HouseAccount
Privacy Policy
Last updated: June 23, 2023
This Privacy Policy describes the privacy practices of HouseAccount (collectively, “we”, “us”, or “our”) and how we handle personal information that we collect through our website and any other sites or services that link to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Services”).
General terms
In this Privacy Policy:
- HouseAccount may be referred to as “we”, “us”, or “our.
- We call a user of the HouseAccount Services “User,” “Users”, “you”, “your”, or “Resident” and “Third Party Service Provider,” as appropriate.
- As defined in our Terms of Service, a Resident is user who uses our Service to retain, pay, and communicate with a “Third Party Service Provider” (hereinafter “Provider”). A Provider is the individual/company who provides the service to the Resident.
Personal information we collect
Information you provide to us:
Contact and account information.
- If you are a Resident, we collect your first and last name, email address, and your zip or postal code in order to create and administer your Resident account. We also collect additional information in order to facilitate your booking request, such as information the service requested, the time, date and location of the service, and billing data.
- If you are a Provider, we collect your first and last name, email address, mobile phone number and zip or postal code in order to create and administer your HouseAccount account and facilitate communications between you and your Residents through the HouseAccount Services. We also collect information about your services, rates, and skills, as well as financial information.
Payment and transaction data. This information is processed by one of our payment service providers, we do not have access to payment card numbers.
Identity information. If you are a Provider, we may collect personal information, such as your date of birth and address, as well as such information as may be needed to validate your identity.
Financial information. To help Provider’s set up a payment account and help Residents make payments to Providers and pay fees to us, we may collect financial information, including credit card number, bank routing numbers, tax information, taxpayer identification number, and other payment information, as applicable. To keep your financial data secure, we have contracted with a third party to maintain and process your payment information.
Content you upload through the services, such as posts, images, social media information, and other information you wish to make publicly available to other users of the Services.
Feedback or correspondence, such as information you provide when you contact us with questions, feedback, product reviews, or otherwise correspond with us online.
Usage information, such as information about how you use the Services and interact with us, including information associated with any content you upload to the Services or otherwise submit to us, and information you provide when you use any interactive features of the Services.
Marketing information, such as your preferences for receiving communications about our activities, events, and publications, and details about how you engage with our communications.
Other information that we may collect which is not specifically listed here, but which we will use in accordance with this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.
Information we obtain from third parties:
Social media information. We may maintain pages on social media platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and other third-party platforms. When you visit or interact with our pages on those platforms, the platform provider’s privacy policy will apply to your interactions and their collection, use and processing of your personal information. You or the platforms may provide us with information through the platform, and we will treat such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Third-party login information. When you link, connect, or login to the Services with a third party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, or Apple), you direct the service to send us information such as your registration, friends list, and profile information as controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service.
Other sources. We may obtain your personal information from other third parties, such as marketing partners, publicly-available sources and data providers.
Automatic data collection. We and our service providers may automatically log information about you, your computer or mobile device, and your interaction over time with our Services, our communications and other online services, such as:
Device data, such as your computer’s or mobile device’s operating system type and version, manufacturer and model, browser type, screen resolution, RAM and disk size, CPU usage, device type (e.g., phone, tablet), IP address, unique identifiers (including identifiers used for advertising purposes), language settings, mobile device carrier, radio/network information (e.g., WiFi, LTE, 4G), and general location information such as city, state or geographic area.
Online activity data, such as pages or screens you viewed, how long you spent on a page or screen, browsing history, navigation paths between pages or screens, information about your activity on a page or screen, access times, and duration of access, and whether you have opened our marketing emails or clicked links within them.
We use the following tools for automatic data collection:
Cookies, which are text files that websites store on a visitor‘s device to uniquely identify the visitor’s browser or to store information or settings in the browser for the purpose of helping you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, enabling functionality, helping us understand user activity and patterns, and facilitating online advertising.
Local storage technologies, like HTML5, that provide cookie-equivalent functionality but can store larger amounts of data, including on your device outside of your browser in connection with specific applications.
Web beacons, also known as pixel tags or clear GIFs, which are used to demonstrate that a webpage or email was accessed or opened, or that certain content was viewed or clicked.
How we use your personal information
To operate our services:
- Provide, operate, maintain, secure and improve our services
- Fulfill a payment or return transaction initiated by you
- Provide information about our Services
- Communicate with you about our services, including by sending you announcements, updates, security alerts, and support and
administrative messages
- Understand your needs and interests, and personalize your experience with our Services and our communications
- Respond to your requests, questions and feedback
For research and development. To analyze and improve the Services and to develop new products and Services, including by studying use of our Services.
Cell phone numbers. We may use your cell phone number to call or send recurring text messages to you, using an autodialer or prerecorded voice, in order to provide you notifications about upcoming Services and other notifications, for marketing purposes (with your consent where required by law), and to administer the Services. If you would like more information about our policy, or how to opt out, please review the “Your Rights and Choices” section below. You may be liable for standard SMS and per-minute charges by your mobile carrier. We may also message you via push notifications (with your consent when required under applicable law), which you can opt-out of on your mobile device. Data rates may apply.
Marketing and advertising. We and our advertising partners may collect and use your personal information for marketing and advertising purposes, including:
- Direct marketing. We or our advertising partners may from time-to-time send you direct marketing communications as permitted by law, including, but not limited to, notifying you of special promotions, offers and events via email and in-app notifications. You may opt out of our marketing communications as described in the “Opt out of marketing communications” section below.
- Interest-based advertising. We engage our advertising partners, including third party advertising companies and social media companies, to display ads around the web. These companies may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your interaction (including the data described in the “Automatic data collection” section above) over time across our Services, our communications and other online services, and use that information to serve online ads that they think will interest you. This is called interest-based advertising. We may also share information about our users with these companies to facilitate interest-based advertising to those or similar users on other online platforms. You can learn more about your choices for limiting interest-based advertising in the “Online tracking opt-out” section below.
To comply with law. As we believe necessary or appropriate to comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas or requests from government authorities.
For compliance, fraud prevention, and safety. To: (a) protect our, your or others’ rights, privacy, safety or property (including by making and defending legal claims); (b) enforce the terms and conditions that govern our Services; and (c) protect, investigate and deter against fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity.
To create anonymous data. To create anonymous data from your personal information and other individuals whose personal information we collect. We make personal information into anonymous data by removing information that makes the data personally identifiable to you. We may use this anonymous data and share it with third parties for our lawful business purposes, including to analyze and improve our Services and promote our business.
How we share your personal information
Affiliates. We may share your personal information with our corporate parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates, for purposes consistent with this Privacy Policy.
Service providers. We may share your personal information with third party companies and individuals that provide services on our behalf or help us operate our Services (such as customer support, hosting, analytics, email delivery, marketing, identity verification, billing, and database management services).
Advertising partners. We may share your personal information with third party advertising companies, including for the interest-based advertising purposes described above.
Other users of the Services, HouseAccount facilitates contact between Residents and Providers and reserves the right to share one User’s contact information (e.g., name, phone number, email, or postal address) with other Users, or with the recipient User’s legal or other authorized representative, in order to: (1) facilitate or communicate the resolution of an investigation or dispute related to or arising from an interaction between two or more Users of the HouseAccount platform; or (2) facilitate the performance of a service between a Resident and Provider. This exchange of information is essential to the operation of the HouseAccount Services.
Public areas. Your profile on the HouseAccount platform consists of information about you and your business, and may include information such as photographs, your years in business, skills and expertise, hourly pay rates, feedback/rating information, and other information, including your username (“Profile”). The information in your User Profile may be visible to all Users and the general public.
Professional advisors. We may disclose your personal information to professional advisors, such as lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.
For compliance, fraud prevention and safety. We may share your personal information for the compliance, fraud prevention and safety purposes described above.
Business transfers. We may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of our business or assets, including your personal information, in connection with a business transaction (or potential business transaction) such as a corporate divestiture, merger, consolidation, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets, or in the event of bankruptcy or dissolution. In such a case, we will make reasonable efforts to require the recipient to honor this Privacy Policy.
Your choices
Access or update your information. If you have registered for an account with us, you may review and update certain personal information in your account profile by logging into the account.
Opt out of marketing communications. You may opt out of marketing-related emails by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of the email or by contacting us at support@houseaccount.com. You may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing emails.
Online tracking opt-out. There are a number of ways to opt out of having your online activity and device data collected through our Services, which we have summarized below:
- Blocking cookies in your browser. Most browsers let you remove or reject cookies, including cookies used for interest-based advertising. To do this, follow the instructions in your browser settings. Many browsers accept cookies by default until you change your settings. For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
- Blocking advertising ID use in your mobile settings. Your mobile device settings may provide functionality to limit use of the advertising ID associated with your mobile device for interest-based advertising purposes.
- Using privacy plug-ins or browsers. You can block our Services from setting cookies used for interest-based ads by using a browser with privacy features, like Brave, or installing browser plugins like Privacy Badger, DuckDuckGo, Ghostery or uBlock Origin, and configuring them to block third party cookies/trackers.
Platform opt-outs. The following advertising partners offer opt-out features that let you opt out of use of your information for interest-based advertising:
- Google: https://adssettings.google.com
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/about/ads
Advertising industry opt-out tools. You can also use these opt-out options to limit use of your information for interest-based advertising by participating companies:
- Digital Advertising Alliance: http://optout.aboutads.info
- Network Advertising Initiative: http://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1
Note that because these opt-out mechanisms are specific to the device or browser on which they are exercised, you will need to opt out on every browser and device that you use.
Do not track. Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. We currently do not respond to “Do Not Track” or similar signals. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.
Personal information requests. We offer you choices that affect how we handle the personal information that we process. Depending on your location and the nature of your interactions with our Services, you may request the following in relation to personal information:
- Information about how we have collected and used personal information. We have made this information available to you without having to request it by including it in this Privacy Policy.
- Access to a copy of the personal information that we have collected about you. Where applicable, we will provide the information in a portable, machine-readable, readily usable format.
- Correction of personal information that is inaccurate or out of date.
- Deletion of personal information that we no longer need to provide the Services or for other lawful purposes.
- Opt out of the sharing or processing of your personal information for targeted advertising purposes.
To make a request, please email us or write to us as provided in the “How to Contact Us” section below. We may ask for specific information from you to help us confirm your identity. Depending on where you reside, you may be entitled to empower an authorized agent to submit requests on your behalf. We will require authorized agents to confirm their identity and authority, in accordance with applicable laws. You are entitled to exercise the rights described above free from discrimination.
Limits on your privacy rights and choices. In some instances, your choices may be limited, such as where fulfilling your request would impair the rights of others, our ability to provide a service you have requested, or our ability to comply with our legal obligations and enforce our legal rights. If you are not satisfied with how we address your request, you may submit a complaint by contacting us as provided in the “How to Contact Us” section below.
Stripe
Payments on our services are handled by Stripe, and the information you provide to Stripe in connection with your payment information and purchases is handled in accordance with Stripe’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Stripe provides us with the online e-commerce platform that allows you to purchase products and services. Your payment data is stored by Stripe.
Other sites, mobile applications and services
Our Services may contain links to other websites, mobile applications, and other online services operated by third parties. These links are not an endorsement of, or representation that we are affiliated with, any third party. In addition, our content may be included on web pages or in mobile applications or online services that are not associated with us. We do not control third party websites, mobile applications or online services, and we are not responsible for their actions. Other websites and services follow different rules regarding the collection, use and sharing of your personal information. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of the other websites and mobile applications and online services you use.
Security practices
We use reasonable organizational, technical and administrative measures designed to protect against unauthorized access, misuse, loss, disclosure, alteration and destruction of personal information we maintain. Unfortunately, data transmission over the Internet cannot be guaranteed as completely secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of personal information.
Children
Our Services are not intended for use by children under 16 years of age. If we learn that we have collected personal information through the Services from a child under 16 without the consent of the child’s parent or guardian as required by law, we will delete it.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by updating the date of this Privacy Policy and posting it on our Services. We may also provide notification of changes in another way that we believe is reasonably likely to reach you, such as via e-mail (if you have an account where we have your contact information) or another manner through our Services.
Any modifications to this Privacy Policy will be effective upon our posting the new terms and/or upon implementation of the new changes on our Services (or as otherwise indicated at the time of posting).
How to contact us
Please direct any questions or comments about this Policy or privacy practices to support@houseaccount.com. You may also write to us via postal mail at:
110 Livingston Street, 5G
Brooklyn, NY 11201
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