TextMe, Incorporated Privacy Policy
Last Updated on January
1, 2020
IMPORTANT: BY USING
THIS APPLICATION AND/OR OUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, INCLUDING THOSE OF OUR
AFFILIATES AND SUBSIDIARIES (collectively “TextMe”), YOU
SIGNIFY YOUR AGREEMENT TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO
THIS PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS APPLICATION OR OUR PRODUCTS AND
SERVICES, INCLUDING OUR WEBSITE AND WEB APPLICATIONS. THIS PRIVACY POLICY IS
PART OF OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS WHICH CAN BE ACCESSED ON OUR WEBSITE AND ARE
INCORPORATED HEREIN BY REFERENCE, which
can be viewed at: Terms & Conditions
____________________________________________________________________________
1. Privacy Rights
TextMe, Incorporated
(“Us” or “We” or “Our”) is committed to respecting the privacy rights of its users,
customers, visitors, and users of its mobile applications and website, as well
as its related services (thereafter
“Products and Services”). We created
this Privacy Policy to inform you and provide necessary disclosures regarding
our collection, use and sharing of information when you use Our Products and Services. We collect, use and share some of your information,
as described below, to provide Our Products and Services
and to measure and improve them over time. If you have any questions about this
Privacy Policy, please contact Us at: privacy@go-text.me.
PLEASE SEE TEXTME’S
TERMS AND CONDITIONS TO WHICH YOU ARE BOUND IF YOU USE, SUBSCRIBE TO, OR
PURCHASE TEXTME’S PRODUCTS OR SERVICES: Terms & Conditions.
2. Not Intended For
Use By Children
Our Products and Services are not directed at children who are under
thirteen (13) years of age and We do not knowingly collect personal or other
information from children. If you are younger than thirteen (13) years of age,
you should not use Our Products
and Services and if you are between
the ages of thirteen and eighteen you must have parental consent and you should
not provide any personal identifiable information while using Our Products and Services without said parental consent. If you become aware
that your child has provided us with personal information without your consent,
please contact Us at privacy@go-text.me.
3. Information,
Collected, Used and Shared by TextMe, Incorporated
To provide you with Our
Products and Services, we must collect and process information about you. When
using Our Products and Services, you consent to the collection, storage,
processing, sharing, transfer, manipulation, and disclosure of this information
as described in this Privacy Policy.
Regardless of what
country you reside in or provide information to Us from, you authorize TextMe
to use your information as described herein in the United States and all other
countries where TextMe operates or is available.
TextMe retains your
information in accordance with legitimate business purposes for processing the
information. Thereafter the data is removed, archived for restricted legitimate
interests, or anonymized. Non-identifying information
may be kept without time and use limitations.
Notice of Collection
What information is
collected and how?
·
Identifying
information, identifiers
o
You provide
us with identifying information, including your real name, email address, account
name, and age bracket. You may also provide us with your gender.
o
We associate
the identifying information you provide Us with identifying information We
collect about you including the account number we assign to your account, the internet
protocol (IP) address you use to access our Products and Services, the telephone
number We assign to your account, the advertising identifier and device
identifier associated with the device you use to access Our Products and
Services.
·
Commercial
information
o
We maintain
a record of your usage of Our Products and Services, including details about
when you logged in and what actions you performed in Our Products and Services,
o
Such as logs
of messages and calls sent and received,
o
And
including records of what purchases you made, if any.
·
Internet or
network activity information
o
We collect
information about how you access our Products and Services electronically,
including device make and model, device settings, operating system, type of
connection, carrier information, applications on your device, browser
information.
·
Geolocation
data
o
If you have
authorized access to your device’s location services, we collect your location.
o
Please note
that even if you have not authorized access to your device’s location services,
we will be able to infer your location via the IP address used to connect to
our Products and Services.
Why do we collect this
information?
·
We use
identifying information to authenticate you in Our Products and Services; to
provide you with, and to improve upon, the Products and Services; to carry out
actions as instructed by you via your use of the Products and Services; We may
contact you with information about Our Products and Services, or to contact as
otherwise necessary, including if there has been a data breach; We may notify
you of any changes in Our Products and Services, Terms and Conditions, or
Privacy Policy.
·
We use
commercial information to provide you with, and to improve upon, the Products
and Services; to carry out actions as instructed by you via your use of the
Products and Services; to measure, analyze, and improve upon Our marketing
efforts
·
We use internet
or network activity information to provide you with, and to improve upon, the
Products and Services; to carry out actions as instructed by you via your use
of the Products and Services; to measure, analyze, and improve upon Our
marketing efforts
·
We use
geolocation data to provide you with, and to improve upon, the Products and
Services; to carry out actions as instructed by you via your use of the
Products and Services; to measure, analyze, and improve upon Our marketing
efforts
·
We may use
this information to verify or enforce compliance with user agreements and
applicable laws, to protect against fraud, to detect and prevent security or
technical issues, to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of the TextMe’s
Products and Services, or to protect against imminent harm to the rights,
property or safety of TextMe, its subscribers, or the public as required or
permitted by law
4. Sale and
Disclosure of Information for Business Purposes
TextMe does not disclose
your Customer Information to third parties except in the limited circumstances
herein.
In order to provide you
with the Products and Services, we may establish business relationships with third-party
companies. We verify that these third-party companies utilize privacy and
security practices consistent with Ours.
We disclose information
to Our advertising providers, in order to provide you
with advertisements, including interest-based advertisements. Advertisements
allow us to provide the Products and Services to you at a reduced cost to you.
We may disclose identifying information, commercial information, internet or network activity information, and geolocation to
advertising providers. You
can find a list of the advertising companies we partner with here: TextMe
Partners
We disclose information
to Our data analytics providers, in order to receive
analytical services, which are used to provide, improve upon, and track
performance of the Products and Services. We may disclose identifying
information, commercial information, internet or
network activity information, and geolocation to data analytics providers.
We disclose information
to Our marketing providers, in order to communicate
with you about our Products and Services. We may disclose identifying
information, commercial information, internet or
network activity information, and geolocation to marketing providers.
We disclose information
to law enforcement agencies in order to respond to law enforcement requests or
when legally required to do so. We may disclose identifying information,
commercial information, internet or network activity
information, and geolocation to law enforcement agencies.
We use third parties to
provide hosting and data storage services.
TextMe may disclose or
use some of your information if you join a “group” and your prior express
consent may be obtained through and conveyed by an intermediary, such as the
organizer of a group using TextMe’s Products and Services. To the extent that
TextMe sends administrative texts to any group members relating to using and
canceling TextMe’s group texting service, they are to be considered normal
business communications under applicable law. SEE TEXTME’S TERMS AND CONDITIONS
TO WHICH YOU ARE BOUND IF YOU USE, SUBSCRIBE TO, OR PURCHASE TEXTME’S PRODUCTS
OR SERVICES.
In the event of a sale,
merger, liquidation, dissolution, reorganization, assignment, bankruptcy or any
transfer of assets, IP rights, or any marketable right owned by TextMe, your
information may be sold or transferred as part of that transaction.
We may use third parties
to provide hosting, data storage, and direct marketing services. We may lease,
rent, sell or share this information with any third parties to the extent
legally possible.
TextMe may provide links
and/or connections to third-party applications, websites or services from
within Our Products
and Services. We may not have access
to, or control over, information collected by these third parties. Such third
parties will handle, store, retain and access such user information in
accordance with the terms and conditions of their agreements with you, if any,
as well as their own privacy policies. You acknowledge that TextMe shall have
no liability for sharing of such information to such third parties and TextMe
disclaims any and all liability relating thereto as set forth in its Terms and
Conditions, which are expressly incorporated herein.
5. Advertisement
Targeting Limitation and Do Not Track
You can choose to limit
the targeting of the various advertisements displayed in TextMe by turning on
the feature called “Limit Ad Tracking” which can be located in the settings of
your iOS Device or by changing the setting called "Opt out of
interest-based ads" settings in Google Settings of your Android Device. By
doing so, the Operating System of your device will not transmit your
advertising identifier to the TextMe application.
Please note that by
limiting the advertising targeting in this manner, you may still see the same
number of ads as before, but they may be less relevant because they will
not be based on your interests. By invoking this limiting feature, you will
also limit your capability of using TextMe’s Products and Services.
TextMe does not honor
“Do Not Track” header requests.
To learn more about
interest-based advertising, or to opt-out, you can visit the site for the Network
Advertising Initiative http://www.networkadvertising.org/, or the Digital Advertising Alliance http://www.youradchoices.com/, or the European Interactive Digital Advertising
http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/.
6. Cookies and Web Beacons
We may use cookies (a
small text file placed on your device to identify your device and browser when
you use our Products & Services). We may also use Web beacons (an
electronic file placed on a website that monitors usage). Most Internet
browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can instruct your browser to
stop accepting cookies (disable cookies). If you do, some of Our Products and
Services may not function properly or may be diminished. Promotions or
advertisements viewed through Our Products and Services may contain cookies.
7. Modifying or
Removal of Your Customer Information
If you have subscribed
to or purchased Our Products and Services and you wish to remove or modify your
information, you can contact Us using the contact information provided below,
although you should be aware that (a) there will be a technical delay between
your request and the effective removal of your User Data from Our database, (b)
we may have to retain Customer Information for legal purposes as the case may
be; and (c) certain of Our Products and Services require
the use of your information and such data is retained by Us and used as
described in this Privacy Policy. You can delete your account and uninstall the
TextMe application from your device. If you need assistance please contact Us at
privacy@go-text.me.
8. Security of
Customer Information
TextMe seeks to adopt
commercially reasonable security measures consistent with the industry
regarding the protection against the loss, misuse or alternation of non-public
information that is under Our control. Unfortunately, no security system, or
system of transmitting data over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100%
secure. As such, you provide all such information at your own risk.
9. Changes to
TextMe’s Privacy Policy
TextMe reserves the
right, at Our discretion, to change, update or modify this Privacy Policy at
any time by posting such change, update or modification on the TextMe website.
Any such change, update
or modification will be effective immediately upon notice, which TextMe may
provide by any means, including, without limitation, posting on the TextMe
website, notifications within TextMe applications, or electronic mail.
Your continued use of
the TextMe website and/or any TextMe products and services following the
posting of changes will mean you accept those changes. Use of information that
We gather is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of use.
10. For users located in California
This section only
applies to users located in California.
You must be at least 16 years
of age to use Our Products and Services.
Under the California
Consumer Privacy Act, you have certain rights as a consumer,
which are described below. To submit requests to exercise these rights, you
must submit your request via the Privacy Portal, Privacy
Portal. We can also be contacted
at privacy@go-text.me, however please note that We
cannot process requests to exercise rights requests via email.
·
Right to
request disclosure – You have the right to request that We disclose to
you the specific pieces of personal information about you which we collect,
use, disclose, and sell.
·
Right to
request deletion – You have the right to request deletion of your
personal information.
·
Right to opt
out – You have the right to opt out of the sale of personal information.
You can exercise this right by visiting the settings page of Our
apps, or by clicking on the link on Our websites.
·
Non-discrimination
– You will not be discriminated against when you exercise your rights as
a consumer under the California Consumer Privacy Act.
·
Financial
incentive – We provide you with personalized advertising, through our
relationships with advertising companies, as a financial incentive for Us to
provide you with our Products and Services at no cost, or at a lower cost than
if we did not provide you with personalized advertising. You may opt out of
this financial incentive by purchasing a premium subscription to Our Products
and Services.
10. For users located in the EEA, UK, and
Switzerland
This section only
applies to users located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, and
Switzerland.
You must be at least 16
years of age to use Our Products and Services.
We will request your
consent for the processing of personal data for the purpose of providing
interest-based advertisements. You can withdraw your consent at anytime by
visiting the Settings page in Our Products and Services.
We may also process data
as necessary to provide the Products and Services, to comply with legal
obligations imposed upon Us, to protect the vital
interests of TextMe users, to carry out tasks in the public interest, and other
legitimate interests.
Under the General Data
Protection Regulation, you have the right to request access, erasure, restriction
and portability of your personal data collected by Us.
Your data may be stored
in the European Union or the United States.
You can reach our
Privacy Officer at privacy@go-text.me.
We can be contacted
concerning this Privacy Policy by email at privacy@go-text.me.