The ordering process for our site is secured using standard SSL encryption. This means that when you visit our site, the communication between your computer and ours is encrypted so that a 3^rd party cannot listen to the information passing between us. The next important concern is that even though your connection is encrypted, how do you know that the people you are talking with are who you think they are. This is handled by our SSL certificate. When you connect to our site and begin to place an order, you will notice that our web address will change from http://www.nielsen-woodwinds.comto https://www.nielsen-woodwinds.com(http to https). Somewhere on your web browser you should see a lock (its location changes depending on your browser). If you click on this lock, you should see some information on our “SSL Certificate”. This certificate is issued to us by a company call Verisign (http://www.verisign.com/) who verifies that we are Edmund Nielsen Woodwinds.

All of this verifies that the data gets to us in a safe and secure fashion, but what happens once we have your data? Your data gets stored on a database server that is stored in a private location (off-site). This server is dedicated to handling just our database traffic and is secured inside a locked cabinet with only two people having the ability to open.

Another concern may be what information do we keep? We currently keep information on your addresses (billing, shipping, personal), personal information (name, phone number, ect.), and currently, your credit card information. For those concerned about our storage of your credit card number, we currently require this information because we believe in manual processing credit card orders. In this industry, some of our products frequently backorder and we are un-comfortable with charging you before we fulfill your order. Take comfort that our database encrypts your credit card information and it requires two “keys” to unlock it. One is a piece of information in our database, the other is stored on our administration server, which is located in a separate secured facility provided to us by Empire Data Tech (http://www.edthosting.com). We are currently working to change our process to one that would no longer keep your credit card information. All credit card information does not get stored or printed on paper.