Amazon Watch is committed to preserving your privacy and safeguarding your personal information
Last revised on February 5, 2026
The following statement describes the general practices for the collection, storage, and removal of personal information on our website.
What is your relationship to Amazon.com?
Let’s get this question out of the way first, since we hear it a lot. Amazon Watch is a small nonprofit organization founded in 1996 to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin based in Oakland, California. Amazon.com, Inc. is a gigantic multinational internet retailer with a multitude of subsidiaries which is one of the most valuable public corporations in the world and among the largest employers in the United States.
Suffice to say, we have absolutely no connection to Amazon.com at all!
At times, we have called out Amazon.com for things like using fuel derived from crude oil extracted from the Amazon rainforest in their delivery fleets, but please do not contact us if you ordered a wristwatch from it online and it hasn’t arrived. We swear that we know less about that than you do. And we certainly cannot help you with information that you submitted to their website or ads that you may have seen there.
What information do you collect, and what do you do with it?
Generally speaking, we only collect the information necessary to carry out the action that you, the user, are initiating (for example, signing a petition or making a donation). We do not collect other personal information surreptitiously (for example, via tracking cookies from other sites or services). As a rule, what you voluntarily submit to us is what we receive, and we use it for the purpose that you intended.
Amazon Watch sends out an email newsletter with action alerts, updates, and appeals on a regular basis. We do not automatically subscribe anyone to our mailing list without your explicit consent, and you are free to take actions on our site or use any of its other features without subscribing to our email list. We offer the option to subscribe to our email newsletter on our action and other forms, and some folks have also subscribed in person at events or via joint actions that we may undertake with allied organizations on their websites.
If you do choose to subscribe, we won’t inundate your inbox, and you can unsubscribe at any time via the links that are included in all of our emails to this list. If you have any difficulty with that process or have other questions, you can reply to the email that you received or contact us by phone or mail.
We retain your personal information (e.g., your name, email, phone, country, donation information) as long as it is necessary or required by law. For example, if you unsubscribe to our email newsletter, we store that information to be certain that you will not receive it again unless you re-subscribe. We are required to maintain donation information by law.
Amazon Watch does not sell or trade names or other personal data that we collect on our website or elsewhere. We operate under U.S. nonprofit law (not GDPR), and we respect best practices and prioritize your privacy.
Is my credit card information secure?
Credit card donations through our website are processed by Stripe. You may also opt to donate directly via the PayPal website or via BitPay, and at times we may use other clearly-identified services such as Eventbrite or Square to sell tickets for events or accept donations at them. All of these services are verified and secure payment processors, which is why we use them.
The privacy and related policies of these third-party processors apply when transactions occur, and they may collect additional information (e.g., device info, location) for fraud detection or if you have created your own accounts with them directly.
Amazon Watch never receives or stores your credit card information in any format, so there is no risk that it might be hacked or disclosed. As required by law, we keep a record of your donation and contact information (name, email, etc.) in our database of supporters, and we may follow up with you about your donation or other support later, as well as sending you tax receipts as required by U.S. law. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you would like to change how you are contacted after making a donation or to be removed from this list.
Do you use cookies?
Our website (like nearly all websites nowadays) does make use of cookies for some basic, essential tasks. We do not, however, use them in the way that they have often raised concerns about privacy by tracking users across websites. We do not receive or store any individual personal data from cookies.
For example, we make use of a common script called Google Analytics which allows us to see how many visitors view our site, which pages they view, what countries they came from, etc. This information is presented to us in an aggregated form (we see the numbers of users visiting our site, not who they are individually), and it is stored as such within the Google Analytics service (individual IP addresses are anonymized).
Google also operates a service to display ads to individuals and uses cookies to identify them on whatever site is displaying these ads, but we do not use this sort of service or cookie data. Data retained by Google may be stored on servers outside of the U.S.
We also may use other integrated services or features that are intended to make your browsing experience better and which make use of cookies. For example, we may store pages that you have viewed or online actions that you have taken in a browser cookie on your computer so that we are able to show you more relevant content when you return. We don’t receive any personal information as a result of this sort of interaction; it’s designed just to be a convenience for you, the user.
By using our site, you are consenting to accept our use of cookies. But unlike many other sites, ours should not break badly if you decide that you do not want to accept them, since we do our best to only use them for non-critical purposes. Most browsers enable cookies by default, but you can search for how to disable them online or see this article.
Does your website “mine” social media data?
Facebook, X/Twitter, and other social media websites collect data that you voluntarily supply, like your age, employer, relationship status, and where you live, as well as information that you may not be aware that you are providing, such as who you communicate with, posts that you view, searches that you make, etc. These sites also often track other places you visit online, and they will then use all of this information to sell advertisements. After revelations in March 2018 that a political data firm, Cambridge Analytica, improperly harvested and used 87 million users’ personal data, the way Facebook and other websites treat personal information has been under increasing scrutiny.
Amazon Watch cannot control what these services do with the information that you provide them or they collect on their own, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies and adjust sharing settings appropriately for each social networking service that you use. If you share content from our website on a social network, be aware that you are adding your interest in our work to your profile, which may mean that they show you related content in the future. Hopefully you will appreciate this, but it’s not something that we have any control over.
For this reason, we do not use embedded social media widgets from these services (e.g., X/Twitter posts, Facebook share buttons), as they may load cookies from those platforms and capture your data without your explicit consent.
Our website does not “mine” the data collected by these services, and we do not upload supporter email addresses to social media platforms for ad matching or other purposes. This is generally done by websites which display ads related to your interests, which we do not.
Our website and other content is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
What other information do you collect?
In order to prevent fraud, make sure that our systems are working properly, etc., our web server and other systems routinely keep records of data such as incoming IP addresses, browser and system info, etc.
We do not mine this data to attempt to determine personal information from it, and in general we use it only when necessary to verify that our systems are functioning as intended. Data stored by our web server and other technical systems is not connected to your donation records or cookie data, and it is only maintained as long as necessary for technical purposes. For example, our website has been hit by denial-of-service attacks in the past, and this information helps us to block IP addresses used by attackers.
If you are concerned about websites gathering such information from your visits, we encourage you to consider using a VPN or other anonymizing software, since this data is routinely exchanged whenever you use the internet.
What if I want to be removed?
Amazon Watch respects your privacy. If you want to review personal information that we may have collected about you or you would like to be certain that you have been unsubscribed or removed from our lists, please feel free to contact us.
Security practices
We frequently review and revise our data security practices to preemptively protect your information. For example, we limit staff access to data unless it is required, and we do not store it in unsecured locations or formats (including offline copies, such as printed records).
Our website and other systems always use encrypted connections (e.g., HTTPS) and two-factor authentication whenever possible.
Terms of service
By using this website, you agree to the following terms. We keep things simple because we want your experience with our site to be clear, safe, and respectful.
Use of this website
You are welcome to use our site for lawful, personal, and noncommercial purposes. Please do not interfere with how the site functions, attempt to access restricted areas, or use automated tools in ways that disrupt other visitors.
Intellectual property
The content on this site, including text, images, graphics, and videos, is created by Amazon Watch or shared with us by partners who have granted permission. You are encouraged to share or quote our work for educational, noncommercial, or advocacy purposes that help protect the Amazon rainforest, as long as you give proper credit. Any commercial use requires our explicit written consent.
Links to other websites
We sometimes link to partner organizations, news articles, or other resources. These links are provided for convenience and additional context. We do not control the content or privacy practices of those sites.
No legal or professional advice
The information on our website is offered to inform, educate, and inspire action. It is not intended as legal, financial, or professional advice.
User submissions
If you share comments, signatures, or other content through our site, you grant Amazon Watch permission to use that content in ways that support our mission and communications. Please only submit materials that you have the right to share and that do not infringe on the rights of others.
Disclaimer of warranties
Our website is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. While we work hard to keep everything running smoothly, we cannot guarantee that the site will always be error-free or uninterrupted.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent allowed by law, Amazon Watch is not responsible for any damages that may result from your use of this website or from information that you access through it.
Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms of service occasionally to reflect improvements to our site or changes in best practices. If you continue to use the site after updates are posted, that means you accept the revised terms.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California.
Questions?
We work hard to ensure that your experience on our site is a positive one. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or your dealings with our site, or if you have feedback or suggestions about how we might improve it, please contact us.
