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Privacy Policy

Our Commitment to You
At JOIN THE DOTS, your privacy is at the core of the way we design and build the services and products you know and love, so that you can fully trust them and focus on building meaningful connections.
At JOIN THE DOTS, your privacy is a top priority. Your privacy is at the core of the way we design and build the services and products you know and love, so that you can fully trust them and focus on building meaningful connections. We appreciate that you put your trust in us when you provide us with your information and we do not take this lightly.
We do not compromise with your privacy. We design all of our products and services with your privacy in mind. We involve experts from various fields, including legal, security, engineering, product design and others to make sure that no decision is taken without respect for your privacy.
We strive to be transparent in the way we process your data. Because we use many of the same online services you do, we know that insufficient information and overly complicated language are common issues in privacy policies. We take the exact opposite approach: we have written our Privacy Policy and related documents in plain language. We actually want you to read our policies and understand our privacy practices!
We work hard to keep your information secure. We have teams dedicated to keeping your data safe and secure. We constantly update our security practices and invest in our security efforts to enhance the safety of your information.
Welcome to JOIN THE DOTS’s Privacy Policy. Thank you for taking the time to read it.
We appreciate that you trust us with your information and we intend to always keep that trust. This starts with making sure you understand the information we collect, why we collect it, how it is used and your choices regarding your information. This Policy describes our privacy practices in plain language, keeping legal and technical jargon to a minimum.
1. WHO WE ARE AND OUR ROLE
This Policy is issued on behalf of the JOIN THE DOTS, Inc. (the “Company”) and any affiliated entities (the “Company Group”), so when we mention the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this Policy, we are referring to the relevant company in the Company Group responsible for processing your data. The Company is the controller and primarily responsible for the Services.
  • AGE RESTRICTIONS
    We restrict the use of our Services to individuals age 18 and above. We do not intentionally collect or maintain personal data from children under the age of 16. If you become aware that personal data about a person under 16 has been provided to us, please immediately contact us using the details below.
  • THIRD-PARTY CONTENT AND LINKS
    The Services may include content or links from third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
2. THE DATA WE COLLECT ABOUT YOU AND HOW IT IS COLLECTED
When we use the term “personal data” or “personal information” in this Policy, we mean information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, to you. It does not include aggregated or de identified information that is maintained in a form that is not reasonably capable of being associated with or linked to you.
  • What We Collect and How
    We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you that we have categorized as follows:
  • Information You Provide.
    When you register, use or subscribe to any of our Services or take part in any interactive features of the Services (such as any contests, games, promotions, quizzes, surveys, research or other services or features), we may collect a variety of information, including:

    • Contact Information
      such as your name, email address, phone number, and address (“Contact Information”); and
    • Sensitive Information
      such as race, ethnicity, sexual preferences and experiences, political affiliation, religious affiliation, union memberships, or any biometric information you provide through the use of our Services (your “Sensitive Personal Data”).
    • Other Information
      such as birth date, videos, password, billing information, credit card information, demographic information, place of work or education, your personal interests and background, gender, age, dating age range preference, physical characteristics, personal description, life experiences, geographic location, your photos and any information derived from them, and any other information you share with the Services. We may collect billing or payments information if you engage with a paid Service.
    • Information About How You Use the Services.
      We may automatically collect information about your participation and actions on the Services. This may include information such as the pages and profiles you view, how you browse the Services, dating insights, your Company coin balance and purchases you make through the Services such as boosts and gifts. It can also include the various functions and features that you use, the connections you make, other friends or contacts you invite to the Services and profile searches you perform or your use of our applications.
    • Information About How You Use the Services.
      We may automatically collect information about your participation and actions on the Services. This may include information such as the pages and profiles you view, how you browse the Services, dating insights, your Company coin balance and purchases you make through the Services such as boosts and gifts. It can also include the various functions and features that you use, the connections you make, other friends or contacts you invite to the Services and profile searches you perform or your use of our applications.
    • Information Automatically Collected.
      When you access our Services, we and our third party partners automatically record information from your device and its software, such as your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, platform type, the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave our website, date and time stamp and one or more cookies that may uniquely identify your browser or your account. When you access our Services using a mobile device, we may also receive or collect identification numbers associated with your device (such as a unique device ID, IDFA, Google AdID), device type, model and manufacturer, mobile device operating system brand and model, mobile carrier, phone number, email address, and other apps that you have downloaded. We also collect information about your usage of, and activity on, our Services, including internet navigation details (for example, how your mouse moves on a screen which tells us if you’re a bot or real person). This information is typically collected through a variety of tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons, embedded scripts, location-identifying technologies, file information and similar technology.
    • Cookies and Similar Technologies.
      We and our third party partners may use cookies and similar technologies, including those from third parties, to collect, analyze and store information, to provide customized advertising on our site and applications and on other sites or applications, to provide and improve the Services or other products or services offered by us, and to identify and prevent fraudulent activities.
    • Your Communications with Us and Other Users.
      We collect communications you send to us (such as emails), comments that you post on the pages we have on a third-party service, such as our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube pages and messages that you send us directly through those services. We may also collect and analyze any comments, photos, messages or other content or communications you and other users share on the Services or send to each other, including through in-app messages, chat or other functionalities.
    • Third-Party Social Networking Sites You Connect to the Services.
      When you have enabled the use of our Services through a third-party social networking site or mobile or other application such as Facebook, Google or Twitter (a “Social Networking Site”) or connect or link our Services to a Social Networking Site, you permit us to access and use certain information about you that is made available to us through or from that Social Networking Site. The information obtained by us varies by Social Networking Site and may be affected by the permission and privacy settings you establish at that Social Networking Site, but can include information such as your name, profile picture, public Facebook profile, network, gender, username, user ID, age range or birthday, place of work, relationship interests, language, location, country, interests, photos, photos you are tagged in, videos, contacts list, friends lists or followers and other information such as information about Facebook friends you might share in common with other members of the Services. By using or linking our Services through or with a Social Networking Site, you are authorizing us to collect, store, retain and use, in accordance with this Policy, any and all of your information that we have obtained from the Social Networking Site, including to create a profile page and account for you. Depending on the Social Networking Site and your privacy settings, we may also post information to your Social Networking Site. Your agreement to the foregoing takes place when you “accept” or “allow” or “go to” (or other similar terms, such as tapping “Okay”) our application from a Social Networking Site, when you go to a Social Networking Site from the Services, when you sign up or login to the Services through a Social Networking Site (such as by tapping “Sign up with Facebook” or “Log in with Facebook” on the Services), when you otherwise connect or link your Social Networking Site to our Services or when you transfer information to us from such site. If there is information about your “friends” or people you are associated with in your Social Networking Site account, the information we obtain about those persons may also depend on the privacy settings such people have with the applicable Social Networking Site. You acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for, and have no control over, any applicable privacy settings on any Social Networking Sites (including any settings related to any messages or advertisements about us that the Social Networking Site may send to you or your friends). You should always review, and if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on Social Networking Sites before getting or using applications such as ours or linking or connecting your Social Networking Site account to the Services.
    • Location Data.
      We collect information about your location through GPS, Wi-Fi, wireless network triangulation, or other methods in order to obtain your location for the purposes of providing our Services. We may also approximate your location by your IP Address. In some cases, we assign the latitude and longitude of the center of a city or state on record for you to your profile as a way to improve our analytics and matches for you.
    • Social Networks Through Your Interactions.
      When you interact with our Services through various social media networks, such as when you “Like” us on Facebook or when you follow us or share our content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or other social networks, we may receive some information about you that you permit the social network to share with third parties. The data we receive is dependent upon your privacy settings with the social network. You should always review and, if necessary, adjust your privacy settings on third-party websites and social media networks and services before linking or connecting them to our Services.
    • Information Provided by the Company Group.
      We may receive information about you from other companies and affiliates in the Company Group, so that information you provide may be used by us to provide you the Services, communicate with you or provide you advertisements or other personalized content.
    • Information Provided by Others.
      We may be provided with information relating to you or your conduct on the Services by other users of the Services. For example, we will collect your email address if another user tries to refer us to you. We also collect information that third-party organizations may provide to us, such as contact details, demographic information, credit reference or fraud prevention information. Financial institutions or payment processors may also provide us updated payment information or payment methods related to your paid account or paid subscription and services.
    • Address Book.
      We may also offer you the ability to import your address book contacts from your mobile device with your permission or to manually enter email addresses so that you can (i) locate your contacts on the Services or other products or services offered by us; or (ii) invite your contacts to join you on the Services or other products or services offered by us. We will store those contacts for purposes of alerting you when your contacts join the Services or other products or services offered by us at a later time, so that you may connect with them on our platform, and to suggest friends and connections to other members of the Services or other products or services offered by us.
    We also collect, use and share aggregated, de identified and/or anonymous data (“Aggregated Data”) for any purpose. Examples include aggregated statistical or demographic data or data provided in hashed, non-human readable form. For example, we may aggregate your usage data on how you use the Services (“Usage Data”) to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but does not directly or indirectly identify you and therefore does not amount to personal data.
  • CROSS DEVICE TRACKING
    If you log in to your account with us using multiple devices (for instance, your phone and laptop), we will link your devices to your account. This allows us to provide a seamless user experience to you. We also work with third parties to employ technologies, including the application of statistical modelling tools, which attempt to recognize you across multiple devices so that we understand how you use our Service across various devices, to ensure the safety and security of your data and the Company Services, to show you targeted advertising (with your consent) tailored to your interests and experience, and to measure the performance of advertising campaigns.
  • IF YOU FAIL TO PROVIDE PERSONAL DATA
    Where you do not provide the personal data detailed in this Policy, we may not be able to provide you with the Services.
3. LOG AND USAGE DATA
We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for legitimate business purposes (as set out in Section 11 below) and as permitted by applicable law. In practice, we delete or anonymize your information upon deletion of your account (following the safety retention window), unless:
  • we must keep it to comply with applicable law (for instance, some “traffic data” is kept for one year to comply with statutory data retention obligations);
  • we must keep it to evidence our compliance with applicable law (for instance, records of consents to our Terms, Privacy Policy and other similar consents are kept for five years);
  • there is an outstanding issue, claim or dispute requiring us to keep the relevant information until it is resolved; or
  • the information must be kept for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud prevention and enhancing users' safety and security. For example, information may need to be kept to prevent a user who was banned for unsafe behavior or security incidents from opening a new account.
Where JOIN THE DOTS uses machine learning, for example, to help us detect and prevent fraudulent card transactions, and to detect and prevent spam communications on the App (as explained above), we may need to keep personal information for a longer period than the retention periods explained above, to enable the machine learning to work properly. Where this is the case, we always seek to minimise the amount of personal information that is used and we ensure that it is ring-fenced and kept securely from other user personal information. We regularly review the period for which personal information is required for machine learning purposes and delete any identifiable information when it is no longer required.
4. WHERE THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLIES
This Privacy Policy applies to websites, apps, events and other services operated by JOIN THE DOTS. For simplicity, we refer to all of these as our “services” in this Privacy Policy. To make it extra clear, we’ve added links to this Privacy Policy on all applicable services.
Some services may require their own unique privacy policy. If a particular service has its own privacy policy, then that policy (not this Privacy Policy) applies.
5. INFORMATION WE COLLECT
It goes without saying, we can’t help you develop meaningful connections without some information about you, such as basic profile details and the types of people you’d like to meet. We also collect information generated as you use our services, for example access logs, as well as information from third parties, like when you access our services through a social media account. If you want additional info, we go into more detail below.
Information you give us.You choose to give us certain information when using our services. This includes:
  • When you create an account, you provide us with at least your login credentials, as well as some basic details necessary for the service to work, such as your gender and date of birth.
  • When you complete your profile, you can share with us additional information, such as details on your personality, lifestyle, interests and other details about you, as well as content such as photos and videos. To add certain content, like pictures or videos, you may allow us to access your camera or photo album. Some of the information you choose to provide us may be considered “special” or “sensitive” in certain jurisdictions, for example your racial or ethnic origins, sexual orientation and religious beliefs. By choosing to provide this information, you consent to our processing of that information.
  • When you participate in surveys, focus groups or market studies, you give us your insights into our products and services, responses to our questions and testimonials.
  • When you choose to participate in our promotions, events or contests, we collect the information that you use to register or enter.
  • If you contact our customer care team, we collect the information you give us during the interaction. Sometimes, we monitor or record these interactions for training purposes and to ensure a high quality of service.
  • If you ask us to communicate with or otherwise process information of other people (for example, if you ask us to send an email on your behalf to one of your friends), we collect the information about others that you give us in order to complete your request.
Of course, we also process your chats with other users as well as the content you publish, as part of the operation of the services.
Information we receive from others, In addition to the information you provide us directly, we receive information about you from others, including:
Information collected when you use our services
When you use our services, we collect information about which features you’ve used, how you’ve used them and the devices you use to access our services. See below for more details:
Usage Information
We collect information about your activity on our services, for instance how you use them (e.g., date and time you logged in, features you’ve been using, searches or search parameters, clicks and pages which have been shown to you, referring web page address, advertising that you click on) and how you interact with other users (e.g., users you connect and interact with, time and date of your exchanges, number of messages you send and receive).
Similarly, if you consent, we may collect your photos and videos (for instance, if you want to publish a photo, video or streaming on the services).
6. COOKIES AND OTHER SIMILAR DATA COLLECTION TECHNOLOGIES
We use and may allow others to use cookies and similar technologies (e.g., web beacons, pixels) to recognize you and/or your device(s). You may read our Cookie Policy for more information on why we use them (such as authenticating you, remembering your preferences and settings, analyzing site traffic and trends, delivering and measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, allowing you to use social features) and how you can better control their use, through your browser settings and other tools.
Some web browsers (including Safari, Internet Explorer, Firefox and Chrome) have a “Do Not Track” (“DNT”) feature that tells a website that a user does not want to have his or her online activity tracked. If a website that responds to a DNT signal receives a DNT signal, the browser can block that website from collecting certain information about the browser’s user. Not all browsers offer a DNT option and DNT signals are not yet uniform. For this reason, many businesses, including JOIN THE DOTS, do not currently respond to DNT signals.
7. HOW WE USE INFORMATION
Our main goal is to ensure your experience on JOIN THE DOTS is an enjoyable one and you don't end up getting stung! In order to deliver an enjoyable experience to you, we may use your Registration and other information to:
  • offer you our services and features;
  • contact you with information about the App (e.g., updates and new offerings);
  • personalize the App and the content we deliver to you;
  • conduct research and analytics about how you use and interact with the App;
  • resolve disputes between you and other Users; and
  • investigate fraud, protect our legal rights, and to enforce our Terms & Conditions.
8. HOW WE SHARE INFORMATION
Our Services allow you to share information about yourself with other individuals and other companies, including other users and potential users of the Services or other products or services offered by us and third-party Social Networking Sites. Consider your own privacy and personal safety when sharing your information with anyone, including information you share through your profile, as profiles include basic information that was provided at registration and information provided through a Social Networking Site and may include other information added by you or your friends (for example, your religion, ethnicity and physical characteristics), as well as information about your use of the Service (for example, whether you were recently logged in to our platform).Information on your profile is viewable by other users or visitors to our Services, and may also be viewable through public search or on third-party sites that you use. We do not control who reads the information you share or what others may do with this information, so we encourage you to use discretion and caution with respect to your personal data. Also, when sharing information about others, please consider their safety and privacy and get their consent for that sharing. We may also share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes in the table above.
  • With our parent company, Spark Networks, Inc. and other affiliates within the Spark Networks Group of companies (which includes any affiliates and subsidiaries of Spark Networks, Inc. and Spark Networks Services GmbH) in order to provide you with the Services.
  • Services Providers, consultants and other vendors who perform functions or services on our behalf and under our instructions to make our Services available to you, including infrastructure partners (such as AWS), customer support service providers, marketing outreach and analytics service providers, safety check providers, payment providers, cybersecurity partners, anti-fraud analytics companies, payment providers, chargeback representation services and similar partners.
  • Advertising networks and technology companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter, and companies that measure advertising performance and attribution. We share personal data with advertising networks or permit these networks to collect information from you directly on our websites to facilitate online advertising, such as search engines and social network advertising providers, to serve targeted ads to you or to groups of other users who share similar traits, such as likely commercial interests and demographics, on third-party platforms.Promotional partners with whom we partner to provide contests and sweepstakes or other joint promotional activities. These partners will usually be identified in the contest rules or promotional materials.
  • Social Networks, to the extent applicable, such as Facebook and Google, where you have given permission to do so or where you have used your social network account to log in to our platform. If you have chosen to do this, your data will be governed by the privacy policy of that social network.
  • The public when you provide feedback or post user content on our Services (e.g., if you post a product review on our website or comment on our social media sites), your information (e.g., your first name and comments) may be displayed on our websites or on our social media pages. When you engage with us on social media, we may tag your social media account or the social media account of others (e.g., to give photo credit to another user).
9. YOUR RIGHTS
We want you to be in control of your information, so we have provided you with the following tools:
  • Access / Update tools in the service. Tools and account settings that help you to access, rectify or delete information that you provided to us and that’s associated with your account directly within the service.
  • Device permissions. Mobile platforms have permission systems for specific types of device data and notifications, such as phone book and location services as well as push notifications. You can change your settings on your device to either consent or oppose the collection of the corresponding information or the display of the corresponding notifications. Of course, if you do that, certain services may lose full functionality.
  • Deletion. You can delete your account by using the corresponding functionality directly on the app. For step by step guideline on how to “Delete My Account” please visit here.
We want you to be aware of your privacy rights. Here are a few key points to remember:
Reviewing your information. Applicable privacy laws may give you the right to review the personal information we keep about you (depending on the jurisdiction, this may be called right of access, right of portability or variations of those terms). You can request a copy of your personal information by putting in such a request here.
For your protection and the protection of all of our users, we may ask you to provide proof of identity before we can answer the above requests.
Keep in mind, we may reject requests for certain reasons, including if the request is unlawful or if it may infringe on trade secrets or intellectual property or the privacy of another user. If you wish to receive information relating to another user, such as a copy of any messages you received from him or her through our service, the other user will have to contact our Privacy Officer to provide their written consent before the information is released.
Also, we may not be able to accommodate certain requests to object to the processing of personal information, notably where such requests would not allow us to provide our service to you anymore. For instance, we cannot provide our service if we do not have your date of birth.
Uninstall. You can stop all information collection by an app by uninstalling it using the standard uninstall process for your device. If you uninstall the app from your mobile device, the unique identifier associated with your device will continue to be stored. If you reinstall the application on the same mobile device, we will be able to re-associate this identifier to your previous transactions and activities.
10. HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION
Here at JOIN THE DOTS we pride ourselves on taking commercially reasonable security measures to help protect your information against loss, misuse and unauthorized access, or disclosure. We use reasonable security measures to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal information such as secured servers using firewalls.
Unfortunately no website or Internet transmission is ever completely 100% secure and even we cannot guarantee that unauthorised access, hacking, data loss or other breaches will never occur, but here are some handy tips to help keep your data secure:
  • Please make sure you log out of your Account after use as you never know who may stumble onto your Account!
  • Please don't share your social media password with anyone else!
  • Change your social media password periodically.
If you ever think someone has had access to your social media password, please report it to the relevant social media platform and change your password immediately. We cannot guarantee the security of your personal data while it is being transmitted to our site and any transmission is at your own risk.
WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO ANY BREACHES OF SECURITY, DAMAGE TO YOUR DEVICE, OR ANY LOSS OR UNAUTHORIZED USE OF YOUR REGISTRATION INFORMATION OR OTHER DATA.
We keep your personal information only as long as we need it for legitimate business purposes (as laid out in Section 5 and as permitted by applicable law.
11. HOW LONG WE RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION
In practice, we delete or anonymize your information upon deletion of your account, unless:
  • we must keep it to comply with applicable law;
  • we must keep it to evidence our compliance with applicable law;
  • there is an outstanding or potential issue, claim or dispute requiring us to keep the relevant information until it is resolved; or
  • the information is kept for our legitimate business interests, such as fraud prevention and enhancing users' safety and security. For example, information may need to be kept to prevent a user who was banned for unsafe behavior or security incidents from opening a new account.
Keep in mind that even though our systems are designed to carry out data deletion processes according to the above guidelines, we cannot promise that all data will be deleted within a specific time frame due to technical constraints.
12. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY
Our services are restricted to users who are 18 years of age or older. We do not permit users under the age of 18 on our platform and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under the age of 18. If you suspect that a user is under the age of 18, please use the reporting mechanism available through the service.
13. PRIVACY POLICY CHANGES
Because we’re always looking for new and innovative ways to help you build meaningful connections, this policy may change over time. We will notify you before any material changes take effect so that you have time to review the changes.