Last Revision Date: February 28, 2023
ConsumerInfo.com, Inc. and its subsidiaries (collectively, “we,” “us,” or “our”) respects individual privacy and values the confidence of our subscribers and consumers. We want you to be familiar with what information we collect about you, how the information is used, and what choices you have regarding the collection and use of your information. The privacy principles that we follow concerning the collection, use, disclosure, and protection of information when providing our products and services are consistent with relevant U.S. federal and state laws.
This Privacy Policy (the “Policy”) applies to and describes our privacy practices and principles in connection with our subscribers and consumers who access our website or mobile applications. The Policy covers information that we automatically collect directly from you when you interact with our websites and mobile applications, and from third party sources.
By using our websites, mobile applications, and/or our products and services, you signify your acknowledgement of this document and consent to the privacy practices described in this Policy. You also agree to obtain annual notices and changes to this Policy electronically by visiting our website.
Personal Information We Collect
Personal information is information that identifies you as an individual. The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with us, and the products or services you subscribe to. We collect personal information directly from you through our websites, Application Program Interfaces (“APIs”), mobile applications, and when you contact our customer service. We also collect personal information from third party sources.
If you subscribe to our products or services, seek insurance quotes, apply for insurance, or seek bill negotiation services, we collect the following information from you:
- Your contact and identity information such as name, date of birth, postal address, e-mail address, phone number, driver’s license number, vehicle information, Social Security number, job title, company name, employer, social media handle, and gender
- Information you provide for identity verification and/or to use features in our products or services. This may include your login, authentication, automobile, insurance underwriting, identification, biometrical, income, financial detail, financial account information, and consumer utility service provider information, such as, from cable, cell phone, internet, landline phone, satellite television and radio, home security/alarm services, and newspaper subscription services companies
- Your credit card or other payment account information when you purchase products and services from us;
- Your children’s identity information when enrolling in our child identity protection products, such as your child’s name, date of birth, and Social Security number;
- Your application, user registration, third-party account log-in credentials, policy, carrier, premium, claim, and accident report information when you apply for insurance products or services;
- Information about the products and services you considered, obtained, or purchased in the past, and other consuming histories or tendencies;
- Information you provide when you communicate with us via email, chat, text, paper correspondence, and telephone (including voice recordings as permitted by applicable law when you speak with our representatives);
- Your general feedback, comments, content, or posts submitted to community forum(s) on our Site;
- Device information such as publisher identifiers, web browser type, web browser plug-in details, operating system version, search engine referral, device type, and information collected through cookies.
Depending on the products and services that you subscribe to, we also obtain information about you from others, such as:
- Information from other Experian companies (“affiliates”), business partners, and third-party providers, such as credit, insurance underwriting, insurance claims, and other information that enables us to provide you products and services;
- If you provide information that enables us to access data from your financial, insurance, and/or other accounts, we will obtain information from those accounts, including account details, individual payment transactions, deposits, withdrawals, and insurance information;
- Information that you provide on a third-party website in order to subscribe to our products and services. Please see additional details about third-party websites under the ‘Other Important Privacy Information’ section below.
How We Use Personal Information
We use your personal information to:
- Verify your identity and provide you the products and services you request. Depending on the information you provide and the products or services you select, your personal information is also used to provide you with identity protection services, enable applications for credit, loans, insurance, bill negotiation services, and to access and monitor information you’ve asked for;
- Send credit, score, identity protection, and transactional alerts to the e-mail, mobile device, and/or phone number you provide;
- Send important information to you relating to your account, the Site, our Terms and Conditions, and our policies.
- Inform you of products, services, and promotions that may be of interest to you unless you have requested that we do not send you marketing and promotional communications;
- Process payments for the products and services you purchase;
- If applicable, to verify your children’s identity and provide products and services you request on behalf of your children;
- Perform everyday business functions such as audits, detecting and preventing fraud, analysis, product improvements, research, development, and security;
- Perform other services when you provide your consent, and we describe the service(s) to you. For example, we may request your information to:
- monitor your financial and utility service provider accounts
- offer features you request from companies that we partner with
- obtain your account and transaction information
- gain recurring access to your financial, utility, telecom, rental, or other service account(s)
- obtain, use, and store your financial and utility service provider account information
- optimize our targeted marketing service
Non-personal information is any information that does not reveal who you are, does not identify you individually, and/or is about a collective group of Site users. This includes information described under “Cookies, Tracking Technologies, and Targeted Advertising”, and other information that does not identify you such as general demographic, publicly available, derived, inferred, or specifically expressed information from users of the Site. We may use this information and share it with third parties for any purpose. However, if we combine any non-personal information with your personal information such that it reveals who you are, we will treat the information as personal information, as long as it remains combined.
How We Share Personal Information
Affiliates: As a part of Experian, we share personal information with our Experian affiliates for the purposes noted in this Policy. We do not share personal information with our affiliates for their marketing purposes without your consent.
We also share personal information with non-affiliated third parties as follows:
Business Partners: We share your personal information with companies that we have partnered with to offer products that may be of interest to you. We also share your information to provide you with products and services that you request.
Service Providers: We share your personal information with third parties who perform services on our behalf. We share information with these service providers to provide the products and services that you request and for our everyday business purposes. For example, we use service providers for billing, communicating with our customers, detecting and preventing fraud, analysis, product improvements, development, and to offer products that may be of interest to you.
With Your Consent: We share your personal information with third parties you expressly authorize, consent to, or direct us to share your information with. We may also disclose Personal Information about you to other contractors, service providers and other third parties we use to support our business and who are bound by contractual obligations to keep Personal Information confidential and use it only for the purposes for which we disclose it to them. For example, we share information when you request products or services offered by lenders, insurance companies, and other companies that we partner with. We also share information when you ask us to access data from your financial, insurance, and/or other accounts through one or more of our third parties. We may disclose Personal Information about you to a utility service provider for bill negotiation services if the disclosure will enable the utility service provider to perform a business professional transaction.
Legal Purposes: We share personal information with government entities and others for lawful and necessary purposes, including responding to requests from government entities or our regulators; to comply with subpoenas, law enforcement requests, and other legal processes; to enforce our Terms and Conditions; and as necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety, or property of our customers, ourselves, and others.
In the event of a merger, acquisition, sale, bankruptcy, or other disposition of some or all our assets, we may share and/or transfer your personal information to an affiliate or relevant third party.
Cookies, Tracking Technologies, and Targeted Advertising
By using the website, you agree to the use of technology that tracks how users interact with our Site to ensure that the website is operating properly and to optimize website functionality.
When you use our Site, we, our affiliates, our business partners, and third-party service providers collect information about your devices and interactions with our Site. The types of information collected and how that information is used and/or shared depends on how you interact with our Site and, in some cases, the choices you make. A variety of tools and technologies are used to collect this information.
Information collected and the tools and technologies used for collection include:
- Device Information: The Site collects information about your devices and browsers, including types of operating systems, versions, preferences, settings, Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses, and geolocation information. We and our third-party providers may also use location-identifying technologies and logging technologies to automatically collect information. If you access our Site using mobile devices, we collect information about your mobile devices, including device IDs, mobile network information, and geolocation information. This information is used for identity verification, track users’ movements on our Site, to analyze trends, and gather demographic information about the Site’s users.
- Server Logs: Logs are used to automatically record device information as well as your interactions with our Site such as what time of day you visited. In the event of a problem with our Site, information in the logs allow us to diagnose and the resolve problem.
- Cookies: Cookies are small text files sent to your browser by a website you visit. The Site collects and uses session and persistent cookies. Cookies allow us to recognize your device and store information about your account and preferences. For example, we may use cookies to store information about pages visited on our sites, settings and preferences, or other information associated with visitors to our Site. Cookies also allow us to track internal metrics and enhance the experience of users of our Site.
- Pixel tags: Pixel tags (i.e., web beacons, clear GIFs, pixels, or tags) are images or small strings of code placed on websites, advertisements, or within e-mails. These technologies collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or online services. For example, the Site gathers user activities on our Site, links that users click on, pages viewed, URLs from which the user came from, and e-mails opened or forwarded. This information is used for Site tracking and administration (i.e., user movements, usage, performance, and improvements), enabling you to enroll and log-in to the Site, and for us to tailor and deliver custom content, develop new products and services, and for us to detect and prevent fraud.
- SDKs and Advertising IDs: We use Software Development Kits ("SDKs") to collect mobile device information and general location. The SDKs track user movements, mobile application events, and user interactions. This information is used for identity verification and helps us improve our mobile applications for our customers. We also collect and use Advertising Identifiers ("Advertising IDs") that allow us to identify your mobile device over time, for advertising purposes.
Targeted Advertising: We, our affiliates, business partners, and third-party service providers collect, use, and share information to develop and deliver targeted advertisements online. These are ads that you may see across different sites and devices over time. This marketing information includes information such as your preferences and inferences based on your interactions with the Site.
We also use third-party service providers to help us perform advertising-related functions such as measuring the effectiveness of our ads, managing how many times you may see an ad, reporting on the performance of our ads, ensuring services are working correctly and securely, providing aggregate statistics and analytics, improving when and where you may see ads, and reduce ad fraud.
You can use a range of tools to control the collection, usage, and sharing of your information, and to make choices about receiving product and service offers. Some browsers have incorporated "Do Not Track" (DNT) features that can signal the websites you visit, indicating you do not wish to be tracked. Because there is no common understanding of how to interpret the DNT signal, our websites do not operate differently in response to browser DNT signals. If you want to change your subscription options, you can do so through the membership section of your account. If you wish to cancel your subscription, please contact us.
Opt-outs:
- E-mail: We may send you promotional or marketing e-mail communications containing information about other products and services offered by us or other third parties that we partner with. If you no longer wish to receive marketing or promotional e-mails from us, you may opt-out of receiving them by following the instructions included in the e-mails that we send you or opt-out in the profile section of your account. If you opt-out, we will continue to send you credit, score, identity protection, and transaction alerts via e-mail, and information related to the completion of your registration, correction of user data, change of password, and other similar communications essential to your transactions;
- Push: We may send push notifications or alerts to your mobile device. You can deactivate push notifications and alerts at any time by deleting the app, changing your device settings, or changing the push notification settings within the app.
- Text: If you consent, we may communicate with you via text (“SMS”) messages at the phone number you provide. You may later opt-out of receiving SMS messages by responding to any SMS with one of the following single-word commands: “STOP,” “QUIT,” “CANCEL,” “END,” or “UNSUBSCRIBE.”
Controls for Cookies, Tracking Technologies, and Targeted Advertising:
- Cookies: Most web browsers automatically accept cookies by default. You can use your browser settings to block, decline, or reject new cookies or delete existing ones. If you choose to block, decline, reject or delete cookies, it may prevent you from taking full advantage of our Site or prevent us from recognizing your device. These actions may impact settings, preferences and if you are a subscriber, how you log into your account.
- E-mail Tracking: E-mail applications have settings that allow you to prevent the automatic downloading of images, which will disable tracking technologies in the email messages you read.
- Targeted Advertising: Experian and many other companies participate in the Digital Advertising Alliance’s WebChoices Tool, which provides a simple way to opt-out of targeted advertising. To learn more about ad choices, or to opt out of targeted advertising, please visit the WebChoices Tool. In addition, you may also visit the Network Advertising Initiative's Opt-Out Tool. You can also enable a feature that limits the use of Advertising IDs, or you can reset the Advertising ID on your mobile device. These features do not block all advertisements to your device but can prevent relevant advertisements from appearing.
The controls listed above rely on information stored in unique browser cookies, applications, or device identifiers, so your choices will apply only to the specific browser, application, or device from which you apply the controls. You will need to apply these controls separately on all your browsers, applications, and devices.
How You Can Update Your Personal Information
If you are a subscriber and the personal information that you provided to us changes, you can make corrections or updates to your information, including your email address, phone number, mailing address, credit card information, or password reminder phrase, through the edit profile section of your account. You may also make updates through one of the Membership Support options listed in your account. For your protection, we may request supporting documents before making any changes or updates to your membership information. We strongly urge you to ensure that your information remains up to date.
How We Secure Your Personal Information
We have appropriate physical, technical, and organizational measures, and tools in place to protect your personal information against the loss, misuse, and alteration of information that complies with relevant legal requirements and best practices. When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card, Social Security number, or login credentials) into the Site, we encrypt the transmission of that information using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.
When you provide information through the Site, you should be aware that your information may be transmitted across the Internet, and no method of transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. Although we take reasonable security measures to protect your information when we receive it, you also need to ensure you take appropriate steps to protect your information. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel that the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please notify us of the problem as soon as possible by contacting us.
Your California Privacy Rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
ConsumerInfo.com, Inc. is a part of Experian. If you are a California consumer and would like to learn about Experian’s approach to privacy under the CCPA, please visit Experian’s California Privacy Rights Policy here.
In the future, we may update this Policy to reflect changes to our information practices.
You can determine when this Policy was last updated and the effective date of this Policy by referring to the last revised date. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices and this Policy.
If you need assistance or have any questions about this Policy or our privacy practices, please call us at 1-479-343-6239. If you are a subscriber, there are additional ways for you to contact us provided in the Membership Support section of your account.
Other Important Privacy Information
Third-Party Websites, Links, and Social Media:
The Site may contain links to third-party websites. We have no control over, nor are we responsible for the privacy practices of these linked websites or any other third-party websites. Once you leave our Site, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information that you provide while visiting a third-party website, and such websites are not governed by this Policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy policy applicable to the website in question. If you provide any personal information to a third-party website to subscribe to our products or services, your transaction will occur on the third-party website and will be controlled by the third-party privacy policy unless otherwise noted.
Our Site also includes social media features, such as the Facebook and Twitter buttons or interactive mini programs that run on our Site. These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function correctly. These features are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Site. Your interactions with these features are governed by the social media provider’s privacy policy. This Policy does not govern information provided to us on any of our social media-branded pages or accounts. THIS POLICY DOES NOT ADDRESS THE PRIVACY PRACTICES OF ANY THIRD PARTIES.
Children’s Privacy
The Site is not directed to individuals under the age of eighteen (18), and we request that such individuals not provide personal information through the Site. If you are under 18 years of age, you may browse our Site; however, you may not provide personal information to us such as name, address, or email address, and you may not register for, enroll in, and/or make product purchases.
For Former Customers
When you cancel your subscription or otherwise cease to be our customer, we may continue to use and share your information as described in this Policy.