Internet Privacy Statement

Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn (Middleburg, VA) has a strong commitment to providing excellent service to all of our customers and visitors of this website, including respecting your concerns about privacy. We understand that you may have questions about how this website collects and uses the information that you provide to us. We have prepared this statement to inform you of the privacy principles that govern this website, including BriarPatchBandB.com.

If after reviewing this Statement, you have any questions or privacy concerns please send an email to info@BriarPatchBandB.com or send a letter to:

Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn
23130 Briar Patch Lane
Middleburg, VA 20117

Browsing

This website does not collect personally identifiable information when you browse and request pages from our servers unless you voluntarily and knowingly provide it to us. This means that we will not know your name, your email address, or any other personally identifiable information just because you browse the website unless you:

• access the website from a link in an email that we sent; or
• are registered to receive Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn e-newsletters; or

In these cases we may know who you are based on the information you previously supplied to us. When you request a page from our website, our servers log the information provided in the HTTP request header including the IP number, the time of the request, the URL of your request and other information that is provided in the HTTP header. We collect the HTTP request header information in order to make our website function correctly and provide you the functionality that you see. We also use this information to better understand how visitors use our website and how we can better tune it, its contents, and functionality to serve you.

Information We Collect and How We Use It

When we need to collect personally identifiable information from you to provide you with a particular service, we will ask you to voluntarily supply us with the information we need. For example, if you would like to make a reservation at Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn, we will ask you for information such as name, address, telephone number, email address, credit card number, and room preference to process your reservation. We will use your email address to send a confirmation and, if necessary, might use the other information to contact you for help in processing the reservation. We will also use your email address to:

• send you a pre-arrival message summarizing your confirmation details and providing other information about the area and about Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn,
• notify you about special offers and promotions as described in the email section of this privacy statement,
• send you copies of your bills when you request them, or
• send you periodic satisfaction or market research surveys.

You may opt out of marketing emails at any time. You may also opt out of Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn research surveys. The same types of information would be requested to complete a gift certificate purchase or register for a Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn promotion.

Reservations

The personally identifiable information you provide to us for making a reservation is made available to Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn staff for the purpose of meeting your reservation request. After making a reservation or completing your stay at Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn, unless you tell us otherwise, the information you provide may be used by us for marketing of Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn products.

Please note that Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn will never send you emails requesting your user name, password, credit card number or social security number.

Securing the Transmission and Storage of Information

We treat the information you provide to us as confidential information; it is, accordingly, subject to our company or that of our third-party reservation system’s security procedures and policies regarding protection and use of confidential information. When we ask you for credit card data, it is transferred over a Secured Sockets Layer (SSL) line, provided you are using an SSL enabled browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox. We also use SSL on other pages where you would enter personally identifiable information. This ensures that your information is encrypted as it travels over the Internet. This secure mode is enabled before any such information is transmitted from your computer. You will know you are in secure mode when the padlock or key icon in the lower right-hand or left-hand corner of the browser window appears in the locked position. In addition, when accessing a secure server, the first characters of the site address will change from “http” to “https.”

After information reaches Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast In,, it is stored on a secure server that resides behind firewalls designed to block unauthorized access from outside of Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn. Because laws applicable to personal information vary by country, we may put in place additional measures that vary depending on the applicable legal requirements. Information collected on the websites covered by this privacy statement is generally processed and stored in the United States.

Disclosure of Information to Third Parties

In addition to the reservation services and required information sharing described above, Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn may use the services of third parties, such as fulfillment houses, email service providers and mail houses that process mail for Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn. These parties are contractually prohibited from using personally identifiable information for any purpose other than for the purpose Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn specifies.

Cookies

Our Website uses “cookie” technology. “Cookies” are encrypted strings of text that a website stores on a user’s computer. Our website requires the use of a “Cookie” throughout the online reservation process. Without “Cookies” we will not be able to keep information you enter on multiple pages together. For example, unless BriarPatchBandB.com can remember the dates you used in your reservation search, we will not be able to check room availability. “Cookies” also enable us to customize our website and offerings to your needs and provide you with a better online experience on BriarPatchBandB.com. In addition, “Cookies” are used to:

• Allow registered users to sign in without typing their sign-in name each time;
• Measure usage of various pages on our website to help us make our information more pertinent to your needs and easy for you to access; and
• Provide functionality such as online reservations, frequent guest transactions, and other functionality that we believe would be of interest and value to you.

The types of “Cookies” that we may use are referred to as “Session Cookies” and “Persistent Cookies”. “Session Cookies” are temporary and are automatically deleted once you close your internet browser. “Persistent Cookies” remain on your computer hard drive until you delete them or are otherwise removed upon expiration. We do not use “Cookies” to ascertain any personally identifiable information about you apart from what you voluntarily provide us in your dealings with Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn. “Cookies” do not corrupt or damage your computer, programs, or computer files.

We may use third-party advertising technology to serve ads when you visit our website and sites upon which we advertise. This technology uses information about your visits to this website and the sites upon which we advertise, (not including your name, address, or other personally identifiable information), to serve our ads to you. In the course of serving our advertisements to you, a unique third-party persistent “Cookie” may be placed or recognized on your browser. In addition, we may use beacon gifs (see description below), provided by our ad-serving providers, to help manage our online advertising. These beacon gifs enable our ad server to recognize a browser’s “Cookie” when a browser visits this site and to learn which banner ads bring users to our website and whether a reservation on BriarPatchBandB.com is executed. The information our ad-serving providers and we collect through this technology is not personally identifiable.

You may set your browser to block “Cookies” (consult the instructions for your particular browser on how to do this), although doing so will adversely affect your ability to perform certain transactions, use certain functionality, and access certain content on our website.

Pixel Tags

Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn and its third-party service providers may use pixel tags (also known as “clear gifs” “beacon gifs” etc.). Pixel tags are not visible to the user of the website and consist of a few lines of computer coding delivered with the Web page. Pixel tags are not used to collect any personally identifiable information about you apart from what you voluntarily provide us in your dealings with Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn. Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn and our email service provider use pixel tags to:

• Track customer response to Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn advertisements and website content;
• Determine your ability to receive HTML-based email messages. Our email service provider includes a pixel tag, which they refer to as a “coded sensor” in all of the HTML-based messages sent on our behalf. The sensor activates when the email message is opened and flags the email address of the user as one that is capable of receiving HTML-based email messages. This capability helps our service provider to send the email in a format you can read. The sensor does not collect or use any other information. If you cannot receive HTML, you will not receive a functioning sensor;
• Know how many users open an email and allow our service provider to compile aggregated statistics about an email campaign for us; and
• Allow us to better target interactive advertising, enhance customer support and site usability, and provide offers and promotions that we believe would be of interest to you.

Emails about Special Offers and Promotions, Newsletters and Opt-Out

It is our intention to only send you email communications that will be useful to you and that you want to receive. When you make a reservation, subscribe to our eNewsletter, or request a copy of your bill via email and provide your email address, we will periodically contact you via email and provide information about special offers and promotions that may be of interest to you. We may use third party email service providers to send emails. These service providers are contractually prohibited from using your email address for any purpose other than to send Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn related email. We provide you the ability to define and modify your mailing preferences online at any time including unsubscribing from all marketing communications. In addition, every time you receive an email, you will be provided the choice to opt-out of future emails by following the instructions provided in the email. You may also opt-out online by updating your personal information with Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn or sending a letter to Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn, 23130 Briar Patch Lane, Middleburg, VA 20117. Please allow 10 business days for us to process your opt-out.

Other Sites

Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn is only responsible for the privacy statement and content of this website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the use of cookies on websites that you have accessed this website from and to the non- Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn websites that you may access from this website.

Legal Issues

This is a United States website and is subject to laws of the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn will disclose personally identifiable information without your permission when required by law, or in good faith belief that such action is necessary to investigate or protect against harmful activities to Briar Patch Bed & Breakfast Inn guests, visitors, associates, or property (including this site), or to others. As mentioned previously, laws related to personally identifiable information vary by country.

Changes to Your Privacy Rights

In the future, we may need to change this privacy statement. All changes will be made here so that you will always know what information we gather, how we might use that information and whether we will disclose it to anyone.