Privacy Policy

At Local Guru, we value your privacy rights. We believe committed to being transparent about our privacy practices, including how we treat your personal information. We provide you with the opportunity to choose how Local Guru uses certain information. This policy explains our privacy practices for localguru.com (which we'll refer to as the "Site"). We'll refer to the Site, and our other services as the "Services." This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (including other members who sell using the Services or API users) who may also collect or receive data in connection with your use of the Services.

1. Accepting the Privacy Policy
2. Information Collected or Received
3. Use of Cookies
4. Choice & Control
5. Findability
6. Messages from Local Guru
7. Security
8. Retention
9. Your Rights
10. Your Responsibilities
11. Withdrawing Consent
12. Privacy Policy Changes
13. Contact

1. Accepting the Privacy Policy

In order to provide you with services and run our business we need to process your personal information. By accepting our Terms of Use, you are confirming that you have read and understand this policy, including how and why we use your information. If you are uncomfortable with Local Guru collecting or processing your personal information in the ways described in this policy, you shouldn't use the Services. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies or practices of any of our members, third-party websites, or third-party apps.

All account owners must be at least 18 years of age. Minors under 18 years of age and at least 13 years of age are permitted to use Local Guru Services only if they have the appropriate permission and direct supervision by the owner of the account. Children under age 13 are not permitted to use Local Guru or the Services. You are responsible for any and all account activity conducted by a minor on your account.

By using the Services, you acknowledge that Local Guru will use your information in the United States, and any other country where Local Guru may operate. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside. We will transfer personal information only to those countries to which we are permitted by law to transfer personal information, and we will take steps to ensure that your personal information continues to enjoy appropriate protections.

2. Information Collected or Received

In the course of providing our Services, we collect or receive your personal information in a few different ways. Often, you choose what information to provide, but some information is required for you to use and for us to provide you the Services.

Registration, Account Setup, Service Usage: In order to use the Services, you need to provide us with a valid email address, a name associated with your account that you can choose to represent your identity on Local Guru. You need to provide this information to enable us to provide you with the Services. Depending on which services you choose to use, additional information, such as billing and payment information (including billing contact name, address, telephone number, credit card information), a telephone number, and/or a physical postal address, may be necessary in order for us to provide a particular service. You are not required to provide us with this information to sign up, but we will need it to provide certain services. As a Local Guru seller, Local Guru may require information such as your full name, social security number, identification ID or tax ID, date of birth, bank account information, credit card information, and/or other proof of identification in order to verify your identity, provide this service to you, and comply with applicable law. Local Guru may contact individual sellers confidentially to request more information about their shops or items listed through the Services, or to ensure compliance with our rules and applicable law. In order to use certain products or services on Local Guru, you may be required to complete an application; information that you submit through the application processes will not be displayed publicly and will only be used internally by Local Guru, unless otherwise specified.

Profile: You may provide your name and other personal information (such as birthday, gender, location) in connection with your account and activity.

The name associated with your account is publicly displayed and connected to your Local Guru activity. Other people may see the date you joined; ratings, and reviews for items you sold; your profile information; items you listed for sale.

Automated Information: Local Guru automatically receives and records information from your browser or your mobile device when you visit the Site or use the Apps or use certain other Services, such as your IP address or unique device identifier, cookies, and data about which pages you visit in order to allow us to operate and provide the Services. This information is collected automatically and stored in log files. This information may be combined with information from your browser or your mobile device with other information that we or our partners collect about you, including across devices. We use this information to prevent fraud and to keep our services secure. We also use it to analyze and understand how our services work for members and visitors, and provide advertising and a more personalized experience for members and visitors.

We may also automatically collect device-specific information when you access, or use our Services. This information may include information such as the hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage and debugging information, browser information, IP address, and device identifiers.

Location Information: We may collect information about your use of the Services for advertising, for analytics, to serve content, and to protect our services. This may include your IP address, browser information (including referrers), and device information. You may choose to publish your location when you sell on Local Guru.

We may obtain location information you provide in your profile or your IP address. With your consent, we may also determine location by using other information from your device. We may use and store information about your location to provide features and to improve and customize the Services. Certain non-precise location services, such as for security and localized policies based on your IP address or submitted address, are critical for the site to function. We will only share your geolocation details with third parties (like our mapping, payments, or, to the extent applicable, advertising providers) in order to provide you with the Services.

Analytics Information: We use data analytics to ensure site functionality and improve our services for our users. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information that you submit.

Non-Member Information: Local Guru may receive or obtain information (for example, an email address or IP address) about a person who is not yet a registered Local Guru member (a “non-member”) in connection with certain Local Guru features, a member invites a non-member to visit the Site, a non-member engages in a transaction, or a non-member uses the Guest Checkout feature when making a purchase through our services. Non-member information is used only for the purposes disclosed when it was submitted to Local Guru or to facilitate action authorized by the non-member.

3. Use of Cookies

Like most websites, Local Guru uses cookies. Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on your computer. They are designed to record your browsing history, log in information, and your web surfing history. Personal information is not collected by cookies, however, if you previously provided personal information then cookies may be linked to this information.

In some cases, we use third-party advertising companies to show you ads when you visit our website. These companies may use your stored cookies to provide you advertisements about goods and services that are of an interest to you.

You can disable the use of cookies by changing the setting in your web browser.

4. Choice & Control

Local Guru understands that our members value having control over their own information, so we give you the choice of providing, editing, or removing certain information, as well as choices about how we contact you. You may change or correct your Local Guru account information through your account settings. You may also remove certain optional information that you no longer wish to be publicly visible through the Services, such as your name. You can also request the deletion of the personal information in your account. We use non-technically necessary and similar technologies.

You may also control the receipt of certain types of communications from Local Guru in your account settings. Local Guru may send you messages about the Services or your activity. Some of these messages are required, service-related messages for members (such as transactional messages or legal notices). Other messages are not required, such as newsletters. You can control which optional messages you choose to receive by changing your account settings, and you can learn more in the “Messages from Local Guru” section of this policy.

We partner with third parties to manage our advertising on other sites. Our third-party partners may use cookies or similar technologies in order to provide you with advertising based upon your browsing activities and interests. If you have chosen to connect your account to an external third-party application, such as Facebook, or an app developed using the API, you can change your settings and remove permission for the app by changing your account settings.

If you no longer wish to use our services or receive service-related messages (except for legally required notices), then you may close your account.

5. Messages from Local Guru

From time to time we may need to contact you. Primarily, these messages are delivered by email for a variety of reasons, including marketing, transactions, and service update purposes. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications via email in your account settings or by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing email you receive. To ensure you properly receive notifications, we will need to collect certain information about your device, such as operating system and user identification information. Every account is required to keep a valid email address on file to receive messages. Local Guru may also contact you by telephone to provide member support or for transaction-related purposes if you request that we call you. Additionally, and with your consent, Local Guru may send you an SMS (or similar) message in order to provide you with customer support or to provide you with information about products and features that you may find of interest. You may update your contact preferences in your account settings.

Some messages from Local Guru are service-related and necessary for members and Guest Checkout users. You agree that Local Guru can send you non-marketing emails or messages, such as those related to transactions, your account, security, or product changes. Examples of service-related messages include an email address confirmation/welcome email when you register your account, notification of an order, service availability, modification of key features or functions, relaying Conversations with buyers, and correspondence with Local Guru's Support team.

When you register for an account or provide us with your email address or phone number such as for a Guest Checkout purchase, you receive notice of and agree (in some jurisdictions and situations, by an additional unambiguous consent) to receive marketing emails and messages from us. You can unsubscribe at any time from marketing emails through the opt-out link included in marketing emails or messages. Please note that some changes to your account settings may take a few days to take effect.

6. Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure

When you access or use our service, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information as described in this policy. We rely on a number of legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include where:

• Necessary to perform the contractual obligations in our Terms of Use and in order to provide the Services to you;
• You have consented to the processing, which you can revoke at any time;
• Necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims;
• Necessary for the purposes of our or a third party's legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners;
• You have expressly made the information public;
• Necessary in the public interest; and
• Occasionally necessary to protect your vital interests or those of others.
• Note that we principally rely on consent (i) to send marketing messages, (ii) for third-party data sharing related to advertising, and, to the extent applicable, (iii) for the use of location data for advertising purposes.

We rely on consent for targeted online and offline marketing including through tools like Facebook Custom Audience and Google Customer Match. We or our sellers may advertise our services or our sellers' products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site. As part of this, we may work with advertising partners such as Facebook, Google, and other partners.

Where we process your information on the basis of legitimate interests, we do so as follows:

• Providing and Improving our Services: Local guru may use or share your information to improve and customize our services and user experience. Using and sharing your information in a responsible manner is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests of improving our services for our users. This is also necessary to enable us to pursue our legitimate interests in understanding how our services are being used, and to explore and unlock ways to develop and grow our business. It allows us to pursue our legitimate interests in improving our services, efficiency, interest in services for users, and obtaining insights into usage patterns of our services.

• Keeping our Services Safe and Secure:Local Guru may use or share your information for safety and security purposes. Using and sharing your information in a responsible manner is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in ensuring the safety of our services. This includes enhancing protection of our community against spam, harassment, intellectual property infringement, crime, and security risks of all kind. We respect your privacy. Local Guru will not disclose your name, email address, or other personal information to third parties without your consent, except as specified in this policy.

We use your information to provide and improve our services for billing and payments, for identification and authentication, and for general research and aggregate reporting. We may learn the sorts of products that you're interested in from your browsing and purchasing behavior on (and off) the Site and suggest potential purchases as a result. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases, including using this information to help sellers find the best ways to market and sell their products on Local Guru. You may control your privacy settings through the opt-out buttons in your account settings privacy tab. Please note that some changes to your privacy settings may take a few days to take effect. We or our sellers may advertise our Services or our sellers' products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site. As part of this, we may work with advertising partners such as Facebook or Google, and we may use analytics aggregated from usage information including, for example, search keywords, favorites, browsing history, and purchase history. In addition to consent as noted above, we also rely on our legitimate interest to send you marketing messages and for Local Guru's advertising programs.

• Buying and Selling: Local Guru will facilitate the sharing of information between the two members involved in a buying and selling transaction. This may also involve us sharing your information with some of our third party partners such as our shipping and payment partners to enable us to provide the service to you. By making a sale or a purchase on Local Guru, you are directing us to share your information in this way. Since this is an important part of the Services we provide, we need to do this in order to perform our obligations under our Terms of Use. We expect you to respect the privacy of the member whose information you have received. As described in Local Guru's Terms of Use, you have a limited license to use that information only for Local Guru-facilitated transactions. Local Guru has not granted a license to you to use the information for unauthorized transactions or sending unsolicited commercial messages in violation of any applicable laws, including any consent requirements of the jurisdiction of the recipient. You may only add a member to your email or physical mailing list or otherwise use or store a member's personal information in accordance with applicable laws, including any consent requirements that apply in that member's jurisdiction.

• Legal and Safety: Local Guru may also retain, preserve, or release your personal information to a third party in the following limited circumstances: in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet legitimate national security or law enforcement requirements; to protect, establish, or exercise our legal rights or defend against legal claims, including to collect a debt; to comply with a subpoena, court order, legal process, or other legal requirement; or when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, threats to our property, or violations of Local Guru's Terms of Use. Local Guru's use of your information may be necessary for the purposes of our or a third party's legitimate interest in keeping our Services secure, preventing harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage. Such use may also be necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims. It may also be necessary in the public interest (such as to prevent crime) or to protect vital interests (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

If Local Guru receives a lawful, verified request for a member's records or information in one of the limited circumstances described in the previous paragraph, Local Guru may disclose personal information, which may include, but may not be limited to, a member's name, address, phone number, email address, and company name. Find out more about how Local Guru responds to requests for records or information about members of Local Guru's community in our Requests for Information Policy.

• Affiliated Businesses: Local Guru is affiliated with a variety of businesses and works closely with them for a variety of purposes, including assisting us to perform and improve the Services. These businesses may sell items or services to you through the Services or, with your consent, offer promotions (including email promotions) to you. Local Guru may also provide services or sell products jointly with affiliated businesses, including providing information to such partners to allow them to more effectively market to you. When an affiliated business assists in facilitating your transaction, we may need to share information related to the transaction with that affiliated business in order to facilitate your transaction, and this forms part of the Services we provide in accordance with our Terms of Use. We rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at any time) to send marketing messages and for third-party sharing relating to advertising.

• Aggregated Information: Local Guru may share demographic information with business partners, but it will be aggregated and de-personalized so that personal information is not revealed.

• Service Providers: Local Guru also needs to engage third-party companies and individuals (such as payment processors, research companies, and analytics and security providers) to help us operate, provide, and market the Services. These third parties have only limited access to your information, may use your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are obligated to Local Guru not to disclose or use your information for other purposes. Our engagement of service providers is often necessary for us to provide the Services to you, particularly where such companies play important roles like processing payments and shipments and helping us keep our Service operating and secure. In some other cases, these service providers aren't strictly necessary for us to provide the Services, but help us make it better, like by helping us conduct research into how we could better serve our users. In these latter cases, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to make our Services better.

• Business Reorganization: In some cases, Local Guru may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interests, particularly our interest in making decisions that enable our business to develop over the long term. In these types of transactions (such as a sale, merger, liquidation, receivership, or transfer of all or substantially all of Local Guru's assets), member information is typically one of the business assets that will be transferred. If Local Guru intends to transfer information about you, we will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Site, and you will be afforded an opportunity to opt out before information about you becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

• Third Parties: Third-party plug-ins also may collect information about your use of the Site. For example, when you load a page on Local Guru that has a social plug-in from a third-party site or service, such as a “Like” or “Send” button, you are also loading content from that third-party site. That site may request cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the third-party site. In addition, certain cookies and other similar technologies on the Site are used by third parties for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer each time you use the Services. Please be aware that when you use third-party sites or services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those sites or services. Local Guru chooses and manages these third-party technologies placed on its Sites and Apps. However, these are third-party technologies, and they are subject to that third party's privacy policy. We rely on your consent to drop and read non-technically necessary cookies.

We can speak only for ourselves; this policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (such as other members who sell using the Services, certain third-party providers on whom we rely to provide certain services, or API users) that Local Guru does not own or control or individuals that Local Guru does not employ or manage. If you provide your information to such third parties in connection with your use of the Services, different practices may apply to the use or disclosure of the information that you provide to them. While Local Guru requires these third parties to follow Local Guru's privacy and security requirements, Local Guru does not control the privacy or security policies of such third parties. To the full extent applicable in your jurisdiction, Local Guru is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of these sellers, API users, or other websites on the internet, even those linked to or from the Services. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and ask questions of third parties before you disclose your personal information to them. For the purposes of European law, these sellers, third party providers, and API users are independent controllers of data, which means that they are responsible for providing and complying with their own policies relating to any personal information they obtain in connection with the Services.

7. Necessary for the Performance of the Contract between Local Guru and its Members

Local Guru provides a voluntary service; you can choose whether or not you want to use the Services. However, if you want to use the Services, you must agree to our Terms of Use, which set out the contract between Local Guru and its members. Simply put, we can't provide you with the Services and perform our contract with you without sharing your personal information with our partners.

8. Security

We take the security of your personal information very seriously. We follow generally accepted standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and after it is received. Your account information is protected by a password. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your account and information by choosing your password carefully and by keeping your password and computer secure. Take precautions such as signing out after using our services, changing your password periodically and keep your password private. If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at legal@LocalGuru.com.

Local Guru follows generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and after it is received. Unfortunately, no method of transmission over the Internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

9. Retention

Local Guru will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, for as long as your account is active (i.e., for the lifetime of your Local Guru member account), as described in this policy, or as needed to provide the Services to you. If you no longer want Local Guru to use your information to provide the Services to you, you may close your account. Local Guru will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your information to comply with applicable tax/revenue laws), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this policy. In addition, Local Guru sellers may also be required to retain and use your information in order to comply with their own legal obligations. Please note that closing your account may not free up your email address, username, or shop name (if any) for reuse on a new account. We also retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period of time, except in cases where they are used for site safety and security, to improve site functionality, or we are legally obligated to retain them for longer time periods. Local Guru does not retain any of your financial information.

10. Your Rights

You may benefit from a number of rights in relation to your information that we process. Some rights apply only in certain limited cases, depending on your location. If you would like to manage, change, limit, or delete your personal information, you can do so via your Local Guru account settings or by contacting us. Upon request, Local Guru will provide you with information about whether we hold any of your personal information. By visiting your account settings, you can access, correct, change, and delete certain personal information associated with your account. In certain cases where we process your information, you may also have a right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your personal information. In certain circumstances, you also have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, and to obtain a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format. Please ensure you've read the options you have under the "Choice & Control" section above. If you need further assistance, you can contact Local Guru through one of the channels listed below under “Contact.” We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

If we process your information based on our legitimate interests as explained above, or in the public interest, you can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. Where we use your personal data for direct marketing purposes, you can always object using the unsubscribe link in such communications or changing your account settings. Please note that some changes to your account settings may take a few days to take effect.

11. Your Responsibilities

If you sell using our Services or use Local Guru's API, you may receive and determine what to do with certain personal information, such as when communicating with users and entering into transactions with buyers. This means you process personal information (for example, buyer name, email address, and shipping address).

You are responsible for protecting user personal information you receive or process and complying with all relevant legal requirements when you use the Services. This includes applicable data protection and privacy laws that govern the ways in which you can use a user's information. Such laws may require that you post, and comply with, your own privacy policy, which must be accessible to Local Guru users you interact with and compatible with this policy and Local Guru's Terms of Use.

As a data controller, to the extent that you process user personal information outside of the Services, you may be required under applicable data protection and privacy laws to honor requests received from such users for data access, portability, correction, deletion, and objections to processing. Also, if you disclose personal information without the buyer's proper consent, you are responsible for that unauthorized disclosure. This includes, for example, disclosures you make or unintentional data breaches. For example, you may receive a buyer's email address or other information as a result of entering into a transaction with that buyer. This information may only be used for Local Guru-related communications or for Local Guru-facilitated transactions. You may not use this information for unsolicited commercial messages or unauthorized transactions. Without the buyer's consent, and subject to other applicable Local Guru policies and laws, you may not add any Local Guru member to your email or physical mailing list, use that buyer's identity for marketing, or obtain or retain any payment information. Please bear in mind that you're responsible for knowing the standard of consent required in any given instance.

If Local Guru and you are found to be joint data controllers of personal information, and if Local Guru is sued, fined, or otherwise incurs expenses because of something that you did in your capacity as a joint data controller of buyer personal information, you agree to indemnify Local Guru for the expenses it occurs in connection with your processing of buyer personal information.

12. Withdrawing Consent

You can choose to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information and your use of the Services at any time by permanently closing and deleting your account through the Privacy tab of your account settings. If your account does not have any open issues such as unpaid bills, unfulfilled orders, unresolved cases, or policy violations, you will receive an email with instructions to confirm your deletion request. This process may take up to approximately two weeks after which your account will be deleted to the extent permitted. Depending on which of our Services you've used (such as whether you've made purchases or sales on Local Guru), we may be required to retain certain information for legal, regulatory, tax, security, or compliance reasons for a limited period of time, after which it will be deleted. This deletion is permanent, and your account cannot be reinstated.

13. Privacy Policy Changes

We may amend or update this policy from time to time. If we believe that the changes are material, we'll let you know by doing one (or more) of the following: (i) posting the changes on or through the Services, (ii) sending you an email or message about the changes, or (iii) posting an update in the version notes on the Apps' platform. We encourage you to check back regularly and review any updates.

14. Contact

If you have any questions:

Contact Local Guru's Support team at help@localguru.com

Send an email to Local Guru's Data Protection Officer at dpo@LocalGuru.com

Write to us at following address:

Local Guru, LLC

Insert Address