Privacy Statement

This is the Privacy Statement of Mercado, LLC and its subsidiaries (“Mercado”) and the organizations directly associated with it.

This Privacy Statement applies to all persons who have contact with Mercado, except for its employees. More specifically, this means that this Privacy Statement applies to:

• clients, visitors, job applicants, principals, contractors (including self-employed persons without employees and suppliers, to the extent the latter are natural persons) and other contacts of Mercado;
• visitors to the website(s) of Mercado (www.go-mercado.com) or a domain name
  associated with this domain name;

All of these persons are referred to collectively hereinafter by ‘you’ and ‘your’. The words ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’ refer to Mercado. Chapter 1 defines several terms. Those terms are capitalized in the Privacy Statement.

It is important to us that your Personal Data is handled with all due care. Needless to say, we comply with all statutory rules, including the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and exercise due care to adequately secure your Personal Data. We ask you to review this Privacy Statement carefully.

This Privacy Statement was most recently amended on, and has applied since, 23 August 2023.

Data Subject: person whom the Personal Data being processed regard. In other words: the person whose personal information is being processed.

Special Personal Data: Special Personal Data are data regarding someone’s religious convictions, personal beliefs, race, political convictions, health, sex life, and trade union membership.

Third Parties: natural or legal persons which are not Data Subjects or part of Mercado, such as: natural or legal persons with which Mercado shares Personal Data pursuant to a contract. These Third Parties might be processors or co-Controllers.

Personal Data: All data that is related to an identified or an identifiable person. In other words: all information that identifies or can be used to identify the Data Subject.

Processing: everything that can be done with Personal Data, such as collection, recording, storage, alteration, retrieval, use, dissemination, or destruction.

Controller: party who processes a Data Subject’s data for a particular purpose. In this Privacy Statement, the Controller is Mercado.

Below, we explain which of your Personal Data Mercado can process.

Data you have provided yourself, such as:

• your contact details (name, address, email address, telephone number, etc.);
• your gender and date of birth;
• data collected from you in a telephone conversation;
• data collected from an email from you;
• payment details;
• data from your CV or about your employment history.

Data we have received via our websites, newsletters, and emails:

• information about the device you used to visit our website;
• your surfing behavior on the website, such as:
  • which data/which of our web pages you have viewed;
  • how you navigate the website;
  • whether you open a newsletter or email and which parts of it you click on;
  • the dates and times of your visit to the website;
• the operating system you are using;
• your browser type and IP address;
• your Internet provider;
• the Internet address of the website to which the link is made;
• the geolocation;
• the data you downloaded from the website.

Data we have received from other sources, such as via:

• data available from public sources and apparently published by you, such as those on social media and commercial websites;
• data obtained from the Trade Register of the Chamber of Commerce and the Land Register and other governmental or public registers.

We use your Personal Data for the following purposes:

• to verify your identity;
• to improve our services (and the safety of those services), including by conducting checks;
• to inform you about news and developments at Mercado;
• to inform you about the products and services you use or have purchased from or through Mercado;
• to enable us to evaluate, study, and develop our services;
• to notify you about any disruptions to our services;
• to contact you for newsletters, if you have signed up for them;
• for internal quality purposes;
• to manage, secure, adjust, and improve our websites;
• for marketing/commercial purposes;
• for recruitment and selection;
• to comply with a statutory obligation imposed on Mercado;
• to be able to contact you and respond to any questions you have submitted;
• to provide access to the Customer Support;
• to perform our service obligations such as notifications from the platform, training, updates, invoices, reminders and similar.
• to deal with your requests for information and to settle complaints;
• to prevent theft, misuse, vandalism, or other criminal conduct;
• for educational purposes;
• to enable us to conduct satisfaction surveys.

In order for us to use Personal Data, we must have grounds to do so based on the GDPR.

We use the following grounds:

• you have given Mercado your express consent by using for example the “Consent Form”;
• the use is necessary to performing or entering into a contract with you;
• the use is necessary to comply with a statutory obligation;
• in emergency situations: the use is necessary to protect your vital interests or those of another person;

We have a legitimate interest in the use, unless this interest is outweighed by your interest, or a Third Party’s interest, in privacy.

Mercado can invoke the following legitimate interests:

• the protection of your safety;
• the protection of the safety of our clients and/or others, as well as the security of the buildings and property of Mercado;
• quality and training;
• the advancement of IT management and the improvement of security;
• the analysis and improvement of the services and content of our websites;
• the supply, improvement, adjustment, support, research, and analysis of our services;
• the advancement of the quality and security of our services;
• communication with you and other contacts of Mercado;
• the prevention and combating of fraud, unauthorized use, and violations of our general terms and conditions and policy rules or other harmful or illegal activities.

We share your Personal Data with Third Parties only if this is necessary because those Third Parties perform work at the instruction of Mercado and then only for the purposes described in this Privacy Statement. If a Third Party is engaged, Mercado will ensure that this Third Party maintains the same level of security and confidentiality as we do.

Mercado may also engage contractors from the following categories:

• IT management;
• website management;
• website hosting;
• email communication;
• service providers.

Mercado remains responsible for the processing of your Personal Data. Mercado enters into contracts with Third Parties to ensure that your Personal Data are properly secured.

Mercado may, as the result of a merger, acquisition, or sale, of all or part of its organization, share your Personal Data with a Third Party, such as a potential buyer or seller. Naturally, we will inform you of this via email and/or a clearly visible notification on our website, and we will inform you of your rights in such a situation.

It may sometimes be necessary to transfer your Personal Data to Third Parties established outside the European Economic Area (‘EEA’). In accordance with the GDPR, Mercado will only transfer your Personal Data to countries outside the EEA if:

1. the European Commission has decided that the third country offers an adequate level of protection; or
2. appropriate safeguards are offered, you have enforceable rights, and you have effective legal remedies; or
3. the transfer is necessary for the performance of your contract with Mercado; or
4. you have expressly consented to the transfer after being informed of the risks that such transfer entails; or
5. the transfer is necessary for important reasons of public interest; or
6. the transfer is occasional and required by the compelling interests of Mercado and Mercado has implemented appropriate safeguards and has informed the Dutch Data Protection Authority of these.

In situations in which Mercado transfers your Personal Data outside the EEA, we take measures to ensure that your Personal Data remains adequately protected.

Mercado takes the protection and security of your Personal Data very seriously and takes continuous measures to afford your Personal Data optimum protection against unlawful use. We have taken the following measures, among other things:

• access to the Personal Data is restricted to authorized persons, whereby this number is kept as low as possible;
• all employees of Mercado have signed a confidentiality agreement, whereby they undertake to observe complete confidentiality with regard to all information (including Personal Data);
• the electronic transmission of Personal Data always takes place via a secure connection; the website is secured via https;
• we ensure that your Personal Data are only shared with Third Parties if we have agreed appropriate security measures with these Third Parties.

In addition, Mercado ensures that all of its user settings, programs and services are designed from the very beginning of development to maximize your privacy protection. With regard to the provision of information and services, Mercado applies the ‘opt-in’ rule by default: information or services are only provided if you have expressly consented to this. This can be done, for example, by ticking a box on the website.

Mercado does not retain personal data for longer than is necessary for the purpose of processing. Mercado retains your Personal Data as long we consider this necessary to be able to provide you with services, to enable you to use our website, to comply with applicable laws, to resolve disputes with parties, and for other purposes that enable us to conduct our commercial activities.

We store personal data for as long as we find it necessary to fulfill the purpose for which the personal data was collected, while also considering our need to answer your queries or resolve possible problems, to comply with legal requirements under applicable laws, to attend to any legal claims/complaints, and for safeguarding purposes. This means that we may retain your personal data for a reasonable period of time after your last interaction with us. When the personal data that we have collected is no longer required, we will delete it in a secure manner.

Some Personal Data are subject to statutory retention periods. Mercado fully complies with these retention periods.

We may process data for statistical purposes, but in such cases, data will be anonymized.

If any of your Personal Data are processed, you have a number of rights, which are set out below. You may exercise these rights by submitting your request in writing to Mercado or by sending an email to support@go-mercado.com. Mercado verifies your identity before your request can be met.

Mercado will respond to your request as soon as possible, but at the latest within one month. In principle, your requests will be processed electronically, unless this is not possible, or you request otherwise. Mercado will not charge you for the processing of the aforementioned requests, unless your requests are excessive.

1. Access to Personal Data
   You can ask us at any time to indicate which (categories of) your Personal Data Mercado processes, for which purposes, from which source the data come, and which retention periods are applied.
2. Changing Personal Data
   In addition, you can contact us at any time to complete or correct your Personal Data. In the unlikely event that Mercado has processed and/or provided incorrect Personal Data about you, Mercado will rectify this immediately. If Mercado has changed your Personal Data, Mercado will notify you accordingly.
3. Minimizing the processing of your Personal Data
   If you do not agree with the content of the Personal Data about you stored by Mercado, you can submit a request to temporarily minimize the processing of your Personal Data.
4. Withdrawing consent
   You can also withdraw the consent you have given for the processing of your Personal Data. Upon receipt of your letter or email, Mercado will immediately cease processing of your Personal Data for which you have given your consent. However, the withdrawal of your consent will not affect the processing operations that have already taken place.
5. Right to transfer Personal Data (right to data portability)
   You can retrieve the Personal Data about you stored by Mercado in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. After receiving your Personal Data, you are free to transfer this information.
6. Right to be forgotten
   If you no longer wish to make use of Mercado’s services, you may submit a request for the deletion of all your Personal Data.
7. Right to object
   You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data which Mercado bases on the grounds ‘legitimate interest of Mercado or a Third Party’ or ‘performance of a task carried out in the public interest’. If Mercado bases itself on these grounds, Mercado will weigh its interests against your privacy. The right to object entitles you to require Mercado to repeat this weighing of interests.
8. Right to lodge a complaint / pursue a judicial remedy
   We make efforts to join you in working to find a fair solution if you have a complaint or problem relating to our use of your Personal Data. However, if your position is that we cannot assist you with your complaint or problem, you also have the option of lodging a complaint with the Dutch Data Protection Authority or instituting judicial proceedings. You will find the contact details of the Dutch Data Protection Authority (Nederlandse Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens) by clicking here.
9. The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing.

Mercado uses cookies and similar applications on its website. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on your computer. We use cookies to provide services and ensure that our services function properly. This enables Mercado to see how its visitors use the website. In this way, Mercado can customize its website according to user preferences. On a subsequent visit to Mercado’s website, these small pieces will be recognized.

Our contact details are:

Mercado, LLC
P.O. Box 25801
Fresno, CA 93729
USA
support@mercadonuts.com

We trust that you ensure that your Personal Data is complete, correct, and up to date. Please inform us immediately of any changes or errors in your Personal Data by contacting us.

It may happen that our Privacy Statement will need to be amended. The most recent version is always available on our website. We inform you of any changes to the Privacy Statement by email and/or a clearly visible notification on our website.