PRIVACY POLICY
Last Updated: April 20, 2023
This Privacy Policy (“Policy”) describes how Guitar Center (“Guitar Center,” “we” or “us”) collects, uses, and discloses information related to our customers and prospective customers, visitors to Guitar Center retail stores, and users of our websites and mobile applications, as well as associated services (collectively, the “Services”). Your use of our Sites is subject to the Guitar Center Terms of Use, available at www.guitarcenter.com/pages/terms-of-use, which includes applicable terms governing limitations on liability and the resolution of disputes.
Please see the Your Rights and Choices section below for a description of the choices we provide and the rights you have regarding your personal information, as well the Additional Privacy Information for Certain Jurisdictions section, which includes information about privacy rights for residents of certain states. If you are a California resident, please be sure to review the Additional Information for California Residents section below for important information about the categories of personal information we collect and disclose and your California privacy rights.
Scope
This Policy applies to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information related to:
- Users of our website www.g.com, as well as any mobile applications, other websites, applications and online services that display or link to this Policy (collectively, the “Site”);
- Customers and prospective customers, including individuals who purchase our products through affiliate and other third party retailers;
- Visitors to Guitar Center stores (each, a “Store”); and
- Individuals who otherwise interact or communicate with us related to our Services.
Personal Information. In general, personal information includes any information that identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated, linked or linkable with a particular individual.
Not Covered by this Notice. This Privacy Policy does not apply to job applicants or to Guitar Center employees and non-employee workers, whose personal information is subject to different privacy notices.
By disclosing your personal information to us, interacting with us or using our Services, you understand and agree that Guitar Center may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy. If required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent to our collection, use, transfer and disclosure of your personal information.
Collection of Personal Information
The personal information we collect varies depending upon the nature of the Services provided or used and our interactions with individuals.
Sources of Personal Information. We may collect personal information about individuals:
- Directly from you: such as when you create an online account with us, make a purchase, participate in contests and promotions we offer, attend our events, or register to receive marketing and other communications from us, or contact us for customer support purposes.
- From third parties: such as affiliate and other third party retailers that sell our products, public records, third party providers of services to us (e.g., fraud detection, identity verification and security), consumer data resellers, social networks, joint marketing partners and affiliate companies.
- Related to your use of our Services: including information we collect automatically when you use our Sites, visit a Store, or interact with us, or information we derive about you and your preferences or interests based on the personal information we collect and our interactions with you.
Information We Collect From You. We may collect personal information from you related to:
- Registration, accounts and profiles: when you register for an account with we collect your name and email and password; we may also collect additional information such as your preferences, location and payment details.
- Purchases, orders and payments: if you make a purchase, submit and order, return items, or sign up for certain Services, we collect information in order to process your payment, order or refund, fulfill your or order, including name, billing and shipping address and details, payment type, as well as credit card number or other payment account details (e.g., PayPal).
- Marketing, surveys and events: if you sign up to receive news, updates, offers and other marketing communications from us, we may collect name, contact information about your preferences. We may also collect name, age, email address, and other information when you participate in contests, sweepstakes, events or activities offered by us (collectively, “events”) or submit surveys or feedback to us.
- Your communications and requests: when you email us, call us, or otherwise send us communications, we collect and maintain a record of your contact details, communications and our responses.
- User content: if you post content or submit reviews and comments to us (“User Content”), we may maintain a record of your User Content, including the location, date and time of submission.
- Mobile applications: if you use our mobile applications, we collect information on and/or through these mobile applications, which may include (with your permission) access to your location, camera, photos and contacts, as well as permission to send you push notifications.
Information We Collect from Third Parties. We may collect personal information about you from third party sources (which may be combined other personal information we have collected about you), such as:
- Third party retailers: if you purchase our products from a third-party retailer, we receive information from that third party for order processing and fulfilment, returns and refunds processing, warranty and related purposes, which may include name, contact information, shipping and other order details.
- Social media: if you choose to link, create, or log in to your Services account with a social media service (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.), we collect your permission to access certain information from your profile with that social media service. If you post or if you engage with a separate social media service or interact with us on our page with any social media service, we may collect personal information about you related to those interactions.
- Other: we may obtain personal information, such as demographic information or updated contact details, from third parties; we may also collect information from public records.
Information We Collect or Derive About You. We may collect or derive personal information about you, your use of our Sites and Apps, visits to our Stores, or other interactions with us.
- Sites and Apps: We and our third party providers may use cookies, pixels, tags, log-files, and other technologies to collect information about a user from their browser or device, including, without limitation, your browser type, device type, operating system, software version, phone model, phone operating system, platform-dependent information, requested document, referring URL, date and time of your visit, clickstream data (e.g. about the pages you view, links you click and date and time stamps for your activities on our Sites) and the IP address associated with your transactions in the system. This information that we collect automatically may be linked with other personal information we have collected. For more information, see the Cookies and Tracking section below.
- Stores: In addition, when you visit a Store, we may collect personal information about you automatically through CCTV footage. If you contact us by phone, we may record our calls with you for quality, training and protection purposes and to increase our understanding of our customers and for other research and analytical purposes.
- Audiovisual recordings of lessons: We record all of our lessons for the safety and protection of our students and instructors, to monitor for quality control, and to assist us in the defense of any legal claims.
- Profile and Interests: we may create profiles relating to you in order to show you the content that we think you might be interested in and reach you with more relevant ads and marketing.
Use of Personal Information
Guitar Center may use personal information collected from you and other information collected automatically for a variety of purposes, including, without limitation, to:
- Providing support and services: including to provide our Services, operate our Sites, Apps and online services, and interact with you in our Stores; to communicate with you about your access to and use of our Services; to respond to your inquiries; to provide troubleshooting, fulfill your orders and requests, process your payments and provide technical support; and for other customer service and support purposes.
- Analyzing and improving our business: including to better understand how users access and use our Services and Sites, to evaluate and improve our Sites, Services and business operations, and to develop new features, offerings and services; to conduct surveys and other evaluations (such as customer satisfaction surveys); to monitor consumer interest in our products and Services; to troubleshoot problems that may arise on the Sites; to improve the accuracy of our customer database; to increase our understanding of our customer database; to increase our understanding of our customers; and for other research and analytical purposes.
- Personalizing content and experiences: including to tailor content we send or display on our Sites and other Services; to offer location customization and personalized help and instructions; and to otherwise personalize your experiences. To assist in these purposes, as well as the other purposes identified in this Policy, at certain times, we create a profile relating to you in order to show you the content that we think you might be interested in and to display the content according to your preferences.
- Advertising, marketing and promotional purposes: including to reach you with more relevant ads and to evaluate, measure and improve the effectiveness of our ad campaigns; to send you newsletters, offers or other information we think may interest you; to contact you about our Services, products, or other information we think may interest you; to identify potential new customers; and to administer promotions, sweepstakes, contests or other special promotions.
- Securing and protecting our business: including to protect and secure our business operations, assets, Services, network and information and technology resources; to investigate, prevent, detect and take action regarding fraud, unauthorized access, situations involving potential threats to the rights or safety of any person or third party, or other unauthorized activities or misconduct. With regard to audiovisual recordings of online lessons, we use the recordings for the safety and protection of students and teachers and quality monitoring purposes, and to defend any legal rights.
- Defending our legal rights: including to manage and respond to actual and potential legal disputes and claims, and to otherwise establish, defend or protect our rights or interests, including in the context of anticipated or actual litigation with third parties.
- Auditing, reporting, corporate governance, and internal operations: including relating to financial, tax and accounting audits; audits and assessments of our operations, privacy, security and financial controls, risk, and compliance with legal obligations; our general business, accounting, record keeping and legal functions; and related to any actual or contemplated merger, acquisition, asset sale or transfer, financing, bankruptcy or restructuring of all or part of our business.
- Complying with legal obligations: including to comply with the law, our legal obligations and legal process, such warrants, subpoenas, court orders, and regulatory or law enforcement requests.
Aggregate and De-identified Data. We may de-identify information and create anonymous and aggregated data sets and reports to assess, improve and develop our business, products and services, prepare benchmarking reports on our industry and for other research, marketing and analytics purposes.
Disclosure of Personal Information
We may share or disclose the personal information we collect as follows:
- Service providers: We may disclose personal information with third-party service providers who use this information to perform services for us, such as hosting providers, auditors, advisors, consultants, customer service and/or support providers.
- Third parties: We may share personal information with third parties that provide advertising, campaign measurement, online and/or mobile analytics, and related services. These third parties may receive or access browsing and/or other data about your use of the Services, in order to help us better reach individuals with relevant ads and/or measure our ad campaigns, and/or to better understand how individuals interact with our Sites and Services overtime and across devices. We may also transfer and/or sell personal information we collect and/or join together with other businesses to bring selected opportunities to customers or potential customers.
- Subsidiaries and affiliates: We may share your personal information with our affiliated companies (i.e., our parent company and other companies under common ownership, control or management with us); they may use such personal information for the purposes set out in this Policy.
- Legal compliance: We may be required to share personal information in response to a valid court order, subpoena, government investigation, or as otherwise required by law. We also reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we, in good faith, believe to be unlawful. In addition, we may share certain personal information when we believe that doing so is reasonably necessary to protect the rights, property and safety of our company and/or others.
- Business transfers: We may disclose and/or transfer personal information as part of any actual or contemplated merger, sale, transfer of assets, acquisition, financing and/or restructuring of all or part of our business, bankruptcy or similar event, including related to due diligence conducted prior to such event where permitted by law.
- Protect our rights: We may disclose personal information where we believe it necessary to respond to claims asserted against us, to enforce or administer our agreements and terms, for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation and/or to protect the rights, property or safety of Guitar Center or our affiliates, clients, customers and/or others. With regard to audiovisual recordings of online lessons, the recordings are accessible only by approved Guitar Center employee administrators and may be shared with legal counsel to protect our rights.
Aggregated and De-identified Data. We may share aggregate or de-identified information with third parties for research, marketing, advertising, analytics and/or other purposes.