Privacy Policy

Virgin Mobile USA Privacy Policy

At Virgin Mobile USA, LP (“Virgin Mobile,” or “we,” “us,” “our”) we understand that privacy is important, and we are strongly committed to protecting the privacy of our customers and visitors to our websites at www.virginmobileusa.com, www.virginmobileusarecycle.com, http://studiov.virginmobileusa.com, www.homelessyouthamongus.com, www.regenerationgallery.com and www.vmcustomerpulse.com(collectively, “our websites”).

The following information is designed to help you better understand the information we gather from our websites, how we handle the information once we gather it, whether we disclose it to anyone, and the choices you have regarding our use of, and your ability to correct the information. Please note that this Privacy Policy applies only to our websites and not to other companies’ or organizations’ services or websites to which we may link, even if they market our products or use the Virgin Mobile name. By visiting these websites or using the services provided there, you accept the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

NOTE: Some of our websites and services may involve features or practices not common to our other websites or services. You should carefully read this entire policy to understand the provisions applicable to the websites and services you are using.

What Information Do We Collect?
Our primary goal in collecting personal information is to provide you with a smooth, efficient and customized experience. This allows us to provide features that most likely meet your needs, and to customize our service to make your experience easier.

Aggregate Data
We gather certain usage information like the number and frequency of visitors to our websites. This information may include which URL you just came from, which URL you next go to, what browser you are using, and your IP address. We use such data only in the aggregate. This collective data help us determine how much our customers use parts of our websites, and do internal research on our customers’ demographics, interests, and behavior to better understand and serve you.

This type of aggregated, non-personally identifiable information may also be collected by third parties that support our services. In addition, we aggregate data and disclose such information in a non-personally identifiable manner to advertisers and other third parties for marketing and promotional purposes.

Personally Identifiable Information
We also request information about you. This may include your name, address, phone number, birth date, gender, occupation, credit card information, and email address (collectively "personally identifiable information"). Our business is to provide mobile phone service, so we will always maintain a mobile phone number for each account. We seek such information to provide products and/or services that more closely reflect your preferences. In addition, we may use such personally identifiable information to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to analyze website usage, improve our content and product offerings, and customize our website’s content, layout and services.

Account Personal Identification Number
To activate and manage your account and obtain access to certain services, we require you to create and provide a secret code (your "Account PIN"). When creating an Account PIN, you must provide accurate and complete information to Virgin Mobile. You are entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Account PIN and are solely responsible for any activity conducted using your Account PIN. You agree not to use the account, customer name, or Account PIN of another customer at any time unless that customer is under 18 and you are the parent or guardian of that customer.

How Do We Use Your Information?
Unless you specifically decline, we may use personally identifiable information to contact you and deliver information to you via your home phone, address, email, voice or text messages on your mobile phone if you are a Virgin Mobile customer. We may also share personally identifiable information with certain third parties so that these third parties can share information with you about new products, services and promotions that we believe will interest you. By accepting this Privacy Policy or by purchasing or using our products or our jointly-branded products, you expressly agree to such usage and sharing of information. In addition, Virgin Mobile may use non-personally identifiable information in aggregate form for demographic marketing purposes, and may disclose this information to third parties, including advertisers.

In certain special circumstances, we may contact Virgin Mobile customers to deliver service-oriented messages, even if these customers have asked that we not contact them about special airtime events or promotions. These messages will be limited and only for that purpose.

We may use third party service providers to facilitate our services, and therefore, we may provide some of your personally identifiable information directly to them. In addition, we employ other companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf. Some examples include fulfilling orders, providing mobile content, delivering packages, sending postal mail and email, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, providing marketing assistance, processing credit card payments and providing customer service. These service providers have access to personally identifiable information and may use it as needed to perform their functions, but may not use it for any other purpose, except that they may aggregate your personally identifiable information with similar information from other customers in a manner that does not personally identify you.

Virgin Mobile cooperates with law enforcement inquiries, as well as other third parties, to enforce laws, such as protecting intellectual property rights and preventing fraud. We can (and you authorize us to) disclose any information about you to law enforcement or other government officials as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate, to respond to claims or legal process, to protect the property of Virgin Mobile or the safety of its employees or others, to investigate fraud, intellectual property infringements, or other activity that is or may be illegal or expose us or you to liability.

It is possible that Virgin Mobile or its partners could be acquired by or merged with another business entity. Should such a combination occur, you should expect that Virgin Mobile or its partners will share some or all of your personally identifiable information to continue to provide service. You will receive notice of such event (to the extent that it occurs), and we will request that the new combined entity follow the practices disclosed in this Privacy Policy or notify you of any changes

What Are Your Choices About Your Privacy?

• If you are a Virgin Mobile customer, you may change the personal information you have elected to share with us. You also have choices in the types of communications you wish to receive from us. When you activated your phone, your notification preferences were set to receive notices about special offers, events and promotions from Virgin Mobile and special offers from our partners. To change these notification settings, or to change any of your personal information, click here to log in to your Virgin Mobile account and go to the “My Account” page (then select Account Info and then Contact Info).

What About Cookies?
"Cookies" are small files placed on your hard drive; each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser preferences allow it. You can configure your browser to accept all cookies, reject all cookies, or notify you when a cookie is sent. (Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.) You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although in that case you may not be able to use certain features on our websites and you may be required to re-enter your Account PIN more frequently during a session. In addition, a number of companies offer utilities designed to help you visit websites anonymously.

Cookies assist us in providing customized services and can also help us provide information that is targeted to your interests. Virgin Mobile uses cookies to tell us how and when pages in our websites are visited, and by how many people. Virgin Mobile also uses cookies to remember you when you "sign in" to our websites, so that we can provide you with customized content, such as your balance, VirginXL and VirginXtras targeted specifically for your phone, the Sugar Mama Service (see below), and other helpful services. Virgin Mobile cookies do not combine information collected through cookies with other personally identifiable information. Virgin Mobile uses two kinds of cookies. Each time you log on to the website, Virgin Mobile uses a "session cookie," to help us to remember you until the earlier of approximately 30 minutes or the closing of your browser and to help make sure that you remain logged in to our website. Session cookies are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session. We also use "persistent cookies," which enable us to remember what is in your shopping cart for approximately two hours and to aggregate certain non-personally identifiable usage data in ways that help us improve our services. Additionally, you may encounter cookies or other similar devices on our websites that are placed by third parties. We do not control the use of cookies by third parties, including third party websites to which we may link.

We use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. ("Google"), which uses cookies to help analyze how customers use our websites. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) is transmitted to and stored by Google. Google uses this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our websites, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and Internet usage. Google may transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or to third parties that process information on Google’s behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.

What Is Our Policy Toward Children?
Virgin Mobile is concerned about the safety and privacy of children who use the Internet. Consistent with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, we will never knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 13 without prior verifiable parental consent and may limit participation in certain services we provide to individuals over 13 years of age. At various places on our websites, we may request that customers provide a year of birth. If a child under 13 responds to that request, we will direct him or her to have a parent or guardian call a live customer care agent at 1-888-322-1122, where a parent will be permitted to purchase a Virgin Mobile phone, establish an account and activate the phone on behalf of a child under 13. In these circumstances, activation can be made by only phone with a live customer care agent, and the account must be in the parent’s name.

If we become aware that a child under 13 has or has attempted to provide us with personally identifiable information, we will use our best efforts to remove such information from our files. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has done this, he or she should contact the following customer care agent to remove this information:

What Is Our Policy Regarding Location-Based Information?
Virgin Mobile does not collect, monitor, track, or disclose information concerning your physical location or the location of your handset, except to provide certain services in emergency situations. Any information that we collect, monitor, or track regarding your physical location or the location of your handset will be treated as confidential and is retained only for the period necessary to provide emergency services or respond to a specific request.

By using our service, you consent to have us electronically collect, monitor, track, and disclose your physical location and the location of your handset and to provide this information to the following individuals in the following circumstances:

1. Your immediate family member or legal guardian in an emergency situation involving serious physical harm;
2. Public safety and emergency services personnel;
3. Providers of information or database management services to assist with emergency services; or
4. Law enforcement personnel pursuant to an authorized subpoena or other legal requirement.

We will obtain your express consent prior to collecting, monitoring, tracking, or disclosing information regarding your physical location or the location of your handset in any instance other than those listed above.

What About Other Information Collectors?
Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information that we or our partners collect from you. To the extent that you disclose your information to other parties, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of it. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.

Is My Information Secure?
Virgin Mobile uses standard industry practices to safeguard the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information. Virgin Mobile treats data as an asset that must be protected against loss and unauthorized access. We employ many different security techniques to protect such data from unauthorized access by users inside and outside the company.

Unfortunately, perfect security does not exist on the Internet, and therefore, Virgin Mobile makes no representations or warranties with regard to the sufficiency of these security measures. Virgin Mobile shall not be responsible for any damages that result from a lapse in compliance with this Privacy Policy because of a security breach, technical malfunction or similar problem. Always be careful and responsible regarding your personal information.

We are not responsible for, and cannot control, the use by others of any information which you provide to them via our wireless services. Similarly, we cannot assume any responsibility for the content of any personal information or communication you receive from other customers through our wireless services.

What About the Sugar Mama Service?
Additional Information We Collect and How We Use Your Information
The Sugar Mama Service is wholly owned by Virgin Mobile and administered by Ultramercial LLC ("Ultramercial"). During your use of the Sugar Mama Service, in addition to collecting some of the types of information described above, Ultramercial will set one or more persistent cookies that collect information about your configuration and viewing habits during your use of the Sugar Mama Service. Such information is attributed only to a randomly generated unique identifier stored in the cookies. While Virgin Mobile will use the identifier to confirm that you have completed viewing commercials, and therefore have earned your reward, Ultramercial cannot connect your configuration and viewing habits to any of your personally identifiable information. Ultramercial will connect your personally identifiable information to your browser only under limited circumstances, for instance, to troubleshoot and resolve any problems you have with the Sugar Mama Service; however, Ultramercial will not use such information for any other purpose or share such information with advertisers or other third parties without your consent.

Occasionally, sponsors of the Sugar Mama Service will request personally identifiable information from you as part of an advertising campaign. Complying with such requests is entirely optional. Any information you elect to share is provided directly to the sponsor, not to Virgin Mobile, and is not otherwise used by Ultramercial.

If your Virgin Mobile account is terminated and/or cease using the Sugar Mama Service, the information you provided to Sugar Mama will not be used by Virgin Mobile or Ultramercial for any other purpose.

What Law Applies?
Personally identifiable information that is submitted to our websites will be collected, processed, stored, disclosed and disposed of in accordance with applicable U.S. law. If you are a non-U.S. customer, you acknowledge and agree that we may collect and use your personally identifiable information outside your resident jurisdiction.

In addition, such personally identifiable information may be stored on servers located outside your resident jurisdiction. U.S. law may not provide the degree of protection for your information that is available in other countries. BY PROVIDING US WITH YOUR INFORMATION, YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOUR HAVE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY, UNDERSTAND IT, AGREE TO ITS TERMS AND CONSENT TO THE TRANSFER OF SUCH INFORMATION OUTSIDE YOUR RESIDENT JURISDICTION. If you do not consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not use our website(s). /p>

Will This Privacy Policy Change?
Virgin Mobile may, from time to time, make changes to this policy based on your comments and our need to accurately reflect our legal obligations and our data collection and disclosure practices. If we make any substantial changes in the way we use your personal information, we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our website(s). By continuing to use our websites and services, you agree to be bound by the latest version of this policy, which may be viewed anytime by clicking on the "Privacy Policy" link at the foot of the Virgin Mobile website and our other websites or by calling 1-888-322-1122.

Want To Know More?
For questions or concerns about Virgin Mobile or www.virginmobileusa.com, please contact customer care at ourteam@virginmobileusa.com or call Virgin Mobile At Your Service at 1-888-322-1122 with any questions. Calls to Virgin Mobile At Your Service may be monitored for quality assurance.

For privacy-related questions about Sugar Mama: send email to sugarmamaprivacy@ultramercial.com.

© 2002-2008 Virgin Mobile USA, LP. All Rights Reserved.

Last Updated: February 2008