A&W Communications maintains high standards for the protection of privacy over the Internet. The purpose of this statement is to explain the types of information A&W obtains about visitors to our websites, how the information is obtained, how it is used, and how visitors can restrict its use or disclosure.

    The only information A&W obtains about individual visitors to our websites is information supplied voluntarily by the visitor. This means that you can visit our websites without telling us who you are or revealing any information about yourself. To gauge the effectiveness of our websites, we do collect some non-individually-identifiable generic information about our visitors. Our web servers automatically recognize a visitor's domain name (such as .com, .edu, etc.), the web page from which a visitor enters our site, which pages a visitor visits on our site, and how much time a visitor spends on each page. This information does not reveal a visitor's identity. We aggregate this information and use it to evaluate and improve our websites.

    You can choose to provide individually-identifiable information to A&W in a number of ways through our websites - by ordering a service from us, sending us e-mail, registering to receive news or public policy information, applying for a job or a grant, or entering a contest. When visitors supply information about themselves for a specific purpose, A&W uses the information for that purpose (such as to provide the information the visitor has requested or to consider a visitor for a particular job). In addition, when visitors use our websites to order services, or to request information about our services, we may use the individually-identifiable information as we would use the same information obtained off-line - for example, to evaluate your service needs and contact you regarding additional services you may find useful. You have the right to choose not to receive this information by notifying us of your preference.

    We do not sell or disclose individually-identifiable information obtained on-line about our visitors, to anyone outside of A&W unless you specifically authorize it, it is required by law, or disclosure is necessary to protect the safety of customers, employees or property. If you provide individually-identifiable information to us in the context of an event A&W sponsors with another company, such as a contest, or if you register on a co-sponsored site or feature, you may also be providing the individually-identifiable information to the co-sponsor. This will be made clear to you before you submit the information and you can decide whether or not to participate.

    A&W does not send unsolicited e-mail. We may use email to communicate with our customers, to respond to visitors' emails, to confirm orders placed online, and to send information that a visitor has requested. If you receive an unwanted email from us, you can simply use the reply feature on your browser in order to ask us not to send you future emails. In the body of your reply, simply ask us to remove you from our list.

    Some of A&W's websites may use "cookies" to improve our level of service to visitors. Cookies are lines of text that are transmitted to your web browser when you click on a site. Your browser stores the information on your hard drive and when you return to that site later, the cookie is transmitted back to the server that originally sent it to you. Cookies provide a way for a server to recall a previous request or previous registration, or to keep track of a transaction as it progresses, so that information does not have to be repeated. To be notified when you are about to receive a cookie you can configure your browser to alert you when a site is attempting to send you a cookie and at that time you will have the option of refusing the cookie. You can check your hard drive for cookie files, on the "cookies.txt" file on your PC's hard drive; or under "magic cookies" on a Macintosh.

    A&W is committed to safeguarding customer privacy on all A&W websites. We require our employees to protect the privacy of information about our customers and expect our partners and suppliers to do so as well.

    The A&W websites may contain links to other sites. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites.

    To improve the services it can offer you, A&W may opt to expand its capabilities for obtaining information about users in the future. A&W will update this privacy statement continually to ensure that you are aware of developments in this area.