HouseStay Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 2016, July 16

HouseStay, Inc. ("HouseStay", "we" or "us") provides this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of https://www.housestay.com (collectively, the "Site") and our application for mobile devices (the "Application") . This Privacy Policy applies only to information that you provide to us through the Site and Application. This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices. If we make any material changes we will notify you by email (sent to the e-mail address specified in your HouseStay Account) or by means of a notice on the Site and Application prior to the change becoming effective. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Service (https://www.housestay.com/legal/terms-of-service). As used in this policy, the terms "using" and "processing" information include using cookies on a computer, subjecting the information to statistical or other analysis and using or handling information in any way, including, but not limited to collecting, storing, evaluating, modifying, deleting, using, combining, disclosing and transferring information within our organization or among our affiliates within the United States or internationally.

International Transfer

Your information may be transferred to - and maintained on - computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction. If you are located outside the united states and choose to provide information to us, housestay transfers personal information to the united states and processes it there. Your consent to this privacy policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.

Information Collection and Use

Our primary goals in collecting information are to provide and improve our Site, Application, services, features and content, to administer your use of the Site and Application (together, the "Service") and to enable users to enjoy and easily navigate the Site and Application.

Personally Identifiable Information

When you register with us through the Site or Application and become a Member and when you choose to post a Listing or book an Accommodation, or when you wish to contact another Member, we will ask you for personally identifiable information. This refers to information about you that can be used to contact or identify you ("Identity Information"). Identity Information includes, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, email address, social security number (SSN), and home postal address, but does not include your credit card number or billing information. In order to process some of your transactions through the Site and Application, we may also ask for your credit card number and other billing information ("Billing Information") (Identity Information and Billing Information together, "Personal Information"). If the address of a Listing you post matches that of your credit card billing address, that address would be considered Identity Information. Some Personal Information is required, like your name and email address, and other Personal Information is optional, like your date of birth. We reserve the right to require address confirmation for Accommodations included in Listings. If we require such confirmation, we will send a code via postal mail to the address contained in a Listing and ask you to enter the code via the Site, Application and Service in order to confirm the address of the Accommodation included in the applicable Listing. We use your Personal Information to provide the Service and administer your inquiries. We collect Personal Information in connection with your registration to join the Service. You can register to join via the Site or Application by completing the required forms. You can also register to join by logging into online accounts you may have with third party service providers ("SNS")(e.g. Facebook); each such account, a "Third Party Account", via our Site or Application as described below. As part of the functionality of the Site, Service and Application, you may link your HouseStay Account with Third Party Accounts, by either: (i) providing your Third Party Account login information to HouseStay through the Site, Service or Application; or (ii) allowing HouseStay to access your Third Party Account, as is permitted under the applicable terms and conditions that govern your use of each Third Party Account. You represent that you are entitled to disclose your Third Party Account login information to HouseStay and/or grant HouseStay access to your Third Party Account (including, but not limited to, for use for the purposes described herein), without breach by you of any of the terms and conditions that govern your use of the applicable Third Party Account and without obligating HouseStay to pay any fees or making HouseStay subject to any usage limitations imposed by the applicable SNS. If you decide to register by logging into a Third Party Account via our Site or Application, we will obtain the Personal Information you have provided to the applicable SNS (such as your "real" name, email address, profile picture, names of SNS friends, names of SNS groups to which you belong, other information you make publicly available via the applicable SNS and/or other information you authorize HouseStay to access by authorizing the SNS to provide such information) from your Third Party Accounts and use that information to create your HouseStay Account and HouseStay Account profile page and you will become a Member. Depending on the Third Party Accounts you choose and subject to the privacy settings that you have set in such Third Party Accounts, you understand that by granting us access to the Third Party Accounts, we will access, make available and store (if applicable and as permitted by the SNS and authorized by you) the information in your Third Party Accounts so that it is available on and through your HouseStay Account on the Site, Service and Application. If there is information about your "friends" or people with whom you are associated in your Third Party Account, the information we obtain about those "friends" or people with whom you are associated, may also depend on the privacy settings such people have with the applicable SNS. If you register to be a part of our Affiliate Program, we will collect your name, website name, website URL, email address and affiliate program payment preferences (including, but not limited to, bank account number and routing number, bank account name, PayPal account email address, billing address and other financial information). We use this information to enable your participation in the Affiliate Program and to make payments related thereto. We also collect the other information that you provide as part of registration and the administration and personalization of your HouseStay Account profile (e.g., without limitation, zip code (on its own) and individual preferences or demographic information) ("Non-Identifying Information"). We use your Personal Information (in some cases, in conjunction with your Non-Identifying Information) mainly to provide the Service, complete your transactions, and administer your inquiries. Certain Non-Identifying Information would be considered a part of your Personal Information if it were combined with other identifiers (for example, combining your zip code with your street address) in a way that enables you to be identified. But the same pieces of information are considered Non-Identifying Information when they are taken alone or combined only with other non-identifying information (for example, your demographic information). We may combine your Personal Information with Non-Identifying Information and aggregate it with information collected from other HouseStay Users (defined below) to attempt to provide you with a better experience, to improve the quality and value of the Service and to analyze and understand how our Site, Application and Service are used. We may also use the combined information without aggregating it to serve you specifically, for instance to deliver a product to you according to your preferences or restrictions. We also use your Personal Information to contact you with HouseStay newsletters, marketing or promotional materials and other information that may be of interest to you. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive such communications from us, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications or update your "Notifications" information. (See "Changing or Deleting Information," below.) Please note that we may also use your Personal Information to contact you with information related to your use of the Service; you may not opt out of these notifications.

Log Data

When you visit the Site and Application, whether as a Member or a non-registered user just browsing (any of these, an "HouseStay User"), our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website ("Log Data"). This Log Data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type or the webpage you were visiting before you came to our Site and Application, pages of our Site and Application that you visit, the time spent on those pages, information you search for on our Site and Application, access times and dates, and other statistics. We use this information to monitor and analyze use of the Site, Application and the Service and for the Site and Application's technical administration, to increase our Site and Application's functionality and user-friendliness, and to better tailor our Site and Application to our visitors' needs. We also use this information to verify that visitors to the Site meet the criteria required to process their requests. We do not treat Log Data as Personal Information or use it in association with other Personal Information, though we may aggregate, analyze and evaluate such information for the same purposes as stated above regarding other Non-Identifying Information.

Cookies

Like many websites, we use "cookies" to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that we transfer to your computer's hard disk for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies for two purposes. First, we utilize persistent cookies to save your login information for future logins to the Site and Application. Second, we utilize session ID cookies to enable certain features of the Site and Application, to better understand how you interact with the Site and Application and to monitor aggregate usage by HouseStay Users and web traffic routing on the Site and Application. Unlike persistent cookies, session cookies are deleted from your computer when you log off from the Site, Application and Service and then close your browser. Third party advertisers on the Site and Application may also place or read cookies on your browser. You can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all portions of the Site or Application or all functionality of the Service.

Please view our Cookie Policy to learn more information (https://www.housestay.com/legal/cookie-policy).

Web Beacons

Our Site and Application may contain electronic images known as Web beacons (sometimes called single-pixel gifs) and are used along with cookies to compile aggregated statistics to analyze how our Site and Application are used and may be used in some of our emails to let us know which emails and links have been opened by recipients. This allows us to gauge the effectiveness of our customer communications and marketing campaigns.

Emailing Via an HouseStay Account

As part of the Service, HouseStay Users may communicate with HouseStay Members through use of the "Contact" (https://www.housestay.com/#contact_us) feature on the Site and Application. Where HouseStay Users have selected the option of adding one or more email addresses to an online form, the message they create in the corresponding template will be sent from HouseStay to those email addresses on their behalf. These email addresses will be used only for the purpose of sending the email communication to the addressee. Via the "Contact Host" feature of the Site and Application, you may also speak with other HouseStay Members over the phone. In these instances, HouseStay will not share your phone number with the other HouseStay Member, but will use your phone number to contact you over the phone to connect you with the other HouseStay Member. If you choose to use our referral service to ask a friend for a recommendation, we will ask you for your friend’s email address. We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site. HouseStay stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email. Your friend may contact us to request that we remove this information from our database. You can import contacts from your email account address book to invite them to send you a recommendation. We collect, but do not store, the username and password for the email account you wish to import your contacts from and will only use it for that purpose only.

Phishing

Identity theft and the practice currently known as "phishing" are of great concern to HouseStay. Safeguarding information to help protect you from identity theft is a top priority. We do not and will not, at any time, request your credit card information, your HouseStay Account ID, login password, or national identification numbers in a non-secure or unsolicited e-mail or telephone communication. For more information about phishing, visit the Federal Trade Commission's website at https://www.ftc.gov.

Information Sharing and Disclosure

Overview

The Site, Application and Service can be used to facilitate the listing and booking of Accommodations. Listings for such Accommodations are made available via the Site, Application and Service by Hosts. Listings posted by Hosts, ratings and reviews of Hosts and Guests, and the Profile Information (as defined below) of Hosts and Guests, are visible to any HouseStay User.

HouseStay Members and Users

When you create an HouseStay Account, we will set up an HouseStay Account profile page for you. Your HouseStay Account profile page will include your first name and last initial. You can select the other items of Personal Information that you wish to be included in your HouseStay Account profile page – including, but not limited to, a profile picture, a list of the SNS groups to which you belong, a list of any of your SNS friends or connections who are also Members of HouseStay, connections you have established between your Account and any SNSs, and a biography and links to your Listings, if applicable (together, your "Profile Information"). We will display your Profile Information in your HouseStay Account profile page publicly via the Site and Application, and, with your prior permission, on third party sites. Any information you choose to provide as part of your Profile Information will be publicly visible to all HouseStay Users and consequently should reflect how much you want other HouseStay Users to know about you. We recommend that you guard your anonymity and sensitive information and we encourage members to think carefully about what information about themselves they disclose in their profile pages. You can review and revise your Profile Information at any time.

Listings

If you post a Listing, we may publish that Listing publicly via the Site and Application and may enable third parties to publish your Listing on their websites through the use of an HTML "widget". We may also display the geographical location of your Listing in the form of a map so that potential Guests can see the general area and neighborhood of your Listing, but your actual street address will not be disclosed until you enter into a confirmed transaction with another Member. If you request to make a booking via the Site, Application and Service, HouseStay will share the following information about you with the applicable Host: (i) your first and last name, (ii) a link to your HouseStay Account profile page, (iii) the names of any members of an SNS with whom you are "friends" or associated on the SNS if such individuals are also "friends" or associated with the Host on such SNS, and (iv) an indication that the name that you provided to HouseStay when you became a Member matches the name that you provided to the SNSs to which you have linked your HouseStay Account. All of this information will enable the Host to decide whether to confirm or reject your booking. When a Host confirms a booking we will share pieces of the Host’s Identify Information, including, but not limited to, full name, phone number, the Accommodation’s address and the Host’s email address, with the applicable Guest selected by the Host and we will share pieces of the Guest’s Identify Information with the Host, including, but not limited to, full name, phone number and email address, so that the Guest and Host may contact one another directly. In no event is a Guest's Billing Information shared with a Host. Aggregate Information and Non-Identifying Information We may share aggregated information that does not include Personal Information and we may otherwise disclose Non-Identifying Information and Log Data with third parties for industry analysis, demographic profiling and other purposes. Any aggregated information shared in these contexts will not contain your Personal Information.

Service Providers

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service, to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Site and Application-related services (e.g., without limitation, maintenance services, database management, web analytics, fraud detection services relating to the activity of HouseStay Users and improvement of the Site and Application's features) or to assist us in analyzing how our Site, Application and Service are used. These third parties may have access to your Personal Information; if they do, this access is only so that they may perform these tasks on our behalf and they are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose. We may also provide Personal Information to our business partners or other trusted entities for the purpose of providing you with information on goods or services we believe will be of interest to you. You can, at any time, opt out of receiving such communications. Third party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on an HouseStay User's prior visits to HouseStay. You can disable these specific cookies that track prior visits for the sake of follow-up advertising by opting out at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads. Compliance with Laws and Law Enforcement; Guarantee Program HouseStay cooperates with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (including but not limited to subpoenas), to protect the property and rights of HouseStay or a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, any illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials and to our insurance services providers as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to administer our HouseStay Host Guarantee (https://www.housestay.com/legal/terms-of-service), to protect the property and rights of HouseStay or a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, any illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity.

Business Transfers

HouseStay may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy.

Changing or Deleting Your Information

All Members may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information in their registration profile by contacting us at support@housestay.com or editing the relevant part of their profile. If you would like us to cancel your HouseStay Account, please contact us or select the "Cancel Account" feature of the Service and we will attempt to accommodate your request if we do not have any legal obligation or a legitimate business reason to retain the information contained in your HouseStay Account. Please note that, if you cancel your HouseStay Account, any reviews you have posted via the Site and Application will remain publicly viewable via the Site and Application. Please see below for privacy contact information.

Security

HouseStay is very concerned with safeguarding your information. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card number and/or social security number) on our registration or order forms, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the Personal Information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however. Therefore, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. If you have any questions about security on our Site and Application, you can contact us. We will make any legally required disclosures of any breach of the security, confidentiality, or integrity of your unencrypted electronically stored "personal data" (as defined in applicable state statutes on security breach notification) to you via email or conspicuous posting on the Site and Application in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, insofar as consistent with (i) the legitimate needs of law enforcement or (ii) any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.

Links to Other Websites

Our Site and Application contain links to other websites. If you choose to visit an advertiser by "clicking on" a banner ad or other type of advertisement, or click on another third party link, you will be directed to that third party's website. The fact that we link to a website or present a banner ad or other type of advertisement is not an endorsement, authorization or representation of our affiliation with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. We do not exercise control over third party websites. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. Other websites follow different rules regarding the use or disclosure of the personal information you submit to them. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites you visit. Some portions of the HouseStay 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, https://www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps/, which incorporates Google’s Privacy Policy, located at, https://policies.google.com/privacy.

Testimonials

With your consent we may post your testimonial on the Site and Application along with your name. If you want your testimonial removed please contact us.

Our Policy Toward Children

The Site and Application are not directed to individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with Personal Information without their consent, he or she should contact us. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information from our files.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please visit the Help Center.