PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY NOTICE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THIS WEBSITE.
Hometap Equity Partners, LLC and its affiliates (“Hometap”, “we”, “us”, and “our”) understand that confidentiality of information is important to visitors to our website and to our customers. We firmly believe that it is important for you to be informed regarding what information we collect, how we protect and use it, and what options are available to you with regard to information sharing.
This Online Privacy Notice (the “Privacy Notice”) describes the types of information we may collect from you — as well as our practices for using, protecting, and disclosing that information — when you use our website, www.hometap.com (the “Site”). This Privacy Notice applies to information we collect on the Site and in email, text, and other electronic messages between you and us. By using or accessing this Site, you agree to this Privacy Notice.
We may supplement this Privacy Notice with the following:
Our Sharing of Information Disclosure. While this Privacy Notice focuses on our practices with respect to the Site, our Sharing of Information Disclosure (“ Sharing of Information Disclosure”) describes how we collect, use, and disclose certain of your information. Our Sharing of Information Disclosure is updated annually.
Other Supplemental Notices on the Site. Additionally, we may supplement this Privacy Notice with other supplemental notices posted on specific web pages within the Site. These supplemental notices describe in more detail the information we collect via particular pages or services on the Site.
Please take the time to read our Sharing of Information Disclosure and, if you are presented with other agreements or supplemental notices, the terms of those other agreements and notices. In the event of any conflict between this Privacy Notice, our Sharing of Information Disclosure, and the terms of other agreements and supplemental notices, our Sharing of Information Disclosure will take priority, followed by the terms of any other agreements, any supplemental notices, and finally this Privacy Notice. If you do not consent to this Privacy Notice, please exit and do not use the Site. If you do not consent to any supplemental notice, do not use the pages or services to which it pertains. If you have any questions, please contact us at legal@hometap.com, 781-488-0805 (local), 855-223-3144 (toll-free), or at the information provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.
Hometap collects information that identifies you as well as other types of information about your activities on the Site (“Personal Information”). We describe each of these categories, and how we collect each of these categories, in more detail below. Please also review our Sharing of Information Disclosure for further information on what types of Personal Information we collect. The information collected through the Site includes:
Create an account with us
Seek a prequalification
Submit an application for products or services, which may involve retrieving information from publicly accessible sources (e.g., property records) or a third party (e.g., credit reporting agencies).
Contact us via any customer service method
Submit user-generated content
Subscribe for email or other messages
Otherwise communicate information to us
The types of Personal Information we collect include name, address, telephone number, email address, information about your household and finances, marital status, information to enable us to check and verify your identity, your gender information, information to enable us to undertake credit or other financial checks on you, and information about how you intend to use the services and products we provide.
You will typically be prompted to provide any Personal Information we are collecting via the Site. For example, when you submit a prequalification request, we ask you to complete a form with several types of information, including your name, address, and information about your household, finances, and intended use of our services. To give another example, when you send us a request, we may ask you to identify yourself by name and email address. We may also combine your Personal Information with other information that we receive from third parties in order to inform you about products and tailor marketing to you.
Information Collected Through Technology. We may also collect information about you automatically when you visit our Site. This information may include your IP address, the identity of your Internet Service Provider, the name and version of your operating system, the name and version of your browser, the date and time of your visit, the pages you visit, how you interact with the website, information about referring websites, and any search terms you enter while on the Site. Although we do not use this information by itself to identify you, we may (i) link this information to other Personal Information that you choose to provide to us; or (ii) share this information with nonaffiliated third party service providers who may use this information to identify you in order to market products for us.
Browser-based Information Collection. We use “cookies,” “pixel tags,” “web beacons,” and other Web technologies for a number of purposes, including:
to collect information about the ways you use the Site - for example, which pages you visit, which links you use, and how long you stay on each page;
to support the features and functionality of the Site - for example, to save you the trouble of re-entering information already in our database or to prompt the settings you established on previous visits to the Site; and
to personalize your experience when you use the Site.
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. Most web browsers accept cookies by default, but you can change your browser settings to refuse cookies. If you do so, you may experience difficulties using the Site. Pixel tags and web beacons are tiny graphic images used to help us analyze your online browsing patterns, create content designed for your connection speeds, and deliver email in a format you can read.
Email-based Information Collection. When you access this Site by clicking on a link in an electronic communication you receive from us or one of our marketing service providers or in one of our advertisements, your browser tells us that someone has clicked on a particular link in that particular electronic communication or advertisement. We use this information to improve our marketing efforts.
Information Collected from Server Logs. In addition, we review our server logs — which contain visitors’ IP addresses — for security and fraud-prevention purposes. If we suspect criminal activity, we may share our server logs and the Personal Information we have collected through this Site with the appropriate investigative authorities who could use that information to investigate criminal wrongdoing.
Third-Party Services. Some third-party services we use, such as Google Analytics, may use cookies, web beacons, or other similar technologies or information gathering tools to collect or receive information from the Site and elsewhere on the Internet and use that information to provide measurement services or target ads. Google Analytics is a web analysis service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google utilizes the data collected to track and examine the use of the Site, to prepare reports on its activities, and to share them with other Google services. Google may use the data collected to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. Please see www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ (or any other URL Google may provide from time to time) for information about how Google may use your information and how you may be able to control the information sent to Google. Please also see the privacy policy of Ortto, our email marketing vendor, at https://ortto.com/privacy/.
This Privacy Notice covers only our use of cookies, pixel tags, web beacons, and other similar technology and not the use of such technology by third parties. Similarly, this Privacy Notice does not apply to third-party websites accessed via hyperlinks within the Site.
We use your information in a manner consistent with this Privacy Notice (including the Sharing of Information Disclosure) to:
Process and evaluate your application(s)
Provide pre-qualification information
Help us improve our products and services
Communicate with you and respond to your inquiries
Maintain and service your Hometap account
Maintain and improve the Site
Provide customer service
Conduct research and analysis, including regarding Site usage trends, purchasing patterns and preferences, and visitor demographics
Advertise, or enable our partners to advertise, to you
Fight spam and other abuse
Comply with legal requirements, industry standards, and our own policies
Deliver products and services you have requested
Carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any agreements entered into between you and us
Notify you about changes to the Site or any products or services we offer or provide through the Site
As may otherwise be disclosed at the time of collection
Protect ourselves, our customers, and others from economic or physical harm
For example, we keep track of the pages you visit and the manner in which you use the Site to determine what features or products are most popular and whether to make changes to the Site. To give another example, we may review your information and information of other customers to help us analyze trends, purchasing patterns and preferences, and demographics.
We may also use the information you provide to us to personalize your experience by using your product interests, browsing patterns, and related information to recommend other products, services, or promotions that we believe may interest you. We may also use the information you provide to notify you of changes to the Site.
We may combine the information you provide to us or that we collect from you with data that is publicly available and data that we collect or receive from other sources.
Please see our Sharing of Information Disclosure for information on how your Personal Information may be shared, a list of the categories of personal information disclosed for a business purpose, and how you may limit certain types of sharing.
Other information that we collect, which does not identify specific individuals, may be shared with our service providers or other third parties in our discretion and in compliance with applicable law consistent with the uses described in the previous section.
We want to communicate with you only if you want to hear from us. If you prefer not to receive information from us or would like to update or change your contact information or preferences, you can do so using one or more of the following methods:
If you have a user account with us, you may be able to edit your information by updating your account using the “Login” link on the Site
You may send your request to us via the points of contact listed at the end of this Privacy Notice
You may unsubscribe from any marketing emails by clicking on the link in the email
If you contact us for this purpose, please provide your full name, address, and email address so that we can locate your information. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. We will respond to your request within a reasonable period of time or as required by law.
Additionally, certain unaffiliated third-party services, such as the Digital Advertising Alliance’s WebChoices Tool, may enable you to configure your browser to control certain companies’ collection and use of information for advertisement targeting. In addition, for data collected using Google Analytics, please see www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/ (or any other URL Google may provide from time to time) for information about how you may be able to control the information sent to Google. We cannot guarantee that such third parties or their services will enable you, or will continue to enable you, to control such collection.
Hometap has implemented measures intended to secure your information from accidental loss and from unauthorized access, use, alteration, and disclosure. You also play an important role in maintaining the safety and security of your information. You should ensure that you are familiar and comfortable with the security level of your browser and watch for security alerts affecting the software on your computer or the browser you are using. Where we have given you access credentials, such as a user name and password, you are responsible for keeping these credentials confidential, and we ask you not to share them with anyone. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure, and no company, including Hometap, can fully eliminate security risks. Although we have implemented measures to protect your information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to or from us, including via email, or the security of any links accessible from our Site.
This Site may, from time to time, contain links to websites owned and operated by third parties (“Third-Party Sites”). We encourage you to review the privacy policies of such Third-Party Sites so that you understand how those websites collect, use, and share your information. We are not responsible for the privacy notices, practices, or other content on Third-Party Sites.
You are responsible for making sure that your information is accurate and complete. If any information you have provided changes, please update your information by following the methods provided in Section 4 above.
Hometap provides only business services and neither intends to collect nor knowingly collects any information from or about children.
California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits Site users who are California residents to request and obtain from us a list of what Personal Information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes in the preceding calendar year and the names and addresses of those third parties. Requests related to California Civil Code Section 1798.83 may be made only once a year and are free of charge.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) and as later amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”), you can exercise certain rights about the personal information, if any, that we may collect. Your request will be free of charge.
Description of Your Rights
The right to request that we disclose to you the following:
The categories of personal information we have collected about you;
The categories of sources from which the personal information is collected;
Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information;
The categories of third parties with whom we share personal information, if any; and
The specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
Please note that we are not required to:
Retain any personal information about you that was collected for a single one-time transaction if, in the ordinary course of business, that information about you is not retained;
Reidentify or otherwise link any data that, in the ordinary course of business, is not maintained in a manner that would be considered personal information;
Provide the personal information to you more than twice in a 12-month period; or
Respond to your request if we cannot reasonably verify that you, as the person making a request, are the same person about whom we collected information, or are someone authorized to act on such person’s behalf.
In connection with any personal information we may sell or disclose to a third party for a business purpose, you have the right to know:
The categories of personal information about you that we sold and the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold; and
The categories of personal information that we disclosed about you for a business purpose.
Under the CCPA and certain other privacy and data protection laws, as applicable, you can opt-out of the sale or disclosure of your personal information. If you exercise your right to opt-out of the sale or disclosure of your personal information, we will refrain from selling your personal information, unless you subsequently provide express authorization for the sale of your personal information. To opt-out of the sale or disclosure of your personal information, please contact us at legal@hometap.com, 781-488-0805 (local), 855-223-3144 (toll-free), or at the information provided at the bottom of this Privacy Notice.
Subject to certain exceptions described below, on receipt of a verifiable request from you, we will:
Delete your personal information from our records; and
Direct any service providers to delete your personal information from their records.
Please note that we may not delete your personal information if it is necessary to:
Complete the transaction for which the personal information was collected, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, provide a good or service requested by you, or reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform a contract between you and us;
Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity;
Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their right of free speech, or exercise another right provided for by law;
Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act;
Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when our deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, provided we have obtained your informed consent;
Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with your expectations based on your relationship with us;
Comply with an existing legal obligation; or
Otherwise use your personal information, internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the information.
You have the right to not be discriminated against by Hometap because you exercised any of your rights under the CCPA. For the sake of clarity, Hometap will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights under the CCPA or any other California laws. This means we cannot, among other things:
Deny goods or services to you;
Charge different prices or rates for goods or services, including through the use of discounts or other benefits or imposing penalties;
Provide a different level or quality of goods or services to you; or
Suggest that you will receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services.
Please note that we may charge a different price or rate or provide a different level or quality of goods and/or services to you, if that difference is reasonably related to the value provided to you by your personal information.
Some web browsers offer a “Do Not Track” setting. However, there is currently no industry standard regarding the meaning of “Do Not Track” and what, if anything, websites should do in response. As a result, we may not respond to “Do No Track” signals.
This Site is intended for use by residents of the United States of America only. You should be aware that the United States and other countries have not harmonized their privacy regulations. Our Privacy Notice is intended to comply with United States requirements. By using the Site, you agree to the level of privacy protection set out in our Privacy Notice.
We may interact with you via a variety of social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. If you contact us on one of our social media platforms, request customer service via social media, or otherwise direct us to communicate with you via social media, we may contact you by direct message or use other social media tools to interact with you. In such cases, our communications are governed by this Privacy Notice and the privacy notice of the social media platform you use. In addition, if you choose to communicate with us through a third-party social media platform, you are granting us permission to access and use the information you post or store on the applicable social media platform in accordance with the privacy notice of that platform. We don’t control, and are not responsible for, the privacy practices of third-party social media platforms. You should consult the privacy notice of each such platform for additional information.
We may change this Privacy Notice or supplemental notices at any time to reflect changes in our policies and practices. You will receive notice of changes by our posting of the amended Privacy Notice or supplemental notice on the Site. By accessing and using the relevant information or services available on the Site following such amendment, you consent to the policies and practices outlined in the Privacy Notice or supplemental notice, as amended.
We welcome your comments and questions. Please contact us at:
Hometap Equity Partners, LLC
Attn: Legal
800 Boylston St, 16th Floor
Boston, MA 02199
legal@hometap.com
Local: (781)-488-0805
Toll-Free: (855)-223-3144
Last Updated: December 2022