Privacy Policy

Collection and Use of Personal Information

Personal information is data that can be used to identify or contact a single person.

You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with Hugsie or an Hugsie affiliated company. Hugsie and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and advertising. You are not required to provide the personal information that we have requested, but, if you chose not to do so, in many cases we will not be able to provide you with our products or services or respond to any queries you may have.

Here are some examples of the types of personal information Hugsie may collect and how we may use it:

What personal information we collect

When you create an Hugsie ID, purchase a product, connect to our services, contact us or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences, location information and credit card information.

When you share your content with family and friends using Hugsie products, send gift certificates and products, or invite others to participate in Hugsie services or forums, Hugsie may collect the information you provide about those people such as name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. Hugsie will use such information to fulfill your requests, provide the relevant product or service, or for anti-fraud purposes.

How we use your personal information

We may process your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy with your consent, for compliance with a legal obligation to which Hugsie is subject or when we have assessed it is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Hugsie or a third party to whom it may be necessary to disclose information.

We also use personal information to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content and advertising, and for loss prevention and anti-fraud purposes. We may also use your personal information for account and network security purposes, including in order to protect our services for the benefit of all our users. Where we use your information for anti-fraud purposes it arises from the conduct of an online transaction with us. We limit our uses of data for anti-fraud purposes to those which are strictly necessary and within our assessed legitimate interests to protect our customers and our services. For certain online transactions we may also validate the information provided by you with publicly accessible sources.

We may use your personal information, including date of birth, to verify identity, assist with identification of users, and to determine appropriate services. For example, we may use date of birth to determine the age of Hugsie ID account holders.

From time to time, we may use your personal information to send important notices, such as communications about purchases and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with Hugsie, you may not opt out of receiving these communications.

We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Hugsie’s products, services, and customer communications.

Source of your personal information where they are not collected from you

We may validate the information provided by you when creating an Hugsie ID with a third party for security and fraud prevention purposes.

For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person. When acquiring such datasets, we do so in accordance with applicable law in the jurisdiction in which the dataset is hosted. When using such datasets for research and development, we do not attempt to re-identify individuals who may appear therein.

Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information

We also collect data in a form that does not, on its own, permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:

• We may collect information such as language, zip code, area code, location, and the time zone where an Hugsie product is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
• We may collect information regarding customer activities on our website,and from our other products and services. This information is aggregated and used to help us provide more useful information to our customers and to understand which parts of our website, products, and services are of most interest. Aggregated data is considered non personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
• We may collect and store details of how you use our services, including search queries. This information may be used to improve the relevancy of results provided by our services. Except in limited instances to ensure quality of our services over the Internet, such information will not be associated with your IP address.
• With your explicit consent, we may collect data about how you use your device and applications in order to help app developers improve their apps.

If we do combine non-personal information with personal information the combined information will be treated as personal information for as long as it remains combined.

Cookies and Other Technologies

Hugsie’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches. We treat information collected by cookies and other technologies as non‑personal information. However, to the extent that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered personal information by local law, we also treat these identifiers as personal information. Similarly, to the extent that non-personal information is combined with personal information, we treat the combined information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.

Hugsie and our partners also use cookies and other technologies to remember personal information when you use our website, online services, and applications. Our goal in these cases is to make your experience with Hugsie more convenient and personal. For example, knowing your first name lets us welcome you the next time you visit the Hugsie Online Store. Knowing your country and language − and if you are an educator, your school − helps us provide a customized and more useful shopping experience. Knowing someone using your computer or device has shopped for a certain product or used a particular service helps us make our advertising and email communications more relevant to your interests. And knowing your contact information, hardware identifiers, and information about your computer or device helps us personalize your operating system, set up your iCloud service, and provide you with better customer service.

If you want to disable cookies and you’re using the Safari web browser, go to Safari preferences and then to the privacy pane to manage your preferences. On your Hugsie mobile device, go to Settings, then Safari, scroll down to the Privacy & Security section, and tap on “Block Cookies” to manage your preferences. For other browsers, check with your provider to find out how to disable cookies. Please note that certain features of the Hugsie website will not be available once cookies are disabled.

As is true of most internet services, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit websites and applications, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data.

We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about user behavior on the site, to improve our product and services, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Hugsie may use this information in our marketing and advertising services.

In some of our email messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to content on the Hugsie website. When customers click one of these URLs, they pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages.

Pixel tags enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they tell us whether mail has been opened. We may use this information to reduce or eliminate messages sent to customers.

Disclosure to Third Parties

Personal information will only by Hugsie to provide or improve our products, services and advertising; it will not be shared with third parties for their marketing purposes.

Service Providers

Hugsie shares personal information with companies who provide services such as information processing, extending credit, fulfilling customer orders, delivering products to you, managing and enhancing customer data, providing customer service, assessing your interest in our products and services, and conducting customer research or satisfaction surveys. These companies are obligated to protect your information and may be located wherever Hugsie operates.

Others

It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for Hugsie to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate.

We may also disclose information about you if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or protect our operations or users. Additionally, in the event of a reorganization, merger, or sale we may transfer any and all personal information we collect to the relevant third party.

Protection of Personal Information

Hugsie takes the security of your personal information very seriously. Hugsie online services such as the Hugsie Online Store protect your personal information during transit using encryption such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). When your personal data is stored by Hugsie, we use computer systems with limited access housed in facilities using physical security measures. With the exception of Mail, data is stored in encrypted form including when we utilize third-party storage.

When you use some Hugsie products, services, or applications or post on an Hugsie forum, chat room, or social networking service, the personal information and content you share is visible to other users and can be read, collected, or used by them. You are responsible for the personal information you choose to share or submit in these instances. For example, if you list your name and email address in a forum posting, that information is public. Please take care when using these features.

If you or anyone else using Family Sharing logs on to a device that is owned by a third party, any information shared within your Family—including calendar, location, photos, and iTunes purchases—may be downloaded on to that third-party device thereby disclosing any such shared information.

The existence of Automated Decision-Making, Including Profiling

Hugsie does not take any decisions involving the use of algorithms or profiling that significantly affects you.

Integrity and Retention of Personal Information

Hugsie makes it easy for you to keep your personal information accurate, complete, and up to date. We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy and our service specific privacy summaries.When assessing these periods we carefully examine our need to collect personal information at all and if we establish a relevant need we only retain it for the shortest possible period to realize the purpose of collection unless a longer retention period is required by law.

Access to Personal Information

You can help ensure that your contact information and complete, and up to date by signing in to your Hugsie ID account page. For other personal information we hold, we will provide you with access (including a copy) for any purpose including to request that we correct the data if it is inaccurate or delete the data if Hugsie is not required to retain it by law or for legitimate business purposes.We may decline to process requests that are frivolous/vexatious, jeopardize the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required by local law. We may also decline aspects of deletion or access requests if we believe doing so would undermine our legitimate use of data for anti-fraud and security purposes as described earlier.

Third‑Party Sites and Services

Hugsie websites, products, applications, and services may contain links to third-party websites, products, and services. Our products and services may also use or offer products or services from third parties − for example, a third‑party iPhone app.

Information collected by third parties, which may include such things as location data or contact details, is governed by their privacy practices. We encourage you to learn about the privacy practices of those third parties.

Our Companywide Commitment to Your Privacy

To make sure your personal information is secure, we communicate our privacy and security guidelines to Hugsie employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within the company.

Privacy Questions

If you have any questions or concerns about Hugsie’s Privacy Policy or data processing, you would like to make a complaint about a possible breach of local privacy laws, please contact us. You can always contact us by phone at the relevant Hugsie Support number for your country or region.

When a privacy question or question about personal information received in response to an access/download request is received we have a dedicated team which triages the contacts and seeks to address the specific concern or query which you are seeking to raise. Where your issue may be more substantive in nature, more information may be sought from you. All such substantive contacts receive a response. If you are unsatisfied with the reply received, you may refer your complaint to the relevant regulator in your jurisdiction. If you ask us, we will endeavor to provide you with information about relevant complaint avenues which may be applicable to your circumstances.

Hugsie may update its Privacy Policy from time to time. When we change the policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on our website along with the updated Privacy Policy.