An aerial view of New Shepard's landing pad with Blue Origin's feather logo.

Astronaut Experience Auction Privacy Policy

1.    Introduction

Last Updated: December 1, 2021

This Privacy Policy explains how we at Blue Origin, LLC  and Blue Origin Texas, LLC, (referred together as “Blue Origin”) collect, use, and disclose information about you when you access or use our auction website (https://register.flynewshepardauction.com) through blueorigin.com and our supplier portals,  (hereinafter referred to as "Services"). If you have any comments or questions about our privacy policies, please contact us at privacy@blueorigin.com.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of the policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access the Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you.

2.    Collection of Information

Information You Provide to Us

We collect information that you provide directly to us, such as when you sign up for our mailing lists, enter information into our customer and supplier portals, sign up for an Astronaut experience, contact us to learn more about becoming an astronaut or supplier, or enter information into our Astronaut portal. We also collect information that you may provide or input through the Services when you participate in an auction for one of our astronaut experiences. The types of information we may collect include your name, postal address, phone or fax number, email address, demographic information, country of residence, payment information, interests, and any other information you provide to us. 

If you participate in an auction to purchase one of our astronaut experiences, we may also collect information about your bid amounts, any deposit you may make, and information you submit to us or to our vendors regarding your eligibility for astronaut experiences.

Automatically Collected Information

When you access or use our Services, we automatically collect information about you, including:

  • Transactional Information: When you participate in the auction experience, we collect information about the transaction, including bid amount (where applicable), and the date and location of the transaction.

  • Log Information: We collect log information about your use of the Services, including the type of browser you use, access times, pages viewed, your IP address and the page you visited before navigating to our Services.

  • Device Information: We collect information about the computer or mobile device you use to access our Services, including the hardware model, operating system and version, and unique device identifiers.

  • Information Collected by Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies: We use different technologies to collect information, including cookies and web beacons. Cookies are small data files stored on your hard drive or in device memory that help us improve our Services and your experience, see which areas and features of our Services are popular, and count visits. Web beacons are electronic images that may be used in our Services or emails and help deliver cookies, count visits and understand usage and campaign effectiveness. For more information about cookies and how to disable them, please see "Your Choices" below.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may obtain information about you from other sources. For example, if you communicate with us through a social media site, we will have access to certain information from our interactions with you on that site, such as your name and any profile information you make available to us, in accordance with the authorization procedures determined by such social media site.

In addition, when you use the Amazon Alexa skill for Blue Origin, we receive some limited information from Amazon about your interactions with the skill. This includes your email address (if you authorized them to provide this), certain anonymized data and analytics regarding the skill, parsed response text, and your device ID. Note that your voice interactions with the skill are captured directly by Amazon, not by Blue Origin, and are governed by Amazon’s Privacy Notice and the Alexa Terms of Use and not this privacy policy.

If you book, or attempt to book, a flight with us, we may receive information from vendors that may help us verify your eligibility to participate in a flight.

3.    Use of Information

We use the information we collect about you to provide, maintain, and improve our Services, as well as to provide you with information you request, send you materials as a part of our mailing list, if you elect to participate, and evaluate your eligibility to participate in a flight. We also use information about you to:

  • Send you technical notices, notifications, updates, security alerts, support and administrative messages, and to respond to your comments, questions and customer service requests;

  • Process transactions and send you related information, facilitating an auction and related bidding process, sending you confirmations and invoices,;

  • Monitor and analyze trends, usage and activities in connection with our Services;

  • Detect, investigate and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities and protect the rights and property of Blue Origin and others;

  • Facilitate the auction process;

  • Personalize and improve the Services; and

  • Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected

4.    Sharing of Information

We may share information about you as follows or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

  • With vendors, consultants, partners, and other service providers who need access to such information to carry out work on our behalf including the entity who will facilitate the auction and manage the auction process;

  • With our lawyers and other professional advisors where necessary to obtain advice or otherwise protect and manage our business interests as well as with government agencies and professional regulators where permitted or required to comply with our legal obligations;

  • In response to a request for information if we believe disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;

  • If we believe your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies, or to protect the rights, property and safety of Blue Origin or others;

  • In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company;

  • Between and among Blue Origin and our current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership; and

  • With your consent or at your direction.

We may also share aggregated or de-identified information, which cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

5.    Analytics Services Provided by Others

We may allow others to provide analytics services on our behalf across the web. These entities may use cookies, web beacons, device identifiers and other technologies to collect information about your use of the Services and other websites and applications, including your IP address, web browser, mobile network information, pages viewed, time spent on pages, and links clicked. This information may be used by Blue Origin and others to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, and better understand your online activity.

6.    Data Retention

We store the information we collect about you for as long as is necessary for the purpose(s) for which we originally collected it or for other legitimate business purposes, including to meet our legal, regulatory, or other compliance obligations.

7.    Users Around the Globe

Blue Origin processes and stores information in the United States. As such, we and our service providers may transfer your information to, or store or access it in, jurisdictions that may not provide equivalent levels of data protection as your home jurisdiction. We will take steps to ensure that information about you receives an adequate level of protection in the jurisdictions in which we process it.

When we transfer personal data from the European Union, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland to the United States, we comply with the principles of the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss - U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal data transferred from the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to the United States, respectively. Blue Origin has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/.

In compliance with the Privacy Shield Principles, we are committed to resolving complaints about our processing of your personal data. EU, United Kingdom, and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding our compliance with the Privacy Shield program should first contact us. We have further committed to refer unresolved Privacy Shield complaints to JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider located in the United States. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your complaint to your satisfaction, please contact or visit https://www.jamsadr.com/file-an-eu-us-privacy-shie... for more information or to file a complaint. The services of JAMS are provided at no cost to you.

Under certain conditions, you may be able to invoke binding arbitration to resolve your complaint. Blue Origin is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Department of Transportation. If we share personal data transferred to the U.S. under the Privacy Shield with a third-party service provider that processes such data on our behalf, then we will be liable for that third party’s processing in violation of the Privacy Shield Principles, unless we can prove that we are not responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

8.    Your Choices

Account Information

You may review and update information about you by contacting us at privacy@blueorigin.com. Please note that we may retain certain information as required by law or for legitimate business purposes. We may also retain cached or archived copies of information about you for a certain period of time.

Cookies

Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Services.

Promotional Communications

You may opt-out of receiving promotional emails from us by following the instructions at the bottom of those emails or by contacting us with your request at privacy@blueorigin.com. If you opt-out, we may still send you non-promotional emails, such as those about your account or our ongoing business relations.

9.    Residents of the European Economic Area and Switzerland

Legal Basis for Processing

If you are in the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, when we process personal data about you, we will only do so in the following situations:

  • We need to use personal data about you to perform our responsibilities under our contract with you. For example, we may use your payment information to process payments for providing the services you have requested.

  • We have a legitimate interest in processing personal data about you. For example, we may process personal data about you to provide, secure, and improve our Services.

  • We have your consent to do so. For example, with your consent, we may disclose your information to partners who help us hold auctions if you wish to participate in an auction for an astronaut experience.

  • We need to process personal data about you in accordance with legal obligations we have.

Data Subject Requests

If you are in the EEA, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have the right to access personal data we hold about you and to ask that your personal data be corrected, erased, or transferred. You may also have the right to object to, or request that we restrict, certain processing. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, you may contact us as indicated below.

10.                  Your California Privacy Rights

The California Consumer Privacy Act or “CCPA” (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.) affords consumers residing in California certain rights with respect to their personal information. If you are a California resident, this section applies to you.

Categories and Sources of Personal Information: In the past 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information: identifiers (such as a name, email address, and device identifiers); demographic information (such as age or gender); commercial Information (such as purchase history); internet or electronic network activity information (such as browsing and usage data); professional or employment related information (such as from bid registration); and inferences (such as approximate location).

Please refer to our “Collection of Information” section above for more details on the information we collect, including the category of sources from which this information is collected.

Business or Commercial Purpose for Collecting Personal Data: We collect this personal

information for the business and commercial purposes described in “Use of Information” above.

Categories of Third Parties with Whom We Share Personal Data: In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed the following categories of personal information for business purposes to the following categories of recipients:

Category of Personal Information

Categories of Recipients

Identifiers

Cloud Infrastructure Providers, Advisors and Consultants, Auction partners, CRM and Email Marketing Vendors

Commercial Information

Cloud Infrastructure Providers, Auction partners, Payment Services Processors,

Internet or Electronic Network Activity Information

Social Networks, Data Analytics Providers

Inferences

Data Analytics Providers

For more information, please see the “Sharing of Information” section above.

Sales of Personal Data: Blue Origin does not sell your personal information.

CCPA Consumer Rights: Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to (1) request to know more about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect, use, and disclose, (2) request deletion of your personal information, (3) opt out of any “sales” of your personal information that may be occurring, and (4) not be discriminated against for exercising these rights. You may make these requests by emailing us at privacy@blueorigin.com. We will verify your request by asking you to provide information related to your recent interactions with us, such as a recent purchase you made, or a recent interaction we’ve had with you that we can use to clearly verify your identity. We will not discriminate against you if you exercise your rights under the CCPA.

Please refer to the “Any Questions” section below to submit a rights request. We will verify your request including by asking you to provide information that matches information we have on file about you. You can also designate an authorized agent to exercise these rights on their behalf, but we will require proof that the person has been authorized and may still ask you to verify your identity with us directly

11.                  Any Questions?

If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact us at privacy@blueorigin.com.

If you are in the EEA, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, and have a concern about our processing of personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the data privacy authority where you reside. For contact details of your local Data Protection Authority, please see the following links:

For individuals in the EEA: https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en 

For individuals in the UK: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ 

For individuals in Switzerland: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/the-fdpic/contact.html