Etyme Global Inc. (“Etyme ”) provides this Privacy Policy to let you know our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of information through  www.etyme.com  (the “ Site ”), and any other websites, features, applications, widgets or online services that are owned or controlled by Etyme and that post a link to this Privacy Policy (together with the Site, the “ Service ”), as well as any information Etyme collects offline in connection with the Service. It also describes the choices available to you regarding the use of, your access to, and how to update and correct your personal information .   Note that we combine the information we collect from you from the Site, through the Service generally, or offline.

If you have an unresolved privacy or data use concern that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact our U.S.-based third party dispute resolution provider free of charge at https://feedback-form.truste.com/watchdog/request .

Please note that certain features or services referenced in this Privacy Policy may not be offered on the Service at all times. Please also review our Terms of Service , which governs your use of the Service, and which is accessible at  terms .

We’ve provided short summaries in this Privacy Policy to help you understand what information we collect, how we use it, and what choices or rights you may have. While these summaries help explain some of the concepts in a simple and clear way, we encourage you to read the entire Privacy Policy to understand our data practices.

1. INFORMATION COLLECTION

Users of the Service may be Clients Freelancers , or  Agencies  (as each is defined in the  User Agreement ).

Information You Provide to Us

When you use the Service, you may provide us with information about you. This may include your name and contact information, financial information to make or receive payment for services obtained through the Etyme platform, or information to help us fill out tax forms. When you use the Service, we may also collect information related to your use of the Service and aggregate this with information about other users. This helps us improve our Services for you. You may also provide us with information about your contacts or friends if, for example, you’d like to add those contacts to a message room. Agencies may also provide us with information about Freelancers associated with the Agency.

You do not have a statutory obligation to provide us with any information, but you may have a contractual obligation to do so, and if we do not receive certain information from you, then we will not be able to provide our Service to you. If you have any questions regarding whether provision of information is mandatory and the consequences for withholding such information, please contact us using the contact information below.

Information Received from Third Parties

Third parties may also give us information about you. If we combine that information with information about you collected through the Service, we will still treat that combined information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.

We also may receive information about you from third parties. For example, we may supplement the information we collect with outside records or third parties may provide information in connection with a co-marketing agreement or at your request (such as if you choose to sign in with a third-party service). If we combine the information we receive from others with information we collect through the Service, we will treat the combined information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Information Collected Automatically

Like other online companies, we receive technical information when you use our Services. We use these technologies to analyze how people use our Services, to improve how our Site functions, to save your log-in information for future sessions, and to serve you with advertisements that may interest you.

We and our third party service providers, including analytics and third party content providers, may automatically collect certain information from you whenever you access or interact with the Service. This information may include, among other information, the browser and operating system you are using, the URL or advertisement that referred you to the Service, the search terms you entered into a search engine that led you to the Service, areas within the Service that you visited, and other information commonly shared when browsers communicate with websites. We may combine this automatically collected log information with other information we collect about you. We do this to improve services we offer you, to improve marketing, analytics, and site functionality.

The information we collect also includes the Internet Protocol (“IP”) address or other unique device identifier (“Device Identifier”) for any device (computer, mobile phone, tablet, etc.) used to access the Service. A Device Identifier is a number that is automatically assigned or connected to the device you use to access the Service, and our servers identify your device by its Device Identifier. Some mobile service providers may also provide us or our third party service providers with information regarding the physical location of the device used to access the Service.

Etyme and its partners use cookies or similar technologies to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movement around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. The technology used to collect information automatically from Etyme Users may include the following:

In addition, we and our marketing partners, affiliates, analytics, and service providers may use a variety of other technologies (such as tags) that collect similar information for security and fraud detection purposes and we may use third parties to perform these services on our behalf.

HOW WE RESPOND TO DO NOT TRACK SIGNALS

Etyme does not respond to Do-Not-Track signals.

Please note that your browser setting may allow you to automatically transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to websites and online service you visit. There is no consensus among industry participants as to what “Do Not Track” means in this context. Like many websites and online services, Etyme does not alter its practices when it receives a “Do Not Track” signal from a visitor’s browser. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com .

Work Diaries and Work View

We collect information about a Freelancer’s work for a Client, including automatically collected information about work on a particular project. We will share Work Diaries with the relevant Client and Agency. We tell Freelancers when we are capturing information for the Work Diary and allow Freelancers to block such data sharing.

As part of the Service, we collect information about a Freelancer’s work on a project for a Client. This feature is known as Work Diary. Work Diaries include information provided by the Freelancer, such as a memo, as well as automatically gathered information about work on a project, such as number of mouseclicks and keyboard strokes and regularly taken screenshots (which may include a webcam picture of you if you have not disabled this feature in your settings). In order to use Work Diaries, you must download and install the Team App software from www.Etyme.com .

We will share information contained in Work Diaries with the relevant Client and with any manager or administrator of any applicable Freelancer Agency. We inform Freelancers each time we capture information for Work Diary. As set forth in our Terms of Service, End User License Agreement, and help pages on the Site, a Freelancer may choose to block or delete the screen shot and associated data for a recorded work interval, but then the Freelancer may not be paid for that work interval. Etyme may use general information from Work Diaries for statistical analysis, product development, marketing and research.

User Profiles

Freelancers may create a profile, with certain or all information publicly available. Clients and Agencies may also create organization profiles.

You may have the opportunity to create a profile, which consists of information about you, and may include Personal Information, photographs, examples of your work, information on work previously performed via the Service and outside the Service, skills, tests taken, test scores, hourly pay rates, feedback/rating information and other information, including your username (“Profile ”). The information in your Profile may be visible to all Etyme Users and the general public subject to the privacy choices you make within your Etyme Profile. You may edit certain information in your Profile via your account and may choose to limit who is able to view certain content you post to your Profile. Clients and Agencies of associated individual users or companies may also have the opportunity to create an organization Profile. If, in any case, you believe that an unauthorized profile has been created about you, you can request for it to be removed by contacting us at  https://www.etyme.com/contact_us  or  support@etyme.com .

Messaging

Freelancers, Agencies, and Clients may communicate with each other through the Service. For example, Freelancers, Agencies, and Clients may wish to discuss Client needs and Freelancer work proposals. If you communicate with an Agency or Client, that Agency or Client will also be a “data controller” with respect to such communications.

Community Forums

We may offer public forums or blogs. If you participate, your comments and questions will be publicly displayed.

The Service may provide you the opportunity to participate and post content publicly in forums, on blogs, through interactive features Etyme and through other communication functionality (“Community Forums”). You may choose, through such features or otherwise, to submit or post questions, comments, or other content (collectively, “User Forum Content”). Please note that certain information, such as your name and Profile may be publicly displayed on the Service along with your User Forum Content. Please note that your use of Community Forums is subject to the Etyme Forum Rules and our Terms of Service.

Note that anything you post to a Community Forum is public — others will have access to your User Forum Content and may use it or share it with third parties. If you choose to voluntarily disclose Personal Information in your User Forum Content or use Community Forums to link to your Profile, that information will be considered public information and the protections of this Privacy Policy will not apply.

To request removal of your personal information from our blog or community forum, contact us at https://www.etyme.com/contact_us . In some cases, we may not be able to remove your Personal Information, in which case we will let you know if we are unable to do so and why.

Testimonials

We display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our Service, in addition to other endorsements. With your consent we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at https://www.etyme.com/contact_us .

Work Listings Through the Service

If you choose to post a work listing via the Service as a Client, the contents of such listing will be viewable publicly, unless you designate the listing as only viewable through the Service or as private using the settings available on the applicable website. Work listings include information such as budget, location, history of work listing(s) by the Client, the names of other Freelancers performing work for the Client, Client feedback and rating information and timing of project performance.

Feedback

We collect feedback from Etyme Users about their experience with other Etyme Users of our Service. Please note that any feedback you provide via the Service or feedback provided about you is publicly viewable via the Service. On very rare occasions, we may remove feedback pursuant to the relevant provisions of our Terms of Service, including the Terms of Use .

Email to Friends and Referral Program

Etyme lets you send project postings to friends via email. Etyme also offers the ability to send friends emails about providing or purchasing services through the Service. If you choose to use either feature, your friend’s email address will be used to send the requested posting and your email address will be used to copy you on the message to your friend or to send the message on your behalf. Etyme stores this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program.

Your friend may contact us at https://www.etyme.com/contact_us to request that we remove this information from our database.

Social Networking Services

You may register for an account directly with our Site, or through a social networking service. If you register with a social networking service (or later link your account to one), we will collect certain information about you from that social networking service, and what we collect depends on your privacy settings with that social networking service. The Service may also allow you to “like” or share content with social networking services.

You may register to join the Service directly via the Service or by logging into your account with a third party social networking service (“SNS”) via our Service (e.g., Facebook, Github and other third party services that let you sign in using your existing credentials with those services). If you choose to register via an SNS, or to later link your account with the Service to your account with an SNS, we will use the Personal Information you have provided to the SNS (such as your name, email address, gender and other information you make publicly available via the SNS) to create your account. Note that the information we collect from and through an SNS may depend on the privacy settings you have set with the SNS and the permissions you grant to us in connection with linking your account with the Service to your account with an SNS. Other than what we may share with the SNS as described below, the Personal Information an SNS has about you is obtained by the SNS independent of our Service, and Etyme is not responsible for it.

The Etyme Service also may permit additional interactions between it and a third party website, service, or other content provider, such as enabling you to “like” or share content to a third party SNS. If you choose to “like” or share content, or to otherwise share information from or via our Service with a third party site or service, that information may be publicly displayed, and the third party may have access to information about you and your use of our Service (and we may have access to information about you from that third party). These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. Your interactions with third parties through an SNS or similar features are governed by the respective privacy policies of those third parties.

You represent that you are entitled to use your SNS account for the purposes described herein without breach by you of any of the terms and conditions that govern the SNS, and without obligating Etyme to pay any fees or making Etyme subject to any usage limitations imposed by such SNS. You can disable the link between your Etyme account and your SNS account at any time though the “Settings” section of our Service. Please note that your relationship with any SNS is governed solely by your agreement(s) with such SNS. If your SNS account terminates, then functions enabled through the link between your Etyme account and your SNS account will terminate as well.

2. USE OF INFORMATION

We use information collected through the Service to provide and improve the Service, process your requests, prevent fraud, provide you with information and advertising that may interest you, comply with the law, and as otherwise permitted with your consent.

WE USE INFORMATION WE COLLECT:

We use your Personal Information for the purposes described above:

3. DATA RETENTION

Unless you request that we delete certain information (see Your Choices and Rights  below), we retain the information we collect for at least 5 years. Your information may persist in copies made for backup and business continuity purposes for additional time. If you choose to provide us with Personal Information, we encourage you to routinely update the data to ensure that we have accurate and up-to-date information about you.

4. INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

We may share information about you to provide the Services, for legal and investigative purposes, in connection with sweepstakes and promotions, or if we are part of a merger or acquisition. We may also share non-identifying information with third parties. You have choices as to whether we share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

We may share aggregated Non-Identifying Information and we may otherwise disclose Non-Identifying Information (including, without limitation, Hashed Information) to third parties. We do not share your Personal Information with third parties for those third parties’ marketing purposes unless we first provide you with the opportunity to opt-in to or opt-out of such sharing. We may also share the information we have collected about you, including Personal Information, as disclosed at the time you provide your information, with your consent, as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, or in the following circumstances:

5. THIRD PARTY ANALYTICS PROVIDERS, AD SERVERS AND SIMILAR THIRD PARTIES

We may work with advertising agencies and vendors who use technology to help us understand how people use our Site. These vendors may use technologies to serve you advertisements that may interest you. You can choose to opt out of receiving interest-based advertising.

Etyme works with (or may in the future work with) network advertisers, ad agencies, analytics service providers and other vendors to provide us with information regarding traffic on the Service, including pages viewed and the actions taken when visiting the Service; to serve our advertisements on other web sites, within mobile apps and elsewhere online; and to provide us with information regarding the use of the Service and the effectiveness of our advertisements. Our service providers may collect certain information about your visits to and activity on the Service as well as other websites or services, they may set and access their own tracking technologies on your device (including cookies beacons ), and may use that information to show you targeted advertisements. Some of these parties may collect Personal Information when you visit the Service or other online websites and services. We may also share certain Non-Identifying Information with these parties, including Hashed Information, in connection with the services they provide to us. If you wish to opt out of interest-based advertising, click  here   (or if located in the European Union, click   here ). If you choose to opt out, please note you will continue to receive generic ads.

While we may use a variety of service providers to perform advertising services, some of these companies are members of the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI ”) or the Digital Advertising Alliance (“ DAA ”) Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising. You may want to visit  http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp , which provides information regarding targeted advertising and the “opt-out” procedures of NAI members. You may also want to visit or  http://www.aboutads.info/choices/ , which provides information regarding targeted advertising and offers an “opt-out” by participating companies in the DAA Self-Regulatory Program.

6. YOUR CHOICES AND RIGHTS

You have certain choices regarding how we may communicate with you.

Registered Etyme Users may update their choices regarding the types of communications you receive from us through your online account. You also may opt-out of receiving marketing emails from us by following the opt-out instructions provided in those emails. Please note that we reserve the right to send you certain communications relating to your account or use of the Service (for example, administrative and service announcements) via email and other means and these transactional account messages may be unaffected if you opt-out from receiving marketing communications. You may opt-out of receiving text messages by replying “STOP” to any text message received. Registered Etyme Users who access the Service by using an Etyme mobile application may, with permission, receive push notifications. Similarly, registered Etyme Users who access the Service by using certain desktop browsers may, with permission, receive push notifications. Notification preferences can be modified in the settings menu for the mobile application or the applicable browser.

All Users may request access to or correction of any Personal Information we have about them or delete their account and/or request deletion of all Personal Information we have about them. In certain jurisdictions, Users may have certain rights with regard to their Personal Information. We will honor User requests to the extent we can reasonably do so and as required by law, but some information will remain on the Services, such as information you posted publicly.

Upon request Etyme will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. You are responsible for maintaining the accuracy of the information you submit to us, such as your contact information. You may access, correct, or request deletion of your personal information by making updates to that information or by contacting Etyme through your online account. If you request to access all personal information you’ve submitted, we will respond to your request to access within 30 days. If you completely delete all such information, then your account may become deactivated. If your account is deactivated or you ask to close your account, you will no longer be able to use the Service. If you would like us to delete your account in our system, you can do so through the Etyme Service (once you logged in, visit settings / user settings, and then click on the close my account link).

Depending on where you are located, you may have certain rights with regard to your Personal Information (including, in certain cases, under the Privacy Shield, described below) . If you are located in the European Economic Area (“ EEA ”), in addition to the rights described above, you may contact us at the contact information provided below to (1) request a restriction on the processing of your Personal Information, (2) object to the processing of your Personal Information, or (3) exercise other rights with respect to your Personal Information.  Please see our  GDPR Help Center   for more information. Etyme uses automated means to calculate the Job Success Score of Freelancers. If you believe that our services have miscalculated your Job Success Score or you would like to exercise any other rights with regard to your Personal Information , please email us at  support@etyme.com  for assistance. We may be able to assist you by conducting a manual review of your Job Success Score, such as by assessing whether the information you’ve provided us is accurate. While we strongly encourage you to first raise any questions or concerns about your Personal Information directly with us, you have a right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority.

We will use commercially reasonable efforts to honor your requests for deletion; however, certain information will actively persist on the Service even if you close your account, including information in your Work Diaries and messages you posted to the Service. In addition, your Personal Information may remain in our archives and information you update or delete, or information within a closed account, may persist internally for our administrative purposes, to the extent permitted by law. It is not always possible to completely remove or delete information from our databases. In addition, we typically will not remove information you posted publicly through or on the Service. Bear in mind that neither you nor Etyme can delete all copies of information that has been previously shared with others on the Service.

7. SECURITY

We take a number of steps to protect your data, but no security is guaranteed.

Etyme takes commercially reasonable steps to help protect and secure the information it collects and stores about Etyme Users. All access to the Site is encrypted using industry-standard transport layer security technology (“TLS”). When you enter sensitive information (such as tax identification number), we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (“SSL”). We also use HTTP strict transport security to add an additional layer of protection for our Etyme Users. But remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Thus, while we strive to protect your Personal Information, Etyme cannot ensure and does not warrant the security of any information you transmit to us.

8. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Because we are a U.S. company, we process and store your information in the United States and our service providers may process and store it elsewhere.

Etyme is a U.S. company. If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide information to us, Etyme transfers Personal Information to the United States for processing, and our service providers may process Personal Information in the United States and elsewhere. These countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information. When we transfer your information to the United States, we will protect it as described in this Privacy Policy.

When we transfer Personal Information from territories in the EEA or with similar laws to our affiliates or service providers in the United States and elsewhere outside the EEA, we rely on approved data transfer mechanisms, including standard contractual clauses approved by the European Commission and the Privacy Shield, as described below. You may request a copy of the standard contractual clauses relevant to your Personal Information, if any, using the contact information below.

9. PRIVACY SHIELD NOTICE

As a business subject to the investigatory and enforcement authority of the United States Federal Trade Commission, Etyme has certified that its U.S. operations adhere to the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks (“Privacy Shield ”) with respect to the Personal Information that Etyme receives in reliance on the Privacy Shield. Our Privacy Shield certification is available at  https://www.privacyshield.gov/list . To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, please visit  https://www.privacyshield.gov .

When Etyme receives Personal Information under the Privacy Shield and then transfers it to a third party service provider acting as an agent on Etyme’s behalf, Etyme may have certain responsibility under the Privacy Shield if both (i) the agent processes the information in a manner inconsistent with the Privacy Shield and (ii) Etyme is responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

Covered European residents should contact Etyme at the contact information below regarding Etyme’s compliance with the Privacy Shield. Etyme will attempt to answer your questions and satisfy your concerns in a timely and complete manner as soon as possible. If, after discussing the matter with Etyme, your issue or complaint is not resolved, Etyme has agreed to participate in the Privacy Shield independent dispute resolution mechanisms listed below, free of charge to you. PLEASE CONTACT Etyme FIRST.

For other Personal Information Etyme receives under the Privacy Shield, Etyme has committed to refer unresolved privacy complaints under the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Principles to an independent dispute resolution mechanism, JAMS Privacy Shield Dispute Resolution, operated by JAMS. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your complaint, or if your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed, please visit https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield   for more information and to file a complaint.

If your complaint still is not resolved through these channels, under limited circumstances, an additional binding arbitration option may be available before a Privacy Shield panel, as described at privacyshield.gov. Every individual also has a right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority.

10. LINKS TO OTHER SITES

Our Service contains links to other websites. If you choose to click on a third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s website. The fact that we link to a website 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. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites you visit.

11. PUBLIC PROFILE

The profile you create on our Site will be publicly accessible unless otherwise indicated. You may change the privacy settings of your profile through your account portal.

12. PHISHING

Phishing websites imitate legitimate websites in order to obtain personal or financial information. Identity theft and the practice currently known as “phishing” are of great concern to Etyme. For more information about phishing, visit the website of the Federal Trade Commission at http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0003-phishing . In addition, if you believe you have received an email or had a similar interaction with a third party pretending to be Etyme, please report it at  https://etyme.com/contact_us

13. CALIFORNIA RESIDENTS – YOUR CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS

We allow you to choose whether we share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Pursuant to California Civil Code Section 1798.83, California residents who provide us with personal information in obtaining products or services for personal, family, or household use are entitled to request and obtain from us, one time per calendar year, information about the customer information we shared, if any, with other businesses for their own direct marketing uses. Alternatively, the law provides that a company may comply, as Etyme does, by disclosing in its privacy policy that it provides consumers choice (opt-in or opt-out) regarding sharing Personal Information with third parties for those third parties’ direct marketing purposes, and information on how to exercise that choice. As stated above in this Privacy Policy, Etyme provides you choice prior to sharing your personal information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes. If you do not opt-in or if you choose to opt-out at the time Etyme offers that choice, Etyme does not share your information with that identified third party for its direct marketing purposes.

If you are a California resident and you have questions about our practices with respect to sharing information with third parties for their direct marketing purposes and your ability to exercise choice, please contact us using the contact information below.

You must put the statement “Your California Privacy Rights” in the subject field of your email or include it in your writing if you choose to write to us at the designated mailing address. You must include your name, street address, city, state, and ZIP code. We will respond to you at your mailing address or, at our option, your email address. We are not responsible for notices that are not labeled or sent properly, or do not have complete information.

14. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may change this Privacy Policy. If we make material changes, we will provide notice.

Etyme may update this Privacy Policy at any time and any changes will be effective upon posting. In the event that there are material changes to the way we treat your Personal Information, we will display a notice through the Services prior to the change becoming effective. We may also notify you by email, in our discretion. However, we will use your Personal Information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted the information, unless you consent to the new or revised policy.

15. CONTACTING US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at https://etyme.com/contact_us  or  , or by mail addressed to Etyme, Attn: Legal, 2625 Augustine Drive, Suite 601, Santa Clara, CA 95054, USA.