We want to earn your trust by being transparent about how Owners Direct works. You should read this policy in its entirety, but should pay particular attention to these three highlights: 
 

• Owners Direct is designed to make it easy for you to share your property information with anyone you want. You decide how much information you feel comfortable sharing on www.globalestateportal.com 

 

• Owners Direct is not just a website. It is also a service for sharing your information on Owners Direct-enhanced applications and websites.

 

• We will not share your information with advertisers without your consent. We allow advertisers to select characteristics of users they want to show their advertisements to and we use the information users share with us to serve those advertisements.

This policy contains eight sections:

 
1. Introduction
2. Information We Receive 
3. Information You Share With Third Parties
4. How We Use Your Information
5. How We Share Information
6. How You Can View, Change, or Remove Information
7. How We Protect Information
8. Other Terms

1. Introduction
 

Questions. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, contact our privacy team through our contact page. www.globalestateportal.com

TRUSTe Program. Owners Direct is a certified licensee of the TRUSTe Privacy Seal Program. This means that our privacy policy and practices have been reviewed by TRUSTe, an independent organization focused on reviewing privacy and security policies and practices, for compliance with its strict program requirements. The TRUSTe program covers only information that is collected through this Web site, and does not cover other information, such as information that may be collected through software downloaded from Owners Direct.

 

Safe Harbor. Owners Direct also adheres to the Safe Harbor framework developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Union. As part of our participation in the Safe Harbor, we agree to resolve all disputes you have with us in connection with our policies and practices through TRUSTe.

Scope. This privacy policy covers all of Owners Direct. It does not, however, apply to entities that Owners Direct does not own or control, such as Owners Direct-enhanced applications and websites.

No information from children under age 13. If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Owners Direct or provide any Your Property information about your company to us. If we learn that we have collected Your Property information from a child under age 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under age 13, please contact us.

Parental participation. We strongly recommend that minors 13 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet and we encourage parents to teach their children about safe internet use practices.

2. Information We Receive

  Information you provide to us:
 

Your Property information. When you sign up for Owners Direct you provide us with your name, email, gender, and birth date. During the registration process we give you the opportunity to provide additional profile information, such as where you located, where you work, and to add a picture of your company or Business, to help your clients connect with you. In some cases we may ask for additional information for security reasons or to provide specific services to you. Once you register you can visit your profile at any time to add or remove information about your listings or profile. You can add basic information about your business, such as information about your company. You can also add other information about your company including your activities, interests, contact information, as well as more information about your track record and job history. 

Content. One of the primary reasons people use Owners Direct is to share content with others. Examples include when you update your Listings, upload or share a photo, upload or share a video, share a link, Upload Company advertising and profile photos. If you do not want us to store metadata associated with content you share on Owners Direct (such as photos), please remove the metadata before uploading the content. 

Transactional Information. We may retain the details of transactions or payments you make on Owners Direct. However, we will only keep your payment source account number with your consent.

Client Information. We offer contact importer tools to help you upload your Clients’ addresses so that you can find your clients on Owners Direct, and invite your contacts who do not have Owners Direct accounts to join.

Location Information. When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post. If we offer a service that supports this type of location sharing we will present you with an opt-in choice of whether you want to participate.

  Information we collect when you interact with Owners Direct:
 

Site activity information. We keep track of the actions you take on Owners Direct, such as adding a Client, becoming a fan of a Owners Direct Page, joining a group or an event, creating a photo album, indicating you “like” a post, attending an event, or authorizing an application. In some cases you are also taking an action when you provide information or content to us. For example, if you share a video, in addition to storing the actual content you uploaded, we might log the fact you shared it. 

Access Device and Browser Information. When you access Owners Direct 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 Owners Direct easier to use, to make our advertising better, and to protect both you and Owners Direct. For example, we use them to store your login ID (but never your password) to make it easier for you to login whenever you come back to Owners Direct. We also use them to confirm that you are logged into Owners Direct, and to know when you are interacting with Owners Direct Platform applications and websites, our widgets and Share buttons, and our advertisements. You can remove or block cookies using the settings in your browser, but in some cases that may impact your ability to use Owners Direct. 

  Information we receive from third parties:
 

Owners Direct Platform and Owners Direct.org. We do not own or operate the applications that you use through Owners Direct Platform (such as games and utilities) or the websites that you interact with through Owners Direct Connect. We refer to them as “Owners Direct-enhanced” applications and websites because they use our Platform to provide you with social features. Whenever you authorize a Owners Direct-enhanced application or website, we will receive information from them, including information about actions you take. In some cases, in order to connect, we may receive a limited amount of information even before you authorize the application or website. 

Information from other websites. We may institute programs with advertising partners and other websites in which they share information with us: 

• We may ask advertisers to tell us how our users responded to the ads we showed them (and for comparison purposes, how other users who didn’t see the ads acted on their site). This data sharing, commonly known as “conversion tracking,” helps us measure our advertising effectiveness and improve the quality of the advertisements you see.

 

• We may receive information about whether or not you’ve seen or interacted with certain ads on other sites in order to measure the effectiveness of those ads.

If in any of these cases we receive data that we do not already have, we will “Privatize” it within 60 days, meaning we will stop associating the information with any particular user. If we institute these programs, we will only use the information in the ways we explain in the “How We Use Your Information” section below.

Information from other users. We may collect information about you from other Owners Direct users, such as when a client tags you in a photo or video, provides client details, or indicates a business relationship with you.

3. Information You Share With Third Parties

We take steps to ensure that others use information that you share on Owners Direct in a manner consistent with your privacy but we cannot guarantee that they will follow our rules. Read the following section to learn more about how you can protect your company when you share information with third parties.
 

Sharing information on Owners Direct. We designed our privacy settings to enable you to control how you share your information on Owners Direct. You can control the visibility of most of the information you share on Owners Direct through  your account page and display information that you have selected.

 

• Certain categories of information such as your company name, profile photo, list of clients or property listings are considered publicly available, and therefore do not have privacy settings. (We will soon stop using regional networks, but your geographic region will still be considered publicly available).

 

• Some of the content you share and the actions you take will show up on your Clients’ home pages and other pages they visit.

 

• Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed or it was copied or stored by other users.

 

• You understand that information might be re-shared or copied by other users.

 

• Certain types of communications that you send to other users cannot be removed, such as messages.

 

• If you use an external source to publish information to Owners Direct (such as a mobile application or a Connect site), you should check the privacy setting for that post, as it is set by that external source.

“Global Reach” Privacy Setting. It is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Owners Direct), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Owners Direct (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Owners Direct is set to “global reach”

Owners Direct Platform. As mentioned above, we do not own or operate Owners Direct-enhanced applications or websites. That means that when you visit Owners Direct-enhanced applications and websites you are making your Owners Direct information available to someone other than Owners Direct. To help those applications and sites operate, they receive publicly available information automatically when you visit them, and additional information when you formally authorize or connect your Owners Direct account with them. Prior to allowing them to access any information about your property, we require them to agree to terms that limit their use of your information. We also give you tools to control how your information is shared with them:

• You can choose to opt-out of Owners Direct Platform and Owners Direct Connect altogether through your account settings or contact your Owners Direct Agent.

 

• You can use your property listings to limit which of your information your Clients can make available to applications and websites

 

• We may make information about the location of your property listings available to Owners Direct –enhanced applications and websites in order to help them implement appropriate security measures and control the distribution of age-appropriate content.

You should always review the policies of third party applications and websites to make sure you are comfortable with the ways in which they use information you share with them. We do not guarantee that they will follow our rules. If you find an application or website that violates our rules, you should report the violation to us on our contacts page and we will take action as necessary.

Exporting Information. You (and those you make your information available to) may use tools like RSS feeds, mobile phone address books, or copy and paste functions, to capture and export information from Owners Direct, including your information and information about your business and your property listings..

Advertisements. Sometimes the advertisers who present ads on Owners Direct use technological methods to measure the effectiveness of their ads and to your property listing advertising content.

Links. When you click on links on Owners Direct you may leave our site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites, and we encourage you to read their privacy statements.

4. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to try to provide a safe, efficient, and customized experience. Here are some of the details on how we do that:
 

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 Statement of rights and responsibilities. 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. You may opt out of all communications except essential updates on your account page. We may include content you see on Owners Direct in the emails we send to you.

To serve Your Property advertising to you. We don’t share your information with advertisers without your consent. We allow advertisers to choose the characteristics of users who will see their advertisements and we may use any of your property listings identifiable attributes we have to select the appropriate audience for those advertisements. For example, we might use your interest in real estate to show you ads for real estate.
To serve social ads. We occasionally pair advertisements we serve with relevant information we have about your’ business and your Clients to make advertisements more interesting and more tailored to your’ business and your Clients. We only share the Your Property identifiable information visible in the social ad with the Client who can see the ad.

To supplement your profile. We may use information about you that we collect from other Owners Direct users to supplement your profile

To make Suggestions. We use your profile information, the addresses you import through our contact importers, and other relevant information, to help you connect with your Clients, including making suggestions to you and other users that you connect with on Owners Direct online and offline.

5. How We Share Information

Owners Direct is about sharing information with others — Clients and prospects in your networks — we share your information with third parties when we believe the sharing is permitted by you, reasonably necessary to offer our services, or when legally required to do so. For example:

When you make a payment. When you enter into transactions with others or make payments on Owners Direct, 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 invite a Client to join. When you ask us to invite a Client to join Owners Direct, we will send your Client a message on your behalf using your name. We may also send up to two reminders to them in your name. If your Client does not want us to keep their information, we will remove it at their request on the contact us page.

When you choose to share your information with marketers. You may choose to share information with marketers or electronic commerce providers that are not associated with Owners Direct through on-site offers. This is entirely at your discretion and we will not provide your information to these marketers without your consent.

To help your Clients find you. By default, we make certain information you have posted to your’ or your company’ profile available in search results on Owners Direct to help your Clients find you. We also partner with email and instant messaging providers to help their users identify which of their contacts are Owners Direct users, so that we can promote Owners Direct to those users. 

To give search engines access to publicly available information. We generally limit search engines’ access to our site. We may allow them to access information posted and uploaded by the user that can or may be found on public search listing.

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 action or 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 Owners Direct, 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 Property 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 advertise our services. We may ask advertisers outside of Owners Direct to display ads promoting our services. We may ask them to deliver those ads based on the presence of a cookie, but in doing so will not share any other information with the advertiser.

To offer joint services. We may provide services jointly with other companies, such as the classifieds service in the Owners Direct Marketplace. If you use these services, we may share your information to facilitate that service. However, we will identify the partner and present the joint service provider’s privacy policy to you before you use that 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 globally 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 Statement of rights and responsibilities. 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 the promises made in any pre-existing Privacy Policy.

6. How You Can View, Change, or Remove Information
 

Viewing and editing your profile. You may change or delete your profile information at any time by going to your profile page.

Delete uploaded contacts. If you use our contact importer to upload addresses, you can later delete the list. 

Deactivating or deleting your account. If you want to stop using your account you may unregister with a 14 day notice period. When you unregister an account, no user will be able to see it, but it will not be deleted. We save your profile information (Clients, photos, interests, etc.) in case you later decide to reactivate your account. Many users unregister their accounts for temporary reasons and in doing so are asking us to maintain their information until they return to Owners Direct. You will still have the ability to reactivate your account and restore your profile in its entirety. When you delete an account, it is permanently deleted. You should only delete your account if you are certain you never want to reactivate it. You may unregister your account with a 14 Day prior notice period.

Limitations on removal. Even after you remove information from your profile or delete your account, copies of that information may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent it has been shared with others, it was otherwise distributed pursuant to your agreement or it was copied or stored by other users. However, your name will no longer be associated with that information on Owners Direct. Additionally, we may retain certain information to prevent identity theft and other misconduct even if deletion has been requested.

Backup copies. Removed and deleted information may persist in backup copies for up to 90 days, but will not be available to others. 

Non-user contact information. If a user provides your email address to us, and you are not a Owners Direct user but you want us to delete your address, you can do so on this help page. However, that request will only apply to addresses we have at the time of the request and not to any addresses that users provide to us later. 

7. How We Protect Information

We do our best to keep your information secure, but we need your help.

Steps we take to keep your information secure. We keep your account information on a secured server behind a firewall. When you enter sensitive information (such as credit card numbers and passwords), we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). We also use automated and social measures to enhance security, such as analyzing account behaviour for fraudulent or otherwise anomalous behaviour, 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 Statement of rights and responsibilities.

Risks inherent in sharing information. Although we allow you to limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. We cannot control the actions of other users with whom you share your information. We cannot guarantee that only authorized persons will view your information. We cannot ensure that information you share on Owners Direct will not become publicly available. We are not responsible for third party circumvention of any privacy or security measures on Owners Direct. You can reduce these risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services, and using up to date antivirus software. 

Report Violations. You should report any security violations to us on the contact us page. 

8. Other Terms
 

Changes.  We may change this Privacy Policy pursuant to the procedures outlined in the Owners Direct. Unless stated otherwise, our current privacy policy applies to all information that we have about your business and account. If we make changes to this Privacy Policy we will notify you by publication here and on the Owners Direct Site. You can make sure that you receive notice directly by becoming a fan of the Owners Direct.

Consent to Collection and Processing in the United States. By using Owners Direct, you consent to having your Property data transferred to and processed internationally.

Defined Terms. "Us," "we," "our," "Platform" and "Owners Direct" mean the same as they do in the “Information” and “content” used more generally and interchangeably here than otherwise limited by the context.