Best Buy

Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota.

3.5/10

How we calculate ratings →

Handling

Does the policy allow personally-targeted or behavioral marketing? Yes, but you may opt-out

4/10

Does the service allow you to permanently delete your personal data? No

0/5

Does the service allow third-party access to private personal data? Yes

0/10

This may come in the form of outright data sharing or by using local third-party analytics software (such as Google Analytics, which collects a plethora of user information).

Note that whether the policy allows sharing aggregated user data does not affect this question.

If the personal data is encrypted when it passes through the third-party, it does not count as third-party access (as the data is inaccessible to that party).

If personal data has been made public by, for example, posting it to a blog, it does not count as private personal information (and is therefore not considered by this question).

Score

Yes

The policy allows sharing personal data with third parties (not just critical service providers), and does not explicitly list the third parties.

Yes, all parties specified (including non-critical service providers such as advertisers)

30%

Yes, not all parties specified (but only to critical service providers)

70%

Yes, all parties specified (only to critical service providers)

80%

100%

Citation

Best Buy does not exchange your personal information for monetary consideration. We share your information only in the ways we describe below. We may combine or share information among current or future Best Buy companies, including affiliates and subsidiaries.

We may share your information with third parties to perform services on our behalf such as:

Fulfilling orders and delivering packages
Scheduling and performing product installations
Providing customer care and technical support, including servicing products
Maintaining our My Best Buy program
Sending Best Buy marketing communications and providing advertising services
Personalizing the customer experience on our digital properties
Fulfilling subscription services
Conducting research and analysis
Processing credit card payments
Detecting fraud and other illegal activity

We also may share personal information in connection with co-branded product or service offerings (including sharing personal information with business partners to validate offers). Additionally, we may share personal information in connection with financial products or services related to our business, such as private label credit cards or the lease-to-own program. For example, when you apply for a Best Buy Credit Card, and while you have a Best Buy Credit Card, we share your personal information with our banking partners that issue the card.

Sometimes we may be required to share personal information for legal reasons, for example, if we are required to do so by a regulation, court order, subpoena or other legal process. We may also share information when we believe it is necessary to comply with the law or to respond to a government request, or when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect Best Buy, our customers, or others.

We may share personal information in the event of a corporate sale, merger, acquisition, joint venture, reorganization, divestiture, dissolution, liquidation, or similar event.

When does the policy allow law enforcement access to personal data? When reasonably requested

3/5

Score

Always

This includes cases in which law enforcement either runs the service or has a known backdoor into (or relationship with) the service.

Not specified

When reasonably requested

60%

Only when required by a court order or subpoena

80%

N/A (no personal data to share)

The service would have no personal data to share with law enforcement.

100%

Never (special legal jurisdiction)

The service operates in a jurisdiction in which sharing data with law enforcement is never required.

100%

Citation

Transparency

Does the policy outline the service's general security practices? Somewhat

1/3

Score

Somewhat

The policy provides only a very vague overview of its security practices.

30%

Yes

60%

Yes, including audits

"Reviews," "monitoring," etc. also count as audits.

80%

Yes, including independent audits

Independent "reviews," "monitoring," etc. also count as independent audits.

100%

N/A

The service doesn't collect any personal information.

100%

Citation

We use a variety of security measures designed, under a risk-based approach, to ensure the confidentiality of your information. However, as set forth in the applicable terms of use for each digital property, we cannot and do not guarantee the security of information transmitted to us.

You also can do your part to help protect the information you provide to us. Create a strong password. Use that password only on our digital properties. And do not share your password with anyone — especially anyone claiming to work with us. We would never contact you and ask for your password — ever.

Is the policy's history made available? Only the date it was last modified

3/5

Does the policy require users to be notified in case of a data breach? Not necessarily

0/7

Will affected users be notified when the policy is meaningfully changed? Yes

5/5

Collection

Does the service collect personal data from third parties? Yes

0/10

Is it clear why the service collects the personal data that it does? Mostly

7/10

Score

Somewhat

30%

Mostly

70%

Yes

100%

N/A

The service doesn't collect any personal information.

100%

Citation

How we use the information we collect:
Identifying you on our digital properties in order to customize your experience
Fulfilling orders and requests for products, services, or information
Processing refunds, returns, and exchanges
Tracking and confirming online orders
Delivering and installing products
Managing our My Best Buy program
Marketing and advertising products and services
Conducting research and analysis
Managing our My Best Buy Credit Card program, including taking applications and actions to enhance card usage and service
Preventing and identifying fraud and other illegal activity
Engaging in internal uses such as data analytics with the purpose of enhancing existing and creating new products and services
Complying with and enforcing applicable legal requirements, contractual obligations (including our contractual obligations with you, such as through our My Best Buy program, if applicable, or digital properties’ terms of use), relevant industry standards, and our policies
Interest-based advertising.
You can opt out of interest-based advertising from third-party providers who follow the Digital Advertising Alliance's Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising at www.aboutads.info/choices.

Learn more about interest-based advertising ›

Does the service allow the user to control whether personal data is collected or used for non-critical purposes? On an opt-out basis, but only for some non-critical data/uses

3/10

Does the policy list the personal data it collects? Yes, generally

7/10

Score

The policy does not claim to not collect personal data, but it also doesn't provide any meaningful insight into the types of personal data it collects.

Only summarily

The policy uses overly vague language to provide a summary of the types of collected personal data.

30%

Yes, generally

All general categories of collected personal data are listed, though not all types of personal data are explicitly mentioned (for example, the list might use a phrase like 'such as' when listing types of personal data).

70%

Yes, exhaustively

All types of collected personal data are listed specifically

100%

N/A (no personal data is collected)

100%

Citation

Information you give us.

We collect and store information you provide through our digital properties and in our stores.

The information we collect from you includes things such as:

Name
Postal address
Email address
Phone number
Payment card number and other payment information
Your My Best Buy® member ID

In certain situations, we may also collect things like:

Driver's license number (for example, if you return a product or apply for credit)
Social Security Number (for example, if you apply for credit)
Location information (such as when you ask us to tell you about nearby stores or use our digital properties)
Demographic and lifestyle information (if you sign up for a registry or birthday list)
Medical and health insurance information (for example, if you use offerings that collect medical information, such as Assured Living)
Fingerprints (as required by law for fraud detection in connection with Best Buy’s product trade-in program)
Survey responses
Information you give us about others.
You may give us information about other people, such as the name and address of a gift recipient, or the name and contact information of someone who will pick up items for you at a store. We will only use this information for the specific reason you provide it.

Information from other sources.
We may receive information about you from other sources, including third parties that help us update, expand, and analyze our records and identify new customers, and provide products and services that may be of interest to you.

Information collected automatically online.
We collect information about your interactions with us including, for example:

The type of device or browser you’re using
Your IP address
Your browsing behavior while on our website
The URLs of the websites you visited before visiting our site (these are called “referring URLs”)
IMEI/UDID (a numeric identifier for your mobile device)
MAC address (another kind of numeric identifier for your mobile device)
IDFA (Apple’s ID for advertising), a randomly generated number)s.
Best Buy and our partners use technologies such as cookies or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Users can control the use of cookies at the individual browser level.

Manage Flash cookies ›

Learn more about managing cookies, Flash cookies, and more ›

We may permit third-party service providers to collect and process some information from our digital properties. We may share personal information with those providers and may have similar arrangements with interest-based advertisers. We provide more information about interest-based ads below. Our digital properties are not designed to respond to “do not track” requests from browsers.

Location information.
Some of our digital properties may collect your location to, for example, help you search for one of our stores, use special mobile features within some of our stores, or provide you with helpful messaging in our mobile app. We also may use this information to determine whether to provide you with content, information, and notices that may be required by law based on your location.

Mobile devices often provide users with the ability to adjust settings related to location. If you do not want us to collect specific location information, you may modify the location services on your mobile device’s settings. Best Buy has no control over your device’s settings. And adjusting these settings does not completely eliminate the ability of others to develop location information about your device.

Store cameras.
Our stores may use cameras for asset protection and other operational purposes, such as measuring traffic patterns and protecting and improving our business.

Reviews and other content you provide.
Our websites offer publicly accessible blogs or community forums. Be aware that anyone who accesses these areas may read, collect, and use the information you provide.

Last Updated

March 27, 2021

Sources

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Contributors

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