registration form. You can change your mind and remove or add your consent at any time through the Edit your profile page.

To keep your information secure. To minimise the risk of unauthorised access to your information, we use some of your information to authenticate you when using the website and our customer service helpdesk.

About you
We collect information from you in three ways:

Directly from you. Sometimes we'll ask you for information about yourself, for example in our registration form or when you make a purchase on our website.

From third parties. We may ask for information about you from third parties, for example when we get authorisation for a payment you make using a credit or debit card

From what you do on our site. This can show us for example which products you use most and least. We will use this information to personalise the site to better meet your needs The information we collect through our website will be used within the Flamingo Contracts group of companies. Exactly who sees your information depends on the context in which you provided it and whether or not you have opted in on the registration form. You can change your mind about the opt ins at any time through the Edit your profile page.
Sometimes we'll share your information with carefully selected third parties outside the Flamingo Contracts group. We may do this for the following reasons:

To provide you with a service. Some of our services are provided in conjunction with our business partners, and we'll need to disclose your information to them to provide you with the services. We make it clear in the terms and conditions for each service whether information will be passed to third parties or not.

To provide you with information about special promotions and offers. If you have given your consent by choosing to opt in, we may share some of your information with carefully selected third parties so that they can provide you with information about products and services that may be of interest to you.

To protect the Flamingo Contracts group or others. We may share your information with third parties when we believe it is necessary to comply with the law or protect our or another person’s; rights, property, or safety. This includes exchanging information with third parties to protect against fraud and reduce payment risks. We will only deal with third parties that we trust to act in our customers’ best interests and who treat our customers’ information with the same stringent controls that we apply ourselves.

How long we keep your information collected through our website depends on the context in which you provided it and whether or not you have opted out on the registration form. You can change your mind about the opt-ins at any time through the Edit your profile page.

In particular:

We will keep your information that's necessary for us to provide you with a service you have requested or purchased through this website for as long as it takes us to provide that service

We will keep your contact details for as long as we have your consent to send you marketing information and/or pass your contact details to third parties

We will keep records of any transactions you enter into on this website for up to six years. This is so that we can respond to any complaints or disputes that arise in that period

We will keep other information about you if it is necessary for us to do so to comply with the law
We aim to give you control over the information we hold about you. You can see the information you have provided to us through the website by accessing the Edit your profile page. You can also use this page to change or delete this information including the consents you have given us through the opt in process.
You can be deleted from this website's databases by sending an email to our website operations team at site [at] blinds-shop.com. Please type delete in the subject box. This will not delete information held about you on other Flamingo Contracts Ltd's group databases that was not provided through this website, or on third party databases.
Please note, we can only delete information about you that we don’t need to hold for legal reasons. (i.e. the type of information described in the last two bullet points under “How long do we keep your information?”).

You can allow us to provide you with information about products and services that we, or third parties we have carefully selected, believe will be of interest to you. We will only do this with your consent. You give us your consent by choosing to opt in on your registration form. You can change your mind and remove or add your consent at any time through the Edit your profile page.
Please note:

Selecting to opt out on this website will not prevent you from receiving information about specific services you have expressed an interest in. You can opt out through registration or the 'Edit your profile' page.

There are some opt ins on this website that are specific to individual services. These are independent of the registration opt out and currently cannot be changed through the 'Edit your profile page'. Please also note that the opt ins on this website cover emails, text and picture messaging and all other forms of electronic communication. At the moment we do not personalise the site based on your previous activity. However, we expect to introduce this feature later.

We've implemented technology and security policies, rules and measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Here are some of the ways we protect your information:

Access to our online services is protected by something called SSL 128 bit session encryption. Encryption is the process through which sensitive information is scrambled before it is transmitted so that it remains private even if it is intercepted. 128-bit encryption is the strongest encryption currently used commercially. However, unless your Internet browser supports 128-bit encryption you will not be able to take advantage of this level of security.

Off-line, your information is kept securely in our databases and offices. We only allow our employees and trusted contractors access to your information, and then only if they need it for a specific authorised task. The computers on which we store your information are kept in a secure environment.

We do not store payment card details from this website
We will take all reasonable steps to protect your information, but data can never be guaranteed 100% secure. Please note that we will not be liable for any breach of security unless we have been negligent.

As you would expect of us, we will take all reasonable measures to ensure that the information you provide through our website is held and managed securely. However, there is a lot that you can do to help keep your information safe - not just on our website, but whenever you provide information online.
Here are some simple ways you can improve the security of your information:
Use a strong password
Read our advice on choosing a strong password. This will help you choose a password that will be difficult for other people to guess but easy for you to remember.
Use a secure password hint
Do not make your password hint the same as your password! Your password hint should not give away your password to someone you know well, for example 'my road' or 'my dog's name'.
Keep your password private and secure
Your password is a key to your personal information and online identity. Don't tell anyone your password or write it down. If you are concerned that somebody else knows your password, you can change it on our website by going to the Edit your profile page. We recommend that you change your password from time to time.
Use a secure browser
Encryption is the process through which sensitive information is scrambled before it is transmitted so that it remains private even if it is intercepted. 128-bit encryption is the strongest encryption currently available, but not all browser versions support it.
Two popular browsers that support 128-bit encryption are:

Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.5 and later versions

Netscape Navigator version 6 and later versions

Security upgrades for some older browser versions are available. We recommend that you contact your preferred browser provider for further information.

Cookies
A cookie is a small text file that is saved to the hard drive of your computer when you use a website.
Our website uses both persistent and session cookies. Persistent cookies are cookies that stay on your computer permanently until you manually delete them. Session cookies delete themselves automatically when you leave a website and go to another one or shut down your browser.
The table below explains the cookies our website uses and what they do.
Of these cookies only the Website Analytic cookie can be deactivated through our website. For the other cookies you can change the preferences on your browser so that your computer doesn't accept cookies from our website or allow them to be updated. Alternatively you can make your browser give you an accept or reject option each time our website tries to create or update a cookie on your computer. Please note:

Neither of these options will remove cookies that have already been placed on your computer or prevent them from being read. To delete existing cookies you will need to search your hard drive for the relevant cookie files and delete them. But please note - a deleted cookie will often be replaced the next time you visit the website that put it there.

If your browser is set up to reject application session cookies, some applications on our website will not work.

For more information about cookies, including how to change your browser settings and find and delete cookies on your hard drive, please visit www.aboutcookies.org.
Website analytics
The first time you visit our website a Website Analytic cookie will be saved on your computer. Some pages of our website have web beacons - or tags - coded into them, and when you visit those pages, enter into certain transactions, the Website Analytic cookie will record that you have done so. Over time the cookie will build up a history of the pages you visit and the applications you use on our website.
This information, together with similar information from other users, helps us learn things like what kinds of customers our website attracts, which of our products and applications most interest our customers, and what kinds of offers our customers like to see (called website analytics). This in turn helps us make our website more effective and useful.
The information in the Website Analytic cookie is anonymous. It's also meaningless to anyone but us. Nobody sees the information except us.
Please note that the opt-out will only work for the computer and browser you are using when you opt-out. If you use more than one computer or browser you will have to opt-out from each of them.

Data Protection
Flamingo Contracts Ltd. group, through Blinds-Shop.com, complies with the Data Protection Act 1998. This privacy policy meets the standards and guidelines contained in the Act.

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. If we make any changes we'll post an announcement on this website. This privacy policy was last updated on 30 March 2005.