Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

BranchOut, Inc. (“BranchOut” or “we”) operates the BranchOut services to make professional networking easy, fun, and effective. We provide you with services so that you can share your professional activities, search for a job, source leads for recruiting or sales, create and maintain a professional profile, and build your network of professional connections.

We provide this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies regarding the collection, use, disclosure and protection of information. This Privacy Policy applies to all of the BranchOut professional networking websites, mobile features, applications, and other interactive features or services that link to it (“BranchOut Services”), including the BranchOut websites (http://www.branchout.com) (the “BranchOut Site”), the BranchOut mobile applications and the BranchOut applications and pages on Facebook (the “BranchOut App”). Your use of the BranchOut Services is subject to our Terms of Services. If you access the BranchOut Services through Facebook, you may be required to read and accept the Facebook terms of service and privacy policy.

Our policy concerning children under 13. The BranchOut Services are not intended for children younger than the age of 13. If we learn that we have inadvertently gathered personal information from children younger than the age of 13, we will take reasonable measures to delete such information from our records.

2. BranchOut Community Basics

Through the BranchOut Services, we provide you with the tools to instantly start a professional network based on your existing Facebook profile and comprised of your friends and their friends and that you can expand as you connect with other BranchOut members and friends. You also have the opportunity for potential employers, business partners, BranchOut customers, professional contacts and friends (the “BranchOut Community”) to find you. We allow our members to communicate and collaborate with each other, learn about business opportunities and jobs and obtain Introductions. Additionally, BranchOut users may celebrate success stories, engage in activities and acknowledge our community’s pool of talent. You may also have the opportunity to post certain of your BranchOut activity to Facebook or other third party forums or to have us do so on your behalf.

Below we summarize what it means to be part of the BranchOut community and how your professional profile and activity will be displayed among the BranchOut Community, on Facebook, and publicly.

Your BranchOut Profile

Your BranchOut Profile is your professional resume on the Internet, whether you work on Main Street, Wall Street or anywhere else. Your “BranchOut Profile” consists of your information and activities on BranchOut, including your work history, education, personal and professional work and accomplishments, your connections, anything you post about yourself or within your profile, public interactions with other BranchOut users and actions you take within BranchOut

Your BranchOut Profile may be publicly visible to everyone on the Internet. BranchOut allows you to control whether certain information is public (but note the default may be that certain information in your BranchOut Profile is designated “everyone” and will be publicly available). Click here to visit your Account Settings.

Your BranchOut Profile can be accessed through the BranchOut Services (e.g., by searching for your name on BranchOut or by clicking on your name listed on a Connection’s profile) or directly through a simple URL (www.branchout.com/yourname), which you can share or display as you choose (for example, on your email signature or blog).

BranchOut Users

There are several types of users on BranchOut, and you may interact with these users in different manners, including through public posts and private messaging features within BranchOut:

• BranchOut User. A BranchOut User is a user who has registered to join BranchOut by installing any of our mobile or web applications or who has otherwise registered for BranchOut.
• Extended Network Member. An Extended Network Member is a person who has not installed any BranchOut application but is connected to a BranchOut User through other social networks (e.g., a Facebook friend or second-degree Facebook friend).
• Connections. A user’s Connections consist of (1) that user’s connections on BranchOut to BranchOut Users and (2) Extended Network Members. Additionally, when you join BranchOut you are automatically connected on BranchOut to your Facebook friends who are BranchOut Users and Extended Network Members. You may, however, remove such connections from BranchOut.
• Follower. A Follower is a person who is a BranchOut User who is not connected to you on BranchOut, but who chooses to follow you on BranchOut (i.e., receive your public updates in the follower’s activity stream). When you join BranchOut, by default your activity on BranchOut may be followed. You may choose whether or not to allow followers on BranchOut. If you allow Followers, we may suggest that other BranchOut users follow you. You may also block a person from following you, but that person will still be able to view your BranchOut Profile.
• Enterprise Users. Enterprise Users are corporate customers who use BranchOut for networking, recruiting and business development purposes. Notwithstanding your privacy settings, Enterprise Users can view any information in your BranchOut Profile that is designated for “Everyone” or for “Connections Only.”

If you are a BranchOut User, we may provide functionality such that when you view another BranchOut user’s profile, that user will be able to view certain information about you (such as your profile photo and your name, company, title, and city).You may be able to view BranchOut profiles without disclosing that information by changing your account settings.

BranchOut Privacy Settings:

You may restrict the visibility of information displayed on your BranchOut Profile using one of three privacy settings: “Everyone” (visible to everyone on the internet), visible to “My Connections and Their Connections” or visible to “Connections Only.”

• “Everyone” means that the information is public and thus visible by all BranchOut users, including Connections, Followers, Enterprise Users, and everyone on the Internet, including persons who are not BranchOut Users.
• “Connections and Their Connections” means that information is visible to your first degree connections and second degree connections.
• “Connections Only” means that the information is visible only by BranchOut Users that are connected to you on BranchOut. Note that Enterprise Users will be able to see all information in your BranchOut Profile that you designate “Connections Only” (or that you designate for Everyone), even if such users are not Connection.

To change your privacy preferences visit Account Settings desktop browsers or Visibility Settings in our native mobile applications (both referred to as “Account Settings” in this policy).

Public Profile Searchability: If your BranchOut Profile is public, BranchOut makes it available for indexing on search engines, subject to the search engines’ own indexing schedules. Thus, there will likely be a delay before your BranchOut Profile initially appears in a search engine’s search results and before any update you make to your BranchOut Profile is reflected on a search engine.

Default Post Visibility: When you join BranchOut, by default your posts will be visible to Everyone. You can change your default post visibility in Account Settings.

Introductions and ReachOut Messages: A “ReachOut” message is a message from a user who is not connected to you on BranchOut, including an Enterprise User. You cannot disable Introductions or ReachOut messages.

Tags: If you are tagged in a BranchOut user’s post, you have the ability to delete the post from your own activity stream; and remove the tag from the post by visiting the tagging user’s BranchOut profile.

Network (List of Contacts): By default, when you join BranchOut, your network — which is your list of contacts, including Connections — are visible to Everyone, however, you can change your privacy settings to have your Connections visible to: (1) only your Connections; or (2) only to yourself.

3. Information We Receive

BranchOut believes that your friends and family are your true support network both personally and professionally. Thus, BranchOut allows you to establish a professional network on BranchOut based on your Facebook friends and their network.

A. Information We Receive From Facebook

By accessing BranchOut with your Facebook ID, you are authorizing BranchOut to collect, store, and use, in accordance with this Privacy Policy, any and all information that you agreed that Facebook could provide to BranchOut through the Facebook’s Application Programming Interface (“API”). Your agreement takes place when you “accept” or “allow” (or similar term) the BranchOut App via Facebook. You may also grant us additional permissions at other times. Information is provided to us by Facebook under the terms of Facebook’s data use policy (or other applicable Facebook policy). BranchOut will only access additional information from your Facebook account with your consent.

BranchOut will access and store certain information from your current Facebook profile (for example, your first and last name, email address, current city and state, your work history and education, your profile picture, your Facebook user ID number and demographic information, such as your age and gender, as well as any other information that you have made public on Facebook), all in accordance with the permissions you have granted BranchOut. We also access your friends’ and their friends’ names and applicable user ID number, profile photos, work history and education so that you can create and build your professional network.

Importantly, you can change your profile photo on BranchOut to reflect your profession and this will not change your Facebook profile photo which may be more personal. Also, in order to help you instantly build your professional network, BranchOut will continue to update your network of friends and their friends, but the rest of your BranchOut profile will not change if you change your Facebook profile

B. Information We Collect From You Directly

In addition to the information we receive from Facebook, when you use the BranchOut Services, we may ask you to provide personally identifiable information, which is information that identifies you as a specific individual (“Personal Information”), and other information about you, such as demographic information (your gender, ZIP code or similar information), registration and payment information (typically, credit card account information), and certain information about your preferences and interests. If we combine demographic, or similar information with the Personal Information we collect, we will treat the combined information as Personal Information under this Privacy Policy.

C. Information we collect automatically when you interact with BranchOut and Cookies and similar technologies.

We and our third party service providers, including third party network advertising companies and content providers, may use a variety of technologies that automatically or passively collect certain information whenever you visit or interact with the BranchOut Services (“Usage Information”). Usage Information may include the browser and operating system you are using, the URL or advertisement that referred you to the BranchOut Site, the search terms you entered into a search engine that lead you to BranchOut (if applicable), and information about your interactions with the BranchOut Services (such as the pages and content you view and actions you take, the time you accessed BranchOut, and the duration of that period of access), among other information.

In addition, Usage Information also includes your IP address or other unique identifier (“Device Identifier”) for any computer, mobile phone or other device (any, a “Device”) you may use to access the BranchOut Services. A Device Identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your Device used to access a web site, and our servers identify your Device by its Device Identifier. If you use the BranchOut Services on a mobile device, we may also receive information about your mobile device, such as your UDID, mobile operating system, the name of your mobile carrier, and your location information (e.g., GPS coordinates or network-based location). Usage Information is collected through the use of server log files and tracking technologies, including cookies, web beacons and embedded scripts. In some cases, we will associate this information with your user ID number for our internal use.

The methods we may use to collect Usage Information include the following:

• Cookies: A cookie is a data file placed on a Device when it is used to visit the BranchOut Services or otherwise access our online content. Cookies may be used for many purposes, including, without limitation, remembering you and your preferences and tracking your visits to our web pages. A Flash cookie is a data file placed on a Device via the Adobe Flash plugin that may be built-in to or downloaded by you to your Device. Flash cookies may be used for various purposes, including, without limitation, enabling a Flash feature and remembering your preferences. For more information about Flash and the privacy choices Adobe offers, visit this site. If you choose to disable cookies or to adjust your Flash privacy settings on your Device, some features of the BranchOut Site may not function properly.
• Web Beacons: A web beacon is a small (often invisible) graphic image or other web programming code embedded in a web page or email. Web beacons or similar technologies may be used for a number of purposes, including, without limitation, to count visitors to the BranchOut Services, to monitor how users navigate the BranchOut Services and to count how many e-mails that were sent were actually opened.
• Embedded Scripts: An embedded script is programming code that is designed to collect information about your interactions with the BranchOut Site, such as the links you click on. The code is temporarily downloaded onto your Device from our server or a third party service provider and is deactivated or deleted thereafter.

D. Information we receive from third parties

We may receive information about you from third parties. For example, if you are on another web site or are using another app and you agree to receive information from BranchOut, that web site or app will forward your contact and other information to us so that we may contact you as requested. You may also choose to participate in a BranchOut or third party application or features (such as a widget that allows you to import your BranchOut profile information to a third party site) through which you allow us (or the third party) to collect or share information about you, including Personal Information. The third party may allow you to remove the application or feature, in which case we will no longer collect information about you through the application or feature, but we may retain the information previously collected.

BranchOut may offer you the ability to import your professional information from your resume or through third party services so that you can display such information in your BranchOut Profile. Any information that you choose to import will become part of your BranchOut Profile. BranchOut may also offer the ability to help you import your contacts to the BranchOut Services, for instance, by asking for your login information for your email account. If you choose to import contacts, BranchOut will store those contacts for purposes of helping you and your contacts make connections on BranchOut. BranchOut will not store the passwords you provided without your consent.

As noted above in “Information We Receive From Facebook”, BranchOut receives certain information from Facebook when you use the BranchOut Services. In addition, we may receive information about you if other users of a third party web site give us access to their profiles and you are one of their “connections” or information about you is otherwise accessible through your “connections” web page, profile page, or similar page on a social networking or other third party web site or interactive service.

We also may supplement the information we collect with outside records from third parties in order to provide you with information, services or goods you have requested. We may combine the information we receive from those other sources with information we collect through the BranchOut Services. In those cases, we will apply this Privacy Policy to the combined information.

4. How We Use Your Information

We may use your information as disclosed to you at the time you provide it or choose to participate in a feature or otherwisewith your consent. In addition, BranchOut uses your Personal Information and Usage Information to register you for, and enable you to use, the BranchOut Services; to help serve you relevant and meaningful content; to improve the BranchOut Services and for our internal business purposes; to contact you regarding the BranchOut Services (e.g., to respond to your customer support inquiries, to update you regarding the activity of your Connections, to provide you with professional opportunities); to enable you to take polls, quizzes, and surveys; and to send you promotional messages on our behalf or on behalf of our partners. You can opt out of receiving promotional messages by clicking “unsubscribe” in the message or changing your email settings in the Account Settings. If you disclose information to BranchOut in a poll, quiz, or survey, certain employers may use the results from these activities in their recruiting efforts, and third parties may target advertising to you based on your responses.

BranchOut also uses your Personal Information and Usage Information to enable you to interact with other BranchOut users, whether privately or publicly (e.g., by sending a private message on BranchOut, or enabling you to post on another BranchOut user’s profile, e.g., through a public message, endorsement, or similar content) and to invite a friend to join BranchOut (e.g., by email, a Facebook wall post, or through a Facebook notification). When you initiate a communication through BranchOut, we may list your name as the sender of the message, but we will not include your personal email address without your consent or ability to remove such email address. BranchOut, however, enables other users who already know your email address (or other information about you) to find and contact you on BranchOut using that contact information that they already have about you. When you invite a friend to join BranchOut, the invitation may contain information about other users your friend might know.

5. How We Share Information

We do not sell, rent, or otherwise provide your personal identifiable information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes without your consent. We share your information (which may include Personal Information and Usage Information) with third parties (not BranchOut) with your consent, as disclosed in this privacy policy or at the time you provide us with information, and in the following circumstances:

Sharing With Facebook

As a service uniquely linked to the Facebook API, BranchOut will disclose your Personal Information to Facebook when you have chosen to share your BranchOut activity with Facebook (e.g., your BranchOut activity stream and professional updates). Once information is shared with Facebook, that information will become subject to two separate policies: Facebook’s data use policy (and/or any other applicable policy of Facebook), with respect to the information held by Facebook, and this Privacy Policy, with respect to the information held by BranchOut. BranchOut is not responsible for, and may be unable to, alter or delete information after it has been provided to Facebook pursuant to your authorization. If you do not wish for Facebook to receive your activity stream or professional updates from BranchOut, you should not agree to share your BranchOut activity with Facebook and adjust your Facebook and/or BranchOut settings to prevent this sharing.

When You Agree to Receive Information From Third Parties or Otherwise Request That We Share Your Information.

You may be presented with an opportunity to receive information and/or marketing offers from one or more third parties. If you agree at that time to have your information shared, your information will be disclosed to that third party (or parties) and will be subject to the privacy policy and practices of that third party. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of third parties, and, if you later decide that you no longer want to receive communications from a third party, you will need to contact that third party directly. You also may request, sometimes through your use of an interactive feature, a widget or third party application, that we share information about you with a third party and we will typically do so under those circumstances.

Enterprise Users.

In order to generally provide our services to our users free of charge, we offer special services to Enterprise Users to help recruiters, sales professionals and other customers find qualified candidates, business partners, and sales leads, and to collect market intelligence and aggregate business information. Enterprise Users will have access to view your BranchOut Profile as if they were a Connection (such that any information you designate for “Everyone” or for “Connections Only” will be available to Enterprise Users). Enterprise Users will also be able to view your responses to certain polls, quizzes, and surveys that you answer on the BranchOut Services. Enterprise Users will also be able to contact you by sending you a ReachOut message to qualify you for business and career opportunities, request Introductions to your network, and collaborate with you on business opportunities, as well as for other purposes.

Third Party Service Providers.

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 the BranchOut Site, send out email updates about BranchOut, remove repetitive information from our user lists, process payments, or provide search results or links (including sponsored links). If you purchase any products or services from BranchOut, our billing partner will receive billing and financial information (e.g., credit card numbers) necessary to process your charges, including your postal and e-mail addresses, depending on your payment method.

Joint Services.

We may provide services jointly with other companies, such as with a sales customer relationship management service or recruiting software service. If you use these services, we may share your information to facilitate that service. However, we will identify the partner before you use that service.

Legal Requests and Safety.

We may transfer and disclose information, including Personal Information and Usage Information, to third parties to comply with a legal obligation; when we believe in good faith that the law requires it; at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation; to verify or enforce our Terms of Services or other applicable policies; to respond to an emergency; or otherwise to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of third parties, users of the BranchOut Services or the public. We may also use device identifiers to identify users, and may do so in cooperation with copyright owners, Internet service providers, wireless service providers or law enforcement agencies, in our discretion. Such disclosures may be carried out without notice to you.

Transfer in the Event of Sale or Change of Control.

BranchOut reserves the right to disclose and transfer user information, including personal information, in connection with a corporate merger, consolidation, restructuring, the sale of certain stock and/or assets, or other corporate change including, without limitation, during the course of any due diligence process.

Sweepstakes, Contests and Promotions.

We may offer sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions (each, a “Promotion”) that may require registration. If you choose to participate in a Promotion, your personal information may be disclosed to third parties in connection with the administration of such Promotion, such as in connection with winner selection, prize fulfillment, and as required by law, such as on a winners list. By entering a Promotion, you are agreeing to the official rules that govern that Promotion, which may contain specific requirements of you, including, except where prohibited by law, allowing the sponsor and/or other parties to use your name, voice and/or likeness in advertising or marketing materials.

Non-Personal Information.

We may share non-personal information, such as aggregated user statistics with third parties for a variety of purposes, in our sole discretion. But we only do so in such a way that no individual user is specifically identified or linked to any specific action or information.

6. Third Party Analytics Providers And Ad Servers

Although the BranchOut Site currently does not display ads from third parties, BranchOut works with network advertisers, ad agencies, third party traffic measurement services and other vendors to provide us with information regarding traffic on the BranchOut Site and through the BranchOut Services, to serve our advertisements on other web sites, within third party applications, and across the Internet, and to provide us with information regarding the use of the BranchOut Services and the effectiveness of our advertisements. For example, if you click on a BranchOut advertisement, our service provider(s) may be able to tell us which advertisement you clicked on and where you were viewing the advertisement. In connection with providing analytics and advertisement services, our service providers may collect certain information about your visits to this or other web sites. We do not share personal information with these service providers, but they may set and access their own tracking technologies on your computer or device (including cookies and web beacons) and may otherwise collect or have access to information about you (such as your general interest in career networking and Usage Information). Cookies and web beacons, including those set by third party network advertisers, may be used to, among other things, target advertisements, prevent you from seeing the same advertisements too many times and to conduct research regarding the usefulness of certain advertisements to you. We may share Usage Information about visitors with third party advertising companies, analytics providers and other vendors for similar purposes. While we may use a variety of service providers to perform advertising and analytics services, you may wish to visit the NAI, which provides information regarding this practice by Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) members, including the “opt-out” procedures of NAI members.

7. How to Access and Update Your Information

Information We Receive From Facebook.

To manage the information BranchOut receives about you from Facebook, you will need to follow the instructions in your “Account” and “Privacy Settings” on Facebook (or similar features as determined by Facebook) for updating your information and changing your privacy settings.

Once BranchOut receives your information from Facebook, that information is stored and used by BranchOut in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Accessing and Controlling Your Information.

You can review and update your BranchOut Profile with your latest work history, skills and other information, at any time by logging into your account on BranchOut and following the instructions in “Edit Resume.” You may also place certain limitations on how — and to whom — certain portions of your BranchOut Profile is displayed through the Account Settings.

Closing Your Account.

We would hate to see you go, but if you no longer want BranchOut to make active use of your information, you may send an e-mail to contact@branchout.com. Place “Delete My Account” in the subject line and include your first name, last name, e-mail address in the body of the e-mail. We may also offer an online feature that allows you to disable or close your account. We will respond to your request as soon as practical, but in any event within thirty (30) days. Please note that some information may not be able to be deleted from all databases and backup records and that certain records, for example those pertaining to payments or customer service matters, will be retained for legal and accounting purposes. Also, if you have posted content on or through the BranchOut Services, we may not be able to delete it.

8. Security of Your Information

BranchOut implements commercially reasonable security measures to protect the security of your information both online and offline, and we are committed to the protection of customer information.

When you sign into your account or enter payment information (such as a credit card number when purchasing virtual currency), we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (“SSL”).

While we take reasonable precautions against possible security breaches of our websites and our customer databases and records, no website or Internet transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss, or other breaches will never occur. We urge you to take steps to keep your personal information safe (including your account password), and to log out of your account after use. If your Facebook account is hacked, this may lead to unauthorized use of your BranchOut application, so be careful to keep your account information secure.

9. BranchOut Widgets And BranchOut Content Found Outside The BranchOut Services

When you are using the BranchOut Services, you may be directed to other websites or online services that are operated and controlled by third parties that are beyond our control. In addition, BranchOut content and widgets may be included on web pages and web sites that are not associated with us and over which we have no control. These third parties may independently collect data. BranchOut is not responsible for the privacy practices of any third party.

10. Changes/Consent To Transfer/Contact Us

Changes.

BranchOut may update this policy from time to time and any changes will be effective upon posting. We will notify you about significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your BranchOut account or by placing a prominent notice on the BranchOut Site. However, we will use your personal information in a manner consistent with the Privacy Policy in effect at the time you submitted the information, unless you consent to the new or revised policy.

Consent to Transfer.

The BranchOut Services are operated in the United States. If you are located outside of the United States, please be aware that information we collect will be transferred to and processed in the United States. By using the BranchOut Services, or providing us with any information, you fully understand and unambiguously consent to this transfer, processing and storage of your information in the United States, a jurisdiction in which the privacy laws may not be as comprehensive as those in the country where you reside and/or are a citizen.

How to Contact Us.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy and/or practices, please send an e-mail to privacy@branchout.com. Any other questions or inquiries should be directed to BranchOut Customer Care at contact@branchout.com.

BranchOut, Inc.
Attention: Legal/Privacy Team
333 Bryant Street, Suite 320
San Francisco, CA 94107