Privacy Policy

1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT

• Account Information: If you create an account on Vouch, we may store and use your full name, email address, phone number, Facebook friends that use Vouch, other Vouch connections, zip code, and other information you may provide with your account, such as your gender. If you create a public professional profile, your first name and last name, as well as any photo you submit through the registration process (by default your primary Facebook profile picture) will be publicly displayed as part of your account profile. You can modify some of the information associated with your account on your profile page. If you create an account only to hire people and do not create a professional profile, your full name and primary Facebook photo will be visible to your Facebook friends and to any professional you recommend on Vouch, but will not be publicly available. If you believe that someone has created an unauthorized account depicting you or your likeness, you can request its removal by emailing us at abuse@vouch.com
• Public Content: The information that you contribute through the Service is intended for consumption by your friends on Vouch, including your reviews, ratings, comments, and account profile. We may display this information through the Service. We also may share anonymized summaries of it with businesses, your friend's friends, and further distribute it to a wider audience through third party sites and services.
• Contacts: You can invite your friends or clients to join the Service by providing us with their contact information, or by allowing us to access your contacts from your computer, mobile device, or third party sites to select which friends you want to invite. If you allow us to access your contacts, we may transmit that information to Vouch to process your invitations. We may follow up with the friends and clients you invite to the service to encourage them to join.
• Communications: When you sign up for an account or use certain features, you are opting to receive messages from other Vouch users, businesses, and Vouch itself. You cannot opt out of receiving certain administrative, transactional, or legal messages from Vouch. For example, as long as your professional profile remains active, users may send you messages through the Service. We may also track your actions in response to the messages you receive from Vouch or through the Service, such as whether you deleted, opened, or forwarded such messages. If you exchange messages with others through the Service, we may store them in order to process and deliver them, allow you to manage them, and we may review and disclose them in connection with investigations related to the operation and use of the Service. We may not deliver messages that we believe are objectionable, such as spam messages or requests to exchange reviews for compensation. If you send or receive messages through the Service via SMS text message, we may log phone numbers, phone carriers, and the date and time that the messages were processed. Carriers may charge recipients for texts that they receive. We may also store information that you provide through communications to us, including from phone calls, letters, emails and other electronic messages, or in person. If you are have a professional profile listed on Vouch, we may contact you, including by phone or email, using the contact information you provide us, make publicly available, or that we have on record for your business.
• Activity: We may store information about your use of the Service, such as your search activity, the pages you view, the date and time of your visit, and professionals you contact through the Service. We also may store information that your computer or mobile device provides to us in connection with your use of the Service, such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, phone number, unique device identifier, advertising identifier, location (including geolocation, beacon based location, and GPS location), and requested and referring URLs. You may be able to disallow our use of certain location data through your device or browser settings.

2. COOKIES

3. THIRD PARTIES

• Advertisers: If we chose to advertise on the site, we may allow third parties to use Cookies through the Service to collect the same type of information for the same purposes as Vouch does for itself. Third parties may be able to associate the information they collect with other information they have about you from other sources. We do not necessarily have access to or control over the Cookies they use, but you may be able to opt out of some of their practices. Please note that opting out does not prevent the display of all advertisements to you. Additionally, we may share non-personally identifiable information from or about you with third parties, such as location data, advertising identifiers, or a cryptographic hash of a common account identifier (such as an email address), to facilitate the display of targeted advertising. You may be able to limit our sharing of some of this information through your mobile device settings, as described in Section 2 above.
• Service Providers: We may rely on third party providers to perform certain services for us in connection with your use of the Service, such as communications and hosting services, network security, technical and customer support, tracking and reporting functions, quality assurance testing, payment processing, our own marketing of the Service, and other functions. We may share information from or about you with these third party providers so that they can perform their services or complete your requests. These third party providers may share information with us that they obtain from or about you in connection with providing their services or completing your requests. Third party providers may also share this information with their subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control.
• Aggregate Information: We may share user information in the aggregate with third parties, such as advertisers and content distributors. For example, we may disclose the number of users that have signed up for the service or shown interest in particular services.
• Business Transfers: We may share information from or about you with our parent companies, subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control, in which case we will require them to honor this Privacy Policy. If another company acquires Vouch or all or substantially all of our assets, that company will possess the same information, and will assume the rights and obligations with respect to that information as described in this Privacy Policy.
• Professionals on Vouch: When you contact a professional through Vouch, we share your name and the email and/or phone number that you provide for them to reply to you with the professional you contacted.
• Investigations: We may investigate and disclose information from or about you if we have a good faith belief that such investigation or disclosure (a) is reasonably necessary to comply with legal process and law enforcement instructions and orders, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us; (b) is helpful to prevent, investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service; or (c) protects our rights, reputation, property, or that of our users, affiliates, or the public, such as disclosures in connection with our Consumer Alerts program. If you flag or otherwise complain to Vouch about content through the Service, we may share the substance of your complaint with the contributor of that content in order to provide an opportunity for the contributor to respond.
• Links: The Service may contain links to unaffiliated third party services. Except as set forth herein, we do not share your personal information with them, and are not responsible for their privacy practices. We suggest you read the privacy policies on or applicable to all such third party services.
• Facebook: If you sign up for Vouch using your Facebook account or link your Vouch account to your account with a third party service like Facebook, we may receive information about you from such third party service. We may use this information to help you create your account on Vouch and connect you with your friends on Vouch. Those companies may collect information about you, such as your device’s IP address, however we do not share any information you give to us with those companies. Your interactions with these and other third parties are governed by the third parties’ privacy policies.

4. CONTROLLING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

In general, data you post on Vouch is not intended to be anonymous. However, recommendations and reviews will be shared only with your friends on Vouch and/or your clients on Vouch according to the privacy settings you chose for that review. Professional profiles will be publicly visible. Please also note that the messages you send or receive using the Service are only private to the extent that both you and the person you are communicating with keep them private. For example, if you send a message to another user, that user may choose to publicly post it. Also, Vouch may access and disclose such messages in the course of investigations relating to use of the Service.

5. DATA RETENTION AND ACCOUNT TERMINATION

At this time we do not offer a way to remove your account. We hope to do so soon. If you have created a professional profile available, you can remove it from search results by unchecking all tutoring categories.

6. CHILDREN

The Service is intended for general audiences and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you become aware that a child has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us here. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information without parental consent, we take steps to remove such information and terminate the child's account.

7. SECURITY

We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or via mobile device, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

8. DISPUTE RESOLUTION

If you believe that Vouch has not adhered to this Privacy Policy, you may contact us at privacypolicy@vouch.com

9. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFER

The information we obtain from or about you may be processed and stored in the United States, which may provide for different data protection rules than the country in which you reside. If your country prohibits the use of exporting data to the United States for the purposes described here and in the terms of service, then you are not permitted to use this website.

10. MODIFICATIONS TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of the Privacy Policy will govern our collection, use, and disclosure of information about you and will be located here. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on the Service prior to the effective date of the changes. By continuing to access or use the Service after those changes become effective, you agree to the revised Privacy Policy.

11. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS: YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

Vouch does not disclose your personal information to third parties for the purpose of directly marketing their services to you unless you first agree to such disclosure. If you have any questions regarding this policy, or would like to change your preferences, you may contact us at the address listed above in Section 8.