HOUZZ PRIVACY POLICY
Welcome to Houzz! The Houzz Platform is an information and social network dedicated to homebuilding, renovation, and design. Houzz brings together professionals, service providers, products, homeowners, renters and design enthusiasts. Through the Houzz Platform, people can obtain and exchange, ideas, information, products, and services related to home remodeling and design.
This Houzz Privacy Policy is to help you understand what information Houzz collects, how Houzz uses it, how it may be shared, and what choices you have. This privacy policy governs the products and services we offer through our website, mobile applications and other applications (collectively the “Site” or “Houzz Platform”). When you use the Site, you consent to our collection, use and disclosure of information about you as described in this privacy policy. Additionally, our Terms of Use are incorporated by reference into this privacy policy, including applicable terms governing limitations on liability and the resolution of disputes. The terms “we,” or “our,” refer to Houzz Inc., a Delaware corporation, and Houzz Shop LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, which are headquartered in Palo Alto, California in the United States.
1. Collection of Information.
We collect information (i) from you directly; (ii) from third parties, and (iii) automatically when you use our Site.
In general, we collect information as follows:
- Account and Profile Information: When you create an account on the Houzz Platform, we collect your name, contact information, and other information you provide. You also will be asked to create a profile on the Site. If you do, profile information such as your name, username, current projects, demographic information, and any photo you submit may be displayed publicly on the social network. You can customize some of the information displayed publicly in your Houzz profile by going to your account and profile settings. If you feel that an unauthorized account has been created depicting you or your likeness, please contact us at privacy@houzz.com. You have an obligation to provide us accurate information.
- Public Content: We collect and store the information that you post to the Site, including your photos, comments, Ideabooks, and profile information.
- Communications. When you communicate with us (via email, phone, through the Site or otherwise), we maintain a record of your communication (including call recordings). In addition, when you call a Houzz Pro using the number displayed on the Pro’s Houzz Page, we may collect certain analytic data (including call recordings). Similarly, when you submit information to a Houzz Pro through their Houzz Pro Profile or their Houzz-hosted website, we may collect and maintain that information on the Pro’s behalf; however, the Pros’ use of that information (including call recordings) is subject to their own policies and practices, not this privacy policy.
- Messages. If you exchange messages with others through the Site, in accordance with applicable law, we may store them in order to process and deliver them, allow you to manage them, and investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Site. The Houzz Platform may also enable you to connect, at your initiation, with third-party providers of products and services who you wish to contact outside of the Site; any such information you submit or send to third parties in this manner, including your personal email address, is not subject to this Privacy Policy.
- Transactional Information. If you purchase products within the Site, we collect certain information in order to process your request, such as your phone number, address, email, and credit card or bank account information.
- Site Activity and Automatically Collected Information. We collect and may store information about your use of the Site (including our mobile applications), such as your search activity, the pages you view, and the date and time of your visit. We also collect and may store information that your computer or mobile device provides to us in connection with your use of the Site, such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, unique device identifier, location, and requested and referring URLs.
- Linked Networks and Contacts. If you elect to connect your Houzz profile to another network or service provider like Facebook or Google, you will be asked to enable sharing of your contact information with Houzz. If you agree to this sharing, in order to facilitate a more connected experience, we may send notices so that you and your contacts can find and follow each other on the Houzz Platform. You also will be connected within the Site as followers of each other, and you can learn more about people you know in common on the Site. You can adjust permission for users to follow your profile in the advanced settings of your profile.
2. Use of Information.
We may use the information we collect for purposes such as to: provide the Site’s functionality; improve the Site’s quality; personalize your experience; tailor the content and information that we may send or display to you; offer location customization, and otherwise offer personalized help and suggestions; track usage of the Site; facilitate the fulfillment of your orders placed through the Site; provide feedback to businesses and professionals whose products or services are listed on the Site; display relevant advertising (on our Site and third party sites); evaluate the success of our advertising; provide customer support; communicate with you about your use of the Site and any orders; allow third parties to contact you through the Site; respond to your inquiries and requests; send you marketing communications and otherwise message you (in ways described by this privacy policy and managed by you in your account settings); back up our systems and allow for disaster recovery; enhance the security of the Site; fulfill transactions authorized by you on the Site; use as otherwise requested or consented to by you; and to comply with legal obligations.
In addition, we use the information we collect to better understand how users access and use our Site and services, both on an aggregated and individualized basis, in order to improve our Site and services, respond to user desires and preferences, develop additional products and services, and for other research and analytical purposes. From time to time, we may also offer contests or promotions, and will use the information we collect to administer such contests, promotions and surveys, to analyze the results for research purposes, and to comply with legal requirements related to such contests and promotions.
3. Sharing Your Information
We do not rent or sell your personal contact information (such as your email address associated with your account registration) to third-parties to use for their own marketing purposes. However, in some cases Houzz may allow third parties, including other users and Houzz partners, to contact you through the Site, including for marketing purposes. Additionally any information that you share publically through your profile is available to third party users of and visitors to the Site; we cannot control such third parties’ use or further disclosure of your information. We may share some information about you with third parties in connection with your use of the Site. Our information sharing with third-parties generally fall into these categories and purposes:
- Agents, Contractors, and Service Providers: We may share your information with our agents, e-commerce partners, and contractors or other service providers as needed to carry out the performance and functionality of the Site, fulfill your requests or authorized commercial transactions, process your payments, or provide customer support.
- Analytics and Usage: We may share user information in de-identified or aggregate form, with third parties, such as advertisers, professionals, and other businesses. For example, we may disclose to a business the number of users that have viewed their product. Business or professionals that participate on the Houzz Platform may also access usage data associated with your public profile. For example, a business can see that you, as identified by your public profile username, any profile photo, and any other publicly displayed profile identifiers (but not identified by your email or non-public account information), added their product to one of your Ideabooks on a particular date.
- Third Party Ad Networks: We use third-party advertising companies to serve advertisements on third party sites, and may work with them to serve ads on our Site, as well as to assist us in evaluating the effectiveness of our advertising, in accordance with applicable law. These companies use cookies, web beacons, and other tracking technologies to collect information (not including your name, address, email address or telephone number) about your visits to this Site and other sites in order to provide targeted advertisements to you. Please see the Third Party Advertising section below for more information.
- Affiliated Entities We may share information from or about you with subsidiaries, joint ventures, or other companies under common control, in which case we will require them to honor this privacy policy.
- Business Transfers: If we are acquired by or merged with another entity, if substantially all of our assets are transferred to another company, or as part of a bankruptcy proceeding, we may transfer the information we have collected about you to the other company. We may also disclose certain personal information to a company as part of the planning or review for a potential merger, acquisition or transfer of assets.
- Other Users: Information that you post publicly on the Site (e.g., photos, comments, your profile) will be made publicly available to other users of the Houzz Platform. The information that you post to the Site is intended for public consumption, including your photos, comments, Ideabooks, and profile information. By posting on the Site, you agree to permit us to disclose publicly the material you post.
- Investigations: We may investigate and disclose information from or about you, as permitted by applicable law, if we believe that such investigation or disclosure is (a) necessary to comply with legal process and law enforcement instructions and orders, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us; (b) helpful to prevent, investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with the Site; or (c) helpful to protect our rights, reputation, property, or that of our users, subsidiaries, or the public.
4. Houzz Communications
When you join the Houzz Platform by signing up for an account or creating a profile, as part of the service you will receive the Houzz newsletter about the offerings and features on the Site. As permitted by law, you are also opting to receive other emails from us that may be of interest to you as a member of the Houzz community. We may also ask you to consent to receive text message communications from us. You can manage your email and notice preferences in account settings, but note that you cannot opt out of receiving certain administrative or legal notices from us. If you opt-out of receiving emails about recommendations or other information we think may interest you, we may still send you transactional e-mails about your account or any services you have requested or received from us. However, you may opt out entirely of receiving any text messages – promotional, transactional or otherwise – from us.
Additionally, by joining, you are agreeing to receive feedback and communications from third-parties within the Site, including third-party providers of products or services who may comment on your postings within the Site. If you don’t want third parties to see such information, you should not post it to your profile or the Site.
5. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies
We, and third parties we interact with, including our third party service providers, use cookies in connection with your use of the Site and third party websites (Cookies are small data files that may have unique identifiers, and reside, among other places, on your computer or mobile device, in emails we send to you, and on our Site. We also use web beacons for similar purposes on our Site, and in HTML e-mails to our customers (e.g., to help us track e-mail response rates, identify when our e-mails are viewed, and track whether our e-mails are forwarded). In addition, we may use local shared objects (sometimes called "flash cookies"), java script, log files, and similar technologies (together with cookies and web beacons, collectively referred to as “Cookies” in this policy) to track and analyze site usage and facilitate advertising on our Site and third party sites.
We may use Cookies to collect or transmit information about you and your use of the Site or third-party sites, such as: your browser type, search preferences, data relating to advertisements that have been displayed to you or that you have clicked on, your interests on our Site and other sites, and the date and time of your use. When we use Cookies, we do so in order to further Site features and processes, provide authentication and security for your transactions on the Site, store your preferences, facilitate relevant advertising, and help us learn more about how users engage with the Site, and understand your activities after you leave our Site. Our Cookies may be persistent or stored only during an individual session.
You may opt-out of tracking by third parties for certain advertising purposes (as discussed) which can help you control targeted advertising by third-parties that track your activities across sites. It may be possible to disable certain Cookies through your device or browser settings. The method for disabling cookies may vary by device and browser, but can usually be found in preferences or security settings. However, doing so may affect your ability to use the Site. If you are not comfortable with the above uses of Cookies, please do not use this Site.
Do-Not-Track Signals. Please note we do not change system behavior within the Site in response to browser requests not to be tracked. You may, however, disable certain tracking as discussed in this section (e.g., by disabling cookies or opting out of ad networks).
Third-Party Analytics. We also use automated devices and applications, such as Google Analytics, to evaluate usage of our Sites and the services we provide; you can opt out of Google Analytics and review its privacy policy here. We use these tools to gather non-personal information about users to help us improve our services, performance and user experiences. These analytics providers may use Cookies to perform their services, and may combine the information that they collect about you on our Site with other information that they have collected. This policy does not cover such third parties’ use of the data.
6. Third Party Advertising.
As noted, we work with third parties such as network advertisers to serve advertisements on third-party websites or other media, and to evaluate the success of our advertising campaigns, including Facebook, Google, and others (both Facebook and Google offer additional ways to opt out of certain advertising activities, and maintain their own privacy policies that address their interest-based advertising services). We also may work with third parties to display ads on our Site.
Third-party ad network providers, advertisers, sponsors and/or traffic measurement services may use cookies, JavaScript, web beacons (including clear GIFs), Flash LSOs and other tracking technologies to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to personalize advertising content to you. This enables us and these third parties to target advertisements to you for products and services in which you might be interested, based upon your activities on our Site and other websites. These third-party cookies and other technologies are governed by each third party’s specific privacy policy, not this one. We may provide these third-party advertisers with information about members, or allow them to collect certain information through our Site (e.g., IP address and demographic information), but we do not disclose your name, contact information or other personally identifiable information.
You can also manage many opt-out of receiving behaviorally-targeted ads from many companies via the consumer choice tools created under self-regulation programs in many countries, such as the US-based aboutads.info choices page or the EU-based http://www.youronlinechoices.com.
Opting out from one or more companies listed on the respective opt out pages noted above, will opt you out from those companies’ delivery of interest-based content or ads to you based upon your activities on multiple websites, but it does not mean you will no longer receive any advertising through our Site or on other websites. You may continue to receive advertisements, for example, based on the particular website that you are viewing (i.e., contextually based ads). Also, if your browsers are configured to reject cookies, or you subsequently delete your cookies, your opt out may not be effective. Additional information is available on the websites listed above.
7. Plug-ins and Social Media Widgets.
Our Site may include social media features and widgets, such as the Facebook Like button and the "Share this" button, as well as other interactive mini-programs that run both on our Site and Services and on third-party websites, and enable certain features to work (e.g., blogs and comments). These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly and for other purposes. When these features are displayed on our Site they are hosted by third parties, and are subject to their own privacy policies, not this one. Your interactions with these features are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing them.
8. Pro Pages and Websites.
Designers, businesses, retailers and advertisers (“Houzz Pros”), who are independent third parties, may maintain profile pages on the Houzz Platform, and we may host Houzz Pro Websites on or through the Platform (collectively the “Pro Pages”). Houzz Pros may collect certain information through Pro Pages, and allow you to contact them through their Pro Pages. Pro’s use of any information collected via Pro Pages, or submitted by you to Pros through the Houzz Platform, is subject to the Houzz Pro’s own policies and practices, and not this privacy policy.
9. Choice and Access to Your Personal Information.
You have certain choices about how to control your data, including publicly displayed profile information, communications settings, network linking, and opting out of tracking by third- parties for certain advertising purposes. These choices are described throughout this privacy policy in the relevant sections. Further, you may modify any account information that you have submitted by logging into your account and updating your profile information. Please note that copies of information that you have updated, modified or deleted may continue to reside in our systems for a period of time, and we may maintain copies as part of our business records.
10. Account Termination and Data Retention.
You can close your account at any time by going to account settings. When you close your account, you will cease to provide ongoing or future data to us. Your public profile will be deactivated. However, unless prohibited by applicable law, postings or comments you provided to the Site prior to closing your account, will remain public. We also may retain information about you for the purposes authorized under this privacy policy, including a copy of your account information as part of our business records, unless prohibited by law.
11. Children.
The Site is intended for general audiences and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you become aware that a child has provided us with personal information without parental consent, please contact us at privacy@houzz.com, and we will take steps to remove such information and terminate the child's account.
12. Security.
We have implemented security safeguards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or via mobile device, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure – so we cannot guarantee its absolute security. You should take certain steps to protect your account and personal information as well, such as by choosing a strong password and keeping such password private, and logging out of your account when you are finished using it.
13. International Transfers of Personal Information.
The Houzz group is a global organization, headquartered in the United States, with service providers, affiliates and operations in several countries. Your personal information will be transferred to and processed in the United States (or any other country where we, our affiliates, subsidiaries, agents and service providers operate) and processed there. Data protection laws differ among jurisdictions; and the United States and these other jurisdictions may not provide the same level of protection for personal information as your jurisdiction of residence. You understand that your information may be stored in or accessed from the United States and these other jurisdictions. You understand that, law enforcement agencies in the United States and these other jurisdictions may access and use your information for the purposes of investigation and law enforcement. By using our Site, you consent to the transfer and use of your information to the U.S. and other jurisdictions, as set forth in this paragraph.
14. Links to Other Sites.
Our Site contains links to other sites that are not controlled by us. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and read the privacy policies of each and every site you visit. This privacy policy applies only to information collected by our Site.
15. Modifications and Updates to this Privacy Policy.
We may revise this privacy policy from time to time. The most current version of the privacy policy will govern our use of information about you and will be located here: http://www.houzz.com/privacyPolicy. If we make material changes to this privacy policy, we may notify you by email or by posting a notice on the Site. By continuing to access or use the Site after those changes become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised privacy policy.
Contact Us
If you have questions or comments about Houzz privacy policy, please feel free to contact us at privacy@houzz.com.
Last Updated September 29, 2016
Click here for the prior revision (modified August 15, 2015)