Privacy Policy

THE FOOD LENS PRIVACY POLICY 

Effective March 30, 2017

This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use and share the personal information we collect through our website at www.thefoodlens.com (the “Services”).

BY PROVIDING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION OR OTHERWISE USING THIS WEBSITE, YOU CONSENT TO THE TERMS OF THIS PRIVACY POLICY.

 Who We Are

Type of Information We Collect and Use

Additional Uses of Personal Information

How We Share and Disclose personal information

Your Ad Choices

Children’s Privacy

How to Update Your Information

Links to Other Websites

Updates to the Privacy Policy

How to Contact Us

WHO WE ARE

We are The Food Lens, Inc.  Our goal is identifying the best restaurants and bars to bring you the dish on where to eat and drink.  When we use the term “The Food Lens,” “we,” or “us,” we are referring to the The Food Lens, Inc.

TYPES OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND USE

When you use the Services, we collect the following types of information.

Information Provided By You

We collect personal information when you choose to share that information with us in the following ways. “Personal information” means any information associated with an individual person, or that can be reasonably used to identify an individual person.  We collect personal information through your use of our Services and whenever you contact us.  Personal information does not include “aggregated” or “de-identified” information that does not specifically identify a person.

Account registration:  When you register for an account through the Services, we collect registration and demographic details (for example, name, username, password, address, phone number, and email address), which we use to administer the account and communicate with you.

Communication preferences:  When you sign up for our newsletter, we collect your contact information and communication preferences, which we use to manage how we communicate with you.

Comments and postings:  When you submit identifiable comments or other content on the Services or to us directly, we collect whatever information you supply and use this information to communicate with you if requested, and otherwise fulfill the purpose of the content submission.  Please be aware that any stories, photos or comments that you submit on a public forum will become publicly accessible.

Information We Automatically Collect

We use technologies to collect data that do not directly reveal your identity (we call this “Other Information”).  Examples of these technologies include the following.

Logging:  Like most websites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information may include IP addresses, browser type, internet service provider, the pages you navigate to or from, your operating system, clickstream data, and time and date of your visit.

Cookies and Other Data Collection Tools:  We and third parties we work with use cookies, web beacons, and similar tools to manage our Services and email communications, and to collect and track information about you and your activities online over time.  These tools help us to recognize you, customize or personalize your experience and analyze the use of our Services to make it more useful to you.

Most Internet browsers allow you to remove or manage cookie functions and adjust your privacy and security preferences.  For information on how to do this, access the “help” menu on your Internet browser, or visit http://www.aboutcookies.org/how-to-control-cookies/.  Please note, however, that disabling our cookies may result in your inability to take full advantage of all of the features of our website. To manage Flash cookies please visit Adobe’s website at: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html.

Analytics:  We may use analytics providers such as Google Analytics to help us evaluate the Services.  Data about the general attributes of your device may also be collected when you use the mobile application. To opt out of the aggregation and analysis of data collected about you on our website by Google Analytics, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout and download and install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Information We Obtain from Third Party Sources

We may collect personal information from a number of third party sources. 

Single Sign-On:  Our Services allow you to register and login through a third-party platform like Facebook.   When you login to our Services through a third party platform, you allow us to access and collect data from your third-party account permitted under the settings and privacy policy of that platform.

Third Party Sharing Tools:  We may provide functionality on the Services that will allow you to share content or access third party sharing tools such as widgets, tools or buttons.  If you choose to use these sharing functions, we will use your personal information and the information you provide to share content only.  As with all links to third party sites, content and services, we recommend that you read the privacy policies and terms associated with third parties carefully.

ADDITIONAL USES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

In addition to the uses described above, we may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • Operating our business, delivering our Services, managing your accounts, and for any other lawful, legitimate business purposes;
  • Processing and completing your requests including, as applicable, registering you for an account, posting your comments to the Services and delivering tailored services;
  • Contacting you to respond to your requests or inquiries, to tell you about programs, products or services we believe may be of interest to you, to share with you special offers from other companies, or to correct an offer, promotion, or advertisement;
  • Providing you with newsletters, articles or service alerts, new product or service announcements, offers, event invitations and other information;
  • Conducting market research to help us understand trends and needs across our user groups, analyzing your interactions with us, and improving our Services, programs, and other offerings;
  • Preventing, investigating, or providing notice of fraud, unlawful or criminal activity, or unauthorized access to or use of personal information, our Services or data systems; or to meet legal obligations; and,
  • Enforcing our Terms and Conditions and other agreements.

HOW WE SHARE AND DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We share your information with third parties only in the ways described in this Privacy Policy.

Service Providers:  We share your information with third party service providers who complete transactions or perform services on our behalf or for your benefit, such as for website hosting, reservations, payment processing, marketing, analytics, or to verify customer data.

Affiliates:  We may share your information with affiliated legal entities within our family of companies for purposes and uses that are consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Legal Process, Safety and Terms Enforcement:  We may disclose your personal information to legal or government regulatory authorities in response to their requests for such information or to assist in investigations. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties in connection with claims, disputes or litigation, when otherwise required by law, or if we determine its disclosure is necessary to protect the health and safety of you or us, or to enforce our legal rights or contractual commitments that you have made.

Business Transfers: Your personal information may be disclosed as part of a corporate business transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, joint venture, or financing or sale of company assets, and could be transferred to a third party as one of the business assets in such a transaction. It may also be disclosed in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy or receivership.  You will be notified via email or a prominent notice on any affected Services of any change in ownership or uses of personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding personal information about you.

YOUR AD CHOICES

We support the self-regulatory principles of the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”).   We work with a variety of advertisers, advertising networks, advertising servers, and analytics companies (“Ad Partners”) that use different technologies to collect data about your use of the Services (such as pages visited, ads viewed or clicked on)  in order to deliver relevant advertising.

These technologies may include the placement on our Services of cookies or web beacons, and other data collection technologies by these Ad Partners to measure how our Services are being used, to collect data about where users go and what they do after they leave, and to link various devices users may use, and to serve more relevant ads.  These ads may appear on our Services or other websites and services that you visit.

For more information about how our Ad Partners use the information collected by the technologies on our Services and how to opt out of this collection, please visit the DAA’s opt-out page, at http://aboutads.info/choices.  You may also opt out of additional third-party advertising networks by going to the Network Advertising Initiative’s (NAI) website at http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ and following the directions listed there.

The opt-outs described above are device- and browser-specific and may not work on all devices.  If you choose to opt out through any of these opt-out tools, this does not mean you will cease to see ads.  Rather, the ads you see will not be based on your interests.  In addition, when you opt out using one of these methods, our Ad Partners will continue to collect information for any other purpose permitted by the DAA’s and NAI’s rules.   You can opt out of future information collection from our Services by ceasing use of the Services or in the case of an application, uninstalling the application.

Please note that this Privacy Policy does not cover the practices of our Ad Partners.  The Food Lens does not have control over these third party technologies or the information contained in them.

CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

Our Services are not directed to, and we do not intend to, or knowingly, collect or solicit personal information online from children under the age of 13.  If you are under the age of 13, do not provide us with any personal information either directly, on any website bulletin boards, or by other means. If a child under 13 has provided personal information to us, we encourage the child’s parent or guardian to contact us to request that we remove the information from our systems.

MANAGING YOUR COMMUNICATION PREFERENCES

If you wish to opt out of receiving our email newsletters or promotions, you may do so at any time by contacting us using the information located in the “How to Contact Us” section below or by clicking “unsubscribe” in any email you receive from us and following the instructions on the screen.

HOW TO UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION

You may contact us to update your information using the information in the “How to Contact Us” section below.  We will retain your personal information for as long as your account is active or as reasonably useful for commercial purposes. We will retain and use your personal information as necessary to comply with legal obligations or data retention policies, resolve disputes and enforce our agreements.

You may deactivate your account at any time for any reason by calling or emailing us as indicated in the Contact Us section below

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

Our Services contains links to websites operated by third parties.  Our Services may also include features like buttons and widgets hosted by other companies (for example, the Twitter “Tweet” button). These features may collect your IP address, which page you are visiting on our Services, and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we are not responsible for, the practices of third parties that collect your personal information. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of those third parties to learn about their information practices.

UPDATES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY

This Privacy Policy is subject to revision.  If we make any changes in the way we use personal information, we will post notice of the changes on the Services and update the effective date above.

HOW TO CONTACT US

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or other privacy-related matters, please click here and use the contact information listed.

The Food Lens
889 Tanglewood Dr.
Concord, MA 01742

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