We believe you should always know what data we collect from you and how we use it, and that you should have meaningful control over both. We want to empower you to make the best decisions about the information that you share with us. That’s the basic purpose of this Privacy Policy.
You should read this policy in full, but here are a few key things we hope you take away from it:
- MOXY is a public service and (unless via Direct Message) Content that Users post is immediately viewable and searchable by other Users unless you block them. We give you non-public ways to communicate on MOXY too, through protected Direct Message (referred to as “Chat” in the Platform).
- When you use MOXY, even if you’re just viewing content others post, we may receive some personal information from you like the type of device you’re using, your home address and your internet protocol (IP) address. You can choose to share additional information with us like your, address book contacts, and a public profile. With your prior permission, we may use this information for things like keeping your account secure and showing you more relevant Content, people to follow, events, and ads.
- We give you control through your settings to limit the data we collect from you and how we use it, and to control things like account security, marketing preferences, and address book contacts you’ve uploaded to MOXY. You can also download the information about you that we have stored on MOXY upon proper verification of identity.
- In addition to information you share with us, we may use the Content you post, stated issues of interest within your profile, Content you’ve read, reacted to, or forwarded, and other information to determine what topics you’re interested in, your age, the languages you speak, and other signals to show you more relevant content. We give you transparency into that information, and you can modify or correct it at any time.
- If you have questions about this policy, how we collect or process your personal data, or anything else related to our privacy practices, we want to hear from you. You can contact us at any time through the MOXY Support contact or Feedback links.
We require certain information to provide our services to you. For example, you must have an account in order to upload or share Content on MOXY. When you choose to share the information below with us, we collect and use it to operate our services.
Basic account information
You create an account to use our Services and you must provide us with some personal data so that we can provide our services to you. This includes (1) your full, legal name as it appears on your official government issued identification, (2) your mobile device phone number (optional), (3) your residential address (optional), which should be the same address you use for registering to vote (if applicable) and which is necessary to determine your elected representatives, voting locations and jurisdictions, (4) your date of birth (to ensure you meet the minimum age requirement to use the platform), (5) a password, and (6) your email address. MOXY will automatically create your username based on your full name plus a four-digit number to ensure it is uniquely your own. You may not remove your first and last name from the username unless you upgrade to either the Premium or Power subscription. You must have only one account and must not attempt to participate in MOXY anonymously except for the Anonymous Comment capability within MOXY Forums. Although you may choose to block specific users and only receive Direct Messages from those who you follow and vice versa.
Profile Information
In addition to the basic information required for your account, we ask you to include the following optional fields in order to fine tune the content we organize for optimal relevance (subject to reduction, augmentation or adjustment): (1) children’s gender and birthdates, (2) political identification [if any], (3) political party membership [if any], (4) home ownership status, (5) range of annual household income, (6) your occupation, (7) education level, (8) your religious affiliation [if any]. You may “skip” providing these fields during the registration process and may choose to add it later or keep it blank. You can control which information is included in your configurable public profile. We may also use your location [city] in order to enhance the relevance of content presented to you or to enable your followers to view it (with your permission only) and in order for advertisers to present you with more relevant offers [if applicable based on your subscription type]. If activated, you may disable location sharing information at any time within the Platform if you choose not to share it at all or only while using the Platform, for example.
Your profile includes two checkmarks next to your username. These checkmarks are displayed in a gray color unless and until your email is verified (first checkmark) and your address is verified (second checkmark) by enabling a match between your device’s then present location and the residential address you entered within your profile (if you’ve provided the address). When the email is verified the first checkmark will be displayed in a green color and when the address is verified it also will be displayed in green color. The green checkmarks help users within MOXY determine the authenticity of your user profile. Only users with both green checkmarks are allowed to post content into MOXY (text, images, videos, forum posts, POV’s, live streams, etc.). We have determined that this practice is very effective in minimizing abusive behavior within the platform and expect that our MOXY users appreciate this practice.
Public information
We do not make your user profile information nor information you post public; it is kept only within the Platform -unless you enable the “Public Profile Link” within Settings/Privacy Settings or unless you share a send posted content to a user outside of MOXY. If we ever decide that any of your information other than in this fashion, will be made outside of the Platform, we will update this terms of service agreement and you will be able to view those adjustments through the MOXY app or website at any time.
Email, Address and Contact Synching
We use your contact information, such as your email address and/or phone number, to authenticate your account and keep it and our services secure, and to help prevent spam, fraud, and abuse. We also use contact information to personalize our services, enable certain account features (for example, for login verification), and to send you information about our Services. When you provide us with your phone number, you agree to receive text messages from Epluribus/MOXY to that number and we will normally only use that number for important and/or urgent messages such as user authentication and high priority notices. Other notifications will be provided through the app and website.
You can permit MOXY to upload and sync your address book on the Platform so that we can help you find and connect with people you know and help others find and connect with you. We may also use this information to better recommend Content to you and others. You will always prompt you for permission prior to uploading your contact information.
Direct Messages to Individuals and Groups
We provide certain features that let you communicate more privately or control who sees your content. For example, you can use Direct Messages and Group Messages (referred to as Chat or Community Chat in the Platform) to have conversations on MOXY that are kept between two individual Users or within a group of Users. When you communicate with others by sending or receiving Direct Messages or Group Messages, we will store and process your communications and information related to them. This may include link scanning for malicious content, link shortening, detection of spam and prohibited images, and review of reported issues. We also use information about whom you have communicated with and when to better understand the use of our services, to protect the safety and integrity of the Platform, and to show more relevant Content. We share the Content of your Direct Messages and Group Messages with the people you’ve sent them to. When you use features like Direct Messages or Group Messages to communicate, remember that recipients have their own copy of your communications on MOXY – even if you delete your copy of those messages from your account – which they may duplicate, store, or re-share.
Payment information
At some time, you may provide us with payment information, including your credit or debit card number, card expiration date, CVV code, and billing address, in order to purchase subscriptions or other offerings provided as part of our services or make contributions to a charity or political campaign. If and when we need payment information, we will employ third party secured processors to help you keep this information confidential and under strict control and limited access – for example, the Apple®, Google® or Stripe® payment systems or that of other third parties who we work with or may work with in the future. We understand this information is sensitive and prefer not to handle such information unless absolutely necessary or practical.
How You Control the Information You Share with Us
Your Privacy and safety settings let you decide:
- Whether you will enable Direct Messages from anyone on the Platform or just your followers
- Whether others can find you based on your email or phone number
- Whether you upload your address book for storage and use
- Whether you want to block or mute other MOXY accounts
Additional Information we Receive about You
We may receive certain information when you use our services or from other websites or mobile applications that may include our Content, and from third parties including advertisers. Like the information you share with us, we use the data below to operate our services.
Location information
We require information about your home address and active use location, which we may get from signals such as your IP address or device settings, to securely and reliably set up and maintain your account, to provide our services to you in a manner that is relevant and secure. Sharing your location is optional but recommended in order to provide you with localized content such as legislation, ballots, elected representatives and news.
Subject to your settings, we may collect, use, and store additional information about your location – such as your current precise position or places where you’ve previously used the MOXY – to operate or personalize our services including with more relevant Content like local trends, stories, ads, and suggestions for people to follow. You may disable certain location features within the Settings/Privacy Settings feature.
Links
In order to operate our services, we may keep track of how you interact with links across our services. This includes links in emails we send you and links in content that appear on other websites or mobile applications. For example, if you click on an external link or ad on our services, that advertiser or website operator might figure out that you came from MOXY, along with other information associated with the ad you clicked such as characteristics of the audience it was intended to reach. They may also collect other personal data from you, such as cookie identifiers or your IP address.
Cookies
A cookie is a small string of characters that is stored on your computer or mobile device. Like many websites, we may use cookies and similar technologies to collect additional website usage data and to operate our services. Cookies are not required for many parts of our services such as searching and looking at public profiles. Although most web browsers automatically accept cookies, many browsers’ settings can be set to decline cookies or alert you when a website is attempting to place a cookie on your computer. Certain services we provide may not function properly if you disable cookies. When your browser or device allows it, we may use both session cookies and persistent cookies to better understand how you interact with our services, to monitor aggregate usage patterns, and to personalize and otherwise operate our services such as by providing account security, personalizing the Content we show you including ads, and remembering your language preferences.
Log Data
We may receive information when you view content on or otherwise interact with our services, which we refer to as “Log Data.” For example, when you visit our app/website, sign into our services, interact with our email notifications, use your account to authenticate to a third-party service, or visit a third-party service that includes MOXY content, we may receive information about you. This Log Data may include information such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, the referring web page, pages visited, location, your mobile carrier, device information (including device and application IDs), search terms, and cookie information. We may also receive Log Data when you click on, view, or interact with links on our services. We use Log Data to operate our services and ensure their secure, reliable, and robust performance. For example, we use Log Data to protect the security of accounts and to determine what content is popular on our services. We also use this data to improve the content we show you, including ads.
We use information you provide to us and data we receive, including Log Data and data from third parties, to make inferences like what topics you may be interested in, and what languages you may speak. This helps us better design our services for you and personalize the content we show you, including ads.
MOXY Site Data
When you view our content on third-party websites or apps that integrate MOXY content such as MOXY message buttons, we may receive Log Data that includes the web page you visited. We use this information to better understand the use of our services, to protect the safety and integrity of our Platform, and to show more relevant content, including ads.
Advertisers and other Ad Partners
Advertising revenue allows us to support and improve our services. We use the information described in this Privacy Policy to help make our advertising more relevant to you, to measure its effectiveness, and to help recognize your devices to serve you ads on and off of MOXY. Our ad partners and affiliates may share information with us such as browser cookie IDs, mobile device IDs, hash encrypted email addresses, demographic or interest data, and content viewed or actions taken on a website or app. Some of our ad partners, particularly our advertisers, may also enable us to collect similar information directly from their website or app by integrating our advertising technology.
MOXY monitors and consults the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (also referred to as “interest-based advertising”) and respects the DAA’s consumer choice tool for you to opt out of interest- based advertising at https://optout.aboutads.info. MOXY Basic features ads integrated by Google® AdMob and all User versions of MOXY feature AdOpt-in™ which is our proprietary framework for opt-in advertising by category which can be enabled and disabled at the Users’ discretion. In addition, our ads policies prohibit advertisers from targeting ads in a manner that is unlawful, such as extending or denying credit based on race, gender, religion, etc.
Other Third Parties and Affiliates
We may receive information about you from third parties who are not our ad partners, such as entities that help us evaluate the safety and quality of content on our platform, and other services you link to your MOXY account.
We may use your profile and usage information for purposes of analytics, research and for improving the relevance of advertising, promotions or other engagement actions. This information may be aggregated into similar groups based on a wide variety of characteristics which when blended together may increase or decrease the relevance of a message or offer from an advertiser or from MOXY product management itself. Among the operational uses of this information would be invitations to respond to Polls or Surveys within MOXY as well as invitations to attend a public forum, Live Stream, Meet Up or other type of event.
Personalizing Across Your Devices
When you log into MOXY on a browser or device, we will associate that browser or device with your account for purposes such as authentication, security and personalization. Subject to your settings, we may also associate your account with browsers or devices other than those you use to log into MOXY (or associate your logged-out device or browser with other browsers or devices). We may do this to operate and personalize our services.
How You Control Additional Information We Receive
Your MOXY profile and data settings may let you decide:
- Whether we may show you interest-based ads
- Which user profile datapoints you wish to allow other MOXY users to view
Information We Share and Disclose
As noted above, MOXY is designed to broadly and instantly disseminate information you share within through our Platform. In the limited circumstances [described in this document] where we may disclose your private personal data, we do so subject to your control, because it’s necessary to operate our services, or because it’s required by law.
Sharing You Control
We may share or disclose your personal data with your consent or at your direction, such as when you authorize a third-party web client or application to access your account or when you direct us to share your feedback with a business.
If you’ve shared information like Direct Messages or protected content with someone else who accesses MOXY through a third-party service, keep in mind that the information may be shared with the third-party service.
Service Providers
We may engage service providers to perform functions and provide services to us in or out of the United States. For example, we may use a variety of third-party services to help operate our services, such as hosting our various content, to develop new functionality or enhance existing functionality and to help us understand the use of our services, such as Google Analytics. We may share your private personal data with such service providers subject to obligations consistent with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures, and on the condition that the third parties use your private personal data only on our behalf and pursuant to our instructions. We may share your payment information with payment services providers to process payments; prevent, detect, and investigate fraud or other prohibited activities; facilitate dispute resolution such as chargebacks or refunds; and for other purposes associated with the acceptance of credit and debit cards.
Law, Harm, and the Public Interest
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Privacy Policy or controls we may otherwise offer to you, we may preserve, use, or disclose your personal data if we believe that it is reasonably necessary to comply with a law, regulation, legal process, or official governmental request; to protect the safety of any person; to protect the safety or integrity of the Platform, including to help prevent spam, abuse, or malicious actors on our services, or to explain why we have removed Content or accounts from our services; to address fraud, security, or technical issues; or to protect our rights or property or the rights or property of those who use our services. However, nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to limit any legal defenses or objections that you may have to a third party’s, including a government’s, request to disclose your personal data.
Affiliates and Change of Ownership
In the event that we are involved in a bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, your personal data may be sold or transferred as part of that transaction. This Privacy Policy would apply to your personal data as transferred to the new entity. If such a transaction were ever to occur, we may then also disclose personal data about you to our corporate affiliates in order to help operate our services and our affiliates’ services, including the delivery of ads.
Non-personal Information
We may share or disclose non-personal data, such as aggregated information like the total number of times people engaged with a certain portion of Content, the number of people who clicked on a particular link or voted on a Survey, the topics that people are posting messages about in a particular location, or reports to advertisers about how many people saw or clicked on their ads.
Managing Your Personal Information with Us
You may control the personal data you share with us. You can access or rectify this data at any time by visiting and editing your User Profile within the Platform. You may also deactivate or delete your account. We provide you with tools and account settings to access, correct, delete, or modify the personal data you provided to us and associated with your account. You can retrieve certain account information, including your posted content, by visiting the User Profile.
Deletion
We keep Log Data for a limited period of time. You may deactivate or delete your account using the instructions and functions provided within the Platform. When deactivated, your MOXY account, including your display name, username, and public profile, will no longer be viewable on MOXY. For up to 30 days after deactivation it is still possible to restore your MOXY account if it was accidentally or wrongfully deactivated. If you choose to delete your account, all the information will be erased immediately, which would require you to create a new account to onboard MOXY if you later choose to do so.
Object, Restrict, or Withdraw Consent
When you are logged into your MOXY account, you can manage your privacy settings and other account features there at any time.
Children and our Services
Our services are available and encouraged for any fulltime U.S. resident 13 years and older. We believe the Epluribus MOXY platform is a valuable educational tool for civic engagement and encourage teenage non-adults to use the platform freely in accordance with our Community Rules. If you are under the age of 13 we do not permit access to this Platform until your 13th birthday – even though Apple and Google may have permitted this app for people of younger ages.
Our Global Operations and Privacy Shield
Although Epluribus MOXY is now available only for U.S. residents, we fully intend to offer this service in other countries according to their local laws and customs in the near future. If you are attempting to use the Platform while traveling outside of the U.S., we may invoke certain procedures to authenticate your use of your account to prevent fraudulent account or data access.
Note: the information provided within MOXY is under license from the organizations listed within the Data Sources section which can be found by tapping the (•••)/Data Sources buttons; MOXY and Epluribus LLC are not affiliated with any governmental organizations.