Privacy policy

We recognize that your privacy is very important and that you have a right to control your personal information. We know that providing personal information is an act of trust and we take that seriously. The following sections set out how we handle and protect your personal information and safeguard your privacy.

Acceptance
Your use of our website and/or services shows your consent to our collection, use and disclosure of personal information in the manner set out below.

Use of information
We do not sell, rent or lease our visitor or customer information to third parties.

Visitors
If you are just surfing and reading information on our website then we collect and store the following information about your visit:

• The IP address of your machine when connected to the Internet and the domain name from which you are accessing the Internet.
• The operating system and the browser your computer uses and any search engine you are using.
• The date and time you are visiting.
• The URLs of the pages you visit.
• If you provide it your email address.

We keep track of pages you visit within the website. We use that information in order to help us refine and improve our website. We do not disclose information about individuals except for the reasons set out in the information disclosure section.

If you choose to provide us with personal information such as your email address, for example by filling out an electronic query or order form, we will use the information only for the purposes that you authorized. Email marketing will only be sent to your email address if you have given your consent.

Customers
Your use of our services involves the collection by us of personal information about you such as your email address, name, home or work address or telephone number. We may also collect demographic information such as your age and gender.

This information is used by us for the operation of our services, to maintain quality of our services, to provide general statistics regarding use of our services and to help us to deliver customised web content to you.

Where possible, information will be obtained directly from you, but otherwise it may be provided from others (with your consent) or generated within or by the systems used to provide our services.

You may decide not to provide information to us. However, if you do not provide it, we may not be able to provide our services to you.

The information we store about you is visible to you on our website after you have securely logged in. You may also correct any incorrect information we hold about you after you have securely logged in.

We may provide your personal information to our contractors, credit reference and debt collection agencies, communications network operators and selected business partners in order to:

• provide our services to you
• send your bills and recover money you owe
• keep you informed of and conduct sales and marketing activities in relation to our services
• exercise any lawful right we or any of our related companies, our contractors, credit
• reference and debt collection agencies, communications network operators and selected business partners has.

We may also provide, to the extent appropriate to any service provider approved by us for the provision of directory listing and directory assistance services, your name, address and the telephone numbers allocated to you for use in any directories and other publicly accessible publications and databases, You may prefer to restrict access to your name, address and the telephone numbers allocated to you. Please call or email us using the contact details provided on our website if you want to know about the ways you can do this.

Although we may publish aggregated information relating to your use of our services, such as usage patterns, we do not disclose information in a form that could reasonably be expected to identify you, without your prior permission.

We may disclose information about you as required to comply with New Zealand law and in cooperation with law enforcement bodies when required to address fraud or security concerns.

You authorize us to obtain a credit report from a credit reporting agency or obtain such information from any credit providers, government agencies and/or employer(s) or other persons (and you authorise such persons to provide us with such information about you as is necessary for us to consider whether to grant you credit and for the purposes of administration and protection of any credit provided).

Information storage and security

We will take all reasonable steps to keep secure any information we hold about you and to keep this information accurate and up to date. Your information is stored on secure servers that are protected in controlled facilities.

In addition, our employees and the contractors who provide services related to our information systems are obliged to respect the confidentiality of any personal information held by us.

Control of your password

You are responsible for all actions taken with your username, email address and password, including any rental or call costs incurred as a result of use of your username and password. We therefore do not recommend that you disclose your username or password to any other party. If you choose to share your username, email address and password or your information with another party, you are responsible for all actions taken with this information.

It is important for you to protect against unauthorised access to your password and to your computer. Ensure you logout when you have finished visiting our website, especially if you access it from a shared computer.

Credit card security
We work diligently to protect the security of your personal information, including credit card information.

We protect your credit card information during transmission by using the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, which encrypts your information when transmitted over the Internet. Your credit card details are not held by us and cannot be accessed by our staff. However they may be held by Direct Payment Solutions (we advise you review their privacy policy if you wish to know about how they protect your information).

When topping up your account by credit card, you may have the option to ‘save this card for next time’. If you choose this option, your credit card details are encrypted and securely stored by DPS.

Use of cookies
Merge’s website places a cookie on the hard drive of your computer. A cookie is a very small file which allows us to keep track of some of the things you’ve clicked on at the Merge website. It helps us give you a better overall experience when using our website.​

Information disclosure
We may disclose information about you or your use of the website and/or services without your prior permission if we have a good faith belief that such action is necessary to:

• conform to legal requirements (including, but not limited to, requirements in accordance with any applicable law, regulation or government request) or comply with legal process, or to help maintain the law
• protect our rights or property or those of our related companies
• enforce our terms and conditions
• act to protect the interests of our, or our related companies, customers or others.

Service and promotional messages
From time to time we may send you service emails which contain important information about updates, changes and developments on our service. For you to continue to make the most of our services, it is essential that we send these communications.

From time to time, we may send you offers from ourselves or our partners, email newsletters to which you have subscribed, and tell you about new services.

You can manage the type of information you receive from us by unsubscribing from the message you receive or contacting us.

Third party websites
We encourage you to review the privacy statements of any websites you choose to link to from our website so that you can understand how those websites collect, use and share your information. We are not responsible for the privacy statements or other content on websites linked from our website.

Problems or questions
If you make us aware of any ongoing concerns or problems with our network, we will take these issues seriously and work to address these concerns. You can contact us by contacting us.

Changes to policy
We may, at our discretion, update or revise this privacy policy at any time. Any changes will take effect immediately once they are posted on our website. Despite the above where changes to this policy may have a material effect on you, we will provide you a minimum of 10 working days and where possible one month’s notice of these changes. We will tell you about any changes by publishing the changes on our website. It is your responsibility to check this policy regularly for any modifications or updates. Your continued use of our services after any changes have been posted on our website indicates your acceptance of those changes.

Your rights
This policy does not affect your rights under the Privacy Act 1993.

This notice is provided for your information and is not intended to limit or exclude your rights under the Privacy Act 1993.

Phone: 1800 801 445
Email: info@mergeav.au