PRIVACY POLICY

This policy explains how we collect, store, protect, manage, share, and use data like normal privacy policies do. We control this policy, and, as stated in our articles, our members control us.

1. Introduction

This policy explains how User Cooperative collects, stores, protects, manages, shares, and uses your data.

In this policy, “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to User Cooperative, and “service” means our services.

In this policy, “your data” means data that identifies, relates to, describes, reasonably associates with, or reasonably links to you.

If you are using our services as a representative of a legal entity, like the company you work for, “you” and “your” refers to that entity.

This policy does not apply to third-party services that link to ours.

Please contact us if you have questions about this policy.

2. Our Purpose and Business

Our purpose is to be the people's tech company.

We strive to meet our capital needs through voluntary financial contributions from our members and profits made by our internet technology services as they go online. We distribute all of our financial surplus to our members, who own and democratically control us. Membership is free and open to any natural person.

We collect your data through our services. Right now, our services primarily consist of our website, which you can access with a web browser.

We may collect your data through other means, like emails, surveys, and social media.

3. How We Collect Your Data

1. Data You Input.

(a) Account Data. To access our services, you need to create an account. Creating an account requires your name and contact information. Later, to access certain services, you may need to add other information to your account.

(b) Payment Data. To contribute money to support our services or purchase features and products, you need to provide a payment method and your full name. Our payment processor receives and processes your payment data, but we may also receive and store certain payment data.

(d) Data to Enable Features. To enable some services features, you may need to provide or grant us access to data. Contact-synching and third-party integrations are common examples of features like this.

(e) Optional Data. This can be feedback on our services, customer support data, and surveys.

2. Data You Do Not Input.

(a) Device Data. This is data about the device you are using to access our services. This data includes IP addresses, the operating system, browser data, device cookies and settings, etc.

(b) Activity Data. This is data about what you do on our services and how you got to them.

(c) Third-Party Activity Data. This is data we collect when you use certain third-party services. For example, if you click on an ad, we may receive data about which ad you saw and on which service.

(d) Data from Cookies. We collect data from cookies, which are small text files, and similar technologies. We and our service providers put the following cookies on your device to enable and improve our services:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are required for our services to work.

Functional cookies. These help us provide enhanced functionality, like remembering language preferences.

Performance cookies. These allow us to learn how you and others use and engage with our services so that we can improve them.

3. Data from Other Sources. We may collect data about you from other sources, including other users and third parties, and combine that data with the other data we have about you. For example, we may collect data about you if you interact with our social media account on another service.

4. How We Use Your Data

1. We Use Your Data To.

(a) Enable You to Use Our Services. For example, we use your data to create and manage your account and help you make purchases.

(b) Protect the Integrity of Our Services. We use your data to uphold our Terms of Service and Community Standards.

(c) Personalize Our Services. We use your data to help us discover aspects of our services that are the most relevant to you.

(d) Improve Our Services. For example, we use data about how you use our services to to help us understand what features you and other users want.

(e) Contact You. We use your data to notify you about service-related things that we think matter to you.

(f) Provide Customer Service. We use your data to help us answer your questions.

(g) Analyze Service Performance. For example, we use your data to define, measure, and track our business metrics.

(h) Advertise Our Services. We may use your data to help deliver, measure the performance of, and improve our advertising.

(i) Prevent Injury or Death. We may use your data if we believe you or someone else is at risk.

2. We do not sell your data.

3. Legally, we collect, retain, and use your data for potential legal claims and for compliance, regulatory, and auditing purposes. Also, when you exercise any of your legal rights to access, amend, or delete your data, we may request certain data from you to confirm your identity.

5. How We Share Your Data

We Share Your Data.

1. When You Tell Us To. For example, when you can add your content to our services, you can tell us to share that content. We may also share your data as you otherwise instruct or consent to.

2. With Our Vendors. We may share your data with our vendors, like payment processors, cloud providers, and advertising platforms.

3. To Obey the Law. We share your data if it is required by law. We will notify you before we do, if it is permitted and possible.

4. To Prevent Injury or Death. We may share your data if we believe you or someone else is at risk.

5. To Protect the Integrity of Our Services. We may share your data to uphold our Terms of Service and Community Standards.

6. With Our Related Companies. We may share your data with other companies that we own and control.

7. To Engage in Major Transactions. We may share your data if we are evaluating or conducting a merger, acquisition, divestiture, reorganization, or bankruptcy.

8. To Generate Aggregated or Impersonal Statistics. We may share your data in aggregated or anonymized form. For example, we may make public the number of people who use our services.

6. How We Retain Your Data

We keep your data until it has served its purpose. Those purposes for which we collect your data are stated in the How We Use Your Data section.

7. Deleting Your Data

Deleting your account deletes your data that identifies you and anonymizes the rest of your data. In some circumstances, we must retain certain portions of your data by law, even if you delete it or your account. Disabling your account ends our data collection and processing, but we do not delete your data so that you can more easily reactivate your account.

If your account is inactive for more than three (3) years, we may delete it and we may delete or anonymize your data that is associated with it. Also, if you submit identification data for an age verification appeal, we will delete it no later than sixty (60) days after the appeal process is over.

8. How We Protect Your Data

Your data and all other information sent within our services is encrypted in transit and at rest. We also have technical and administrative access controls that limit which of our employees and contractors have access to nonpublic personal information.

9. How to Control Your Privacy

1. Take Care When You Use Our Services. Choose wisely the data you add and the actions you take on our services.

2. Manage Our Service Cookies. To control how our cookies collect and use your data, you can:

Go to your web browser settings to disable and manage some cookies. Here are links to instructions on how to do so for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.

Go to your web browser settings to disable analytics cookies, or use individual opt-out mechanisms for certain providers, like Google Analytics Opt-Out.

Go to your mobile device’s settings, which may include web browser settings that manage cookies and controls for how your apps collect and use your data.

Go to third parties that enable you to limit how cookies are used for ads, like Digital Advertising Alliance, Network Advertising Initiative, and, for EU users, European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance.

Adjust your cookie preferences through a cookies banner on our services, depending on where you are accessing them.

Please note that some parts of our services may malfunction if you disable or remove cookies, and we may collect data on your opt-out preferences to remember them.

3. Delete Your Account. Deleting your account deletes your data that identifies you and anonymizes the rest of your data. In some circumstances, we must retain certain portions of your data by law, even if you delete it or your account.

10. How to Request Access to Your Data

If you want to see what information we have collected about you, you can contact us to request a copy of your data. You should receive your data in less than 30 days. Your data is delivered in common digital formats including CSV, JSON, and any other file format you used when uploading attachments to our services.

11. International Data Transfers

We are based in the USA, and we process and store information on servers located in the USA. We may also store information on servers and equipment in other countries depending on a variety of factors, including the locations of our users and service providers. These data transfers allow us to provide our services to you. By accessing or using our services or otherwise providing information to us, you understand that your information will be processed, transferred, and stored in the USA and other countries, where different data protection standards may apply and/or you may not have the same rights as you do under local law.

When transferring data outside the EEA, we use standard contract clauses, and we rely on the European Commission's adequacy decisions about certain countries, as applicable, or other legally compliant mechanisms or conditions for such data transfer.

We also adhere to the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Program and comply with its framework and principles. Although the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Program is no longer a valid basis for certain international data transfers, we continue to comply with the Privacy Shield framework and principles with respect to personal data received from the EU in addition to all other applicable laws.

If you have questions or complaints regarding our compliance with the Privacy Shield principles, please contact us. If we do not resolve your complaint, you may submit your complaint free of charge to JAMS. Under certain conditions specified by the Privacy Shield principles, you may also be able to invoke binding arbitration to resolve your complaint. We are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. In certain circumstances, we may be liable for the transfer of personal data from the EU, Switzerland, or the UK to a third party outside those countries.

For more information about the Privacy Shield principles, please visit the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Privacy Shield site.

12. For EEA-, UK-, and Brazil-Based Users

Certain local laws, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and Brazil’s Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados, require services to provide information about the information they collect, how they use it, and the lawful basis for processing it. We have already described most of that in this policy.

1. Exercising Your Rights. You can exercise your GDPR rights as described in the How to Control Your Privacy section. If you encounter a problem, please contact us.

13. For California-Based Users

Consumers residing in California are afforded certain additional rights with respect to their personal information under the California Consumer Privacy Act or (“CCPA”) and the “Shine the Light” Law. If you are a California resident, this section applies to you.

1. Our Collection and Use of Personal Information. We collect the following categories of personal information: identifiers (such as your username, the email address you used to sign up, and your phone number if you have chosen to provide it); commercial information (a record of what you have bought from us, if anything); financial data (payment information and your history of purchases from us); internet or other network information (how you interact with the website); location information (because your IP address may indicate your general location); inference data about you (for example, what content you may be interested in); and other information that identifies or can be reasonably associated with you. For more information about what we collect and the sources of such collection, please see the How We Collect Your Data section. We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the How We Use Your Data section.

2. Disclosure of Personal Information. We may share your personal information with third parties as described in the How We Share Your Data section. We disclose the categories of personal information mentioned above for business or commercial purposes.

3. No Sale of Personal Information. The CCPA sets forth certain obligations for businesses that sell personal information. We do not sell the personal information of our users. We do share information as outlined in the How We Share Your Data section, and you can make choices with respect to your information as outlined in this policy.

4. Exercising Your Consumer Rights. If you are a California resident, you have the right to request (a) more information about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected and disclosed for a business purpose in the last twelve (12) months, (b) the deletion of your personal information, and (c) to opt out of sales of your personal information, if applicable. Details on how to make these requests are in the How to Control Your Privacy section. We will not discriminate against you if you exercise your rights under the CCPA.

14. Updates to This Policy

When we update this policy, we will make significant changes prominent on this page.