Wachovia Dealer Services - Internet Privacy

Our Privacy Statement explains how we protect the privacy of information about our consumer customers and manage it carefully when providing products and services. The following sections describe the Internet-specific privacy practices governing wachoviadealer.com and its use by consumers, and supplements our corporate Privacy Statement.

When you use our online products and services, we may collect technical information about your browser, contact information, and customer survey feedback.. We use this information to respond to your requests, personalize our online services and improve our site to make it more responsive to your needs. Refer to the topics below for more detail on the tools we use to better serve our customers’ needs.

When you visit our site, you do so anonymously unless you specifically choose to provide us with information that identifies you personally, for example through e-mails, applications for products or services or by accessing your online accounts. If you do provide us with personally identifiable information, that information will be protected by advanced security measures designed to preserve the confidentiality and security of your transactions. Visit our Security Statement for more information.

Cookies

You'll notice this term used across the Internet to describe bits of information that some Web sites create when you visit their sites and then store on your computer. A cookie is unique to the computer you are using and can only be read by the Web site that placed it on your desktop. Cookies are a basic way to identify the computer you happen to be using at the time, and do not identify you personally. They cannot be used to obtain data from your hard drive, your e-mail address or personal information stored on your computer. Cookies do not contain viruses.

How Wachovia Uses Cookies

We use cookies for various reasons - these are specified below:

To facilitate online transactions, we use session cookies. Session cookies are necessary if you want to login to Online Services, navigate between the different services, and transact using services such as Online Banking. Session cookies do not remain active after you log off the service, which requires their use. Session cookies are also automatically deleted whenever you close all open Web browser windows.
To help you navigate and interact with the content on our site more efficiently, we also use session cookies. For example, session cookies may save you from having to enter the same information twice during an online session. These cookies also help us keep track of how you arrived at certain content, so that we can adapt the presentation of subsequent content to ensure it is relevant to your situation.
To personalize your Web site experience, we may create cookies that help our site remember your preferences when you return at a later time and present customized products and services that may be of special interest to you. Unlike session cookies, which do not remain active after you log off a site, these cookies remain on your computer after you log off. You can delete these cookies from your computer at any time.
To evaluate our Web site, we may use cookies to facilitate online surveys or to track how visitors use our site, such as which pages are viewed the most or identify the most common navigation paths. This information is used to improve the content, usability and functionality of our Web site. Although these cookies remain on your computer after you log off, you may delete them from your computer at any time.
To evaluate the effectiveness of Wachovia advertising placed on our site or elsewhere on the Internet, we may use cookies, tracking tags, or other related tracking technology to track responses to our advertisements or "banner ads." When you click on the ad at another Web site, you may be taken to wachovia.com to obtain more information on the advertised product or service. The cookie or tracking technology used with the ad does not identify you personally or store any personally identifiable information but provides us with information such as the Web site where the ad was placed, which specific ad was in use at the time, and the most common navigation paths on our site from the ad. Although these cookies remain on your computer after you log off, you may delete them from your computer at any time.
Customer Protection - We also use cookies to enhance the risk analysis and fraud detection. We evaluate unique customer behavior to assist in alerting you when we notice suspicious activity.

Although we do not collect any personally identifiable information, or store personal information in cookies, we may contract with other companies to assist us in setting cookies or tracking technology for the purposes described above, and compiling and analyzing anonymous ad or Web site response information. These companies are prohibited by legal agreement from using the information they gather for their own purposes or from sharing this information with others.

No, you can disallow cookies by making the appropriate selection from your browser options to inform you when cookies are set or to prevent cookies from being set. You should understand, however, that cookies are required to login and navigate within the Online Services area. Therefore, if you set your browser options to disallow cookies, you may limit the functionality we can provide when you visit our site.

We respect the privacy of your children, and we comply with the practices established under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. We do not knowingly collect or retain personally identifiable information from consumers under the age of thirteen.

For more information about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), please visit the FTC Web site: ftc.gov

E-mail to Wachovia
When you send us an e-mail, we use your e-mail address to reply, and for a limited time we may store your e-mail address, your message, and our response for quality assurance purposes. We may also do this to meet legal and regulatory requirements. If we collect your e-mail address in this manner, we will not use it to notify you about Wachovia products and services unless you give us permission.

We often use e-mail to inform customers about products, services or product enhancements that may be of interest after you have given us permission. When you give us your e-mail address online, you will have an opportunity to tell us if you do not wish to receive these messages. You will also have the opportunity to opt out of future messages with each marketing e-mail you receive from Wachovia. As always, you can let us know your e-mail marketing contact preference at any time by completing our Unsubscribe From E-mail Marketing form.

Please note that your choice not to receive product messages will not affect preferences you may have previously set for Wachovia account and subscription based e-mail services such as newsletters, rate notifications or account updates, nor will it affect important service messages regarding your online accounts that we may need to send you from time to time through our secure message site.

Wachovia takes your e-mail marketing preference seriously and will not send marketing messages unless you tell us you do not want to receive them. Additionally, we will send you e-mail servicing messages only when necessary or at your initiation to quickly deliver important product enrollment, account or service information potentially requiring action on your part. Rest assured, when you receive such messages, they will be clearly marked as coming from Wachovia and will not request confidential information such as a social security number, permanent login name, user id, password, and/or access code to be provided and sent back through unsecured e-mail.

Should you receive a suspicious e-mail that appears to be from Wachovia, please let us know by e-mailing us at abuse@wachovia.com, or by e-mailing us via our online Contact Us form and selecting the "Privacy, Security, Fraud and Identity Theft" heading in Step 1. You may also contact us by phone at (888) 647-3648.

You may also wish to contact your Internet Service Provider for support in blocking e-mails or subscribing to a spam filter they may offer. Visit E-mail and Web Site Fraud for additional information on how to protect yourself.

When you log on to Online Services, you pass through a "firewall" we use for security purposes. As you pass through it, we may identify the Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with the device you are using, such as a personal computer or handheld device. The IP address does not identify you personally, but it may allow us to identify the device you're using. In certain instances, we may also obtain other information to allow us to better identify you as an Online Services customer. We may retain this information in case we ever need it for reasons related to the protection of information about customers and/or security.

If you are an Online Services customer, you may update some of your personal information quickly and easily online, including mailing address, access information (e.g. change or reset your Password) and e-mail addresses for alert services. Visit our self service Customer Service for more information.

We work with a number of other companies to ensure that we are providing the value and service you expect from a leader in financial and Internet services.

Occasionally you will notice on wachovia.com that services are "Powered by" or "Provided by" content providers or technology service partners. We contract with these specialists to help us serve you better. We're highly selective in choosing these companies, and they are only allowed to use customer information for the purpose of providing the services we've contracted with them to provide.

Wachovia has established relationships with other parties on the Internet to bring you the benefit of products and services we may not offer. We offer you access to these other companies either through the use of hyperlinks to their sites from our site, or by offering "co-branded" sites in which both Wachovia and the other company share the same URL, domain name or pages within a domain name on the Internet and the names or logos of both companies are displayed. Generally, we do not own the co-branded sites and alliance companies and therefore do not control how those companies use any information you supply them. It's important that you review their privacy policy to understand how they manage any information you supply them. However, if you are providing information to Wachovia, we will always adhere to our Privacy Statement.

Links to third-party sites are provided for your convenience. Such sites are not within our control and may not follow the same privacy, security, or accessibility standards as ours. Wachovia neither endorses nor guarantees offerings of the third party providers, nor is Wachovia responsible for the security, content or availability of the third-party sites, their partners, or advertisers. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of third parties before providing information on their sites.

Account aggregation is a service that allows you to gather information from many Web sites and present that information in a consolidated format on one site. The information gathered can range from public information to more personal account information (such as credit card and banking data). For aggregation to work, you may have to provide the aggregation provider with personal account information such as your online usernames and passwords ("access information") that you would normally use yourself to access your data.

Wachovia and its vendors will actively work to provide accurate information through aggregation, however due to the nature of the service, Wachovia and its vendors are dependent upon the quality and timeliness of aggregated information from the original source of the information. Thus, Wachovia does not recommend using aggregated information as a basis for any financial or investment decisions.

Wachovia offers aggregation services through service providers, allowing you convenient access to the accounts you have with us as well as information stored at other Web sites with which you hold accounts. You may, for example, consolidate financial, credit card, insurance and news information into one place. The service providers we use to bring you this service will act as your agent when accessing your accounts. As such, we require that they agree to and abide by our corporate security standards, including encryption of account data, to protect information about our customers.

In addition, the information we gather about your accounts and relationships with the companies and institutions you specify in your aggregation profile may also be used by Wachovia and its affiliates to provide you with more efficient and personalized service. For example, we may use this information to enhance your online aggregation experience, customize product and service offerings to suit your financial needs and provide targeted advice designed to help you achieve your personal financial goals. You may choose to limit the use of information gathered through the aggregation service or how we may contact you as described in the section of our Privacy Statement entitled, "Your Choices as a Customer."

There are a number of other companies that currently offer aggregation services to consolidate your online account information from multiple sources. While we recognize that you may want to use these services, you should note a potential risk. Providing an aggregator your access information (such as user names and passwords) may result in unauthorized access and use of your confidential account information by the aggregator or a third party if adequate controls are not in place. Therefore, you should ensure that the aggregation service provider has appropriate processes in place to ensure the privacy and security of your information. If you provide information about your Wachovia accounts, including your access information, to an aggregation service provider, we will consider that as your having authorized all transactions initiated by that aggregation site. Wachovia reserves the right to disable aggregation for any aggregation service provider or any account without notice. If you wish to cancel your 3rd party aggregation services you should also change your password at wachovia.com.

Safeguarding of your login credentials is your responsibility. You agree to keep these numbers and codes confidential to prevent unauthorized access to your accounts and to prevent unauthorized use of the Services. For security purposes, we recommend that you do not use the same numbers and codes you use for accessing other bank products and services. Visit our online services agreement for more information.

Protecting personal information online is vital. We go to great lengths to see that your transactions and personally identifiable information are confidential, secure, and protected from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. To read about the technology that keeps personal information private and how you can help protect this information, visit our Security Statement.

The policies and practices described in this section of our Privacy Statement are subject to change, but we will notify you of any significant changes either by mail, or electronically, as permitted by law.