Privacy Policy

At Sound United, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

 

What is the purpose of this policy?

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, buy and use our products, download our software, or otherwise contact us, and how we use this information, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. The companies that this Policy applies to are Sound United, LLC and its affiliates, subsidiaries and brands (such as D&M Holdings Inc., Polk Audio, Denon, Marantz, HEOS etc.).

Our goal is to bring joy to the world through sound. In order to do this in the best possible way we need to connect you to your music. We can achieve this most successfully by understanding your preferences as they relate to our products and services and by understanding how you use our products.

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, or indicating you agree by checking a box or clicking on an “accept” button or similar indications of explicit consent you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to privacy@soundunited.com. or by writing to our Privacy Officer at the following locations:

For Europe and UK: Sound United Europe, Beemdstraat 11, 5653 MA Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

For North America, South America, Australia and New Zealand: Sound United, 1 Viper Way, Vista, California, 92081, USA

For Asia: D&M Holdings, D&M Building, 2-1 Nisshin-cho, Kawasaki-ku, Kanagawa, JAPAN

Who are we?

We are Sound United, the name we use to identify the owner of our brands, subsidiary companies and affiliates such as Denon, Polk, Marantz, Definitive Technologies, D&M, HEOS, Boston Acoustics, among others. We are dedicated to Bringing Joy to the World Through Sound and we provide our products and services on a global basis. Our European operations are based in Eindhoven at D&M Europe B.V., Beemdstraat 11, 5653 MA Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Tel. +31 (0)40 2507844, Chamber of Commerce number: 17073774. Our other office headquarters are: Sound United, 1 Viper Way, Vista, California, 92081, USA and D&M Holdings, D&M Building, 2-1 Nisshin-cho, Kawasaki-ku, Kanagawa, JAPAN. You may send correspondence concerning this Policy to the above addresses Attention: Privacy Officer.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you in a variety of ways such as:

  • when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services
  • when you use some of our products that connect to the internet such as our apps and certain hardware products such as our audio video receivers that connect to the internet
  • When you choose to register your product or to create an account with us
  • If you decide you want to receive offers or literature from us such as newsletters or new product updates and offerings

 

What type of information is collected from you?

When you interact with Sound United in any of the ways above or ways that may be available in the future we may ask for or you may provide us with certain data, such as:

  • Your name
  • Your email address
  • Your telephone number
  • Your gender
  • Your age
  • Information about the products and services you have purchased
  • Your interests
  • Other information you decide to provide

 

Depending on the choices you have made in your privacy settings on various social media platforms, certain personal information may be shared with Sound United about your online activities and social media profiles, e.g. interests, marital status, gender, user name, photo, posts you have made. If you do not want this, please make sure to update your personal settings on the social media platforms that you use.

In addition, we may collect personal data via cookies, use of our apps or similar techniques, including, but not limited to:

  • Your IP address
  • Product information
  • Product usage information
  • Crash logs
  • Your cookie ID
  • Your web browser
  • Your country or territory location and language preference
  • Login details
  • Content that you have chosen to play on one of our products (for instance if you use the “history” feature in the HEOS app)
  • The web pages you visit on our websites
  • Sound United advertisements you have clicked to through

 

With the exception of basic information about your device that is necessary to use some of our software apps, you have the choice as to what information you provide. Providing personal data beyond the basic information concerning your device is not required. However, choosing not to provide specific information may mean some features of our products and services are not available to you, or the performance of the products will be reduced. For instance, registering an account enables use of a variety of features and services in our software apps, but you must provide an email address for this registration.

Why do we collect this information and how is it used?

We collect and use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • Providing products and services to you
  • To maintain contact with you
  • To optimize our products and services
  • Market research
  • Customer service, and handling complaints/disputes
  • The performance of audits, such as accounting audits
  • To meet our legal obligations
  • Activating or registering certain products and services or enhancing functionality
  • Participating in Sound United online communities, including our social media channels/pages and blogs
  • Storing your preferences for future interactions and communications from Sound United so that the information doesn’t have to be collected anew
  • Allowing us to keep you informed of, or offering to let you test new products and services
  • Receiving personalized messages, special offers and advertisements that are relevant to your personal interests, based on the information you have shared with us and on the information we have collected through cookies or similar techniques regarding your use of the Sound United websites/social media/blogs and products

 

If we do not have your personal data, the following types of issues can occur (this list is not exhaustive of all the possible impacts):

  • We may not be able to provide updates to the products that you use from Sound United, or those updates may not be received timely
  • We may not be able to provide the services that you have requested or we may not be able to deliver those services to you as quickly
  • Your Sound United products may not work as well (i.e. your music preferences or preferred music sources allow us to more quickly enable certain content or choices when you are playing back music)

 

We may analyze your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information that we believe is relevant to you as opposed to information that is more general. We may also use additional information that’s publicly available about you from other sources to do this more effectively. Your personal information also helps us to detect and reduce fraud. We do not use automated decision making.

We will not sell your data to third parties. We have never done this, and we will not be doing this in the future.

What is the legal basis for obtaining my information under GDPR

The legal basis for processing your data is to fulfill the contract to provide with you with the product or service requested. For some data that you choose to provide beyond this, such as any address information or preferences you share, the legal basis for processing is consent. Where you have consented to the processing of your data, you may withdraw such consent by indicating that you wish to do so via privacy@soundunited.com. This withdrawal will be effective once received by us and processed and will apply to your data from that date forward. There may be cases in which we process your data based on legitimate interests such as fraud prevention. Processing basic computer and device information is necessary for the performance of our contract in order for you to use our app.

How long do you keep my information?

We keep your data until you instruct us otherwise such as by visiting our privacy center located at privacy@soundunited.com or it is either no longer needed in order to provide you with the products or services you have requested and then, unless there is a legal reason to keep it, it will be deleted as part of our normal, periodic updating of our user database or.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties. All communications to you will come from Sound United and its companies or brands. We will not share your information with third parties to allow them to market to you unless you have agreed to allow us to do that.

We do share your information with third parties for the reasons below but only with agreements in place governing their use of your information and their relationship with Sound United.

We may instruct trusted third parties to perform services in respect of the processing of your personal data on our behalf. For example, when you use our apps we will utilize third party servers in order to store or provide you with information such as music content or other content that may be streamed from our servers to your Sound United products. If you enter into a transaction such as a purchase through one of our websites, we may have a third-party search engine process your order or fulfill it. These third parties specialize in such services and make your purchase faster and easier.

With any of our affiliates and trusted third parties we have data processing or other agreements in place to protect your data in accordance with the applicable laws. The agreements with these business partners will limit the purposes for which your personal data can be used and disclosed, and will require your personal data to be adequately safeguarded.

We may share anonymous data with third parties, but this will not be data that can be identified with you. For instance, we may share information about the total number of users for a particular service or product.

From time to time, Sound United may sell a business or a part of a business to another company. Such a transfer of ownership could include the transfer of your personal data directly related to that business to the purchasing company.

We may also need to disclose your personal information if it is required or requested as part of a legal order or legal process such as a subpoena or court demand. We are also subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the FTC, the Department of Transportation or any other U.S. authorized statutory body as part of our participation in the Privacy Shield.

Location of your personal information.

Sound United may store your personal data in a cloud. This means that your personal data may be processed on behalf of Sound United by a cloud service provider and could be stored in different locations around the world. Sound United makes use of organizational measures and endeavors to enter contracts with third parties to protect your personal data and to impose similar but in no way less restrictive requirements on our cloud services providers, including requirements that your personal data be processed exclusively for the purposes mentioned above.

Data is transferred to the United Stated based on standard contractual clauses in place between the controller and processor. We enter into contracts with data processors that provide that your data may only be processed for limited and specified purposes consistent with the consent you provide. The data processor will provide the same level of protection as we do and will notify us if it makes a determination that it can no longer meet this obligation. If we receive such a notification, then we will cause the data processor to stop processing personal data and take other reasonable and appropriate steps to remediate such failure. While your personal information is in another country, it may be accessed by the courts, law enforcement and national security authorities in that country in accordance with its laws.

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

No data transmission can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us over the internet, email or other electronic communication methods and therefore you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your personal information, we use our best effort to ensure its security on our systems, to protect it against loss, misuse or alteration.

We are seeking participation in the Privacy Shield and are committed to following the Principles of the Privacy Shield. Further information about the Privacy Shield can be found at: https://www.privacyshield.gov/welcome. The list of Privacy Shield Participants can be found at: https://www.privacyshield.gov/list. The privacy shield also provides individuals with the ability to use an alternate dispute resolution provider to address complaints and provide you with free of charge resolution of complaints. More information on this alternative dispute resolution process can be found at: http://go.adr.org/privacyshieldannex.html.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us, then you can:

  • select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information or
  • you can choose to unsubscribe from any communication by responding to the communication that may have been sent to you usually through an “unsubscribe” button or a link to our preference center.

 

If you choose not to receive communications from us or you unsubscribe from communications with us we will no longer contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you choose to give your consent again.

How you can access and update your information or be forgotten

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: privacy@soundunited.com, or write to us in Europe at: Sound United Europe, Beemdstraat 11, 5653 MA Eindhoven, The Netherlands. In the Americas, Australia and New Zealand write us at: Privacy Officer, Sound United, 1Viper Way, Vista, California, 92081, USA. In Asia write us at: Privacy Officer, D&M Holdings, D&M Building, 2-1 Nisshin-cho, Kawasaki-ku, Kanagawa, JAPAN

You will have a right to request an overview of your Personal Data. Where reasonably possible, the overview will contain information regarding the source (if reasonably available), type, purpose and categories of recipients of the relevant Personal Data.

You will have the right to request to have your Personal Data corrected, deleted or blocked. You will also have the right to data portability (accessing your data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format) for personal data that you provide directly to us.

If you have complaints that you wish to file you may do so at the local supervisory authority.

You also have the possibility, under certain conditions, to invoke binding arbitration for complaints regarding Privacy Shield compliance not resolved by any of the other Privacy Shield mechanisms. For additional information please visit: https://www.privacyshield.gov/article?id=ANNEX-I-introduction

To access, correct or delete your Personal Data you should send a request to privacy@soundunited.com or to the contact point indicated in any relevant privacy notice. Sound United may require that you:

  1. specify the type of Personal Data in question;
  2. specify, to the extent reasonably possible, the data system in which the Personal Data likely are stored;
  3. show proof of your identity; and
  4. in the case of correction specify the reasons why the Personal Data are incorrect or incomplete.

 

Within four weeks of Sound United receiving the request or the objection, Sound United will inform you in writing or by email either (i) of the action that Sound United has taken or will take in response or (ii) the ultimate date on which you will be informed of Sound United’s position on your request, which date will be no later than eight weeks after receiving your request.

As do most websites, our websites use "cookies." Our apps may also use cookies. A cookie is a small data file that can be sent to your browser or other device to be stored automatically on your computer or mobile device. Cookies are commonly used to track your visits to a site or your use of apps so you don't have to log in on every page and to analyze how you use the site or app. Among other things, this can allow website operators and app providers to serve you better. It may be possible to set your Internet browser or mobile device to reject cookies but this may affect your ability to use some parts of websites or Apps.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organizations. This privacy policy applies only to our websites‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third-party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third-party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third-party site.

Children 16 or Under

We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information. Our websites are not intended for use by children and does not solicit them. We do not knowingly obtain or try to obtain personal data from children or request such data from them.

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in June 2018.