General Mills Privacy Policy

Effective Date: January, 2021

General Mills is proud to market some of the world's most trusted brands. We know that maintaining your trust requires that we protect your privacy – so we are very sensitive to the privacy concerns of those who use our websites, our pages and applications on third-party social media platforms, our emails, and our mobile applications (collectively, with all other platforms that link to this policy, our "Services").

This Privacy Policy explains our information practices, the choices that you, as a user of our Services, can make, as well as the rights you have, in relation to our collection, use, dissemination, disclosure and/or processing of your information. Such information includes "personal information" or "personal data" as defined under applicable data protection laws.

Information We Collect From You, From Your Device, Or From Others

We may collect information about you (and the device you use to access our Services) in a variety of ways:

You may directly provide information to us
You may choose to allow a third party, such as a social media platform, to share information with us
We may gather other information from your device when you visit our Site or use or access our Services, or when you view our online advertisements
We may obtain additional information about you from other sources where permitted by law

If we are unable to collect information relating to you, we may be unable to provide you with the goods or services you request. More detail on each of these methods of collection is immediately below.

Information you directly provide

When you access and use our Services or otherwise communicate with us, you may directly provide us with information, including (but not limited to) the following:

Contact Information (such as name, email address, mailing address, telephone number and the like)
Username or password
Demographic information (such as age or date of birth, gender, marital status, number of children, or other characteristics)
Credit card or other payment information
Loyalty card information
Contact details of family members or others
Information about your purchases
Any other information that you choose to provide us about you, your family, or others
Any other information that we may require from time to time in order to provide you with our Services, including information that may be considered sensitive personal information under applicable data protection laws.
Any other information you provide in order for us to process an application for employment or for contracted services, including your employment or educational history, your relevant experience and skills, and responses to pre-employment assessments you may be required to take during the application process.

Some of the information listed above may be considered sensitive personal information under applicable data protection law. We will process and protect your sensitive personal information in compliance with this Privacy Policy and applicable data protection law.

Information from social media platforms

If you choose to access or make use of third-party social media platform (such as Facebook, WeChat, or Twitter), we may receive personal information about you that you have made available to those services, including information about your contacts on those services.

For example, some social media platform allow you to push content from our Services to your contacts or to pull information about your contacts so you can connect with them on our Services. Some social media platforms will also facilitate your registration or log-in for our Services or enhance or personalize your experience on our Services.

Your decision to use a social media platform will always be voluntary. However, you should make sure you are comfortable with the information social media platforms may make available to our Services by visiting those platforms' privacy policies.

Information we gather from your device when you access or use our Services, or when you view our online advertisements

When you access or use our Services, or when you view our online advertisements, we may use cookies or other technologies (including pixels, tags, and web beacons) to collect information about your computer or device and your online activity. The following are examples of the types of information we may collect in this way:

Device type (such as desktop, tablet, or mobile device)
Browser type (such as Internet Explorer)
Operating system (such as Windows)
Geolocation information
IP address, device ID, or similar information
Websites or online services you visit before or after our Services
Your interaction with our Services (such as the links you click on and the pages and items you view)
Whether you open or forward our emails or click on elements within these emails

Information we may obtain from other sources

Where permitted by applicable law: (a) we may collect information about you from other sources, such as public databases, recruiting agencies or previous employers (for employment applications) other brands and groups within General Mills, and other commercially available sources; and (b) we may also collect information about you from third parties we engage to provide services to you on our behalf, including (but not limited to) third parties handling consumer support inquiries or marketing.

This information may include:

Contact Information (e.g., name, email address, mailing address, telephone number)
Social media user IDs
Age or date of birth
Gender
Demographic information
Marital status and number and age of children
Income level
Purchasing behavior
Interests, hobbies, and product preferences
Interactions with media or advertising
Publicly observable activities (such as blogs and online postings)
Other information that has been collected by other brands or businesses within the General Mills family of companies
Other information that we may use to improve our marketing activities.

Some of this information may be considered sensitive under applicable data protection laws. Please note that, where permitted by applicable law, parts or all the information we collect or obtain may be combined or linked (by us or by third parties providing services to us) for any of the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including to help us customize how we communicate with you and to improve our products, services, and marketing efforts.

HOW WE USE THIS INFORMATION

We may collect, use, disclose and/or hold personal information for the purposes listed below (unless otherwise required by law):

to communicate with you regarding our products, services, and promotions. Note that, if you would not like to receive data marketing materials from us, you may notify us using the contact details set out below;
to provide you with other information, services, products, or other materials you request or in which you may be interested;
to respond to, handle, and process queries, requests, applications, complaints, and feedback from you;
to comply with applicable laws, regulations, codes of practice, guidelines, or rules, or to assist in law enforcement and investigations conducted by any governmental and/or regulatory authority;
to process payment or credit transactions;
to customize your interactive experience (including by providing you with relevant advertising on our Services and elsewhere);
to manage and improve our sites, products, and service offerings;
for our internal management purposes and to manage our relationship with you;
to process your employment application or proposal, provide job related information, consider you for employment or a proposed service, and monitor and improve our recruiting process; and
to fulfil contractual requirements, such as performing obligations in the course of or in connection with the provision of the goods and/or services requested by you.

Depending on the type of Services you are using, some specific ways that we may use this information are as follows:

to register you to receive emails or other information or materials you request
to register you for a contest, sweepstakes, or other promotion
to register you to receive discounts, premiums, product samples, or other materials
to create and manage your account as a user or member of our Services (or as someone who may post content to our Services)
to provide you with services or offers you have requested
to respond if you contact one of our Customer Care Representatives
to process your payment for purchases or other services
to better understand the audience for our Services
to analyse how our products, services and sites are accessed and used
to help us develop new products, services, and sites
to conduct surveys and other research and analysis
to develop and deliver advertising and other communications more tailored to your interests
to help us improve our advertising
to provide security and protect against fraud
to enforce our Terms of Use, Community Rules, or other legal rights
If you become employed or engaged by us, we will use some of this information in connection with your employment/engagement

We will not send you any email marketing communication unless you expressly consent to receive such a communication from us. And if you do sign up to receive these emails, you will always have the opportunity to "unsubscribe" from further email marketing messages from that General Mills brand or group.

The legal basis we rely on for processing your personal information will vary depending on your country of residence, and the reason the information is being used. Our legal bases for processing your personal information for the purposes described above include (a) processing that is necessary for the performance of our contract with you (such as where necessary to provide you with our products or Services); (b) processing that is necessary for our legitimate interests (such as to carry out analytics in order to improve our Services); and (c) processing that is necessary to comply with our legal obligations (such as to respond to a subpoena or other legal process); (d) and, where required by applicable law, your consent, which may subsequently be withdrawn at any time by contacting us at the details listed below.

We may also use your personal information in other ways and will provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent where necessary.

How We Retain Information

We hold the information we collect in electronic and/or paper form. Personal information is maintained at our offices or on our servers (or those of our service providers) and is accessible by authorized employees, representatives and agents who require access for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. We retain information for as long as it is reasonably needed for the purpose for which it was collected, or for so long as there is a need to preserve it for legal reasons. We delete information as soon as reasonably practical after a valid deletion request or after the end of the period just described, whichever is sooner.

How We May Share Information With Others

We may share the information we collect with the following types of entities in connection with the purposes listed above, including those which may be located in the United States or other countries outside your country of residence.

Affiliates. We may share information within General Mills among our various businesses, and within our family of affiliated companies. As allowed by applicable law, we may share information for the reasons listed in the section entitled "How We Use This Information".

Service Providers, Advisers, and Consultants. We may share information with third parties that provide services on our behalf and third parties that provide services to us. The categories of third parties with whom we may share information include those providing services related to marketing, advertising, IT support, platform hosting, preventing and detecting fraud or loss, and financial transactions, as well as third parties who may assist us with activities described in the section of this Policy called "How We Use This Information". Some service providers may be involved in administering or, where allowed by law, supplementing our databases.

Other Parties When Required by Law or as Necessary to Protect Our Users and Services. We also may disclose information to third parties in order to:

protect our legal rights, as well as the rights of the users of our Services or others;
protect the safety and security of the Services, our users, or others;
investigate violations of law and to prevent fraud; or
comply with the law in any of the jurisdictions in which we do business, or if we are compelled to release information by a court of law or other person or entity with jurisdiction to compel production of such information, asked to respond to legal process or a request for co-operation by a government entity, whether or not legally required (depending on local law).

Other Parties in Connection with a Corporate Transaction. We reserve the right to disclose any information we have about you in the event that we sell, merge, or otherwise transfer all or a portion of our business or assets to a third party (or offer to do so), or in the unlikely event of a bankruptcy or similar event. If we disclose your personal information in the context of a corporate transaction, as required by applicable data protection law, we will require the third parties receiving your personal information to comply this Privacy Policy, or otherwise obtain your consent separately. Outside this context, we will not sell any lists of consumer contact information to unaffiliated companies for their marketing purposes.

Otherwise with Your Consent or as Permitted by Law. In addition to the sharing described or permitted by this Privacy Policy, we may share information about you with third parties whenever you consent to such sharing, or as permitted by law.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS

Third Parties Who Provide Content, Advertising, Or Functionality On Our Services

Some of the content, advertising, and functionality on our Services may be provided by third parties who are not affiliated with us. For example:

Certain third parties may serve advertising or keep track of which advertisements users see, how often they see those advertisements, and what users do in response to them. These third parties may use cookies and similar technologies to provide these services.
We may enable you to share certain materials on the Services with others through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and those platforms may provide tools for doing so on our Site.

These third parties may collect or receive certain information about your use of our Services, including through the use of cookies and other technologies, and this information may be collected over time and combined with information collected across different websites and online services, where permitted by law.

One of the third parties that provides services to us is Google Inc. Like many websites, we use Google Analytics, a service that provides information about how many users visit our Services, when they visit, and how they navigate our Services. Google offers a browser add-on that enables users to opt out of having data about their visits reported to websites by Google Analytics. More information about the add-on is here.

International Transfer Of Data

We may collect, transfer, store, process, and/or disclose your information outside your country of residence, consistent with this Privacy Policy and with applicable law (for example, the legal basis for transfers of information may stem from standard contractual clauses or consent). A copy of transfer contracts may be obtained by contacting us.

As mentioned above, we may also disclose your personal information to recipients located outside your country of residence, consistent with this Privacy Policy. These recipients may be located in countries such as the United States. Please note that the data protection and other laws of countries to which your information may be transferred might not be as comprehensive as those in your country. When we transfer your personal information to recipients located outside your country of residence, we will protect that personal information as described in this Privacy Policy, and in compliance with applicable data protection law.

Safeguarding Information

We are committed to keeping your interactions on our Services safe and secure. We have implemented administrative, technical, and physical measures intended to safeguard personal information in our custody and control against theft, loss, and unauthorized access, use, modification, and disclosure. Please note, however, that we cannot absolutely guarantee the security of any information you provide online; you provide it at your own risk.

Links To Other Services

Our Services may contain links to the sites of our affiliates, and to sites that are owned and operated by third parties. These other sites may have their own privacy policies and are not be governed by this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of sites owned and operated by third parties. Other sites may collect and treat information collected differently, so we encourage you to carefully read and review the privacy policy for each site you visit.

User-Generated Content And Public Profile Features

Our Services may, from time to time, contain interactive areas where Services users might submit comments or other content (including information about the user that might be displayed in the user's public profile within an online community) that may be visible to others. Users should be aware that when they voluntarily disclose personal information in content submitted for posting or publication, the information can be read and used by others. This may result in unsolicited messages from other posters or parties. We make no representations and undertake no obligations as to the security or use of information you voluntarily include when submitting content.

Share-With-A-Friend Tools

Our Services may, from time to time, include a share-with-a-friend application that makes it easy for you to forward information or materials from our Services to friends or family by email. In order to address your email message, the application may ask you to input the recipient's email address and/or similar information (including your email address). This information is used by the application to address your message so that it can be properly sent. We may temporarily maintain a log of this information for troubleshooting and fraud-prevention purposes. In the event that we are offering you some form of referral award for encouraging an action on the part of the recipient (for example, if you are to earn a reward if the recipient chooses to register for one of our offerings after receiving the email from you), we may also retain the information as necessary to establish that the referral award was earned.

Children's Privacy

Our Services are not directed to children as defined by applicable law, and we will not knowingly request any information from children without the consent of their guardians. If we find that children provide their personal information to us without the consent of their guardians, we will delete such personal information immediately. General Mills may offer other services that are geared in whole or in part to a child audience, and the practices that apply to those services are described in the privacy policies that apply to those services. General Mills takes special care to protect the privacy of children. We also recommend that parents monitor their children's Internet activities and learn and employ software or other tools that can help their children enjoy the fun and entertainment of an online experience without compromising their personal safety or allowing them to use the Internet in a manner inconsistent with their parents’ preferences.

Anonymity And Pseudonyms

Where feasible, you may have the option of not identifying yourself or using a pseudonym when dealing with us unless we are required by law or a court/tribunal to deal with individuals who have identified themselves, or it is impractical for us to deal with you if you have not identified yourself.

Changes To Our Privacy Policy

We may change or replace this Privacy Policy at our sole discretion at any time. Please check back from time to time to ensure that you are aware of any updates or changes in this Privacy Policy. Your continued use of, or access to, our Services, as well as our handling of your information more generally, will be subject to the version of the Privacy Policy that is in force at the time of that use, access, or handling. Any updates or changes to this Privacy Policy will be announced in our main website (and/or the correlative main website in your jurisdiction).

YOUR CONTROL OVER YOUR INFORMATION; EXERCISING YOUR RIGHTS AND CHOICES

How To Make A Complaint About A Breach Of Your Privacy Rights

If you think we have breached our privacy obligations in dealing with your personal information, you may make a complaint by writing to us using the contact details set out below and we will endeavor to provide you with confirmation as to how we propose to deal with the complaint as soon as reasonably practicable. If you are not satisfied with our response to your complaint, then you may make a complaint to the relevant privacy regulatory body in your country of residence.

More Information About Your Rights

You always have the right to review and update the information that you previously provided to us at this Site. You may contact us as described below in the "How to Contact Us" section below in order to arrange this or to ask us to remove you from our list of email addresses to which we send email newsletters. All of our email newsletters also contain an "unsubscribe" link that you can click through to unsubscribe from future email newsletters from that General Mills brand or group.You always have the right to review and update the information that you previously provided to us at this Site. You may contact us as described below in the "How to Contact Us" section below in order to arrange this or to ask us to remove you from our list of email addresses to which we send email newsletters. All of our email newsletters also contain an "unsubscribe" link that you can click through to unsubscribe from future email newsletters from that General Mills brand or group.

In addition to your right to be informed about our data practices, including the entities with which we have shared your information, you have the right to request access to information (including to obtain a copy of your personal information) we specifically hold about you and to request that we rectify inaccuracies in that information (subject to certain exceptions under applicable law).

Depending on applicable law, you may also have the right to erasure, the right to close your accounts, the right to restrict processing by requesting anonymization, blocking or deletion of data, the right to withdraw your consent to future processing, the right to data portability, and the right to object to certain processing of your information, including processing carried out in violation to applicable law.

If you would like to make a request pursuant to these rights, please contact our customer service department via the contact information provided below.

We may require you to verify your identity and specify what information you require before completing a request. We will respond to your request within a reasonable time and in compliance with applicable data protection law. There may be occasions when a request to access, obtain, modify, or prevent the use of personal information we hold about you is denied. Such occasions would include, for example, where access to the information would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others. In these situations, we will provide you the reasons for the denial.

Cookie choices

As described in detail in the "Cookie Notice" section of this Privacy Policy below, third parties use a variety of cookies and similar technologies (referred to collectively below as "cookies" for simplicity) to collect information on our Sites for the business purposes described above, including providing analytics services to us and providing advertising on our Sites and elsewhere based on users' online activities over time and across different sites, services, and devices (so-called "online behavioural advertising" or "targeted advertising").

As required by applicable law, cookies and similar technologies will only be used with your prior informed consent, unless they are necessary for the provision of services you requested.

You can control and/or disable cookies as you wish, and we are proud to offer you multiple ways to make choices about cookies.

The primary way to do this is by accessing the Cookie Preference Center that we have established for each of our Sites (which you can access by clicking the "Customize Cookie Settings" link found in the bottom footer of each Site, near the link to the Privacy Policy). Once in the Preference Center, you will be able to make choices about a variety of cookies, including third-party targeted advertising cookies and, where applicable, other cookies that we (or third parties) may use on that Site. Certain of our own Sites may also directly contain targeted advertisements. These are served to you by Google. Please click here if you want to restrict Google from using information it obtains through serving targeted advertisements on those Sites.

How To Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or about our collection, holding use or disclosure of your personal information, or if you would like to make a complaint in relation to your privacy, please Contact Us.

You may also reach us by telephone at (305) 591-1771 or by physical mail at:

General Mills, Inc.
8400 NW 36 Street Suite 310
Miami, FL 33166

YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTOOD THE INFORMATION DESCRIBED IN THIS POLICY AND THAT THE COMPANY HAS COMPLIED WITH ITS DUTY TO INFORM CONSUMERS UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

Cookie Notice

This Cookie Notice applies to our websites and our mobile applications. Please read this Cookie Notice carefully and feel free to contact us if you have any questions by contacting us via the contact information provided above.

We (and third parties that provide content, advertising, or functionality on our Services) may use cookies, and other technologies to facilitate website administration and navigation; to better understand and improve our Services; to determine and improve the advertising shown to you here or elsewhere; and to provide you with a rich online experience. We provide more details about these technologies below.

Cookies

A "Cookies" is a tiny file that is stored on your device. It contains a unique identifier, as well as the address or other information about the site you are visiting.

Some cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around our Services and use its features, such as accessing secured areas. Other cookies collect information about how visitors use the Services (for instance, which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages). When combined with information collected when you register on a website, cookies allow us to welcome you back to the site or otherwise provide enhanced, more personal features. Cookies may also be used on our behalf by third parties managing our advertising on other websites to enable us to learn which advertisements bring visitors to our sites and to otherwise improve or target our online advertising.

Most browsers accept cookies automatically but can be configured not to do so or to notify the user when a cookie is being sent. If you wish to disable cookies, refer to your browser help menu to learn how to disable cookies. Please note that if you disable cookies, you may be unable to access some customized features on our Services.

Other tracking technologies

A variety of other tracking technologies, like web beacons, pixels, and tags are also used. These are small strings of code that are placed on a web page, email, or advertisement. When you access a page containing one of these technologies, you establish a communication with a web server, which collects certain information about your computer or device. This may include your IP address, browser type, operating system type, and identifiers that have been stored in cookies. We (and third parties) may use these technologies to count the number of visitors to our Sites and to recognize users by accessing unique identifiers stored in cookies that we have set on their computers or devices. Being able to access these identifiers enables us to provide a personalized experience on our Sites. We may also include technologies like these in advertisements or in email messages to determine how these are acted on.

For purposes of the balance of this "Cookie Notice", we will include all of these technologies within the generic term "cookies".

Categories of cookies and your rights

As mentioned in the previous paragraphs, cookies are used for different purposes. Some cookies are "set" (delivered to your browser) by us. These are called "first party cookies". Others, called "third party cookies" are set by third parties who are given access to do so on our Site.

As required by applicable law, cookies and similar technologies will only be used with your prior informed consent, unless they are necessary for the provision of services you requested.

You can control and/or disable cookies as you wish, and we are proud to offer you multiple ways to make choices about cookies.

The primary way to do this is by accessing the Cookie Preference Center that we have established for each of our Sites (which you can access by clicking the "Customize Cookie Settings" link found in the bottom footer of each Site, near the link to the Privacy Policy). Within the Cookie Preference Center, you will find descriptions of each category of cookie (similar to those immediately below), and then you will be able to choose to accept or reject certain categories of cookies, should you wish to do so (except that you cannot choose to opt out of receiving cookies falling within the "strictly necessary" category, because our Site will not function properly without these).

Cookies on our Sites fall into the following categories:

Strictly Necessary Cookies
These cookies are necessary for the Site to function and cannot be switched off in our systems through the Cookie Preference Center. These cookies are usually only set in response to your request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in, filling in forms, and accessing secure areas of the Site. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the Site will not then work.
Analytics Cookies
These cookies allow our Site to collect information about how you interact with the Site, including which pages you visit most often and if certain pages send you error messages. These cookies help us improve our services. If these cookies are blocked or disabled, our Site may become less functional, including the potential that some of our services may no longer be available to you.
Functional Cookies
Functional cookies allow our Site to remember information, such as your preferred language, that can be used to customize your experience on our Site. These cookies also can be used to provide you with information specific to your region and may assist you in customizing our Site's appearance. If these cookies are blocked or disabled, our Site may become less functional, including the potential that some of our services may no longer be available to you.
Targeting Cookies
Targeting cookies are used by parties that are involved in serving other companies’ advertising on our sites, or that are involved in determining which of our advertisements (or other parties’ advertisements) to show you on third-party websites. These cookies collect information about your online activities, such as the advertisements you have seen or the websites or pages you have visited, in order to draw inferences about what advertising might be relevant to you. This information is then used to show you targeted advertising (sometimes referred to as "interest based advertising" or "online behavioural advertising") that may be most relevant to you, including when you visit other websites not belonging to us. If these cookies are blocked or disabled, our Site may become less functional, including the potential that some of our services may no longer be available to you.
Although the precise cookies may change from time to time, they generally will be restricted to the categories mentioned above.
With respect to this final category of cookies described above (targeting cookies), we offer a second means of opting out of and/or revoking consent for these cookies where applicable, beyond our Cookie Preference Center. The Cookie Preference Center relates to the cookies that are set on our Site but does not affect the rest of the online world. There is also an industry-wide opt out program for targeting cookies. Where applicable, you can revoke consent to targeting cookies by clicking here (In Canada click here, in Brazil click here).

Through this latter program, where applicable, you can opt out of receiving targeting cookies from a broad array of third parties on any site, not just ours. Please be aware, though, that this opt-out process is itself cookie-based. In other words, if you opt out, a cookie is placed on your browser that informs these third parties that they are not to use cookies with you for targeted advertising. As a result, if you subsequently clear cookies from your browser (as many people do periodically), your opt out will be lost until you reinstate it.

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