Updated January 15, 2014

Blockbuster Online L.L.C. ("Blockbuster") operates a variety of web sites and pages ("Web Site" or "Site"), including www.blockbuster.com, and is committed to protecting the privacy of our Web Site users ("Users") and BLOCKBUSTER® members ("Members"). To that end, we offer this Privacy Policy to inform our Members and Users (referred to individually, or collectively, as "you") of how we collect, use and disclose your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information about you. Blockbuster will take reasonable steps to protect your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable laws. To make this notice easy to find, we provide a link to our policy at the bottom of most pages of our Web Sites.

Privacy Policy Table of Contents:


What is Personal Information?

Personal Information is information that identifies a person as having requested or obtained specific video materials.

When Does Blockbuster Collect Personal Information?

Blockbuster collects Personal Information from you when you voluntarily submit it to Blockbuster, for example, when you rent a video or video game or when you add a video to your online subscription queue. We also collect and maintain your ratings and reviews of movies and games and the history of movies you have rented or purchased.

What Other Personally Identifiable Information Does Blockbuster Collect from its Members and Users?

In addition to Personal Information, Blockbuster collects and maintains other personally identifiable information as part of your account, for example:

  • Basic identifying information such as your first and last name
  • Security information such as your password, secret question and answer or driver's license number
  • Contact information such as your email address, street address and phone number
  • Store membership information such as your membership number, names of others allowed to use your account and your favorite store
  • Billing information such as credit or check card number, expiration date, billing address and account history
  • Site preferences such as movie categories you like, game platforms you have and whether you wish for cover art to be displayed
  • E-newsletter selections and preferences
  • Direct marketing contact preferences
  • Sweepstakes entries
  • Complaints, questions and information submitted to customer service agents or similar individuals, either in person, by phone, by e-mail or by entry on a Site
  • Site behavior such as pages visited or searches requested
  • Browser information such as browser version, connection speed, IP address and the presence of various related plug-ins and tools such as media players

By providing us with your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of that information as described in this Privacy Policy as amended from time to time or as described at or before the time of collection, use or disclosure, as the case may be. Blockbuster is the owner of the Personal Information and other personally identifiable information we collect from our Users and Members. Blockbuster may share Personal Information and other personally identifiable information with its affiliates and franchisees. For purposes of this Policy, "affiliates" are entities that, directly or indirectly, control, are controlled by, or are under common control with Blockbuster. "Control" means the power, directly or indirectly, to direct, or to cause the direction of, the management and policies of an entity, whether through ownership of voting securities or equity interests, through common directors or otherwise. If you do not want your Personal Information or other personally identifiable information to be collected, used or disclosed in accordance with this Privacy Policy, please do not submit your Personal Information or other personally identifiable information to us. For information concerning the deletion of personally identifiable information, please see the following section: How Can I Terminate My Account Membership and What Happens to My Personally Identifiable Information?

What Happens When I Register On The Web Site?

In order to use certain features of this Web Site, a User must first complete a registration process. During registration a User is required to provide basic contact information (such as name and e-mail address) and establish a password. Depending on the feature being used, the User may be required to provide other information associated with the use of that particular feature. For example, a User signing up for our subscription service will be required to provide an address to which products will be mailed and financial information in the form of a credit card or check card number and expiration date for billing purposes. Users signing up for our e-newsletter service may enter the types of movies or games in which they are interested and about which they wish to receive information in the newsletter.

What Happens When I Place An Order On The Web Site?

Certain features of the Web Site do not require registration, but may still require information about a User to be entered, such as in placing an order for a product. We request information from the User during the ordering process. For example, a User will be required to provide contact information (such as name, e-mail, and shipping address) and financial information (such as credit card or check card number, expiration date). This information is used for billing purposes and to fill Users' orders. If we have trouble processing an order, the information is used to contact the User.

Does Blockbuster Use Cookie Technology?

Blockbuster uses cookie technology to make your use of the Sites more convenient and to support our business. A cookie is a piece of information that is transferred to a User's hard drive for record-keeping purposes. For example, Blockbuster uses cookies to remember your e-mail address so that you will not have to re-enter this information each time you visit a Site. Blockbuster also uses cookies to help track referrals from third party web sites. Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can set up your browser to alert you every time a cookie is offered, letting you decide whether or not to accept it. You can visit and use the Site with cookies disabled, but you will not automatically be recognized by the Site upon re-visiting. However, cookies allow you to take full advantage of some of our Sites' best features, so we recommend that you leave them turned on.

Some of our business partners use cookies on our Site (for example, advertising partners). However, we have no access to or control over these cookies, once we have given permission for them to set cookies.

What Other Mechanisms Does Blockbuster Use to Track User Behavior?

Some Site web pages and HTML-formatted e-mails and e-newsletters use web beacons to compile statistics about Web Site usage. A web beacon is an electronic image, called a single-pixel (1x1) or clear GIF. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on a visitor's computer, such as a visitor's cookie number, time and date of a page view, and a description of the page where the Web beacon is placed. You may render some web beacons unusable by rejecting their associated cookies.

Blockbuster and its third party vendors use web beacons to track and analyze usage information and to compile statistical information about our Users in order to improve the Web Site's quality and to support our business. Blockbuster reserves the right to publish non-personally identifiable information regarding its Web Site visitors for promotional purposes and as a representative audience for business partners.

We also collect information in log files that include data such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, and number of clicks. We and our business partners use this information to analyze trends, administer the Site, track User's movement in the aggregate, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses, etc., are not linked to personally identifiable information.

How Does Blockbuster Handle Information from Children?

Please note that Blockbuster has no intention of collecting personally identifiable information from individuals under the age of 13 ("children"). We are committed to protecting children's privacy on the Internet and we comply fully with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). Where appropriate, we will instruct children not to provide such information to us. If a parent becomes aware that a child has provided us with personally identifiable information, we ask that the parent or legal guardian of the child contact us by visiting www.blockbuster.com, selecting 'Contact Us' and completing the contact form or in writing to ATTN: Online Customer Care, P.O. Box 9040, Littleton, CO 80120 to request that this information be deleted from our records.

How Does Blockbuster Use Personal Information?

Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees use Personal Information for our internal business purposes. We use the Personal Information you provide for the purposes for which it was provided, for example, to process an order, to record your rental of a product and its return date, to support our online subscription service, and to collect debts and recover overdue rental products. In addition, Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees may share and use Personal Information and other personally identifiable information collected from you to administer and manage our business, including, for example, for account maintenance and collections purposes and in connection with information technology services. Personal Information and other personally identifiable information also may be used to create a profile that we keep on individual Users that details their preferences and behavior. This profile may be used to develop and improve the products, benefits and services that Blockbuster, its affiliates, franchisees and business partners offer to our Members or Users, to improve the Site and the associated user experience, and to develop pertinent marketing promotions to Users and Members.

Where permitted or required by law, Blockbuster may collect, use or disclose Personal Information without your consent, for example, in response to a court order or subpoena or to comply with a legally permitted inquiry by a government agency.

When Will I Be Contacted by Blockbuster?

You may receive products and communications associated with your transactions with Blockbuster, such as rentals, purchases, subscriptions, sweepstakes and contests. You may also receive communications from Blockbuster related to transactions that appear to be from you or which appear to be fraudulent. You may be contacted regarding an issue on your account, in response to a customer service contact by you or in response to a specific request from you, for example, if you click on a "forgot my password" link. Users who sign up for e-newsletter subscriptions will receive e-mails in accordance with their selection and preferences. These administrative communications also may be accompanied by information about products and services, special offers and upcoming promotions or events offered by Blockbuster, our affiliates, our franchisees or our marketing partners that we think may be of interest to you ("direct marketing").

You also may periodically receive from Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees (if permitted by Blockbuster) unsolicited direct marketing communications by mail (delivered via the United States Postal Service) and email. We support the option to not receive these types of communications. Please see the following section: How Can I Opt Out of Receiving Direct Marketing from Blockbuster? We will send standalone direct marketing e-mail communications to you only if you have agreed previously.

How Can I Opt Out of Receiving Direct Marketing from Blockbuster?

If you would prefer that Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees not use your Personal Information or other personally identifiable information for standalone direct marketing communications, you may opt out of such marketing communications by (a) checking the appropriate "Opt Out" box in any applicable e-mail communication or e-newsletter, (b) visiting www.blockbuster.com, selecting 'Contact Us' and completing the contact form, (c) writing to us at ATTN: Online Customer Care, P.O. Box 9040, Littleton, CO 80120 or (d) visiting your local BLOCKBUSTER store. Once you have opted out, your subsequent registration for our direct marketing services and promotions like our e-newsletter, or our sweepstakes and contests may void, temporarily or permanently, your prior elections to opt out of receiving direct marketing communications from Blockbuster. Please consult the applicable rules of the promotion or service before participating. Note that when you elect to opt out we do not delete your Personal Information or personally identifiable information. For more information concerning the deletion of personally identifiable information, please see the following section: How Can I Terminate My Account Membership and What Happens to My Personally Identifiable Information?

E-mails that are sent to you as a result of you performing a business transaction with us or requesting specific information from us are not subject to an Opt Out process. If you have any suggestions on how to improve these e-mails, please communicate to our Online Customer Service group using the Contact Us functionality on the Site. We appreciate your feedback, but cannot commit to taking action.

What Personally Identifiable Information Does Blockbuster Give to Others?

Blockbuster employs third party vendors, service providers and suppliers to perform various functions on our behalf. Such services include: fulfilling orders; processing credit card or check card payments; performing payment card fraud scoring and fraud prevention modeling; collecting debts; removing repetitive information from customer lists; analyzing data; developing, hosting and maintaining our Web Sites, databases and data processing systems; sending and receiving e-mail and other communications; and staffing customer service call centers. These third parties may have access to Personal Information and other personally identifiable information as reasonably necessary to provide these services. These third parties are not allowed to use this information, except for the purpose of providing these services.

Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees (if permitted by Blockbuster) on occasion may disclose to their business partners certain personally identifiable information, such as names, mailing addresses, email addresses and the genre of products rented or purchased by Users or Members, so that the business partner may send their own direct marketing communications to Users and Members. If you would prefer that Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees not use or disclose your personally identifiable information to unaffiliated business partners for their own direct marketing purposes, you may opt out of such disclosures by (a) checking the appropriate "Opt Out" box in any applicable e-mail communication or e-newsletter, (b) visiting www.blockbuster.com, selecting 'Contact Us' and completing the contact form, (c) writing to us at, ATTN: Online Customer Care, P.O. Box 9040, Littleton, CO 80120 or (d) visiting your local BLOCKBUSTER store. We will not provide your Personal Information to our business partners for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you consent beforehand.

From time to time Blockbuster may include additional features and functionality from third parties on our Web Sites. Certain of these features and functions may require Blockbuster to send selected information about you, such as information about your movie queue, to the third party. If you do not wish for Blockbuster to share this information, you will have a reasonable opportunity to opt-out of these third-party features and functions. Blockbuster will never send your password or your financial information to any third party through these features or functions.

We periodically remove from the information collected about Users and Members data that can be used to identify individuals, for example, by summarizing, aggregating or removing certain data elements. The resulting cleaned data is no longer considered Personal Information or personally identifiable information and is not subject to this Privacy Policy. The cleaned data may be published by Blockbuster and provided to various third parties.

If Blockbuster or its assets are acquired by another company, your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information may be disclosed to the acquiring company to allow it to fulfill your order or provide the products, services or information that Blockbuster would otherwise provide to you and generally to carry on the Blockbuster business. We may also use and disclose your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information to parties connected with the contemplated or actual financing, insuring, sale, assignment or other disposal of all or part of our business or assets, including for the purposes of determining whether to proceed or continue with such transaction or business relationship or fulfilling any records or other reporting requirements to such parties. We will require such parties to treat your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information in accordance with this privacy policy and to use and disclose it only for the purposes for which it was collected.

If you disclose your personally identifiable information in a manner that will be posted publicly, such as in a product review, your posting will be seen by others. In addition, if you elect to participate in certain community features offered from time to time, selected information about you, including information about your movie queue, may be shared with other participants in these community features. Also, Blockbuster may make it possible for certain third party web sites to be accessed directly from our Web Sites and for selected information about you to be provided to these third party web sites if you are also a user of these third party web sites. If a third party web site allows other users to view information about you (e.g., through posting to a publicly available profile page), the information provided by Blockbuster will be visible to other users of the third party web site.

How does Blockbuster Protect Your Information?

Blockbuster takes reasonable measures to protect the personally identifiable information it collects, uses, stores or discloses. We have implemented physical, technological and organizational procedures designed to protect the integrity and security, and to ensure the appropriate use of, your personally identifiable information. These procedures are appropriate to the nature, sensitivity and format of the information collected, used, stored or disclosed by Blockbuster. For example, Blockbuster uses Secure Sockets Layering (SSL) to encrypt your personal credit information, including your credit card or check card number, before it travels over the Internet. SSL technology is the industry standard for secure online transactions.

What About Links to Other Web Sites?

This Privacy Policy applies solely to information collected by Blockbuster. However, our Site contains links to other web sites owned and operated by third parties. The third parties who operate these sites may treat the collection, use and disclosure of personally identifiable information differently than we do. This could be the case even for those web sites that carry Blockbuster's or its affiliates' trademarks or logos or which are framed by a Site. Please be aware that Blockbuster is not responsible for the data collection, use and disclosure practices of companies or organizations to which our Sites may provide links. We encourage our Users to be aware when they leave our Site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information.

Posting Reviews to the Web Site

If you are a registered user of this Web Site, writing a review gives you an opportunity to voice your take on a movie or game. By posting a review you acknowledge that your first name and the first initial of your last name will be used in connection with your review. Blockbuster discourages you from including any other personally identifiable information in your review. However, Blockbuster does not edit reviews to remove such information. It is important to remember that, once you post your review, all information contained in your review, including your name, is made available on the Sites for other consumers to read. In addition, search engines and other internet websites may access certain information that is posted on the Sites and provide that information to their users. In addition, Blockbuster may make reviews available for display on portals and other third party websites that support the purchase, rental or download of videos or games from Blockbuster. For example, a consumer who conducts a search for reviews of a particular movie or game on a search engine website or on a shopping site may be presented with reviews from www.blockbuster.com.

How Can I Access or Correct My Personal Information?

If a User's or Member's personally identifiable information changes (such as zip code, phone, e-mail or postal address), or if a User or Member no longer desires our service, we provide a way to correct, update or deactivate Users' personally identifiable information. You can review or change some of your information as follows:

  • You can review and change certain store-related information by visiting one of our stores, presenting suitable identification and giving the store agent your changes such as providing a new address or phone number, removing names from your account, changing your credit card or check card information, etc.
  • You can review and change certain Site-related information by visiting the Site, entering your e-mail address and password and accessing the "My Account" area.

Note that in most cases, Blockbuster will retain the previously entered data, and may even be prohibited by law from expunging certain data from its systems.

How Can I Terminate My Account Membership and What Happens to My Personally Identifiable Information?

Blockbuster account memberships are continuous unless affirmatively terminated by a Member. Members who wish to terminate their relationship with Blockbuster may instruct Blockbuster to delete their personally identifiable information from Blockbuster's database by submitting the proper form to Blockbuster by email to blockbusterconsumer@blockbuster.com, or by mailing the form to Online Customer Care, PO Box 9040, Littleton, CO 80120. The necessary form can be found here.

If a Member properly submits the form described above, Blockbuster will promptly decouple the Member's personally identifiable information from information that identifies the Member as having requested or obtained specific video materials. Blockbuster, however, is entitled to keep personally identifiable information for any Member who submits the form described above for a period of ninety (90) days following the Member's last transaction. The 90 day limit shall be extended for such further time as is necessary while there exists any outstanding transaction(s) including, but not limited to, outstanding video returns, payment balances, or credit card or check clearances.

Blockbuster is entitled to maintain sufficient information to identify the Member's location and sales activity for sales tax audit purposes for seven (7) years from each transaction date. To the extent that Blockbuster is required by law to maintain certain records with respect to such former Members by the Internal Revenue Service in connection with the bankruptcy purchase by DISH Network Corporation (Blockbuster's corporate parent), Blockbuster will isolate such information and will use reasonable and appropriate methods to ensure that the data is not accessible for any purposes other than those necessary for such purposes.

Nothing contained herein shall be construed to prohibit Blockbuster from selling, giving, or otherwise transferring a Member's video viewing history to the extent permitted by the Video Privacy Protection Act.

Legal Notices

Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988. Blockbuster supports the Video Privacy Protection Act of 1988 and will use reasonable commercial efforts to require employee and business partner compliance with the Act.

REQUIRED BY NEW YORK LAW: This videotape service provider from time to time provides to marketers of goods and services, the names and addresses of customers and a description or subject matter of materials rented by video customers. You have the right to elect not to have your name, address or the description or subject matter of any material rented included in such lists. This election may be changed by you, in writing, at any time.

Can Blockbuster Change This Privacy Policy?

Blockbuster reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If Blockbuster makes a change, this Privacy Policy will be updated accordingly. We recommend that you review this Privacy Policy periodically so that you are aware of any changes. Your continued consent to our collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information and other personally identifiable information or your continued use of our Site following the notification or posting of any changes to this Privacy Policy will constitute your acceptance of these changes.

The Privacy Policy was amended, effective January 15, 2013, in order to reflect changes in Blockbuster's policy concerning termination of account memberships and the deletion of personally identifiable information and to clarify that Blockbuster, its affiliates and franchisees (if permitted by Blockbuster) may send you direct marketing mail and emails, unless you have opted out of such communications. In addition, the revisions clarify that Blockbuster may provide personally identifiable information (other than Personal Information) to unaffiliated third parties for their use in connection with providing direct marketing communications to Users and Members, unless you have opted out of such disclosures.

How Do I Contact Blockbuster Regarding The Web Site And This Privacy Policy?

If Users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:

Web: visit www.blockbuster.com, select 'Contact Us' and complete the contact form

Postal Address: ATTN: Online Customer Care, P.O. Box 9040, Littleton, CO 80120

Blockbuster

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