n this age of diminished privacy, where personal information given in confidence for one purpose is often treated as a marketing opportunity for unrelated goods and services, we remain old-fashioned. Because we too are subjected to a constant stream of unsolicited contacts from telemarketers, e-mail spammers and postal mass mailers, we understand that the abuse of personal information does not help us develop the relationships we seek with our clients. Therefore, we make the following pledge to our clients and to all others who contact us:

Collection of Personal Information

There is less risk that personal information will be misused if less is collected. When you contact us for any reason, we ask only for the information we need to respond to you. The Contact Form found on our Orders & Inquiries Page, which can be used to purchase or inquire about our books, or to add your name to our catalogue or e-mail lists, contains no required fields. You simply fill in the information you wish to give us. However, please note that we may not be able to respond to you if you do not give us enough information (for example, a shipping address with your order).

Dissemination of Personal Information

We use the information we do obtain from you to respond to your orders and requests (for example, we give your name and shipping address to a delivery service when we ship a book to you). Otherwise, that information remains in our files and we do not sell, exchange or disseminate it to anyone outside of Bibliotreks unless we are required to release it by law. Neither do we have any "affiliates" with whom we share the information. We keep the identities of our clients in strictest confidence and do not disclose them to anyone without the client's prior permission or unless required to do so by law.

Mailing Lists

Unlike many merchants who collect your contact information, then require you to "opt out" to be removed from their mailing lists, we maintain a catalogue mailing list and an e-mail distribution list which are strictly "opt-in." You will not be placed on either list unless you request that we do so by using the Contact Form found on our Orders & Inquiries Page, or you have indicated in some affirmative manner (for example, by signing the Guest Book we use at book shows) that you would like to receive information about our books. We also reserve the right not to fill a request to be added to our mailing list or e-mail distribution list if, in our judgment, the request is inappropriate.

Credit Cards

At this time, for your protection and ours, we do not accept payment by credit cards for purchases of our books. In our view, credit cards were not originally intended to be used in absentee transactions, and the current states of technology and commerce do not adequately address the risks to either of us in accepting credit cards (particularly online) when you are not present. Besides, we don't like paying the transaction fees any more than you like paying the outrageous rates of interest. In the future, we may accept payment by credit cards when we are satisfied that your credit card information can be transmitted to us with absolute security and that we can confirm we are dealing with you or someone who is authorized to use your credit card. Until then, as stated on our Terms of Sale Page, we accept payment by check, money order or wire transfer and we will hold a book for a reasonable time pending receipt of payment if you have indicated your intention to purchase it.

Cookies, Active X, Etc.

We do not use Cookies, Active X Controls or any other means to surreptitiously obtain your identity or to track your movements on our web site. We do obtain data from our web site host which tells us the last page each browser visited before coming to our web site, so we can evaluate the usefulness of search engine registrations, advertising and links from other web sites, but none of that information is personally identifiable.

Conclusion

Compare our Privacy Policy with those of other online merchants, your bank or your credit card issuer. You won't find the same loopholes, back doors, exceptions or legalese here. It's actually very simple - we treat the personal information you give us in the same way we want ours to be treated. Now, if any of you can recommend a credit card issuer who will do that for us, we would certainly like to hear from you.