StartOut Privacy Policy

• This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) explains how information about that directly identifies you (“personal information”) is collected, used and disclosed by StartOut (“StartOut,” “we” or “us”) in connection with our website at www.startout.org (the “Site”). The Policy also may describe some of our practices for information that we collect or obtain that does not directly identify you. While this information is not personal information under this Policy, we may choose to treat as personal information in our sole discretion. By visiting, registering for an account at, or providing information through the Site, you signify that you have read, understood and agree to the collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described in this Policy.
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1. Information We Collect, and How We Collect It

We collect information and personal information in connection with your visits to and use of the Site. This collection includes information that you provide in connection with the Site, information from third parties, and information that is collected automatically such as through the use of cookies and other technologies.

Information That You Provide

We collect information and personal information from you. The categories of information we collect can include:

• Registration information. We collect information that you provide when you register or sign up for an account on the Site, or sign up to receive communications or information from us. This information may include your name, e-mail address, address, ZIP code, phone number, password, and other information you provide at registration.
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• Profile information. If you create a profile on the Site, we collect information that you provide on your profile, such as the registration information noted above, and your age, profession, employer and employer information, industry, sexual orientation or gender identity, social media handles and accounts, interests, photograph, and other information you choose to provide.
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• Mentorship information. If you want to participate in our mentorship services, we may collect information about your interests and objectives for mentorship, desired mentor/mentee characteristics, and/or your mentor/mentee’s name, e-mail address, phone number, ZIP code, and other information that you choose to provide.
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• Payment and donation information. If you make a payment or donation on the Site, we collect information provided in connection with your payment, such as your name, billing address, and payment card information.
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• Investment information. If you use the Site to seek investors or to look for companies to invest in, we may collect information about your company (e.g., funding level, company stage, business strategy, desired investments, business proposals, logos, photos, videos, etc.), interests and preferences for investments, status as an accredited investor, external profile information (e.g., Angel List), and other information that you choose to provide.
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• Event registration and feedback. If you use the Site to register to attend an event or to provide feedback on an event you attended, we may collect your name, phone number, email address, and any feedback that you provide about the event.
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• Inquiries and Feedback. If you contact us, we will collect the information that you provide us, such as your contact information and the contents of your communication with us.
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1. Information from Third Parties

We also collect and receive information about you from third parties, including the following:

• Information we receive from social networking sites. When you interact with the Site via through social media websites and services, such as when you login using social media credentials or choose to link your social media account with the Site, we may receive information from those websites and services. The information we receive may include your profile information, and any other information you permit the social media website or service to share with us or third parties generally. The data we receive may depend upon your privacy settings with the social media website or service, though we do not control those settings or promise they will be effective. You should always review and customize your privacy settings with social media websites and services before linking or connecting them to our Site.
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• Information we receive from third parties. We may receive information about you from third parties, such as event sponsors/organizers, and other companies that you do business with. We may also collect information about you from public records or that is otherwise publicly available.
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Information That Is Automatically Collected (Cookies and Other Technologies)

We also automatically collect information about you and any computer or device you use to access the Site or to read emails that we send to you. Some of the information we collect, and ways we collect it, include:

• When you visit the Site, we may send one or more cookies — small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters — to your computer or device that allows us to uniquely identify your browser, computer, or device. A cookie may also convey other information to us, such as Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, unique device identifiers, your browser settings and specifications, and information about how you use the Site (e.g., the pages you view, the links you click, how frequently you access the Service, and other actions you take on the Service). Cookies also allow us to track your usage of the Site over time.
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• Log Files. We may record log file information each time you access the Site. This information may include information such as your web request, IP address, browser type, unique device identifiers, information about your device, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks and how you interact with links on the Site, domain names, landing pages, pages viewed, and other such information.
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• Clear Gifs. We may employ clear gifs (also known as web beacons or pixel tags) on the Site or in emails that we send to you, which may collect information about you, your computer or device such as your web request, IP address, unique device identifiers, browser type, information about your device, pages viewed, information about cookies, all of which can show your Site usage patterns and details about your viewing of emails from us.
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• Mobile Device Information. When you access the Site with a mobile device, we may collect and store a unique identifier associated with your device (including, for example, a UDID, Unique ID for Advertisers (“IDFA”), Google Ad ID, or Windows Advertising ID), mobile carrier, device type, model and manufacturer, and mobile device operating system brand and model.
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2. Information Third Parties Collect

When you visit or use the Site, third parties may obtain information about you or your computer or device. These third parties may include:

• Service Providers. We may use service providers to help us with the Site or any other lawful activity may do, including the other activities we describe under this Policy. This means service providers may collect, process, and store any of the information that we may collect under the Policy, and information collected in connection with the Site may be collected directly by our service providers. For example, we may use service providers to help us process payments or donations, such as PayPal; for information about PayPal’s privacy practices, please review https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full. We also use Discourse to host message boards and forums on the Site; for information about Discourse’s privacy practices, please review http://www.discourse.org/hosted-forum-privacy-policy/. We also may use service providers to provide other aspects of the Site.
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• Third Party Tracking and Online Advertising. We may permit third party ad networks, social media companies, analytics service providers, and other third party services to collect information about you, your computer or device when you visit or use the Site. This information may be collected automatically, including through cookies, social media plug-ins, and other technologies. The information collected, and manner in which it is collected, may include the information and methods described in the “Information We Collect, and How We Collect It” Section above, under the “Information That Is Automatically Collected (Cookies and Other Technologies)” heading. These third parties may collect information about your use of the Site over time, and they may combine it with other information that they possess or obtain about you, such as about your use of other websites and services. These third parties may use this information for our or for third party purposes, including commercial purposes such as tailoring advertising to you on the Site or in other locations like third party websites and services. For information about choices that you may have about this information collection and use, see the “Your Choices” Section below.
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3. How We Use Information

We collect, use, process, combine, retain and store personal information that we collect or receive for a variety of purposes, including the following:

• – For our activities, including to operate the Site, maintain your account and profile, and provide you and other Site users with Site services or functionality;
• – To provide a directory of our members and Site users;
• – To distribute information on potential investors or investment opportunities;
• – To enable Site users to communicate, including through messages, message boards, forums, chat functionality, and other communications features;
• – To administer mentorship services and programs, including to connect potential mentors and mentees;
• – To process your payment or donation;
• – To communicate with you and respond to your requests, and contact you about changes to the Site or about our services, programs, and activities;
• – To send you newsletters and information about our activities and events and other promotional content. From time to time, we may send you information about third party events and activities you may be interested in. You can opt-out of our newsletters and promotional email communications at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” button in the email footer.
• – For analytics and research purposes;
• – To enforce this Policy or the Terms of Use, to resolve disputes, and otherwise to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights, and to protect our business interests and the interests and rights of third parties;
• – To comply with contractual and legal obligations and requirements;
• – To fulfill any other purpose for which you provide personal information; and
• – For any other lawful purpose, or other purpose that you consent to.
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4. Sharing of Information

We also transmit, disclose, grant access to, make available, and provide personal information to third parties, including:

• To service providers, subcontractors, partners, vendors, consultants, and others that help us with any of the purposes noted above or otherwise in this Policy;
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• – To other organizations and entities that we work with to provide programs and services that may be of interest to our members and Site users;
• – To third parties with whom we partner to provide contests or sponsor conferences or events in which you participate, which will usually be identified by name in the event registration or Official Rules of the contest or sweepstakes;
• – To third parties to respond or comply with, in our sole discretion, a court order, subpoena, law enforcement or other government request (with or without notice to you, in our discretion);
• – To buyers, successors, or others in connection with a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution or other sale or transfer of some or all of our assets, whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or similar proceeding, in which personal information held by us may be among the assets transferred;
• – To other third parties with your consent or upon your consent; and
• – To third parties, in our discretion, to: (i) satisfy any applicable law or regulation, (ii) enforce this Policy or our Terms of Use, including the investigation of potential violations thereof, (iii) investigate and defend ourselves against any third party claims or allegations, or (iv) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of us, the Site, other Site users, or third parties.
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5. Information Access and Correction

If you have registered for an account on the Site, we may provide you with the ability to access, review and change certain personal information. For example, we may create a self-service portal for you to update profile information that you provide.

Not all personal information is maintained in a format that you can access or change. If you would like to request access to, or correction or deletion of personal information that you are not able to access, review, or change using the options described above, you may send your request to us at membership@startout.org. We will review your request, and may require you to provide additional information to identify yourself, but we do not promise that we will be able to satisfy your request. For example, the personal information may already have been relied or acted upon, or disclosed to other Site users or third parties, and we generally do not take steps (or have the ability to take steps) to undo prior reliance or actions. We also may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement, cause the information to be incorrect, or if doing so would be burdensome in our discretion.

6. Your Choices

We strive to give you choices about how your personal information is used. These choices include the following:

• Account Settings. We may offer profile settings that allow you to customize which information about you will be shared with other members and Site users in our directory. You should review these settings to help determine what information will be shared with others.
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• Marketing E-Mails. We may send you marketing e-mails from time to time. If you do not wish to receive them, you can opt-out following the unsubscribe instructions in the e-mails, or by contacting us at remove@startout.org.  We will work to honor your request within 10 business days. If you opt-out, we will still send you e-mails for service purposes, such as for communications about your account or membership, and responses to your inquiries and requests.
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• Online Advertising. As described above in this Policy, we collect and may permit third parties to collect information using cookies and other technologies. You may be able to “opt out” of some of this information collection by actively managing the settings on your browser or mobile device, but we do not promise that such settings will be effective. Please refer to your browser’s or mobile device’s technical information for information on the settings offered for cookies or other tracking technologies. To learn more about cookies, you may wish to visit https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0042-cookies-leaving-trail-web and/or the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Choice Opt-Out pages at http://www.aboutads.info/choices and http://www.aboutads.info/choices-mobile (for mobile devices).

7. Do Not Track Preferences

While we want to honor your privacy as described in this Policy, unfortunately the Site does not monitor for or behave differently if your computer or browser transmits a “do not track” or similar message to us or the Site.

8. Data Protection

We take what we believe to be commercially reasonable steps to help protect personal information that we collect, but we do not guarantee that personal information will be completely protected. For example, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Any transmission of personal information by you is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures contained on the Site, including the illegal acts of third parties (such as criminal hacking).

The safety and security of your information also depends on you. For example, you are responsible for keeping your account or Site access credentials confidential. Do not give your credentials to anyone else. If you enter a section of the Site that requires a password, you should log out when you leave. If you believe that any account credentials for the Site have been compromised, please contact us immediately at membership@startout.com.

9. Data Retention

We tend to keep personal information for as long as we deem necessary for our organizational purposes, or as otherwise required to operate the Site, comply with your requests, or comply with applicable law.

10. Information From Children

The Site is not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you are a parent or guardian of a child under the age of 13, and believe that your child may have provided us with personal information, please contact us at membership@startout.com, and we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete that information.

11. Third Party Websites

The Site may provide links to third party websites and online services. This Policy does not describe the privacy practices of those websites or services. Please review the privacy policies of those websites or services before providing personal information to them.

12. Transfer and Processing of Personal Information

Personal information may be transferred, stored, and processed in countries other than the country in which you reside. For example, information may be transferred, processed, and stored in the United States. Laws regarding the privacy and protection of personal information may vary in the locations where the personal information is transferred, stored, and processed. By using the Site and providing personal information in connection with the Site, you agree to the international transfer, storage, and processing of the personal information you provide.

13. StartOut Events & Photography/Video Filming

By taking part in a StartOut event you grant StartOut and its affiliated StartOut Chapters and StartOut Rising Program full rights to use the images resulting from the photography/video filming, and any reproductions or adaptations of the images for fundraising, publicity or other purposes to help achieve the group’s aims. This might include (but is not limited to), the right to use them in their printed and online publicity, social media, press releases and funding applications.

14. Updates To This Policy

We may amend this Policy from time to time. When we do so, we will update the “Last Revision Date” at the end of the Policy. Your continued use of the Site after an updated Policy is posted constitutes your consent to the revised Policy.

15. Contacting Us

If have questions about this Policy or our privacy practices, please contact us at info@startout.org.

16. Last Revision Date

This Policy was last revised on April 30, 2019.