Privacy policy for child-directed sites

Effective date: August 21, 2012

General Mills is committed to providing a fun, entertaining, and safe online and mobile experience to people of all ages that use our services, and we take special care to protect the privacy of children under the age of 13. We recommend that parents discuss online and mobile safety with their children and supervise their children’s activities to help ensure that children enjoy a safe online or mobile experience.

What information might we collect from children and how might we use it?
At General Mills, the website and mobile experiences we create for children (collectively, the “services”) generally require limited or no collection of personal information. In most cases, we limit our collection of information to non-personal information (such as screen name or gender, age, browser, or device information) that a child voluntarily submits to us or that is gathered through the use of standard technologies such as cookies or web beacons.

From time to time, however, we may request limited personal information from a child (such as name or email address) in order for that child to participate in particular activities on our services. Except in special, limited circumstances described below, we do not collect such information from a child under 13 without the prior consent of a parent/guardian. When we ask for consent, we will tell the parent/guardian what we will do with the information that the child provides to us, how they can review their child's information, and how they can request us to delete it. We do not condition a child's participation in any activity on the service on a child’s disclosure of more information than is reasonably necessary to conduct the activity.

As mentioned above, from time to time, we may collect information from a child under 13 without prior consent of a parent/guardian, but only in these special, limited circumstances:

  • We may seek online contact information in order to respond on a one-time basis to a specific request of that child. For example, if a child sends us an email request, we will hold their email address long enough to respond to them and then delete it from our system after we have provided an answer.
  • From time to time, we may have special online promotions such as sweepstakes and contests on our services that are open for registration by children under the age of 13. In these situations, we may collect online contact information in order to communicate on a one-time basis with a child to inform them that they have won the sweepstakes or contest. At that point, we will ask the winning child for the online contact information of a parent/guardian so that we can make arrangements to award the prize.
  • Alternatively, we may ask the child for a parent/guardian’s online contact information so that we can notify them about their child’s participation in a promotion or otherwise seek consent. Any information that is given to us in this circumstance is used only for the purpose of conducting the activity and will be deleted from our system after conclusion of the promotion and any legally required period for keeping such information.
  • In addition, our services may include a send-to-a-friend feature that makes it easy for visitors to forward information or materials from our services to friends or family by e-mail. To address the e-mail message, we will ask for the recipient’s e-mail address. General Mills does not retain this information for any purpose.
  • We may seek a child’s name and contact information to the extent reasonably necessary to protect the safety of a child participating in our services. In this situation, the information will only be used for the purpose of protecting the child’s safety, and we will provide the parent/guardian with notice of this use.
  • We may seek a child’s name and contact information to the extent reasonably necessary to protect the security or integrity of our services; to take precautions against liability; to respond to judicial process; or (to the extent permitted by law) to provide information to law enforcement agencies or for an investigation on a matter related to public safety.

Whenever we collect personal information through the services, the information will be used solely by General Mills or its agents or service providers for the purposes indicated at the time the child (with parental/guardian notice or consent, as applicable) provides the information or pursuant to further consent.

How do we share the personal information we collect from children?
We may transfer, disclose, or share personal information we collect through our services with service providers who are engaged by us specifically to administer or fulfill certain online activities, such as conducting sweepstakes and contests. These service providers have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, but may not use or disclose it for other purposes. We may also disclose personal information to third parties when required by law or pertinent to judicial or government investigations or proceedings, when otherwise necessary to protect our services or the safety of our users, in connection with a substantial corporate transaction, or with a parent/guardian’s consent.

How do we use cookies, web beacons, or similar technologies?
We may employ cookie technology, web beacons, and similar devices on our services to facilitate site administration and navigation and to provide an enhanced online experience for our visitors. Through these mechanisms, we may collect, for example, a user’s IP address (for example, yahoo.com - 192.168.1.1), the type of web browser (for example, Internet Explorer) and operating system (for example, Windows or iOS) being used, the pages of the site a user visits, and other websites a user visited before visiting our site.

Most web browsers accept cookies automatically, but can be configured not to do so or to notify the user when a cookie is sent. If you wish to disable cookies, please refer to your browser’s help section. Our cookies do not collect or contain personal information such as a name or email address.

Web beacons are 1x1 single-pixel graphics that may be embedded in web pages or emails. We may use web beacons on our websites to count users and to recognize users by accessing our cookies. Like our cookies, our web beacons do not collect or contain personal information such as name or email address.

Security
We have taken steps to protect the confidentiality, security, and integrity of all information our visitors share will us. This includes setting up processes to help avoid any unauthorized access or disclosure of this information. Please note, though, that no system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.

Contacting us regarding your child’s personal information
Upon providing proper identification, parents can request to review, correct, update, or have deleted their child’s personal information from our database by writing to us at:

General Mills, Inc.,
Number One General Mills Boulevard,
Minneapolis, MN 55426
Attn: Consumer Services.

We can also be reached by telephone by dialing our consumer response department at 1-800-328-8360 weekdays from 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. Central Time, or by email at cshelp@genmills.com. Please feel free to use this same contact information if at any time you have questions or concerns about our Privacy Policy.

General Mills reserves the right to change our practices and our Privacy Policy at any time. Any changes will be reflected on this page. Therefore we recommend that you visit our Privacy Policy often so that you are always fully informed. In addition, we will send a notice to any parent for whom we have contact information informing them of any material change in the collection, use, and/or disclosure practices to which that parent previously consented.

© 2012 General Mills, Inc. and its affiliates. All Rights Reserved.