Last updated 3rd January 2016
GivYo (hereinafter referred to as "GivYo", "we", "us" or "our") operates an online community marketplace and platform that helps people live a life less ordinary, where they can create, list, discover and request unique experiences and gift ideas from nearby and around the world, whether through our website or our mobile applications (“Platform”). GivYo refers to GivYo Ltd.
This Privacy & Cookie Policy is intended to inform you about how we use Cookies and treat Personal Information that we process about you. If you do not agree to any part of this Privacy & Cookie Policy, then we cannot provide the Platform to you, and you should stop accessing the Platform and deactivate your GivYo account. You can find out more about how to deactivate your account at https://www.givyo.co/help.
Where the definition of a term does not appear in this Privacy & Cookie Policy (such as “Listing”, “Content” etc.), it shall be given its definition as outlined in our Terms of Service (https://www.givyo.co/terms).
“Aggregated information” means information about all of our users or specific groups or categories of users that we combine together and which does not include the users’ Personal Information.
"Data Controller" means GivYo, the company responsible for the use of and processing of Personal Information.
"Personal Information" means information relating to a living individual who is or can be identified either from that information or from that information in conjunction with other information that is in, or is likely to come into, the possession of the Data Controller.
1. Cookies, and other Tracking Technologies
GivYo uses "cookies" and similar technologies in conjunction with the Platform to obtain information. A cookie is a small data file that is transferred to your device (e.g., your phone or your computer) for record-keeping purposes. For example, a cookie could allow the Platform to recognize your browser, while another could store your preferences and other information. We may also allow our business partners to use their cookies and other tracking technologies on the Platform. As a result, when you access or use the Platform, you will provide or make available certain information to us and to our business partners.
Your browser may allow you to set how it handles cookies, such as declining all cookies or prompting you to decide whether to accept each cookie. But please note that some parts of the Platform may not work as intended or may not work at all without cookies. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser setting to decline cookies by visiting the Help portion of your browser’s toolbar. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to sign in, customize, or use some of the interactive features of the Platform. Flash cookies operate differently than browser cookies, and cookie management tools available in a web browser will not remove flash cookies. To learn more about how to manage flash cookies, you can visit the Adobe website (http://www.adobe.com/) and make changes at the Global Privacy Settings Panel (http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager02.html).
While you may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings, we do not change our practices in response to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser or mobile application. We track your activities if you click on advertisements for GivYo services on third party platforms such as search engines and social networks, and may use analytics to track what you do in response to those advertisements, the main purpose of which is improving our service to you.
There are two types of cookies used on the Platform, namely “persistent cookies” and “session cookies”. Session cookies will normally expire when you close your browser, while persistent cookies will remain on your device after you close your browser, and can be used again the next time you access the Platform.
GivYo uses cookies for a number of purposes, such as the following: to enable, facilitate and streamline the functioning of the Platform across different webpages and browser sessions. to simplify your access to and use of the Platform and make it more seamless. to monitor and analyze the performance, operation and effectiveness of the Platform, so that we can improve and optimize it. to show you content (which may include advertisements) that is more relevant to you.
(http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/) and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance (http://www.aboutads.info/choices/). You may also be able to control advertising cookies provided by publishers, for example Google’s Ad Preference Manager (https://www.google.com/settings/ads/onweb/). Please note that eveWe may, either directly or through third party companies and individuals we engage to provide services to us, also continue to track your behaviour on our own Platform for purposes of our own customer support, analytics, research, product development, fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, as well as to enable you to use and access the Platform and pay for your activities on the Platform. We may also, either directly or through third party companies and individuals we engage to provide services to us, track your behaviour on our own Platform to market and advertise our services to you on the Platform and third party websites. Third parties that use cookies and other tracking technologies to deliver targeted advertisements on our Platform and/or third party websites may offer you a way to prevent such targeted advertisements by opting-out at the websites of industry groups such as the Network Advertising Initiative n if you choose to opt-out of receiving targeted advertising, you may still receive advertising on the Platform – it just will not be tailored to your interests. Third parties may not collect information about users’ online activities on the Platform except as described in this Privacy & Cookie Policy.
The Platform may also use other technologies with similar functionality to cookies, such as web beacons and tracking URLs to obtain Log Data about users. We may also use web beacons and tracking URLs in our messages to you to determine whether you have opened a certain message or accessed a certain link.
In addition, Facebook places a cookie via the Platform that allows Facebook to obtain aggregated, non-Personal Information to optimize their services. For example, if a user clicks on an advertisement for the GivYo mobile app on Facebook and subsequently installs the app, this cookie will inform Facebook that a user (who is not personally identified) has installed the app after clicking on the advertisement. This cookie may also inform Facebook that a user is using the app, without identifying the specific actions taken by the user in the app.
2. Information that you give us
We receive, store and process information that you make available to us when accessing or using our Platform. Examples include when you:
fill in any form on the Platform, such as when you register or update the details of your user account;
access or use the Platform, such as to search for or post experiences, make or accept bookings, pay for experiences, book or pay for any associated services that may be available (such as but not limited to delivery charges), post comments or reviews, or communicate with other users;
link your account on a third party site (e.g. Facebook) to your GivYo account, in which case we will obtain the Personal Information that you have provided to the third party site, to the extent allowed by your settings with the third party site and authorized by you; and
communicate with GivYo.
3. Server Data Logs
Regardless of whether you are registered with GivYo or logged in to your GivYo, we may also receive, store and process Log Data information, which is automatically recorded by our servers whenever you access or use the Platform, such as your IP Address, the date and time you access or use the Platform, the hardware and software you are using, referring and exit pages and URLs, the number of clicks, pages viewed and the order of those pages, and the amount of time spent on particular pages.
4. Mobile Data
When you use certain features of the Platform, in particular our mobile applications we may receive, store and process different types of information about your location, including general information (e.g. IP address, zip code) and more specific information (e.g., GPS-based functionality on mobile devices used to access the Platform or specific features of the platform). If you do not want your mobile device to provide us with location-tracking information, you can disable the GPS or other location-tracking functions on your device, provided your device allows you to do this. See your manufacturer’s instructions for further details.
5. Third-party social plugins
Our Platform may use social plugins which are provided and operated by third-party companies, such as Facebook’s Like Button.
As a result of this, you may send to the third-party company the information that you are viewing on a certain part of our Platform. If you are not logged into your account with the third-party company, then the third party may not know your identity. If you are logged into your account with the third-party company, then the third party may be able to link information about your visit to our Platform to your account with them. Similarly, your interactions with the social plugin may be recorded by the third party.
Please refer to the third party’s privacy policy to find out more about its data practices, such as what data is collected about you and how the third party uses such data.
We process and use information about you for the following general purposes:
to enable you to access and use the Platform;
to help create and maintain a trusted and safer environment on the Platform, such as fraud detection and prevention, conducting investigations and risk assessments, verifying the address of your listings, verifying any identifications provided by you, and conducting checks against databases such as public government databases;
to send you service, support and administrative messages, reminders, updates, security alerts, technical notices, and information requested by you;
to operate, protect, improve and optimize the Platform, GivYo’s business, and our users’ experience, such as to perform analytics, conduct research, and for advertising and marketing;
where we have your consent, to send you marketing and promotional messages and other information that may be of interest to you, including information sent on behalf of our business partners that we think you may find interesting. You will be able to unsubscribe or opt-out from receiving these communications in your settings (in the “Account” section) when you login to your GivYo account;
to administer rewards, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by GivYo or our business partners; and
to comply with our legal obligations, resolve any disputes that we may have with any of our users, and enforce our agreements with third parties.
We may review, scan, or analyze your communications with other users exchanged via the Platform for fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research and customer support purposes. For example, as part of our fraud prevention efforts, the Platform may scan and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other websites. This helps to prevent fraudulent actors from asking users to send them money outside of the Platform, such as by bank transfer or other money transfer methods. We may also scan, review or analyze messages for research and product development purposes to help make search, booking and user communications more efficient and effective, as well as to debug product offerings.
We will not review, scan, or analyze your communications for sending third party marketing messages to you. We will also not sell these reviews or analyses of communications to third parties. We will also use automated methods to carry out these reviews or analyses where reasonably possible. However, from time to time we may have to manually review some communications. By using the Platform, you consent that GivYo, in its sole discretion, may review, scan, analyze, and store your communications, whether done manually or through automated means.
IMPORTANT: When you use the Platform, your data may be sent to any EU member states and possibly other countries, including but not limited to the United States.
We may transfer, store, use and process your information, including any Personal Information, to countries outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA") including the United States. Please note that laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and so the privacy laws applicable to the places where your information is transferred to or stored, used or processed in, may be different from the privacy laws applicable to the place where you are resident.
Your Personal Information may be disclosed as follows:
Parts of your public profile page that contain some Personal Information may be displayed in other parts of the Platform to other users for marketing purposes. Your public Listing page will always include some minimum information such as the city and neighborhood where the experience is located, your public profile photo and your responsiveness in replying to Users’ queries. Parts of your public Listing page may be displayed in other parts of the Platform to other users for marketing purposes. The Platform may also display the experience’s approximate geographic location on a map, such that a user can see the general area of the experience. The Platform allows your public profile and public Listing pages to be included in search engines, in which case your public profile and public Listing pages will be indexed by search engines and may be published as search results. This option is enabled by default, and you may opt out of this feature by changing your settings on the Platform. If you change your settings or the information on your public profile or public Listing pages, third-party search engines may not update their databases quickly or at all. We do not control the practices of third-party search engines, and they may use caches containing outdated information, including any information indexed by the search engine before you change your settings or the information on your public profile or public Listing pages. When you submit a request to book an experience or delivery, your full name will become visible to the Host. In addition, if you agree to be contacted by the Host by phone when submitting your request and the Host decides to do so, GivYo will call your phone number first, before connecting you with the Host. We will not share your phone number unless there is a confirmed booking. When your request to book an experience or delivery is accepted by the Host or when you accept a Guest’s request to book your experience or delivery, we will disclose some of your Personal Information to the Host or Guest. However, your billing information will never be shared with another user. When a Guest participates at your venue, arranges a delivery or when you stay at a Host’s venue, we will ask you to review the Guest or the venue. If you choose to provide a review, your review may be public on the Platform. You may link your account on a third party social networking site to your GivYo account. We refer to a person’s contacts on these third party sites as “Friends”. When you create this linkage:
some of the information you provide to us from the linking of your accounts may be published on your GivYo account profile;
your activities on the Platform may be displayed to your Friends on the Platform and/or that third party site;
other GivYo users may be able to see any common Friends that you may have with them, or that you are a Friend of their Friend if applicable as listed on your linked social networking site(s); and
the information you provide to us from the linking of your accounts may be stored, processed and transmitted for fraud prevention and risk assessment purposes.
The publication and display of information that you provide to GivYo through this linkage is subject to your settings and authorizations on the Platform and the third party site. We may distribute parts of the Platform (including your Listing) for display on sites operated by GivYo’s business partners, using technologies such as HTML widgets. If and when your Listings are displayed on a partner’s site, information from your public profile page may also be displayed. We may allow our related entities such as our subsidiaries, and their employees, to use and process your Personal Information in the same way and to the same extent that we are permitted to under this Privacy & Cookie Policy. These related entities comply with the same obligations that we have to protect your Personal Information under this Privacy & Cookie Policy. We may also engage third party companies and individuals, who may be located outside of the EEA, to provide services to us, including services to help verify your identification or to conduct checks against databases such as public government databases (where legally allowed). We may provide Personal Information about you to these third parties, or give them access to this Personal Information, for the limited purpose of allowing them to provide these services. We will ensure that such third parties have contractual obligations to protect this Personal Information and to not use it for unrelated purposes. You acknowledge, consent and agree that GivYo may access, preserve and disclose your account information and Collective Content if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) respond to claims asserted against GivYo; (b) to comply with legal process (for example, subpoenas and warrants); (c) to enforce and administer our agreements with users, such as the Terms of Service, (https://www.givyo.co/terms); (d) for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, customer support, product development and de-bugging purposes; or (e) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of GivYo, its users or members of the public. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify users about law enforcement requests for their data unless prohibited by law or by the government request, or if doing so would be futile or ineffective.
We may also publish, disclose and use Aggregated Information and non-personal information for industry analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes.
You may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information in your GivYo account by logging in to your account. If you would like to cancel your GivYo account entirely, you can do so by logging in to your account. Please also note that any reviews, forum postings and similar materials posted by you may continue to be publicly available on the Platform in association with your first name, even after your GivYo account is cancelled.
If GivYo undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets or bankruptcy or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer or share some or all of our assets, including your Personal Information. In this event, we will notify you before your Personal Information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy & cookie policy.
We have implemented reasonable administrative, technical, and physical security measures to protect your Personal Information against the unauthorized access, destruction or alteration of your information. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, and no method of storing electronic information, can be 100% secure. So, we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your transmissions to us and of your Personal Information that we store.
The Platform will contain links to other websites not owned or controlled by GivYo. GivYo does not have any control over third party websites. These other websites may place their own cookies, web beacons or other files on your device, or collect and solicit Personal Information from you. They will have their own rules about the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information. We encourage you to read the terms of use and privacy policies of the other websites that you visit.
Some portions of the Platform implement Google Maps/Earth mapping services, including Google Maps API(s). Your use of Google Maps/Earth is subject to Google’s terms of use (located at http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html) and Google’s privacy policy (located at http://www.google.com/privacy.html), as may be amended by Google from time to time.
Referral service and requesting for references
The Platform provides a referral service that allows you to invite your friends and contacts to use the Platform. The Platform also allows you to ask your friends and contacts to write a reference for you, to be published on your GivYo profile.
We may integrate the Platform with third party sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, so that you can send invitation messages or requests for references via the third party site itself. These messages will be sent by the third party site, and GivYo does not collect or retain the contact information that is used to send them.
You may also send invitation/request emails via the Platform itself, in which case we will ask you for the email addresses to send these emails to. You can type in the email addresses manually, or you can request GivYo to import the contacts in your email account address book(s). In both cases, we will use the information sent to us for the sole purpose of sending your friends and contacts a one-time email, inviting him or her to visit the Platform or to write a reference for you. With respect to referrals, we will also store the email addresses of your invitees to track if your friend joins GivYo in response to your referral.
If you request us to import your contacts, we will collect, but not store, the username and password for the email account you wish to import your contacts from. We will use this information only for the purpose of importing your contacts.
Affiliate Program
If you are allowed to join GivYo’s Affiliate Program (see https://www.givyo.co/affiliates) and you sign up for it, you will have to provide us with certain Personal Information to enable us to provide the Affiliate Program to you.
Groups
The Platform may allow registered account holders to participate in online discussion forums ("Group(s)”) in selected cities.
If you join a Group, then your membership in the Group as well as some of your public information (such as your profile picture and public profile page) will be visible to users who browse the Group. If you publish postings in a Group, then your postings will be visible to such users as well. The ability to browse the Group will depend on the Group settings, and it may or may not be limited to members of that Group.
We may change how we collect and then use Personal Information at any time and without prior notice, at our sole discretion.
We may change this Privacy & Cookie Policy at any time. If we make material changes to the Privacy & Cookie Policy, we will notify you either by posting the changed Privacy & Cookie Policy on the Platform or by sending an email to you. We will also update the “Last Updated Date” at the top of this Privacy & Cookie Policy. If we let you know of changes through an email communication, then the date on which we send the email will be deemed to be the date of your receipt of that email.
It’s important that you review the changed Privacy & Cookie Policy. If you do not wish to agree to the changed Privacy & Cookie Policy, then we will not be able to continue providing the Platform to you, and that would be a shame, your only option will be to stop accessing the Platform and deactivate your GivYo account. You can find out more about how to deactivate your GivYo account at https://www.givyo.co/help.
This is really important to everyone on GivYo! If you’d like to provide feedback to us about this Privacy & Cookie Policy, please email us at terms@givyo.com.
FOR USERS RESIDING IN THE EU ONLY: YOUR RIGHTS TO REVIEW AND UPDATE INFORMATION
If you reside in the EU, you may request in writing copies of your Personal Information held by us. We will provide you with a copy of the Personal Information held by us as soon as practicable and in any event not more than 40 days after the request in writing. There may be a charge to access your personal data (this will never exceed any statutory limits). We may also request proof of identification to verify your access request. All requests should be addressed to our Data Protection Compliance Officer, GivYo Ltd, Upper Brighton Road, LONDON, KT6 6LS, United Kingdom. You may also request to this address the erasure of your personal data if you believe we are otherwise in breach of relevant data protection legislation, for which there is no charge.
We endeavor to keep your information accurate, complete and up to date. If your Personal Information that we hold is inaccurate, please let us know and we will make the necessary amendments, erase or block the relevant information and notify you within 40 days of your request that the relevant action has been taken.
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