Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Helmer, Inc. (“Helmer” or “we”) is committed to protecting your information. This Privacy Notice (the “Privacy Notice”) applies to your use of Helmer’s websites, including https://www.helmerinc.comhttps://Store.HelmerInc.comhttps://Info.HelmerInc.com, and https://Blog.HelmerInc.com, and any mobile applications and other digital services provided by Helmer (collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Notice describes our privacy practices and how Helmer collects, uses, and shares your information when you visit the Services. It does not apply to information collected by Helmer offline, or to third party websites, applications, or services (including our affiliates’).

1. Contact Information

Helmer is located at 14400 Bergen Blvd, Noblesville, IN, 46060. Should you have any comments or questions about how we collect and use your personal information, communication can be directed to Helmer’s postal address, via email to marketing@helmerinc.com or by telephone to 317-773-9073.

2. Applicability & Eligibility

We need to process your personal information to operate our organization and provide you with certain Services. Before accessing, using, or interacting with the Services you should carefully review the terms and conditions of this Privacy Notice. Your use of the Services is further governed by our Terms of Service, which is also incorporated into your agreement with Helmer by this reference.

By accepting our Privacy Notice and Terms of Service, you are confirming that you have read and understand these policies, including how and why we use your information. If you don’t want us to collect or process your personal information in the ways described in this Privacy Notice, you should not use the Services. Please note we are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies or practices of any third party organization or service.

The Services are not directed to children under the age of 16 You may not use the Services if you are under the age of 16. If you are under the age of 16, you should not provide any information on our Services.

3. Information Collection, Use & Sharing

Helmer collects information about you and your use of the Services through various means, including when you provide information to us and when we automatically collect information about you when you access, use, or interact with the Services. Such processing is performed to provide you with the Services. In some instances, you may be able to choose what information to provide, but sometimes we require certain information for you to use and for us to provide you the Services.

We rely on a number of legal bases to process the information we receive about you from your use of the Services, including where: (1) you have consented to the processing; (2) the processing is necessary to perform the contractual obligations in order to provide the Services to you, including those of our Terms; (3) necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims; (4) necessary to protect your vital interests, or those of others; (5) necessary in the public interest; (6) necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners; and (7) you have expressly made the information public.

Where we process your information on the basis of consent, we will clearly obtain your opt-in consent. Where given, you may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at marketing@helmerinc.com. Where we process your information on the basis of legitimate interests, we do so where the processing is necessary for your legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party, unless there is a good reason to protect your personal data which overrides those legitimate interests.

The types of information Helmer may collect about you include:

Information You Provide To Us:

We generally process information you provide to us on the legal basis of Helmer’s legitimate interests in performing the function or service you requested. Where appropriate, we may rely on alternate legal bases, such as your consent to certain types of processing.

Account Information: Certain Services users may register for an account (a “Services Account”). We do not require you to register to use our Services. However if you do register a Services Account, you will gain access to those areas and features of the Services that require registration. Helmer will collect certain information about you in connection with your registration for a Services Account, which may include personal data and other information such as a username and password.

Quote and Services Requests: When you request a quote from us through the Services, we will collect personally identifiable information about you such as your name, department, title, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number. Your contact information will be added to our database to complete your request and may be used to send news about Helmer and product updates to you, send email or direct mail marketing pieces, or to get in touch with you when necessary.

Payment Transaction Information: We may collect and store information related to purchases and donations made through the Services. You may provide certain information to complete payments via the Services, including your credit or debit card number, card expiration date, CVV code, and billing address (collectively, “Payment Information”), along with your name and billing, delivery and shipping address, to complete payment transactions through certain services. Our online store is hosted on Bigcommerce Pty. Ltd. (“BigCommerce”). They provide us with the online e-commerce platform that allows us to sell our products and services to you. Your data is stored through BigCommerce's data storage, databases and the general BigCommerce application. They store your data on a secure server behind a firewall. When you order from a BigCommerce storefront, credit card information is encrypted and sent directly to a payment gateway, which then sends the funds to our merchant account.

Please note Helmer works with Service Providers (as defined below) to handle payment transactions. Helmer does not itself collect or maintain your credit card or other financial account information; this information is handled for Helmer by our Service Providers. You are subject to the Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions of our Service Providers when shopping for Helmer products, the terms of which may differ from those of Helmer for the Services. Please review the Service Providers’ Privacy Policies and Terms and Conditions before using their services.

Correspondence Information: If you sign up, email us, subscribe to our blog, newsletters, or mailing lists, we may keep your message, email address, and contact information to respond to your requests, provide the requested products or Services, and to provide notifications or other correspondences to you. We do not share or sell any personal information to other organizations for commercial purposes. If you do not want to receive communications from us in the future, please let us know by sending us an e-mail requesting the same to marketing@helmerinc.com. or by following the unsubscribe instructions found in any e-mail we send. If you supply us with your postal address on-line, you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on new products and services or upcoming events. If you do not wish to receive such mailings, please let us know by contacting us at marketing@helmerinc.com. or by calling our phone number provided above. Please note requests to remove your email address from our lists may take some time to fulfill. We may also still contact you as needed to provide important announcements or notifications regarding the Services.

Support Information: You may provide information to us via a support request submitted through the Services. We will use this information to assist you with your support request and may maintain this information to assist you or other users with support requests. Please do not submit any information to us via a support submission, including confidential or sensitive information that you do not wish for Helmer or our Service Providers to have access to or use in the future.

Form Information: We may use forms to request certain information from you on the Services, such as your contact information to assist with contacts or service requests. This information may include personal data.

Information We Collect Automatically:

We use automatic data collection and analytics technologies to collect aggregate and user-specific information about your equipment, domain name, patterns of use, communication data and the resources that you access and use on the Services, including your IP address, browsing and navigation patterns. This information is used to improve our Services.

Automatic data collection may result from form fills for content downloads, event registrations, quote requests and other product offerings that may be of interest.

We generally process information collected automatically on the legal basis of Helmer’s legitimate interests in assessing the use of its Services. Where appropriate, we may rely on alternate legal bases, such as your consent to certain types of processing.

Information we collect automatically through your use of the Services includes:

Cookies, Web Beacons, Links, And Other Tracking Technologies: Helmer may keep track of how you use and interact with the Services through the use of cookies, web beacons, links, and other tracking technologies. We do this to help analyze the use of and improve the Services. Through these technologies we may automatically collect information about your use of the Services and other online activities, including our email correspondences, third-party services, and client applications, and certain online activities after you leave the Services and phone calls. Link information is generally only analyzed on an aggregate basis. Some Services features may not function properly if you disable cookies. Such data may include analytics information, sites visited before visiting the Services, browser type, operating system, and tracking of your interactions with our content and emails.

We partner with third parties to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partners may use cookies or similar technologies in order to provide you with advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests.

Advertising Information: We partner with third parties to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partners may use cookies or similar technologies in order to provide you with advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you have chosen to connect your account to an external third-party application, such as Facebook, or an app developed using the API, you can change your settings and remove permission for the app by changing your account settings.

Unique Identifiers: When you use or access the Services, we may access, collect, monitor, store on your device, and/or remotely store one or more "Unique Identifiers," such as a universally unique identifier (“UUID”). A Unique Identifier may remain on your device persistently, to help you log in faster and enhance your navigation through the Services. Some features of the Services may not function properly if use or availability of Unique Identifiers is impaired or disabled.

Analytics Information: We use data analytics to ensure site functionality and improve the Services. We use mobile analytics software to allow us to understand the functionality of the Services on your phone. This software may record information such as how often you use the Services, what happens within the Services, aggregated usage, performance data, app errors and debugging information, and where the Services were downloaded from. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information that you submit within the mobile application.

Log File Information: When you use our Services, we may receive log file information such as your IP address, browser type, access times, domain names operating system, the referring web page(s), pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device information (including device and application IDs), search terms, and cookie information. We receive log file data when you interact with our Services, for example, when you visit our website, sign into our Services, or interact with our email notifications. Helmer uses log file data to provide, understand, and improve our Services, and to customize the content we show you. Helmer may link this log file to other information Helmer collects about you via the Services.

Public Information: Helmer may also collect information about you from publicly available sources. Information you make publicly available in any public or open forum, such as on a social network, may be considered public information for the purposes of this Privacy Notice, and may be accessed and collected by Helmer. Please be aware that any content or information you share with or provide to third parties using or related to your use of the Services are neither private, nor confidential. Helmer is not responsible for any content or information you post or share with third parties. If you do not wish for certain information to be public, please do not share it publicly.

Information Use

Helmer uses the information we receive about you for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice. We generally process personal data received about you through our Services on the legal basis of Helmer’s legitimate interests in providing the Services and their functionality to you where such processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Helmer or by our Service Providers related to the Services. Where appropriate, we may rely on alternate legal bases, such as your consent to certain types of processing.

Helmer will generally use your information in the following circumstances on the legal basis of legitimate interests:

Providing and Improving our Services: We may use your information to improve and customize our Services, including sharing of your information for such purposes, and we do so as it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests of improving our Services for our users. This is also necessary to enable us to pursue our legitimate interests in understanding how our Services are being used, and to explore and unlock ways to develop and grow our business. It is also necessary to allow us to pursue our legitimate interests in improving our Services, efficiency, interest in Services for users and obtaining insights into usage patterns of our Services. We use your information to provide and improve the Services and our products, for billing and payments, for identification and authentication, for targeted online and offline marketing including through tools like Facebook Custom Audience and Google Customer Match, to contact members or interested parties, and for general research and aggregate reporting.

Keeping our Services Safe and Secure: We may also use your information for safety and security purposes, including sharing of your information for such purposes, and we do so because it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in ensuring the security of our Services, including enhancing protection of our community against spam, harassment, intellectual property infringement, crime, and security risks of all kind.

Information Sharing

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information as described in this Privacy Notice. Helmer may share your information with Helmer affiliated distributors, dealers, or business partners, but Helmer will not share, sell, rent, or otherwise disclose your private personal information to third parties without your consent or another valid legal basis permitted by law.

Helmer will share your information in the following circumstances on the legal basis of the legitimate interests of providing the requested Services:

Within Helmer: We may share and process information internally within Helmer and with our subsidiaries and affiliates. Helmer’s personnel may have access to your information as needed to provide and operate the Services in the normal course of business. This includes information regarding your use and interaction with the Services.

Affiliated Businesses: Helmer is affiliated with a variety of businesses and works closely with them for a variety of purposes, including assisting us to perform and improve the Services. These businesses may sell items or services to you through the Services or, with your consent, offer promotions (including email promotions) to you. Helmer may also provide services or sell products jointly with affiliated businesses, including providing information to such partners to allow them to more effectively market to you. When an affiliated business assists in facilitating your transaction, we may need to share information related to the transaction with that affiliated business in order to facilitate your transaction, and this forms part of the Services we provide in accordance with our Terms.

Service Providers: Helmer works with various organizations and individuals to help provide the Services to you ("Service Providers"), such as website and data hosting companies and companies providing analytics information, like Google Analytics. Helmer needs to engage such third-party Service Providers to help us operate, provide, and market the Services. These third parties have only limited access to your information and may use your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf. Information we share to our Service Providers may include both information you provide to us and information we collect about you, including personal data and information from data collection tools like cookies, web beacons, and log files.

Helmer takes reasonable steps to ensure that our Service Providers are obligated to reasonably protect your information on Helmer’s behalf. If Helmer becomes aware that a Service Provider is using or disclosing information improperly, we will take commercially reasonable steps to end or correct such improper use or disclosure.

We share personal information with our Service Providers on the legal basis of Helmer’s legitimate interests in providing you with the Services. Our engagement of Service Providers is often necessary for us to provide the Services to you, particularly where such companies play important roles like helping us keep our Services operating and secure. In some other cases, these service providers aren’t strictly necessary for us to provide the Services, but help us make it better, like by helping us conduct research into how we could better serve our users. In these latter cases, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to make our Services better.

Third Parties: Third-party plug-ins also may collect information about your use of the Services. For example, when you load a page on Helmer that has a social plug-in from a third-party site or service, such as a “Like” or “Send” button, you are also loading content from that third-party site. That site may request cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the third-party site. In addition, certain cookies and other similar technologies on the Services are used by third parties for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer or mobile device each time you use the Services. Please be aware that when you use third-party sites or services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those sites or services. Helmer chooses and manages these third-party technologies placed on its Services. However, these are third-party technologies, and they are subject to that third party's privacy policy. Helmer is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of third parties.

Business Transactions: Helmer may purchase other businesses or their assets, sell our business assets, or be involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets (a “Business Transaction”). Your information, including personal data, may be among assets sold or transferred as part of a Business Transaction. In some cases, Helmer may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interests, particularly our interest in making decisions that enables our organization to develop over the long term.

Safety and Lawful Requests: We may be required to disclose Services user information pursuant to lawful requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with applicable laws. We generally do not disclose user information unless we have a good faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or private litigants meets applicable legal standards. We may share your information when we believe it is necessary to comply with applicable laws, to protect our interests or property, to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the Services or using Helmer name, or to protect the safety of any person. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, agents, or government agencies. Nothing in this Privacy Notice is intended to limit any legal defenses or objections that you may have to a third party’s, including a government’s, request to disclose your information.

Aggregated Non-Personal Data: We may disclose aggregated, non-personal data received from providing the Services, including information that does not identify any individual, without restriction. Helmer may share demographic information with business partners, but it will be aggregated and de-personalized, so that personal information is not revealed.

4. Public Forums & Community

Helmer offers various communities and forums across the Services. We offer several features that allow members to connect and communicate in public or semi-public spaces as part of these Services. You don't have to use these features, but if you do, please use common sense and good judgment when posting in these community spaces or sharing your personal information with others through the Services.

Please be aware that any personal information that you choose to submit there can be read, collected, or used by others, or could be used to send unsolicited messages to you. We may engage certain third parties and Service Providers to assist in providing community services to you and, in the context of that relationship, we need to share some of your information with such third parties in order to provide that service. Helmer generally does not control or remove content from public Services spaces, and your posts may remain public after your account is closed. You are responsible for the personal information that you choose to post in public Services spaces.

5. Your Rights & Choices Regarding Your Information

Your Rights

Helmer seeks to ensure all individuals are provided with the rights mandated by their governing jurisdiction. Not all of the rights discussed in this Privacy Notice will apply to each individual data subject and may not apply to you depending upon your jurisdiction.

You may benefit from a number of rights in relation to your information that we process. Some rights apply only in certain limited cases, depending on your location. If you would like to manage, change, limit, or delete your personal information, you can do so by contacting us. Upon request, Helmer will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. In certain cases where we process your information, you may also have a right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your personal information. In certain circumstances, you also have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, and to obtain a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format.

To the extent that such rights are mandated by the laws applicable to the individual data subject, such as all data subjects residing in the European Union (“EU”), the following rights may apply: the right to access (GDPR, Article 15); the right to rectification (GDPR, Article16); the right to erasure (GDPR, Article 17); the right to restrict processing (GDPR, Articles 18); the right of object (GDPR, Article 21); and if applicable, the right to data portability (GDPR, Article 20). You may also have a right to lodge a complaint with an appropriate data privacy regulatory authority (GDPR, Article 77).

If we process your information based on our legitimate interests as explained in this Privacy Notice, or in the public interest, you can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. Where we use your data for direct marketing purposes, you can always object using the unsubscribe link in such communications or changing your account settings.

Where you have provided consent to certain data processing, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting Helmer at: marketing@helmerinc.com. A withdrawal of consent will not affect the validity of our use of your personal data up until the point you have withdrawn your consent.

If you no longer wish to use the Services or receive service-related messages (except for legally required notices), then you may contact us using the information above.

Access To The Information Helmer Has Collected About You

Helmer welcomes you to contact us regarding the information we have collected about you, including regarding the nature and accuracy of the data that has been collected about you, to request an update, modification, or deletion of your information, to opt-out of certain Services uses of your information, or to withdraw any consent you may have granted to Helmer.

Please note requests to delete or remove your information do not necessarily ensure complete or comprehensive removal of the content or information posted, and removed information may persist in backup copies indefinitely. Please note that if you choose to delete your information or opt-out of the collection and use of your information, you understand that certain features, including but not limited to access to the Services, may no longer be available to you.

Data Retention

Helmer will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, for as long as an account or membership is active, as described in this Privacy Notice, or as needed to provide the Services to you. Helmer will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your information to comply with applicable tax/revenue laws), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this Privacy Notice. In addition, Helmer sellers may also be required to retain and use your information in order to comply with certain legal obligations. We also retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period of time, except in cases where they are used for site safety and security, to improve site functionality, or we are legally obligated to retain them for longer time periods. We may delete your personal data from our systems as part of a data retention plan. Following termination or deactivation of a Services Account, Helmer may retain your information and content for a commercially reasonable time for backup, archival, and audit purposes.

Opting-Out Of Communications From Helmer

Users may opt-out of receiving certain communications from Helmer by following the unsubscribe process described in an email communication, or by contacting us using the contact information provided above. However, please note you may not opt-out of certain Services-related communications, such as account verification, changes or updates to features of the Services, or technical and security notices.

Do Not Track

Helmer does not currently employ a process for automatically responding to “Do Not Track” (DNT) signals sent by web browsers, mobile devices, or other mechanisms. Per industry standards, third parties may be able to collect information, including personal data, about your online activities over time and across different websites or online services when you use Services. You may opt out of online behavioral ads at http://www.aboutads.info/choices/. You also may limit certain tracking by disabling cookies in your web browser.

6. Information Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. Helmer takes reasonable efforts to secure and protect the privacy, accuracy, and reliability of your information and to protect it from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. Helmer implements security measures as we deem appropriate and consistent with industry standards. As no data security protocol is impenetrable, Helmer cannot guarantee the security of our systems or databases, nor can we guarantee that personal information we collect about you will not be breached, intercepted, destroyed, accessed, or otherwise disclosed without authorization. Accordingly, any information you transfer to or from Services are provided at your own risk.

Please do your part to help us keep your information secure. Services Account information is protected by a password. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your account and information by choosing your password carefully and by keeping your password and computer secure, such as by signing out after using the Services. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and Services Account, and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your password or Services Account. Helmer specifically reserves the right to terminate your access to the Services and any contract you have with Helmer related to the Services in the event it learns or suspects you have disclosed your Services Account or password information to an unauthorized third party.

7. Additional Provisions Regarding The Services & Your Information

Transfer And Storage Of Your Information

The United States, European Economic Area (“EEA”) Member States, and other countries all have different laws relating to privacy and data protection. When your information is moved from your home country to another country, the laws and rules that protect your personal information in the country to which your information is transferred may be different from those in the country in which you live. For example, the circumstances in which law enforcement can access personal information may vary from country to country. In particular, if your information is in the United States, it may be accessed by government authorities in accordance with U.S. law.

Please be advised information Helmer collects about you via the Services may be transferred, processed and/or accessed by us in the United States, or another country where we, or our Service Providers operate. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside. If you are located outside the United States and choose to allow us to collect information about you, please be aware that Helmer may transfer your personal data to the United States and process and store it there. We will transfer personal information only to those countries to which we are permitted by law to transfer personal information, and we will take steps to ensure that your personal information continues to enjoy appropriate protections.

Processing Necessary For The Performance Of The Contract

You can choose whether or not you want to use the Services. However, if you want to use the Services, you need to agree to our Terms, which set out the contract between Helmer and the users of the Services. We cannot provide many of the Services without your agreement to this contract, and without moving your personal information to Helmer entities and Service Providers in various jurisdictions. Therefore certain processing of your personal information is done on the legal basis of processing necessary for the performance of the contract between you, as a user of the Services, and Helmer.

Safely Using Helmer’s Services

Despite Helmer’s safety and privacy controls, we cannot guarantee the Services are entirely free of illegal, offensive, or otherwise inappropriate material, or that you will not encounter inappropriate or illegal conduct from other users when using the Services. You can help Helmer by notifying us of any unwelcome contact by contacting us using the information below.

Your California Privacy Rights

Under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 (known as the "Shine the Light" law), Helmer members and customers who are residents of California may request certain information about our disclosure of personal information during the prior calendar year to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please write to us at the address below or at marketing@helmerinc.com with "Request for California Privacy Information" on the subject line and in the body of your message. We will comply with your request within thirty (30) days or as otherwise required by the statute. Please be aware that not all information sharing is covered by the "Shine the Light" requirements and only information on covered sharing will be included in our response.

8. Changes to Our Privacy Notice

Helmer may modify this Privacy Notice from time to time. The most current version of this Privacy Notice will govern our use of your information and will be located at https://www.helmerinc.com/privacy-policy. You may contact us to obtain prior versions. We will notify you of material changes to this policy by posting a notice at the Services or by emailing you at an email address associated with your Services Account, if applicable, and provide an “at a glance” overview of any changes.