ShiaCafe.com has established this privacy policy to explain to you how your information is protected, collected and used, which may be updated by ShiaCafe from time to time. ShiaCafe will provide notice of materially significant changes to this privacy policy by posting updates on the ShiaCafe website, specifically in this section.
- Protecting your privacy
ShiaCafe does not knowingly collect any information from persons under the age of 18. If ShiaCafe learns that an account has been registered or information has been provided by a person under the age of 18, ShiaCafe will remove that user. If you are under 18, please do not use this site or our service.
ShiaCafe, or people who post on ShiaCafe’s social profiles, may provide links to third party websites, which may have different privacy policies and practices. We are not responsible for, nor have any control over, the privacy policies of those third party websites, and encourage all users to read the privacy policies of each and every website visited.
We keep your information on a secured server behind a firewall (established through hosting companies). When you enter sensitive information such information as credit card numbers and passwords, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We also may use automated and social measures to enhance security, such as analyzing account behavior for fraudulent or otherwise anomalous behavior, may limit use of site features in response to possible signs of abuse, may remove inappropriate content or links to illegal content, and may suspend or disable accounts for violations of our Terms of Use.
Although we have employed appropriate security measure to protect your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of potential prospects with whom we share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on ShiaCafe will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures on ShiaCafe. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password (if we enable passwords in the future), using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software.
- Data we collect
Signup Information: When you first get started we ask for your name, email address, and phone number and obtain your explicit permission for us to use these. We use this information to communicate key information and updates with you. We may also use this to advertise to you through social services (Facebook, Twitter) in case you do not complete the onboarding questionnaire. You can unsubscribe from our list any time and we will stop contacting you.
Background Information: When you register an account with ShiaCafe, in the onboarding questionnaire we ask for background information such as your full name, your age, your profession, your location, your email address, phone number, gender, date of birth; and information about your preferences and personality. Some of this information we require you to provide, other information is optional for you to provide. Any information you provide us, we keep securely. We encourage you to give as much information as possible, all for the purpose of us making the best matches and introductions for you. If you do not want to provide any information it will be hard to make matches for you and we suggest you not use our service.
Profile Information: Currently, there are no public profiles for everyone to see on ShiaCafe. In the future, we may launch a separate service that allows you to create a public profile in which case we may share the information you provide on your profile for with other users for matching approval purposes, as well as third party advertising technology companies working on ShiaCafe’s behalf. In that case you will be notified beforehand and given the option to participate.
Access Device and Browser Information: When you access ShiaCafe from a computer, mobile phone or other device, we may collect information from that device about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit.
Cookie Information: We use “cookies” (small pieces of data we store for an extended period of time on your computer, mobile phone, or other device) to make ShiaCafe easier to use, to make advertising better, and to protect both you and ShiaCafe.
Currently, we use cookies for tracking services such as Google Analytics. Here is Google’s Privacy Policy, which explains how they use cookies.
We also use cookies for Google and Facebook advertising purposes. Here is Google’s discussion of how they use cookies in advertising. Here is Facebook’s policy.
For your profile we store your login credentials (your email address and encrypted password) to make it easier for you to login whenever you come back to ShiaCafe. We may also use them to confirm that you are logged into ShiaCafe, our widgets and Share buttons, and advertisements posted on ShiaCafe. We suggest you select a password that is unique and as secure as possible.
You can remove or block cookies using the settings in your browser, but in some cases that may impact your ability to use ShiaCafe. If you do not wish to have us use cookies, we suggest you do this. Here is an article on how to do that. There are many such articles available on the internet if you search for the subject.
Our web logs collect standard web log entries for each page served, including your IP address, page URL, and timestamp. Web logs help us to diagnose problems with our server, to administer the ShiaCafe website, and to otherwise provide our service to you.
Consistent with general industry practices, the duration of cookies is 2 years, after which they expire.
Note: we do not retain store your payment information or card information when you make purchases. We use industry-leading payment processors (like Stripe, Google, and Apple) and they process all payments with the highest level of security. We never receive or store any of your payment information.
- How we use your information
To manage the service. We use the information we collect to provide our services and features to you, to measure and improve those services and features, and to provide you with customer support. We use the information to prevent potentially illegal activities, and to enforce our Terms of Service. We also use a variety of technological systems to detect and address anomalous activity and screen content to prevent abuse such as spam. These efforts may on occasion result in a temporary or permanent suspension or termination of some functions for some users.
To contact you. We may contact you with service-related announcements from time to time. We may include content you see on ShiaCafe in the emails we send to you.
To serve personalized advertising to you. We currently do not advertise, but may in the future to support the cost of running a service. We don’t share your information with advertisers without your consent. (An example of consent would be if you asked us to provide your shipping address to an advertiser to receive a free sample.) We may allow advertisers to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and we may use any of the non-personally identifiable attributes we have collected (including information you may have decided not to show to other users, such as your birth year or other sensitive personal information or preferences) to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. For example, we might use your interest in tennis to show you ads for tennis equipment, but we do not tell the tennis equipment company who you are. Even though we do not share your information with advertisers without your consent, when you click on or otherwise interact with an advertisement there is a possibility that the advertiser may place a cookie in your browser and note that it meets the criteria they selected.
To serve social ads. We occasionally pair advertisements we serve with relevant information we have about you.
- Circumstances in which ShiaCafe may release information
When you make a payment. When you enter into transactions with others or make payments on ShiaCafe, we will only share transaction information with those third parties necessary to complete the transaction and will require those third parties to agree to respect the privacy of your information.
When you choose to share your information with marketers. In the future, you may choose to share information with marketers or electronic commerce providers that are not associated with ShiaCafe through on-site offers. This is entirely at your discretion and we will not provide your information to these marketers without your consent.
To give search engines access to publicly available information. We currently block search engines’ access to our website. In the future, if we allow users to create public profiles, and you choose to create a public profile, we may allow search engines to access information if users allow their information to be viewed publicly.
To help improve or promote our service. Sometimes we share aggregated information with third parties to help improve or promote our service. But we only do so in such a way that no individual user can be identified or linked to any specific information.
To provide you with services. We may provide information to service providers that help us bring you the services we offer. For example, we may use third parties to help host our website, send out email updates about ShiaCafe, remove repetitive information from our user lists, process payments, or provide search results or links (including sponsored links). These service providers may have access to your personal information for use for a limited time, but when this occurs we implement reasonable contractual and technical protections to limit their use of that information to helping us provide the service.
To respond to legal requests and prevent harm. We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests (including criminal and civil matters) if we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law. This may include respecting requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law under the local laws in that jurisdiction, apply to users from that jurisdiction, and are consistent with generally accepted international standards. We may also share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to prevent fraud or other illegal activity, to prevent imminent bodily harm, or to protect ourselves and you from people violating our Terms of Service. This may include sharing information with other companies, lawyers, courts or other government entities.
Transfer in the Event of Sale or Change of Control. If the ownership of all or substantially all of our business changes, we may transfer your information to the new owner so that the service can continue to operate. In such a case, your information would remain subject to any pre-existing Privacy Policy.
- International Users
By visiting our website and providing us with data, you acknowledge and agree that due to the international dimension of ShiaCafe we may use the data collected in the course of our relationship for the purposes identified in this policy or in our other communications with you, including the transmission of information outside your resident jurisdiction. In addition, please understand that such data may be stored on servers located in the United States. By providing us with your data, you consent to the transfer of such data. Depending on your country of residence, ShiaCafe may allow you to request the viewing, retrieval, transfer and removal of your personal information and/or data.
Following applicable only to clients residing in the EU: ShiaCafe is required to report breach of your data within 72 hours to the applicable data authorities. ShiaCafe will hold accountable its interacting agents for establishing proper protection, processing and storage of your data. By providing us with your data, you give full consent and agreement to all policies and procedures with ShiaCafe providing fully informational and unambiguous language.