Privacy Policy – Mergence Systems

Your privacy is critically important to us. At Mergence Systems LLC, we hold several fundamental principles:

We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our Services.
We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on your website is shared publicly or kept private, indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who we are and what this policy covers

Our company is Mergence Systems LLC and our website address is https://mergencesystems.com.

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:

Our websites
Our mobile applications
Our products, services, and features

This Privacy Policy also applies to information we collect when you apply for a job at Mergence Systems LLC or one of our subsidiaries.

Throughout this Privacy Policy, we’ll refer to our websites, mobile applications, and other products and services collectively as “Services.”

Note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to any of our products or services that have a separate privacy policy.

Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

This privacy policy is adapted with permission from the Privacy Policy at Automattic. We appreciate the inspiration from them.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so — for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.

We collect this information from three sources: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.

Information You Provide to Us

We collect information that you provide to us directly. Here are some examples:

Account information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account and create a user/customer profile. For example, we require individuals who sign up to provide an email address, a password, and a name.
Public profile information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your public profile. For example, if you have an account, your username is part of that public profile, along with any other information you put into your public profile, like a photo or an “About Me” description. Please keep that in mind that your public profile is public when deciding what information you would like to include.
Payment and contact information: If you buy something from us, we’ll collect information to process those payments and contact you. If you buy something from us — a plan, a product, or service — you’ll provide additional personal and payment information like your name, credit card information, and contact information. We also keep a record of the purchases you’ve made.
Business Profile: We collect additional information from you as part of creating a user/customer profile. For example, it order to set up your account and power our Services, we may add you to our customer relationship database using your name, your employer, your job title or role, your contact information, your communications with us, your timezone and location information, your company and team information, and your contact information.
Content information: You might provide us with information about you in content (a comment that includes biographic information about you, or any media or files you upload).
Communications with us: You may also provide us with information when you respond to surveys, communicate with support, post a question in our public forums, or sign up for a newsletter. When you communicate with us via form, email, phone, website comment, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications (including any call recordings as permitted by applicable law).
Job applicant information: If you apply for a job with us — awesome! You may provide us with information like your name, contact information, resume or CV, and work authorization verification as part of the application process.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

Log information: Like most online service providers, we may collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, including the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We may collect log information when you use our Services.
Usage information: We may collect information about your usage of our Services. We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, get insights on how people use our Services so we can make our Services better, and understand and make predictions about user retention.
Location information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions. We may also collect information about your precise location via our mobile apps (like when you post a photograph with location information) if you allow us to do so through your mobile device operating system’s permissions.
Stored information: We may access information stored on your mobile device via our mobile apps. We access this stored information based on the permissions you give through your device operating system. For example, if you give us permission to access the photographs on your mobile device’s camera roll, our Services may access the photos stored on your device when you upload a photograph.
Interactions with other users’ sites: We collect some information about your interactions with other users’ sites while you are logged in to your account with us, such as your “Likes” and the fact that you commented on a particular post, so that we can, for example, recommend posts we think may interest you.
Information from cookies & other technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Mergence Systems LLC uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads. Refer to the Cookie Policy section for more details about the cookies that we use.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you create or log in to your account through another service (like Google) or if you connect your website or account to a social media service (like Twitter), we may receive information from that service via the authorization procedures for that service. The information we receive depends on which services you use or authorize and what options are available.

Third-party services may also give us information, like mailing addresses for individuals who are not yet our users. We use this information for marketing purposes like postcards and other mailers advertising our Services.

Cookie Policy

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are, the types of cookies we use, and how we use them.

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when a website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make it more secure, provide a better user experience, understand how the website performs, and analyze possible improvements.

As with most online services, our website uses first-party cookies for necessary website functions. These cookies are essential to provide the full functionality and security of our site. For example, these cookies allow your browser to remember when you have closed a pop-up banner or adjusted a website setting. These cookies cannot be avoided, but do not collect any personally identifiable data. You can remove these cookies by clearing our website data from your web browser (See “Choices” section.)

This website does not currently use any first-party or third-party cookies that collect personally identifiable data, and if that changes then we will update the cookie policy accordingly.

How and Why We Use Information

Purposes for Using Information

We use information about you for the purposes listed below:

To provide our Services. For example, to set up and maintain your account, deliver our Services to you, provide customer service, process payments and orders, and verify user information.
To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by providing upgrades and creating new versions of our Services. Or, for example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can create new features or make our Services easier to use.
To market our Services and measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing. For example, by targeting our marketing messages to groups of our users (like those who have purchased a particular Service from us or have been users for a certain length of time), advertising our Services, analyzing the results of our marketing campaigns (like how many people purchased a Service after receiving a marketing message), and understanding and forecasting user retention.
To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of Mergence Systems LLC and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a transaction or terminating Services.
To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
To customize the user experience. For example, to personalize your experience by serving you relevant notifications and advertisements for our Services, recommending content, and providing new content.
To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, sharing tips to get the most out of our Services, keeping you up to date on Mergence Systems LLC, contacting you to verify your payment, or sharing offers and promotions that we think will be of interest to you. If you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt-out of marketing communications at any time. If you opt-out, we’ll still send you important non-marketing updates relating to your account.
To recruit and hire new employees and contractors. For example, by evaluating job applicants and communicating with them.

Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information

A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:

The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account — for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for Services; or
The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
We have a legitimate interest in using your information — for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience; or
You have given us your consent — for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on.

Sharing Information

How We Share Information

We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy. These are spelled out below:

Subsidiaries and independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries and independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our Services or process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for any personal information that we share with them.
Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us. This includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information, fraud prevention services that allow us to analyze fraudulent payment transactions, cloud storage services, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you, registrars, registries, data escrow services that allow us to provide domain registration services); those that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g., by providing tools for identifying a specific marketing target group or improving our marketing campaigns, and by placing ads to market our services); those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers); those that make tools to help us run our operations (like programs that help us with task management, scheduling, word processing, email and other communications, and collaboration among our teams); and other third-party tools that help us manage operations.
Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena or court order.
To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Mergence Systems LLC, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Mergence Systems LLC goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that are transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties when you authorize us to do so.
Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services, or share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
Published support requests: If you send us a request for assistance (for example, via a support email or one of our other feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to clarify or respond to your request, or to help us support other users.

We have a policy that we do not sell our users’ data. We aren’t a data broker, we don’t sell your personal information to data brokers, and we don’t sell your information to other companies that want to spam you with marketing emails.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is disclosed publicly. That means information like your public profile, posts, other content that you make public are all available to others. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.

How Long We Keep Information

We generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it — described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we’re not legally required to keep it.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

Limit the information that you provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain Services or features may not be accessible.
Limit access to information on your mobile device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the option to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you choose to limit this, you may not be able to use certain Services or features.
Opt-out of marketing communications: You may opt-out of receiving promotional communications from us. Just follow the instructions in those communications or let us know. If you opt-out of promotional communications, we may still send you other communications, like those about your account and legal notices.
Set your browser to reject cookies: Mergence Systems LLC does not respond to “do not track” signals. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Mergence Systems LLC’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of our websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies. You can also clear your cookies after visiting our website.
Close your account: You can close your account if you no longer want to use our Services. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above — for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, tax records, or reasonable needs for our legitimate business interests.

Your Rights

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including California and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

Request access to your personal data;
Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
Request portability of your personal data.

You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) requires us to provide California residents with some additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it.

The CCPA also requires us to provide a list of the “categories” of personal information we collect, as that term is defined in the law. We collect the following categories of personal information from California residents, depending on the Services used:

Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
Commercial information (your billing information and purchase history, for example);
Characteristics protected by law (for example, you might provide your gender as part of a research survey for us);
Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services);
Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address);
Audio, electronic, visual or similar information (such as your profile picture, if you uploaded one);
Professional or employment-related information (for example, your company and team information, or information you provide in a job application); and
Inferences we make (such as the likelihood of retention or attrition).

You can find more information about what we collect and sources of that information in the Information We Collect section above.

We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the How and Why We Use Information section. And we share this information with the categories of third parties described in the Sharing Information section.

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the CCPA, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the right to:

Request to know the categories of personal information we collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, the categories of third parties we share it with, and the specific pieces of information we collect about you;
Request deletion of personal information we collect or maintain;
Opt-out of any sale of personal information; and
Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights under the CCPA.

Contacting Us About These Rights

You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using the account settings and tools that we offer. If you aren’t able to or you’d like to contact us about one of the other rights, refer to the “How to Reach Us” section below.

When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are a user, we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your account. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.

Controllers and Responsible Companies

Mergence Systems LLC is the controller of personal information, which means that it is the company responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using our Services.

Mergence Systems LLC
641 Grooms Road
Suite 110
Clifton Park, NY 12065
United States

How to Reach Us

If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please email us at info@mergencesystems.com. This is the fastest way to get a response to your inquiry, but you can also contact us by telephone at +1 (518) 323-9139.

Other Things You Should Know

Transferring Information

Because Mergence Systems LLCs Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third-party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above.

When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy. You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.

Third-Party Software and Services

If you’d like to use third-party software or services, please keep in mind that interacting with them may mean providing information about yourself to those third parties. For example, some third-party services may request or require access to your data. Note that if you use the third-party service or grant access, your data will be handled in accordance with the third party’s privacy policy and practices. We don’t own or control these third parties, and they have their own rules about information collection, use, and sharing, which you should review before using the software or services.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, Mergence Systems LLC may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. Mergence Systems LLC encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.