We appreciate the trust you place in the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and Monticello.  We are committed to respecting your privacy and the security of your personal information. Our privacy policy, updated on May 25, 2018, describes the information we collect and how we use it.  It applies to our primary website at monticello.org and our retail website at monticelloshop.org.

We welcome questions and feedback.  Please contact us at:

Thomas Jefferson Foundation Inc.
P.O. Box 316
Charlottesville, VA 22902

You may also use our online contact form.

Information We Collect

We may collect information (including name, address, telephone number, email address, device location, transaction information, credit card information and date of birth) when you:

  • Purchase or reserve tickets on our website
  • Place an order from our catalog or on our website
  • Make a purchase at one of our stores (we do not require personal information, such as zip, name, address or email, as a condition of accepting payment by credit or debit card)
  • Return an item or make an exchange
  • Inquire about our services
  • Request a catalog
  • Receive a gift package
  • Create an account at monticello.org or monticelloshop.org
  • Sign up for email updates
  • Enter a contest or sweepstakes
  • Are referred to us through a marketing promotion
  • Participate in a marketing survey, promotion or event

We maintain the data that you provide us, along with a record of your purchases, in a secure database. To better serve you, we may combine this information with data that is publicly available and data we receive from other reputable sources.

Our websites also use third-party analytics vendors such as Google Analytics. For more information about how data is collected and processed in connection with the Google Analytics service: www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. We and our third-party vendors or partners use analytics data for a variety of purposes such as to improve the design and content of our websites, to help us learn things like what pages are most attractive to all of our visitors and what promotions visitors like to see, and to gauge the success of our advertising campaigns.

We also gather information about how visitors navigate through our website by using clickstream data gathered with "cookies" and other online tools such as "pixel tags."

Using Information We Collect

We want to provide you with the best possible shopping experience and fulfill your purchases exactly as requested. To do this, we collect information that allows us to:

  • Process and track your ticket purchase
  • Process and track your order of products
  • Provide the services you request
  • Contact you about the status of an order
  • Send you catalogs or other mailings we believe will be of interest to you
  • Send you email updates
  • Identify your product and service preferences
  • Customize our communications to you
  • Provide information concerning product recalls or products you have purchased
  • Improve our merchandise selection and customer service

Information We Share with Others

We contract with other companies to provide certain services, including shipping, name and address verification, email distribution, market research, third party advertising, promotions management and payment processing. We provide these companies with only the information they need to perform their services and work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected. These companies are prohibited by contract from using this information for their own marketing purposes or from sharing this information with anyone other than us.

From time to time, we make our mailing list (names and addresses only) and general shopping activity available to reputable companies whose products or services we believe will be of interest to you. We do not share email addresses for this purpose. If you do not want to receive mailings from other reputable companies and prefer that we do not share any information with these companies, please contact us.

On rare occasions, we may disclose specific information upon governmental request, in response to a court order, or when required by law to do so. We may also share information with companies assisting in fraud protection or investigation. We do not provide information to these agencies or companies for marketing or commercial purposes.

Your Choices about Communication from Monticello

We offer choices about the types of information you receive from us. If you prefer not to receive catalogs, other mailings, or email updates from us or if you prefer to receive them less frequently, please contact us at the address shown above. You can also unsubscribe from our email updates using the link provided in each edition of the email.

Please be sure to provide us your exact name and address, or the label from your mailing. Because mailings are planned in advance, it may take several weeks for your request to become effective.

Cookies and Pixel Tags

A cookie is a small data file stored by your Web browser on your computer. Cookies enable you to purchase a ticket or place an order on our website. They also allow us to enhance and personalize your online experience, so the information you receive is more relevant to you.

For example, we use cookies to:

  • Remember what items are in your Shopping Cart
  • Recognize you when you return to our website
  • Enable faster checkout if you have created an account at monticelloshop.org
  • Study how our customers navigate through our website and which products they request in site searches

If you set your browser to refuse cookies you may not be able to complete a transaction on our website:

  • For orders from monticelloshop.org, please call us at 800-243-1743.
  • To purchase tickets for a visit to Monticello, please call us at 434-984-9800.

We also use pixel tags – small graphic images – to tell us what parts of our website you have visited or to measure the effectiveness of any searches you may do on our site. Pixel tags also enable us to send you email in a format you can read and let us know when you have opened an email message from us.

We may contract with other companies who use cookies or other online tools such as pixel tags to measure the performance of a marketing effort on our behalf. We prohibit these companies from using this information for their own marketing purposes or from sharing this information with anyone other than us.

We may also contract with third party advertising companies to serve advertisements on our behalf across the Internet. To do this, they will collect anonymous information about your visits to our website and your interaction with our products and services. They may also use information about your visits to this and other websites to target advertisements. These targeted advertisements may appear on other sites that you visit. This anonymous information is collected through the use of a cookie or pixel tag – industry standard technology used by most major websites. No personally identifiable information is collected in this process.

How We Use Email

When you provide us your email address, we will email you as necessary to process your ticket purchase, order, respond to a request or provide customer service. For example, after you place an order at monticelloshop.org, you will receive an email confirmation and, in most cases, an email with package tracking information.

We may also send promotional emails about products, special offers, services or events we believe may be of interest to you. It is our intent to send promotional emails only to those who wish to receive them. We provide instructions on how to unsubscribe in each email.

Links to Other Sites

We may provide links on our website to other sites to enhance the functionality and shopping experience. These sites operate independently of Monticello and have established their own privacy and security policies. We encourage you to review these policies at any site you visit.

Updating or Reviewing Your Information

To update your customer information (name, address, telephone number and email address), please contact us at the address above. A limited amount of purchase information may also be available to you. To protect your privacy, we will need to validate your identity before you update or review your information.

Security

It is our intent to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you or received from a partner. We use a variety of current technologies and processes for protection of our customer data. We limit the information we provide to outside companies with whom we contract to only what they need to carry out their responsibilities. It is our practice to use encryption whenever we receive or transmit sensitive data.

When you make a purchase, request a catalog or create an account on our websites, your transactional information is transmitted in a safe, encrypted format.

Privacy of Children on Our website

Our website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13.

Policy Changes

From time to time, we may use customer information for unanticipated uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change, we will post these changes on our website. We encourage you to review our privacy policy periodically.