Your Friend In Privacy Policy
Last Updated on March 1st, 2024.
This Privacy Policy describes our policies on the collection, use, and disclosure of information about you in connection with your use of our services, including those offered through our websites, communications (e.g., emails, phone calls, and texts), and mobile applications (collectively, the “Service”). When you use the Service, you consent to our collection, use, and disclosure of information about you as described in this Privacy Policy. We may translate this Privacy Policy into other languages for your convenience. Nevertheless, any inconsistencies among the different versions will be resolved in favor of the English version available here.
1.INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT
We may collect, transmit, and store information about you in connection with your use of the Service,
including
any information you send to or through the Service. We use that information to provide the Service’s
functionality, fulfill your requests, improve the Service’s quality, engage in research and analysis
relating to
the Service, personalize your experience, track usage of the Service, provide feedback to third party
businesses
that are listed on the Service, display relevant advertising, market the Service, provide customer
support,
message you, back up our systems, allow for disaster recovery, enhance the security of the Service, and
comply
with legal obligations. Even when we do not retain such information, it still must be transmitted to our
servers
initially and stored long enough to process.
Account Information: When you create a Your Friend In account, we store and
use the information you provide
during that process, such as the first and last name you enter, email address, zip code, physical
address, and
any other information you may provide during the account creation process, such as a gender, phone
number, or
birth date. We may publicly display the first name and last initial that you provide, as well as any
photo or
other content you submit through the account creation process, as part of your account profile. We also
store
and use any preferences you provide to personalize your user experience, including dining and activity
preferences. You can later modify some of the account information you provide through your account
settings. If
you believe that someone has created an unauthorized account using your personal information, you can
request
its removal by flagging it.
Public Content: Your contributions to the Service are intended for public
consumption and are therefore viewable
by the public, including your photos, ratings, reviews, tips, lists, bookmarks and collections,
compliments, Ask
the Community posts, Talk posts, and edits to business page information. Your account profile (e.g.,
first name,
last initial, city, neighborhood, the month and year you created your Your Friend In account, profile
photos and
list of friends on Your Friend In) is also intended for public consumption, as is some of your other
activity
through the Service, like how you vote on other people’s contributions (e.g., useful, funny, cool,
helpful, or
not helpful), which contributions you like, where you check-in (including when friends on Your Friend In
tag you
in their own check-ins), which contributions or users you follow, and which businesses you follow. You
can limit
the public visibility of some of these activities through your account settings.
Contacts: You can invite others to join or become your friend on Your
Friend In by providing us with their
contact information, or by allowing us to access contacts from your computer, mobile device, or third
party
sites to select which individuals you want to invite. If you allow us to access your contacts, we will
transmit
information about your contacts to our servers long enough to process your invitations or friend
requests.
Communications: When you sign up for an account or use certain features,
you are opting to receive messages from
other users, businesses, and Your Friend In. You can manage some of your messaging preferences through
your
account settings, but note that you cannot opt out of receiving certain administrative, transactional,
or legal
messages from Your Friend In. For example, if you make a reservation, order food, place yourself on a
waitlist,
or request a quote or otherwise contact a business through the Service, we, or the business you are
interacting
with through Your Friend In, may send you messages about your transaction using any contact information
you
provide, including through SMS to your phone number. We may also track your actions in response to the
messages
you receive from us or through the Service, such as whether you deleted, opened, or forwarded such
messages, and
share that information with other parties to your messages (for example, to let them know if you have
viewed
their message). When a user requests a quote or similar information from one or more businesses through
the
Service, in addition to the request, we may disclose to those businesses information about the status of
the
user’s requests, such as whether any business has responded to the request, the type of response
provided (for
example, whether the user received a quote or a request for more information), and whether the user has
responded to any business’s reply. If a business elects to share its availability or schedule with users
through
the Service, that information may be used for the purpose of determining availability and/or scheduling
appointments. 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 use of the Service, as well as our efforts to improve the Service. We may not
deliver
messages that we believe are objectionable, such as spam messages, fraudulent solicitations, or requests
to
post, exchange, or remove reviews for compensation. If you send or receive messages through the Service
via SMS,
we may log phone numbers, phone carriers, and the date and time that any messages were processed.
Carrier
message and data rates may apply. We may also store information that you provide through communications
with us,
including from phone calls, letters, emails and other electronic messages, or in person. Any of our
communications with you, including any phone calls, may be monitored and recorded for quality purposes.
If you
are a representative of a business listed on Your Friend In, or use a phone number associated now or
previously
with such a business, 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.
Transactions: If you initiate a transaction through the Service, such as
making a reservation, joining a
waitlist, making an appointment, or making a purchase, we will collect and store information you provide
associated with your transaction, such as your name, phone number, address, email, and payment
information, as
well as any other information you provide relating to the transaction or request, in order to process
your
transaction, send you communications related to the transaction, and to facilitate future transactions.
We may
also use aggregated or anonymized information regarding those transactions for analytics purposes and to
improve
Your Friend In’s services. This information may be shared with third parties, and third parties may
share such
information with us, for the same purposes. When you submit credit card numbers and other sensitive
payment
information, that information is encrypted using industry standard technology. If you write reviews
about
businesses with which you transact through the Service, we may publicly display the fact that you
transacted
with those businesses in connection with such reviews. For example, if you make a dining reservation
through the
Service and later write a review about your dining experience, we may publicly display the fact that you
made
your reservation through the Service in connection with that review.
Activity: We store information about your use of the Service, such as your
search activity, the pages you view,
the date and time of your visits, businesses you call using our mobile applications, and reservations,
purchases, or transactions you make through the Service. We also store information that your computer or
mobile
device may provide 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, WiFi information such as SSID, mobile carrier, phone
number,
unique device identifier, advertising identifier, location (including geolocation, beacon based
location, and
GPS location), and requested and referring URLs and mobile applications. We may also receive and store
your
location whenever our mobile applications are running, including when running in the background, if you
enable
our mobile apps to access such information in the course of using the Service. You may be able to limit
or
disallow our use of certain data through your device or browser settings, for example you may be able to
limit
or disallow our collection, use or sharing of location data or mobile advertising identifiers by
adjusting the
settings for our applications in iOS or Android privacy settings.
Different Devices: You may access the Service through different devices
(e.g., your mobile phone, personal
computer, or other internet connected device) and different platforms (e.g., through the Your Friend In
website
or Your Friend In mobile apps). The information that we collect and store through those different uses
may be
cross-referenced and combined, and your contributions through one Your Friend In platform will typically
be
similarly visible and accessible through all other Your Friend In platforms.
Professional Information: If you represent a business on Your Friend In, we
may collect and display information
about you related to your business activities, such as a business name that may incorporate your
individual
name, or a publicly available business address that is also used as a home address. We will also collect
and
display information about your professional background that you choose to share with us through the
Service,
such as information about your professional licenses or certifications, or your professional history or
specialties.
Sensitive Personal Information: In the course of using the Service, you may
choose to allow Your Friend In to
collect and store sensitive personal information about you, such as your precise geolocation. You may
choose to
share other sensitive personal information through the content you share on Your Friend In, for example,
when
leaving a review, sending a direct message, or otherwise sharing information on Your Friend In. You may
be able
to limit or disallow our collection, use or sharing of location data by adjusting the settings for our
applications in iOS or Android privacy settings. You can remove content that may include sensitive
personal
information through your account settings. More information on managing your sensitive personal
information is
available here.
2.COOKIES
We, and our third-party service providers, may use cookies, web beacons, tags, scripts, local shared objects
such as HTML5 and Flash (sometimes called “flash cookies”), advertising identifiers (including mobile
identifiers such as Apple’s Identifier for Advertisers (“IDFA”) or Google’s Advertising ID (“GAID”)) and
similar
technology (“Cookies”) in connection with your use of the Service, third party websites, and mobile
applications. Cookies may contain unique identifiers, and reside, among other places, on your computer or
mobile
device, in emails we send to you, and on our web pages. Cookies may transmit information about you and your
use
of the Service, such as your browser type, search preferences, IP address, data relating to advertisements
that
have been displayed to you or that you have interacted with, and the date and time of your use. Cookies may
be
persistent or stored only during an individual session.
The purposes for which we use Cookies in the Service include:
- Purpose
- Explanation
- Processes
Intended to make the Service work in the way you expect. For example, we use a Cookie that tells us
whether
you
have already signed up for an account.
- Authentication, Security, and Compliance
Intended to prevent fraud, protect your data from unauthorized parties, and comply with legal
requirements.
For
example, we use Cookies to determine if you are logged in.
- Preferences
Intended to remember information about how you prefer the Service to behave and look. For example,
we use a
Cookie that tells us whether you have declined to allow us to send push notifications to your phone.
- Notifications
Intended to allow or prevent notices of information or options that we think could improve your use
of the
Service. For example, we use a Cookie that stops us from showing you the signup notification if you
have
already
seen it.
- Advertising
Intended to make advertising more relevant to users and more valuable to advertisers. For example,
we may
use
Cookies to serve you interest-based ads, such as ads that are displayed to you based on your visits
to other
websites, or to tell us if you have recently interacted with an ad.
- Analytics
Intended to help us understand how visitors use the Service. For example, we use a Cookie that tells
us how
our
search suggestions correlate to your interactions with the search page.
You can also set some Cookie preferences through your device or browser settings, but doing so may affect
the
functionality of the Service. The method for disabling Cookies may vary by device and browser, but can
usually
be found in your device or browser preferences or security settings. For example, iOS and Android devices
each
have settings which are designed to limit forms of ad tracking. For flash cookies, you may also be able
manage
your privacy settings by clicking here. Please note that changing any of these settings does not prevent the
display of certain advertisements to you.
3.THIRD PARTIES
Third parties may share, receive or process information about you as follows:s
Advertisers: We may share some non-identifiable, de-identified or aggregated information from or about you
with
third parties in connection with advertising programs and data analytics. We also share certain information
described below with businesses on Your Friend In, who may or may not be advertisers.
Content and Data Partners: We allow third party partners to use and display some of the public content
available
through the Service, such as your photos, reviews, and other information listed under “Public Content” in
Section 1 above.
Acquired Data: Your Friend In may acquire information enabling us to identify and contact representatives of
local businesses from third parties. Such acquired data may be combined with other data Your Friend In
receives
from or about you, and used for the purposes described in Section 1 of this Privacy Policy.
Your Friend In’s Service Providers: We will may rely on third-party service providers to support or provide
services for us in connection with your use of the Service, such as food delivery services, communications
and
hosting, security and fraud prevention, technical and customer support, tracking and reporting usage of the
Service, quality assurance testing, payment processing, marketing, and other functions in the future. We
share
information from or about you with these third party providers so that they can perform their services or
complete your requests. For example, we may share your advertising identifiers (e.g., your IDFA, GAID, or a
cryptographic hash of your email address) with third party service providers that help us facilitate Your
Friend
In’s advertising programs and measure and report their effectiveness, including with third parties that help
determine the efficacy of Your Friend In’s advertising programs by combining information they receive about
you
from other sources than the Service. Your Friend In shares personal information with its service providers
subject to obligations consistent with this Privacy Policy, and on the condition that personal information
is
only used on Your Friend In’s behalf and pursuant to our instructions. You may be able to limit our access
to
some of this information through your mobile device settings, as described in Section 2 above, or through
the
Service’s settings. Your Friend In’s third party service providers may likewise share information with us
that
they obtain from or about you in connection with providing their services or completing your requests.
Your Friend In’s role as a Service Provider: Your Friend In collects, receives and processes certain
information
about you on behalf of businesses for which Your Friend In is acting as a service provider. For example,
when
you make a restaurant reservation or join the waitlist through Your Friend In, we collect your phone number,
email address and reservation details on behalf of the business, and share that information with the
business.
Your Friend In does not share information collected or received by Your Friend In outside of its role as a
service provider with the business or other third parties, unless otherwise disclosed in this Privacy
Policy, or
at your direction. Third parties may also share information about you with Your Friend In in order for Your
Friend In to provide services to them. For example, Your Friend In may receive information about you for the
purposes of targeting advertising, to measure ad performance, or to facilitate links to restaurant loyalty
programs or point of sale systems. Third parties’ collection, use and disclosure of your information is
subject
to such third party’s own privacy policy and any relevant terms.
Aggregate or Anonymous Information: We share user information in the aggregate with third parties, such as
businesses that are listed on Your Friend In and content distributors. For example, we disclose the number
of
users that have been exposed to or interacted with advertisements, or that we estimate visited the physical
location of a particular business.
Business Transfers: We share information from or about you with our parent companies, subsidiaries, joint
ventures, or other companies under common control, and require them to also honor this Privacy Policy. If
another company acquires Your Friend In, or all or substantially all our assets, that company will possess
the
same information, and will collect, use, and disclose the information only as described in this Privacy
Policy.
Businesses on Your Friend In: We may share information from or about you (such as your city, and if you
provide
it, your age and gender), your device type, and your use of the Service (such as which businesses you
bookmark
or call, or if you visit a business’s URL) with businesses on Your Friend In. You may adjust your account
settings to increase or decrease the amount of information we share. Keep in mind that businesses can also
view
your public activity and posts, and may receive information from or about you when you transact or
communicate
with them, through Your Friend In or otherwise, regardless of your settings (see Section 1 above).
Additionally,
if you make a phone call to a business through or in connection with your use of the Service, we may share
information about your call with the business that the business would have received had you called them
directly, such as the date and time of your call and your phone number. You may be able to limit our ability
to
collect and share your phone number through your phone settings or phone service provider.
Investigations and Legal Disclosures: 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 or
law
enforcement processes, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal
process
or law enforcement request; (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 Your Friend In’s Consumer Alerts program. If you flag
or
otherwise complain to us 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 link to third party-controlled websites, like a business’s URL. Except as set forth
herein, we do not share your personal information with them, and are not responsible for their privacy
practices.
Interaction With Third-Party Platforms: If you sign up for, or log into, Your Friend In using a third-party
platform like Facebook or Google, or link your Your Friend In account with a third-party platform like
Facebook,
Instagram or Twitter, we may receive information about you from such third-party platform. If you post
content
to a third-party platform through the Service, that third-party platform will also receive that content,
which
will be visible to anyone that has access to it through that third-party platform. Some of our web pages
utilize
framing techniques to serve content to you from third-party platforms, while preserving the look and feel of
the
Service. In such cases, please note that the information you provide may be transmitted directly to the
identified third party. If you interact with businesses through Your Friend In, they will receive whatever
information you choose to share with them, for example contact information you share through quote requests
or
direct messages to the business, or your phone number if you call the business. Your Friend In may share
information with third parties where you direct Your Friend In to do so through the Service.
4.DATA RETENTION AND ACCOUNT TERMINATION
Information on how to close your account is available here. We will remove certain public posts from view
and/or
dissociate them from your account profile, but we may retain information about you for the purposes
authorized
under this Privacy Policy unless prohibited by law. For example, we may retain information to prevent,
investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service or to comply with legal
obligations.
We may also maintain residual copies of your personal information in our backup systems. Please note that
businesses cannot remove their business pages, ratings, or reviews by closing their accounts. Your Friend In
retains information for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as
otherwise permitted or required by Japan law.
5.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. Although use of Your Friend In by children is unlikely,
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.
6.SECURITY
We use various safeguards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and
after 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.
7.CONTACT INFORMATION
You may contact us online concerning our Privacy Policy.
8.MODIFICATIONS TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We may modify 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.By continuing to
access or
use the Service after those changes become effective, you acknowledge the revised Privacy Policy.
© 2024 Your Friend In