The following document outlines the Privacy Policy of the HomeStars website. Before using any of the Homestars services, you are required to read, understand, and agree to these terms. The column on the right provides a short explanation of the terms of use and is not legally binding.
This Privacy Policy covers HomeStars' treatment of personal information that HomeStars gathers when you are on the HomeStars website and when you use HomeStars services. This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties that HomeStars does not own or control, or to individuals that HomeStars does not employ or manage.
Date of last update to this policy: 13th December 2018
At HomeStars Inc. (“HomeStars” and also “our”, “us”, “we”), we are committed to protecting your privacy, and maintain a general policy of openness about how we collect, use and disclose your personal information. HomeStars is an Ontario corporation. This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) constitutes a legal, binding agreement between you (“you”, “your” or “user(s)”), a user of our websites, and HomeStars.
The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to inform you about HomeStars' practices relating to the collection, treatment, disclosure and safeguard of any personally identifiable information that may be provided through access to or use of our website, services and publications, or that may otherwise be collected by us. By using our website or submitting information to our website at www.HomeStars.com (the “Site”).
This Policy applies only to people who wish to enter our Site. If you do not need or do not want to use our Services, please close this web tab and exit the Site. You hereby consent that HomeStars may collect, use and disclose such personal information (as defined below) in accordance with the following terms and conditions, and as permitted or required by law.
Hello there! Welcome to our website. This Privacy Policy is a legal agreement, and it is important for your privacy. You accept this Policy.
More Simply Put:
Take the time to review the Policy.
More Simply Put:
We are legally responsible for your personal data, and we will take good care of it.
For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, and in accordance with applicable privacy laws, "personally identifiable information" is generally defined as personal information about an identifiable individual or person, not a legal entity, or information that allows an individual to be personally identified.
More Simply Put:
We collect your registration and user profile data. Our servers also collect log information used to make the website faster and better. We also collect geographic location data; this allows us to present a more personalized experience.
Children and minors, that is, persons under the age of 18, are not eligible to use the Site unsupervised, and therefore we ask that children do not submit any personal information to us. If you are under the age of 18, you may only use this Site in conjunction with and under the supervision of your parents or legal guardians.
More Simply Put:
Please only use this site if you are an adult.
We use your personal information for the purposes of operating and providing the products and services of HomeStars on or in connection with the Site. More specifically, we generally collect, use and disclose your personal information, but communications on consent for the following purposes:
In addition, from time to time, we may use your personal information for the following purposes:
More Simply Put:
We will communicate about our services and to confirm your preferences. At any time you can opt out of receiving communications but it may disrupt your service.
Except with your consent and as set out below, we will not sell, license, trade or rent your personal information to or with others.
More Simply Put:
We do not sell your information to anyone. We may share information so that we can provide our service, and we may share information where required by law. We may also share information with third-parties that help HomeStars provide services to you
Use of the HomeStars website is voluntary. We will seek express consent for the use or disclosure of your personal information at the time of collection or to communicate with you. In certain rare circumstances, consent may be sought after the information has been collected but before use (for example, when we want to use information for a purpose not previously identified).
You may withdraw consent at any time, subject to legal or contractual restrictions and reasonable notice. If you refuse or withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide you or continue to provide you with certain services or information that may be of value to you.
We will not, as a condition of the supply of a product or service, require you to consent to the collection, use or disclosure of information beyond that required to fulfill the explicitly specified and legitimate purposes for which the information is being provided.
More Simply Put:
By using our website, you agree with this Policy and consent to collection of information. Still, you can always withdraw consent you give to us. We will always tell you what info you consent to giving to us.
We may also use your personal information to promote and market additional goods, services and special offers from us, our affiliates and sponsors, including by means of direct marketing. We may only disclose aggregated statistics with anonymized data, based upon use of the Site by our users. To ensure advertisers understand who our subscribers are and what they are interested in, we will compile your information and create general profiles of our subscribers' demographic information and interests. However, we will never share any of your personally identifiable information with our advertisers.
From time to time, we will ask you for express permission and consent to receive Commercial Electronic Messages (‘CEM’), which we will sometimes send from or to Canadian computers to our users. A CEM is a message in an electronic format (e.g. emails, SMS, social media messages, push notifications and other form of communications) which is then sent to an electronic address (e.g. email, instant message accounts, smartphone, social media profile) that contains a message asking recipients to participate in commercial activities (e.g. purchase of products and services). For purposes of this Policy, and in compliance with the Canada Anti-Spam Law (‘CASL’), express consent shall require our clear and concise description of the purpose of such consent, along with a description of the CEMs you may receive from us.
Express consent for CEMs does not apply for those CEMs that we may send and that are: (i) opened or accessed outside of Canada; (ii) for security, refunds or guarantees of products and services on our Site; (iii) for providing information about purchases and transactions about your account; (iv) account related notifications.
More Simply Put:
We comply with Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation, which applies to residents of Canada.
HomeStars may use proprietary software tools and other third party tools such as Google Analytics and AdSense (which include remarketing code functionalities) to gather information about websites you browse view or when you undertake specific actions in a website.
Finally, if you use the Site through a mobile device, you may also use your device’s settings for control items such as your location sharing, tailored advertising and other privacy settings.
More Simply Put:
Google or your phone collects information about you, but they also try to give you some sense of privacy.
When you visit our Site, we may place a "cookie" in the browser directory of your computer's hard drive. A cookie is a small text file of information that a website can store on your web browser and later retrieve. Some cookies are temporary and others can be valid for several weeks or months, stored on your computers or mobile devices even beyond when you exit your browser. We also use web beacons, tags and other means on our Site. Such beacons are an electronic file, sometimes only a pixel or small image, embedded on websites. We use such kind of cookies for various legitimate business purposes. In addition to the identified uses described in this Policy, we may use information provided by cookies and disclose it to third parties to measure the use of our Site, to improve the functionality and content of the Site and to facilitate usage of the Site. You can reset your browser to notify you when you have received a cookie or refuse to accept a cookie. You can instruct your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent, usually through the settings tab.
More Simply Put:
You may have cookies on your computer. But you can delete them!
HomeStars makes all commercially reasonable efforts to ensure that personal information collected from you is protected against loss and unauthorized access. Your HomeStars account information is protected by a password for your privacy and security. Protect against unauthorized access to your password and to your computer by logging off once you have finished using a shared computer.
This protection applies in relation to information stored in both electronic and hard-copy form. Access to your personal information is restricted to select employees or representatives. In addition, HomeStars employs appropriate information security techniques to protect personal information against loss and unauthorized access. HomeStars educates its employees on the importance of privacy. It is HomeStars’ policy to give access to personal information to persons who require it to carry out the responsibilities of their jobs.
HomeStars educates all its employees on the importance of privacy. It is HomeStars’ policy to give access to personal information only to those employees who require it to carry out the responsibilities of their jobs or to other such third parties with similar designated responsibilities and who are subject to contractual confidentiality restrictions with HomeStars.
We strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information; we cannot guarantee its absolute security. In the event of a breach of personal information under our control, HomeStars shall retain records of any and every such breach for twenty-four months following the day on which we determine that a breach has occurred. In the event that it is reasonable to believe that a breach of personal information creates a real risk of significant harm to an individual, notice shall be given to the effected individual, unless prohibited by law, and a report shall be submitted to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada as soon as feasible. In the event a breach occurs and we believe another organization, government institution, or part of a government institution may be able to reduce the risk of harm that could result or mitigate that harm, HomeStars shall notify that organization, government institution, or a part of the government institution of the breach. HomeStars breach notification and record-keeping framework shall comply with the 2015 amendments to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), and the Breach of Security Safeguards Regulations.
More Simply Put:
Your account is protected by an encrypted password. We keep it secure; you must also keep it safe. Our employees may not access your account unless required to do a specific job.
We take precautions to keep your information safe. We will notify you and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, and keep records of any breach for 2 years.
This website may offer links to unaffiliated third-party websites for your convenience. You should be aware that operators of linked websites may also collect your personal information (including information generated through the use of cookies) when you link to their websites. HomeStars is not responsible for how such third parties collect, use or disclose your personal information, so it is important to familiarize yourself with their privacy policies, which may differ from ours, before providing them with your personal information. HomeStars cannot be held liable for your use of such third-party websites.
More Simply Put:
If you click on third party links, they can collect data from you too, under their rules, not ours.
At HomeStars, we want you to be able to maintain control over how we use your personal information. We continuously try to improve our user experience, and to give you the best choices for providing, editing, removing or instructing us not to use certain personally identifiable information collected by us from you.
More Simply Put:
We are continuously working so that you have more control over your personal information.
HomeStars reserves the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time without notice, and at our sole and final discretion. The Policy posted at any time or from time to time via this Site shall be deemed to be the Policy then in effect, and therefore we strongly suggest that you review frequently for any updates. Your simple access or use of our Services after such amendments or changes become effective is your acknowledging and acceptance of the new Policy.
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Upon your request to us, and after proper review, we may edit, deactivate and/or delete your personal data and other information from our active databases. Please be advised that we may not be able to delete all of your personal data from some of our secure databases and, in such case, we will make the data permanently inaccessible to any third parties. You may also be able to edit the personal information we store about you, by going to your account settings in the Site.
More Simply Put:
You can request to delete your account. However, until your account is deleted, you may receive system emails.
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you can reach us at the following address:
HomeStars Inc.
49 Spadina Avenue Unit 501, Toronto, Ontario
M5V 2J1
Tel: 1-877-488-0312