Effective February 16, 2024

At The Mustard Seed we respect and protect the privacy of our customers and those who use our websites, products and services. This privacy statement provides details about how your personal information is collected and used. Personal information is any information that identifies you or would enable someone to contact you, such as your name, email address, phone number and other non-public information that is associated with such information. This privacy statement applies to the Mustard Seed website and The Mustard Seed Landscaping and Garden Center Retail store products and services and any other sites owned or operated by The Mustard Seed Inc. The Mustard Seed Inc. is located at 10,000 Great Plains Blvd. Chaska MN 55318.

Statement Summary

The summary below provides the key concepts of the full Mustard Seed Privacy Statement. If you have questions, please click the links to view the complete text below.

Information Collection and Use by Us

• We obtain any information that you provide to us on the Sites, including activity on our Sites that we collect by means of log files.

• We may also obtain information about you that we collect from other sources (such as at seminars and, with your consent, third party social networking sites).

• We may generally use this information to provide you with requested information or products and services, to tailor the presentation of the Sites or products and services to you, to facilitate your movement through the Sites or your use of our products and services, to improve our products and services and do a better job of marketing them, or to communicate with you.

• We may monitor or record any of your telephone conversations with us for quality control purposes, for purposes of training our employees and for our own protection.

• We acknowledge your ownership rights in your contact lists, content and phone numbers. We will never sell or rent this information without your permission, and will never use it for any purpose other than providing you with and improving our products and services or as described in this privacy statement.

Security and Privacy
We employ reasonable technical, administrative and physical safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information.

Sharing Information
We will never sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their use without your consent. We may share your contact and other information with our partners for limited purposes, with certain third parties (who may only use the information for the purpose for which it was provided), with courts, law enforcement and other relevant third parties, or with our acquirer if we are ever acquired.

Cookies and Web Beacons
We use cookies and other technology to keep track of your online interaction with our Sites. Information gathered through usage of a cookie is not linked to any personal identifying information, unless you become paying customer.

Online Advertising
We use pixels, or transparent GIF files, to help manage online advertising with certain partners.

Choice/Opt-out
You always have the opportunity to opt-out or change preferences in our non-transactional email messages to you by following a link in the footer of all non-transactional email messages sent by us or by emailing us at contactus@themustardseedinc.com.

Third Party Links and Information Collection and Use by Us
Some of our Site pages provide links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties or our customers.

Children
Our Sites and our products and services are not directed to persons under 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13.

International Use
We are headquartered in the United States of America and you explicitly acknowledge and consent to the fact that personal information stored or processed in the United States will be subject to the laws of the United States.

Accountability

• Questions and inquiries concerning your privacy may be directed by email to contactus@themustardseedinc.com or write us:
  The Mustard Seed
  10,000 Great Plains Blvd.
  Chaska, MN 55318

• Attention: Administrator

Notification of Changes
If we decide to change this privacy statement in any material way, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on the Mustard Seed website. For major changes in how we use personally identifying data, we will provide advance notice. In all cases, your continued use of any Site or our products and services constitutes consideration and your binding acceptance to any such changes.

We are the sole owner of information collected on our Site. We collect information only as necessary to fulfill the purposes set forth in this privacy statement and we will not sell, share, or rent this information to others in ways different from what is disclosed here.

We may obtain information from you that you provide during any voluntary or mandatory registration process on our website, retail store or landscape/design services (for example, registering for consultations, workshops/seminars, emails from us or signing up to evaluate our products or services) or when you call or email us (for information or otherwise). If you have signed up for future mailings and later wish to opt-out of receiving future mailings, you may do so at any time (see the "Choice/Opt-out" section below). We may use this information to provide you with requested information or products and services, to tailor the presentation of our website or products or services to you, to facilitate your movement through our website/store or your use of our products and services, to improve our products and services and do a better job of marketing them, or to communicate with you.

Our  Sites also offer opportunities for you to purchase some of our products and services. Any payment information that you provide to us (on our Sites or otherwise), including credit card data, will only be used to facilitate payment for such products and services.

You acknowledge and expressly agree that we may obtain additional information about you that we collect from other sources, such as information you provide at seminars or to our partners, information that is publicly available or that you consent to us receiving from third parties. With your consent, we may also access information from third party social networking sites ("SNSs"). The information you allow us to access varies by SNS, and it is affected by the privacy settings you establish at the SNS. When you consent to the SNS sharing information with us, the SNS may know that you have a relationship with us. You can control and find out more about these privacy settings at the applicable SNS. We may use this information to provide you with our products and services, to improve our products and services and do a better job of marketing them, or to communicate with you.

We also keep track of activity on our Sites using log files stored on our web servers. We collect information that includes your IP address, browser type and version, geographic location, pages you view, how you got to our Sites and any links you click on to leave our Sites, and any device or other method of communication you use to interact with the Sites. We also gather aggregated tracking information regarding overall usage of the Sites and the products and services, including tallies of page views and click-through activity and the number of messages sent using our products or services. We may use this information to assist us in offering you a personalized experience, to assist you with technical support, to diagnose problems with our servers, in connection with our security program, to administer our Sites, to improve our products and services and do a better job of marketing them, or to tailor our product and service offerings to you.

We may monitor or record any of your telephone conversations with us for quality control purposes, for purposes of training our employees and for our own protection.

We will also obtain any information that you provide to us in connection with the use of our products and services, such as email addresses and phone numbers. We will never sell or rent your contact information or content to anyone without your permission, and will never use your contact information for any purpose other than providing or improving our products and services or as described here.

We obtain information that is provided by you on our public forums, Your posts may remain even after completion of transactions or service. Contributions to any of our public communities are considered public and non-confidential by us and are not treated as proprietary information or personal information covered by this privacy statement. To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us at contactus@themustardseedinc.com. In some cases, we may not be able to remove your personal information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

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We employ reasonable technical, administrative and physical safeguards to protect the confidentiality and security of your personal information. We use industry-recognized technical safeguards, such as firewalls, and have adopted and implemented security procedures to protect your information from loss, misuse or unauthorized alteration. When we collect financial account information, such as credit card numbers, we protect its transmission through the use of encryption such as the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol. Not with standing our efforts, we cannot guarantee absolute or unqualified protection of this information given the open nature and resulting instability of the Internet and World Wide Web, and we make no representations or warranties as to the effectiveness of our security and assume no liability for security breaches or any failure in the security of your computer equipment, your internet service provider or other networks and communications providers.

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We will never sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their use without your consent.

We may share your name, email address and other contact information with certain of our partners so that they may assist you in using our products and services, contact you with offers, services or products that may be of interest to you, and, if you consent, provide you with their products or services. Our partners are prohibited from using your contact information for any other purpose without your consent. We will not provide our partners with your credit card information or any other information. If you are working with a partner and would like that partner to have full access to your account, we will provide access to just that partner upon your request.

We may, in our sole discretion, also share your information with others within our organization

Occasionally, we enter into contracts with carefully-selected third parties so that they can assist us in servicing you or to engage in co-marketing activities with us. Our contracts with such third parties prohibit them from using any of your personal information for any purpose beyond the purpose for which it was shared. If you do not wish to have your personal information shared with these third parties for co-marketing purposes, you may do so at any time by opting out of all non-transactional communications with us (see the "Choice/Opt-out" section below).

We may also share non-personally identifying information in the aggregate with third parties, such as the media, industry observers, customers, potential customers or partners. For example, we may disclose mobile search trends, email open rates by industry, or the number of users that have been exposed to, or clicked on, our Sites or evaluated or purchased our products and services.

If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, a sale of all or a substantial portion of our assets, or other similar transaction, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction. We will notify you by email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any such transaction and the choices you may have regarding your information.

We may also share your personal information with any of our parents or subsidiaries. Any such parent or subsidiary may use your information only according to the terms of this privacy statement.

Lastly, we may disclose your personal information to courts, law enforcement authorities and/or other relevant third parties, such as internet service providers, when such disclosure is necessary or advisable, in our sole discretion, to conduct an investigation, respond to a third party or law enforcement subpoena or court order, bring legal action, prevent harm to others or pursue other relief when you or a third party are or may be: (a) violating our terms and conditions of use; (b) causing injury or other harm to, or otherwise violating our property or other legal rights, or those of other users or third parties; or (c) violating federal, state, local, or other applicable law. This disclosure may include transferring information to the U.S. and outside the European Economic Area. To the extent we are legally permitted to do so, we will take reasonable steps to notify you in the event that we are required to provide your personal information to third parties in connection with a subpoena.

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We use a variety of technologies on our Sites. Among these are cookies: a text-only string of information that a website transfers to the cookie file of the browser on your computer so that the website can remember your browser in the future. A cookie will typically contain the name of the domain from which the cookie has come, the "lifetime" of the cookie, and a value, usually a unique number. When you visit our Sites, open our email, encounter our services online, or click on one of our banner ads or videos, we or an authorized third party may send you a cookie.

Cookies may be used by us in many ways: they allow us to verify the login status of customers using products or services linked directly with our Sites, track point of entry to point of registration for those users participating in our affiliate signup programs, track and measure the success of a particular marketing campaign, provide you with improved customer service and provide you with more relevant content. Cookies also allow us to track overall site usage and determine areas users prefer, as well as enable us to make your visit to our website easier by recognizing you when you return and help to provide you with a customized experience.

Information gathered through usage of a cookie is not linked to any personal identifying information, unless you sign up for emails, seminars/workshops, or have opted in during retail sales or landscape services. Once you submit personally identifiable information on our Sites (for example, by signing up for our e-newsletter, landscape consultation or by signing up for a seminar/workshop), we may link such information with cookies or other identifiers that are associated with your visit(s) to our Sites. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies by modifying the settings in your browser. If you choose to disable cookies, you may still use our Sites; however, you may have limited access to some areas within our Sites or a different experience. For more information on how to manage cookies in your web browser, see http://www.aboutcookies.org. We also provide you with an option to opt-out of receiving certain cookies associated with our online advertising (see the "Online Advertising" section below).

Some of our web pages, emails, and other online content may contain electronic images provided by us or authorized third parties known as web beacons, also known as single-pixel GIFs, which are invisible graphical images. These web beacons allow us to count users who have visited our Sites, seen our ads, or opened our email, and to track whether messages are shared using our social share features and, once shared, whether these messages are opened by the recipient. In addition, when you click on a link in an email, we record this individual response to allow us to customize our offerings to you. Web beacons collect only limited information, such as a cookie identifier, time and date of a page being viewed, and a description of the page on which the web beacon resides. Web beacons cannot be declined when delivered using a regular web page, but they can be refused when delivered by email. If you do not wish to receive web beacons by email, you will need to disable HTML images or refuse HTML (select Text only) emails via your email software.

We may from time to time engage third parties to track and analyze information about your activity on our Sites, including data gathered by cookies or web beacons to improve the performance of our Sites, to run tests on the effectiveness of our Sites and marketing efforts and to improve user experience. All such data is only used for the purposes described in this section.

We may share non-personally identifying information with third parties, such as the media, industry observers or potential customers or partners.

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We also use pixels, or transparent GIF files, to help manage online advertising. These GIF files are provided by our ad management partners and enable our partners to recognize a unique ad impression cookie on your Web browser, which in turn enables us to learn which advertisements bring users to our Sites. With both cookies and web beacons, the information that we collect and share is anonymous and not personally identifiable. We give all Internet users the choice to opt-out of receiving our ad impression cookie. If you opt out, your web browser will be associated with a generic "opt-out" cookie, which will prevent us from associating any non-personally identifying information with your browser. Our "opt-out" cookie has no expiration date. Keep in mind that participating in our opt-out program does not prevent you from seeing our online ads; instead, information about the online ads we serve to you will not be recorded..

Our ad management partners include but not limited to, Facebook, Inc., Google Inc, mailchimp and constant contact. For more information about our ad management partners, including information about how to opt-out of these technologies, visit the privacy policies on their websites.

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Our Anti-Spam Policy tolerates only permission-based email. You may choose to opt-out or select your email preferences when you sign-up for our email lists. You always have the opportunity to opt-out or change preferences by following a link in the footer of all non-transactional email messages sent by us or by emailing us at contactus@themustardseedinc.com.
 

Some communications (for example, important account notifications and billing information) are considered transactional and are necessary for all of our customers.

To manage the information we receive about you from an SNS or any other third party, you will need to follow the instructions from that party for updating your information and changing your privacy settings. The information we collect is covered by this privacy statement and the information the third party collects is subject to such third party's privacy practices. Privacy choices you have made on any third party site will not apply to our use of the information we have collected directly through our applications.

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Some of our Sites provide links to third-party websites, such as those of our business partners, online advertising partners, SNSs and payment processors. While on these sites, we or these third parties may collect information about you. In addition, you may be asked to provide certain personal information or credit card information to our customers in connection with their use of our products and services, such as when you respond to a survey or register or pay for an event, or otherwise.

Because we do not control the information policies or practices of these third parties, you should review their privacy policies to learn more about how they collect and use personally identifiable information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any third parties.

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Our Sites and our products and services are not directed to persons under 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with personal information without such parent or guardian's consent, he or she should contact us. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will delete such information from our files.

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We are headquartered in the United States of America. Personal information may be accessed by us or transferred to us in the United States or to our affiliates, partners, merchants, or service providers elsewhere in the world. By providing us with personal information, you consent to this transfer. We will protect the privacy and security of personal information according to this privacy statement, regardless of where it is processed or stored, however you explicitly acknowledge and consent to the fact that personal information stored or processed in the United States will be subject to the laws of the United States, including the ability of governments, courts or law enforcement or regulatory agencies of the United States to obtain disclosure of your personal information.

For the purposes of European Directive 95/46/EC and applicable national implementing laws in your jurisdiction, with respect to your data, we are a data controller.

• Questions and inquiries concerning your privacy may be directed by email to contactus@themustardseedinc.com or write us:
  The Mustard Seed
  10,000 Great Plains Blvd.
  Chaska, MN 55318

• Attention: Administrator

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We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we decide to change this privacy statement in any material way, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on www.themustardseedinc.com so our users are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. For major changes in how we use personally identifying data, we will provide advance notice. In all cases, your continued use of any Site or our products and services or constitutes consideration and your binding acceptance to any such changes.