Privacy Policy

Privacy issues are important, and this notice serves to explain Discover Durham's online information practices:
 

Effective Date: 11/19/2025

At Discover Durham (referred to as “DD,” “us” or “we”), we recognize that your privacy is important. This Privacy Policy discloses the privacy practices for DD’s family of websites and other online services (collectively, referred to as our “Site”), as well as related products and services we may offer to you (collectively referred to as our “Services”). This Privacy Policy also covers how personal and other information that we receive or collect about you is treated. Please read the information below to learn the following regarding your use of our Site.

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by placing a prominent notice on the Site, and by updating any privacy information on this Privacy Policy page and sending an email notice to all subscribers to our email newsletters. Your continued use of our Site and or Services after such modifications will constitute your: (a) acknowledgment of the modified Privacy Policy; and (b) your agreement to abide and be bound by that Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at: privacy@discoverdurham.com.

IMPORTANT: BY USING THE SITE AND/OR OFFERINGS AVAILABLE ON THIS SITE, YOU GIVE YOUR CONSENT THAT ALL PERSONAL DATA THAT YOU SUBMIT MAY BE PROCESSED BY US IN THE MANNER AND FOR THE PURPOSES DESCRIBED BELOW. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT USE THE SITE OR REQUEST THE SERVICES.

In order to better provide you with information about Durham that might interest you, we collect two types of information about our users: Personally Identifiable Information (“Personally Identifiable Information”) and Aggregate Information.

Personally Identifiable Information: This refers to information that lets us know the specifics of who you are. When you engage in certain activities on our Site, such as registering for a newsletter subscription, completing a survey or poll, uploading or downloading material, requesting information, submitting content and/or posting content, or sending us feedback, you may provide certain information about yourself.

Examples of Personally Identifiable Information may include your first and last name, email address, mailing address (including zip code), gender, employer, job title and department, telephone and facsimile numbers, images, and other identifying information. You also might provide information about your travel plans, location, your opinions, and your interest in and use of various products, programs, and services. If you were to order material or services from our Site, you may be asked to provide a credit card number.

Aggregate Information: This refers to information that does not by itself identify a specific individual. We may gather such information about you based upon where you visit on our Site and what other sites may have directed you to us, for instance. This information, which is collected in a variety of different ways, is compiled and analyzed on both a personal and an aggregated basis. This information might include the Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”) that points to the site you just came from, which URL you go to after visiting our Site, what browser you are using, the location of your mobile device, and your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address.

We do not collect any Personally Identifiable Information from you unless you voluntarily provide it to us. However, you may be required to provide certain Personally Identifiable Information to us when you elect to use certain Services available from our Site. These may include: (a) registering for a newsletter subscription or event alert from our Site; (b) entering a sweepstakes or contest sponsored by us or one of our partners; (c) signing up for special offers or events conducted by selected third parties; (d) sending us an email message; (e) submitting a form or transmitting other information by telephone or letter; or (e) submitting your credit card or other payment information when ordering certain materials and services through our Site. When processing certain information, such as payment information with affiliated banking institutions or payment processors, the transaction is encrypted, using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology, in order to prevent your Personally Identifiable Information from being stolen or intercepted. Additionally, your credit card information is never stored on our servers, as it is handled only by an approved secure payment processor. Any such information entered into DD order forms is used solely to fulfill your purchase, and never is processed on DD computers.

We primarily will use your Personally Identifiable Information to provide information to you. We will also use certain forms of Personally Identifiable Information to enhance the operation of the Site, improve our internal marketing and promotional efforts, statistically analyze Site use and understand current and historical audience characteristics, improve our service offerings, and customize the Site’s content, layout, and services. We may use Personally Identifiable Information to deliver information to you and to contact you regarding administrative notices. Finally, we may use your Personally Identifiable Information to resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems and enforce our agreements with you, including this Privacy Policy.

We do provide some of our service offerings through contractual arrangements made with affiliates, service providers, partners and other third parties (“Service Partners”). We also may collect, or our Service Partners may collect, certain Aggregate Information. For example, we may use your IP address to diagnose problems with our servers, software, to administer the Site and to gather demographic information. Our Service Partners also may provide us with aggregate, but not individual, reports that will tell us what information is clicked on at our Site.

On occasion, we may receive information from third parties that receive information about you from various sources, such as public records or through their interactions with you. We may use that information to inform you about products, services or events that we think might be of interest to you. Please note that we do not have any control over the collection of this information by third parties and their information practices may be different from ours. If you want to control such third-party access to your Personally Identifiable Information, you would need to do so through your interactions with such third parties.

Depending on how you use our Site, we will store cookies on your computer in order to collect certain Aggregate Information about our users and to customize certain aspects of your specific user experience. A cookie is a small data text file which is stored on your computer that uniquely identifies your browser. Cookies may also include more personalized information, such as your password, IP address, browser type, the server your computer is logged onto, the area code and zip code associated with your server, and your first name to welcome you back to our Site. We may use cookies to perform tasks such as monitoring aggregate site usage metrics, storing account and marketing preferences that you have indicated, and personalizing the services we make available to you.

We also may use Service Partners to display banner advertisements on our Site. As part of their service, they will place a separate cookie on your computer. We will not provide any Service Partners with any of your Personally Identifiable Information or information about your purchases. We and our Service Partners will collect and use Aggregate Information about you, such as your IP address, browser type, the server your computer is logged onto, the area code and zip code associated with your server and whether you responded to a particular announcement or invitation. Other advertisers also may place banner ads on our Site in the same manner as above, but we will not disclose any Personally Identifiable Information to them.

Most browsers initially are set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some aspects of the Site may become difficult to use or unavailable if you elect to disable cookies.

We will not sell, trade, or rent your Personally Identifiable Information to others. We and our Service Partners may need to use some Personally Identifiable Information in order to perform tasks between our respective sites, or to deliver products or services to you. For example, we must release your credit card information to the card-issuing bank to confirm payment for products and services purchased on this Site; release your address information to the delivery service to deliver products that you ordered; and provide order information to third parties that help us provide customer service. No mobile information will be shared with third parties/affiliates for marketing/promotional purposes. All other categories exclude text messaging originator opt-in data and consent; this information will not be shared with any third parties.

We will encourage our Service Partners to adopt and promote strong privacy policies. However, the use of your Personally Identifiable Information by our Service Partners is governed by the respective privacy policies of those providers and is not subject to our control. Except as otherwise discussed in this Privacy Policy, this document only addresses the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. Other sites accessible through our Site, including our Service Partners, have their own privacy policies and data collection, use and disclosure practices. Please consult each site’s privacy policy. We are not responsible for the policies or practices of third parties.

Occasionally we may be required by law enforcement or judicial authorities to provide Personally Identifiable Information to the appropriate governmental authorities. In such cases, we will disclose Personally Identifiable Information upon receipt of a court order, subpoena, or to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation. We fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use our services for illegal activities. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we believe in good faith to be unlawful.

We also may provide Aggregate Information about our users’ interests, traffic patterns, and related Site information to third party advertisers, but these statistics do not include any Personally Identifiable Information.

We believe you should have the ability to access and edit the Personally Identifiable Information that you have provided to us. You may access and change any of your Personally Identifiable Information that we have at any time by emailing or writing us at:

Discover Durham 
212 W Main St #101
Durham, NC 27701 USA
Attn: Privacy Compliance Officer
Email: privacy@discoverdurham.com 

Please include your name, address, and/or email address when you contact us.

We encourage you to update your Personally Identifiable Information if it changes. You may ask to have your information deleted or removed; however, some information, such as past interactions, logs of technical support calls, or other information may not be deleted. In addition, it may be impossible to completely delete your information without some residual information because of backups.

We may send you email, from time to time, regarding new information and services that we feel may interest you. In addition, if you indicated that you are interested in receiving offers or information from us and our Service Partners, we occasionally may call or send you direct mail about products and services that may be of interest to you. Only Discover Durham (or agents working on our behalf and under confidentiality agreements) will send you these solicitations, and only if you previously have indicated that you wish to receive them. If you do not want to receive solicitations from us, you can “opt-out” by telling us that you no longer want to receive such offers and mailings.

You may opt out of receiving marketing or promotional emails from us by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link contained in such emails. Please keep in mind that if you opt out of receiving marketing or promotional emails, we may still send you transactional emails or other communications relating to your use of the Site (for example, to confirm your contact information, to inform you of changes to our Services that you have requested or changes in our Privacy Policy).

If you don't want third party companies to collect or use information for the purpose of showing you ads based on your activity on websites, devices, or apps, you can opt out through the Digital Advertising Alliance (in the USA), Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada (in Canada), or the European Digital Advertising Alliance (in Europe). You also can opt out using your mobile device settings.

You also have choices with respect to cookies, as described above. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject all cookies, some parts of our Site may become difficult to use or unavailable in your case.

You can be assured that your Personally Identifiable Information related to our Site and our Services is secure, consistent with current industry standards. We strive to take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to, or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of, your Personally Identifiable Information. For example:

• We work hard to ensure that the data we collect is reliable, accurate, complete and current. We use it only for the purposes for which it was collected or to comply with any applicable legal or ethical reporting or document retention requirements. We also only keep collected information for as long as is reasonably appropriate to the purposes for which it was collected.
• We limit access to Personally Identifiable Information only to specific employees, contractors and agents who have a reasonable need to come into contact with your information. For example, we may provide members of our technical support team with limited access to your account in order to allow them to troubleshoot problems you may be having with the Site. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations and may be subject to discipline, including termination and criminal prosecution, if they fail to meet these obligations.
• Additionally, we also employ a number of physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect Personally Identifiable Information. Our secure servers and our data centers are protected by industry-standard encryption, and our servers reside behind firewalls and employ high-level password protection.
• Finally, access by you to your Personally Identifiable Information is available only after thorough authentication. We recommend that you do not divulge the details of your interactions with us that would enable anyone to access your Personally Identifiable Information.

In order to most effectively serve you, credit card transactions and order fulfillment are handled by established third party banking institutions and processing agents (such as PayPal). They receive the information needed to verify and authorize your credit card or other payment information and to process your order.

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your Personally Identifiable Information, you acknowledge that: (a) there are security and privacy limitations inherent to the Internet that are beyond our control; and (b) the security, integrity and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and us through our Site cannot be guaranteed.

You must be at least 18 years old to have our permission to use our Site. Our policy is that we do not knowingly collect, use or disclose Personally Identifiable Information about minors.

You should be aware that, when Personally Identifiable Information is voluntarily disclosed in public areas on our Site, such as in comments or third-party social media feeds, that information, along with any information disclosed in your communication (i.e. your name, image, social media handle, email address, etc.), can be collected and used by third parties and may result in unsolicited messages (including unwanted spam messages) from third parties. Such activities are beyond our control and this Policy does not apply to such information. 

If you have any questions, concerns or inquiries about our Privacy Policy, or our use of your Personally Identifiable Information, or our privacy practices, please contact us at: privacy@discoverdurham.com. You also can reach our Privacy Compliance Officer by sending written correspondence to:

Discover Durham 
212 W Main St #101
Durham, NC 27701 USA
Attn: Privacy Compliance Officer

If you’re a user in the European Union, you should know that Discover Durham is the controller of your personal information. Here is some additional information we would like to bring to your attention:

Bases for using your information
Your country only allows us to use your personal information when certain conditions apply. These conditions are called “legal bases” and we typically rely on those described below:

One reason we might use your Personally Identifiable Information is because you’ve made a specific request for services from us. For example, when you request to receive our informational emails, we need to use some of your Personally Identifiable Information to send information to you.

Another reason we might use your Personally Identifiable Information is because we have, or a third party has, a legitimate interest in doing so. For example, we need to use your Personally Identifiable Information to provide and improve our services, including delivering information, providing technical support, and helping you find information we think you’ll like. Because most of our services are free, we also use some information about you to try and show you information you’ll find interesting. An important point to understand about legitimate interest is that our interests don’t outweigh your right to privacy, so we only rely on legitimate interest when we think the way we are using your data doesn’t significantly impact your privacy or if it is something that you would expect us to do, or there is a compelling reason for us to do it. 

In some cases, we may ask for your consent to use your information for specific purposes. In such cases, we’ll make sure that you can revoke your consent by letting us know that you no longer want us to use your information for such purposes. We also may ask you for permission to access certain data (such as your location) even when we are not relying on consent to use your information.

We also may be required to use your Personally Identifiable Information to comply with the law, like when we respond to valid legal process or need to take action to protect our users. 

Your right to object
You have the right to object to our use of your Personally Identifiable Information. If there is any Personally Identifiable Information that you don’t want us to have or use, please contact us.

International transfers
We may collect your Personally Identifiable Information from, transfer it to, and store and process it in the United States and other countries outside of where you live. Whenever we share information of EU users outside the EU, we make sure an adequate transfer mechanism is in place. 

If you’re based in the EU and you have any complaints, you can always file a complaint with the supervisory authority in your Member State.