Privacy Policy

At SPECNET.org, accessible from https://specnet.org/, one of our main priorities is the privacy of our visitors. This Privacy Policy document contains types of information that is collected and recorded by SPECNET.org and how we use it.

If you have additional questions or require more information about our Privacy Policy, do not hesitate to contact us.

This Privacy Policy applies only to our online activities and is valid for visitors to our website with regards to the information that they shared and/or collect in SPECNET.org. This policy is not applicable to any information collected offline or via channels other than this website.

Information we collect

The personal information that you are asked to provide, and the reasons why you are asked to provide it, will be made clear to you at the point we ask you to provide your personal information.

If you contact us directly, we may receive additional information about you such as your name, email address, phone number, the contents of the message and/or attachments you may send us, and any other information you may choose to provide.

When you register for an Account, we may ask for your contact information, including items such as name, company name, address, email address, and telephone number.
We process your personal information to run our business and provide our users with the Services. By accepting our Terms & Conditions, you confirm that you have read and understand this policy, including how and why we use your information. If you don’t want us to collect or process your personal information in the ways described in this policy, you shouldn’t use the Services. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies or practices of any of our members, websites hosted through Pattern by Etsy, or third-party websites and apps.

SPECNET requires all account owners to be at least 18 years of age. Minors under 18 years of age and at least 13 years of age are permitted to use SPECNET’s Services only if they have permission and direct supervision by the owner of the account. Children under age 13 are not permitted to use the Services. You are responsible for any and all account activity conducted by a minor on your account. We do not knowingly “sell,” as that term is defined under applicable law, including the California Consumer Privacy Act, the personal information of minors. More information can be found in SPECNET’s Minors Policy.

By using the Services, you acknowledge that SPECNET will use your information in Greece and any other country where SPECNET operates. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside.

How we use your information

We use the information we collect in various ways, including to:

• Provide, operate, and maintain our webste
• Improve, personalize, and expand our webste
• Understand and analyze how you use our webste
• Develop new products, services, features, and functionality
• Communicate with you, either directly or through one of our partners, including for customer service, to provide you with updates and other information relating to the webste, and for marketing and promotional purposes
• Send you emails
• Find and prevent fraud

In the course of providing our Services, we collect or receive your personal information in a few different ways. We obtain the categories of personal information listed below from the following sources: directly from you, for example, from forms you complete or during registration; indirectly from you based on your activity and interaction with our Services, or from the device or browser you use to access the Services; from our vendors and suppliers that help provide SPECNET services you may interact with (such as, for example, for payments or customer support), and from our third party advertising and marketing partners. Often, you choose what information to provide, but sometimes we require certain information to provide you the Services. SPECNET uses the personal information it receives and collects in accordance with the purposes described in this policy.

You can also choose to provide information to a third party via SPECNET’s API. While users of SPECNET’s API are required to follow SPECNET’s API Terms of Use, including having appropriate privacy and security controls, SPECNET does not have a direct partner relationship with these third parties and their processing of information is subject to their own privacy policies. You should understand the privacy and security practices of any third party before you share information with them.

Registration, Account Setup, Service Usage: In order to use the Services, will need to submit a valid email address. If you register, you will need to submit a name associated with your account. You may modify that name through your account settings. You need to provide this information to enable us to provide you with the Services. Additional information, such as a shop name, billing and payment information (including billing contact name, address, telephone number, credit card information), a telephone number, and/or a physical postal address, may be necessary in order for us to provide a particular service. For example, we need a physical postal address if you are buying something on the Site for delivery. As an SPECNET seller, if you choose to use our payment service (“SPECNET Payments”), SPECNET requires your full name, social security number, identification ID or tax ID, date of birth, bank account information, photograph, credit card information, and/or other proof of identification in order to verify your identity, provide this service to you, and comply with applicable law. For both buyers and sellers, SPECNET requires this information from you in order to provide you with the Services (including, to verify ownership of an account, to mitigate fraud and abuse, to comply with regulatory obligations, or to complete a transaction as a buyer or seller). We may store credit card information for both billing and payment purposes. Members in certain countries can elect to save their credit card information to facilitate checkout for future purchases. If you’re an SPECNET buyer in the the EU, Norway, Iceland, or Liechtenstein, you may be asked to authenticate your payment method when you place your order. To authenticate a payment, you will need to respond to a prompt from your card issuer and provide additional information, such as a correct response to a question, a password, or a passcode. SPECNET may contact individual shop owners confidentially to request more information about their shops or items listed through the Services, or may request information from buyers to ensure compliance with our policies and applicable law. In order to use certain products or services on SPECNET, you may be required to complete an application; information that you submit through the application process will not be displayed publicly and will only be used internally by SPECNET and its service providers, unless otherwise specified.

Profile: You may provide your name and other personal information (such as birthday, gender, location) in connection with your account and activity. You can edit or remove this information through your account settings. The name associated with your account (which you may modify in your account settings) is publicly displayed and connected to your SPECNET activity. Other members may see the date you joined; ratings, reviews and information relating to items you review, and related photos for items you purchased or sold; your profile information; items you listed for sale; your shop pages and policies; your Favorites, followers, and those you follow; sold item listings and the number of items sold; comments you post in our community spaces; and information you decide to share via social networks.

Automated Information: SPECNET automatically receives and records information from your browser or your mobile device when you visit the Site, use the Apps, or use certain features of the Services, such as your IP address or unique device identifier, cookies, and data about which pages you visit and how you interact with those pages in order to allow us to operate and provide the Services. This information is stored in log files and is collected automatically. SPECNET may also receive similar information (like, for example, IP addresses and actions taken on the device) provided by a connected Internet of Things device such as a voice-activated assistant or Smart TV. We may combine this information from your browser or your mobile device with other information that we or our advertising or marketing partners collect about you, including across devices. This information is used to prevent fraud and to keep the Services secure, to analyze and understand how the Services work for members and visitors, and to provide advertising, including across your devices, and a more personalized experience for members and visitors.

We also automatically collect device-specific information when you install, access, or use our Services. This information can include information such as the hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage and debugging information, browser information, IP address, and device identifiers. For more information about these online tools and how we use them, see our Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy and “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” Section below.

Data from SPECNET Vendors and Suppliers: We also receive information from our vendors and suppliers about you. This information can include customer service interactions, payments information, shipping information, and information shared in SPECNET’s forums.

Data from Advertising and Marketing Partners: As described below, SPECNET receives information from our advertising and marketing partners about you. This information can include attribution information via cookies and UTM tags in URLs to determine where a visit to SPECNET comes from, responses to marketing emails and advertisements, responses to offers, and audience information from partners who you have given consent to share that information with us.

Location Information: We collect information about your use of the Services for advertising, for analytics, to serve content, and to protect the Services. This can include your IP address, browser information (including referrers), device information (such as iOS IDFA, IDFV for limited non-advertising purposes, Android AAID, and, when enabled by you, location information provided by your device). When you use the Apps, you can choose to share your geolocation details with SPECNET in order to use functions like our local marketplace, maps, and for in-person sales (although you don’t need to share these details). You can choose to publish your location when you sell on SPECNET.

We obtain location information you provide in your profile or your IP address. With your consent, we may also determine location by using other information from your device, such as precise location information from GPS or information about wireless networks or cell towers near your mobile device. We use and store information about your location to provide features and to improve and customize the Services, for example, for SPECNET’s internal analytics and performance monitoring; localization, regional requirements, and policies for the Services; for local content, search results, and recommendations; for shipping and mapping services; and (using non-precise location information) marketing. If you have consented to share your precise device location details but would no longer like to continue sharing that information with us, you may revoke your consent to the sharing of that information through the settings on the Apps or on your mobile device. Certain non-precise location services, such as for security and localized policies based on your IP address or submitted address, are critical for the Site to function. We will only share your geolocation details with third parties (like our mapping, payments, or, to the extent applicable, advertising providers) in order to provide you with the Services. You may also choose to enable the Apps to access your mobile device’s camera to upload photographs to SPECNET.

Analytics Information: We use data analytics software to ensure Site and App functionality and to improve the Services. This software records information such as how often you use the Apps, what happens within the Apps, aggregated usage, performance data, app errors and debugging information, and where the Apps were downloaded from. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information that you submit within the mobile application. For more information, see SPECNET’s Cookies and Similar Technologies Policy and Disclosures.

Information from Third Parties: Some members or visitors may choose to connect to SPECNET or register an SPECNET account using an external third-party application, such as Facebook, or an app developed using SPECNET’s API. Connecting your SPECNET account to third-party applications or services is optional. If you choose to connect your account to a third-party application, SPECNET can receive information from that application. We may also collect public information in order to connect with you, such as when we communicate with you over social media. We may use that information as part of providing the Services to you. You can also choose to share some of your activity on SPECNET on certain social media networks which are connected to your SPECNET account, and you can revoke your permission anytime in your account settings. Certain third-party applications that you use to create or sign in to your account may provide you with the option to discontinue receiving messages from us or allows you to forward those messages to another email address. If we are unable to send you critical messages about your account, we may suspend or terminate your account.

Non-Member Information: SPECNET receives or obtains information (for example, an email address or IP address) about a person who is not yet a registered SPECNET member (a “non-member”) in connection with certain SPECNET features, such as when a non-member chooses to subscribe to an SPECNET newsletter, a member invites a non-member to visit the Site, a member uploads non-member information using the contact uploader feature, a non-member engages in a transaction, a member sends a gift card code to a non-member, or a non-member uses Guest Checkout to make a purchase. Non-member information is used only for the purposes disclosed when it was submitted to SPECNET, for purposes necessary to the functioning of SPECNET’s Services or where SPECNET has a legitimate interest, as disclosed in the “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” Section below, or to facilitate action authorized by a member or the non-member.

Pattern by SPECNET: We also collect certain information from both members and non-members who visit websites hosted by us. This information may include your IP address or unique device identifier, and cookies and data from the pages you visit. To learn more about websites hosted by us through Pattern by SPECNET, see our Pattern Policy. For more information on our use of cookies and collection of tracking information, see our Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy or “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” section below.

You can choose to import your contacts from your mobile device or personal email address book, or a social network account to SPECNET. We do not retain the login information for your email service, mobile device, or social network site. You can search for people you know by email address or phone number on the Site or through the contact information you import. Finding your friends on SPECNET helps you connect with them on our platform. For example, you can follow another member’s public activity, such as public Favorites. When you begin following another member’s activity, they will receive an email notification (if the member has consented to receiving this type of email).

If you do not want your contacts to be able to find you on SPECNET through your email address, phone number, or social networking connections, then you can change your findability through your account settings. If you do not wish to be located on SPECNET via your name, you can remove your name and instead may use a nickname or alias as your name in your public account information.

On occasion, SPECNET will need to contact you. Primarily, these messages are delivered by email, SPECNET Messages, or by push notifications for a variety of reasons, including marketing, transactions, and service update purposes. If you no longer wish to receive push notifications, you can disable them at device level. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications via email or Messages in your account settings or by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing email you receive. To ensure you properly receive notifications, we will need to collect certain information about your device, such as operating system and user identification information. Every account is required to keep a valid email address on file to receive messages. SPECNET may also contact you by telephone to provide member support or for transaction-related purposes if you request that we call you. Additionally, and with your consent where required by applicable law, SPECNET may send you an SMS (or similar) message, or reach out to you by telephone, in order to provide you with customer support, for research or feedback, or to provide you with information about products and features that you may find of interest. You can update your contact preferences in your account settings.

Some messages from SPECNET are service-related and necessary for members and Guest Checkout users. You understand and agree that SPECNET can send you non-marketing emails, SPECNET Messages, or messages, such as those related to transactions, your account, security, or product changes. Examples of service-related messages include an email address confirmation/welcome email when you register your account, notification of an order, service availability, modification of key features or functions, relaying Messages with buyers, and correspondence with SPECNET’s Support team (including by chat interface or the other methods of communication as described above).

When you register for an account, subscribe to a newsletter, or provide us with your email address or phone number such as for a Guest Checkout purchase, you receive notice of and agree (in some jurisdictions and situations, by an additional unambiguous consent) to receive marketing emails and messages from us. You can unsubscribe at any time from marketing emails or messages through the opt-out link included in marketing emails or messages. Members can also control which marketing emails or messages they receive from SPECNET through their account settings. Please note that some changes to your account settings may take a few days to take effect.

A contact-importer feature is available to help you locate and connect with your friends and contacts who may be members of SPECNET (see the “Findability” section above for more information). If someone in your contact list is not already a member, you may invite them to join SPECNET, and an email will be sent to them on your behalf. Recipients of email invitations may opt out of receiving future invitations by following instructions in the email invitation message. You may send an invitation only to someone who has given you consent to receive one.

SPECNET is a marketplace and a community. We offer several features that allow members to connect and communicate in public or semi-public spaces, such as Forums and Teams, which are a part of the SPECNET Community space. You don’t have to use these features, but if you do, please use common sense and good judgment when posting in these community spaces or sharing your personal information with others through the Services. Be aware that any personal information that you choose to submit there can be read, collected, or used by others, or could be used to send unsolicited messages to you. We engage certain third parties to assist in providing community services to you and, in the context of that relationship, we need to share some of your information with such third parties in order to provide that service. This may include, for example, information from your SPECNET account that is publicly available, your account’s status, your forum posts and Team memberships, your SPECNET username and/or shop name, the display name you’ve optionally chosen to share publicly in your SPECNET account, avatar image, the date that you registered on SPECNET, as well as your language and regional settings on the Site. SPECNET generally does not remove content from community spaces, and your posts may remain public after your account is closed, although your name will no longer be displayed alongside the post. You are responsible for the personal information that you choose to post in community spaces through the Services. You can set your privacy preferences and download your data in your Community Settings, and close or delete your Community account by submitting a request to SPECNET.

Another member may follow your public activity on the Site to receive updates, such as when you add an item to your public Favorites. You may choose to make certain activities private through your account settings. You have the option to block any member with whom you do not wish to share your updates.

We respect your privacy. SPECNET will not disclose your name, email address, or other personal information to third parties without your consent, except as specified in this policy.

You can control your privacy settings through the opt-out buttons in your account settings privacy tab, and the Privacy Settings link in the footer of most site pages and our homepage. Please note that some changes to your privacy settings may take a few days to take effect. We or our sellers may advertise our Services or our sellers’ products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site.

Legal Bases

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information for the purposes described in this policy. We rely on a number of legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include where:

Necessary to perform the contractual obligations in our Terms of Use and in order to provide the Services to you;

You have consented to the processing, which you can revoke at any time;

Necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend any impending or asserted legal claims;

Necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners (described in more detail below);

You have expressly made the information public;

Necessary in the public interest, such as to prevent crime; and

Occasionally necessary to protect your vital interests or those of others (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

We principally rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at anytime) (i) to send marketing messages, (ii) for third-party data sharing related to advertising, and, to the extent applicable, (iii) for the use of location data for advertising purposes.

We rely on consent for targeted online and offline marketing including through tools like Facebook Custom Audience and Google Customer Match. We or our sellers may advertise our Services or our sellers’ products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site. As part of this, we may work with advertising partners such as Facebook, Google, and other partners disclosed in our Cookies and Similar Technology Policy. These partners have their own privacy policies and consent mechanisms for their customers, in addition to SPECNET’s controls. You may see the privacy policies and privacy choices for these partners, and the information you share with them, in our Cookies and Similar Technology Disclosures.

Buying and Selling: As part of the buying and selling process, SPECNET will facilitate the sharing of information between the two members involved in the transaction, such as the other SPECNET member’s shipping address and payment status. This can also involve us sharing your information with some of our third party partners such as our shipping and payment partners to enable us to provide the Service to you. Such partners will process your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies. In some instances, while they are subject to SPECNET’s privacy and security requirements for vendors, these partners, not SPECNET, are responsible for the protection of personal information under their control. By making a sale or a purchase on SPECNET, you are directing us to share your information in this way. Since this is an important part of the Services we provide, we need to do this in order to perform our obligations under our Terms of Use. We expect you to respect the privacy of the member whose information you have received. As described in SPECNET’s Terms of Use, you have a limited license to use that information only for SPECNET-related communications or for SPECNET-facilitated transactions. SPECNET has not granted a license to you to use the information for unauthorized transactions or sending unsolicited commercial messages in violation of any applicable laws, including any consent requirements of the jurisdiction of the recipient. You should only add a member to your email or physical mailing list or otherwise use or store a member’s personal information in accordance with applicable laws, including any consent requirements that apply in that member’s jurisdiction.

Site Customization: We may learn about the types of products that you’re interested in from your browsing and purchasing behavior on (and off) the Site or Apps and use such information to suggest potential purchases as a result. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases, including using this information to help sellers find the best ways to market and sell their products on SPECNET.

Legal and Safety: SPECNET may also retain, preserve, or release your personal information to a third party in the following limited circumstances: in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet legitimate national security or law enforcement requirements; to protect, establish, or exercise our legal rights or defend against impending or asserted legal claims, including to collect a debt, or a material violation of our policies (including our Intellectual Property Policy); to comply with a subpoena, court order, legal process, or other legal requirement; or when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, threats to our rights or property, or violations of SPECNET’s Terms of Use. In these cases, our use of your information may be necessary for the purposes of our or a third party’s legitimate interest in keeping our Services secure, preventing harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage. Such use may also be necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims. It may also be necessary in the public interest (such as to prevent crime) or to protect vital interests (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

If SPECNET receives a lawful, verified request for a member’s records or information in one of the limited circumstances described in the previous paragraph, SPECNET may disclose personal information, which may include, but may not be limited to, a member’s name, address, phone number, email address, and company name. Find out more about how SPECNET responds to requests for records or information about members of SPECNET’s community in our Requests for Information Policy.

Affiliated Businesses: SPECNET is affiliated with a variety of businesses and works closely with them for a variety of purposes, including assisting us to perform and improve the Services. These businesses may sell items or services to you through the Services or, with your consent, offer promotions (including email promotions) to you. SPECNET also provides services or sells products jointly with affiliated businesses, including providing you with the opportunity to sign up with such partners and allow them to more effectively market to you. When an affiliated business assists in facilitating your transaction, we may need to share information related to the transaction with that affiliated business in order to facilitate your transaction, and this forms part of the Services we provide in accordance with our Terms of Use. We rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at any time) to send marketing messages and for third-party sharing relating to advertising. As part of this, we may work with advertising partners such as Facebook or Google, and we may use analytics aggregated from usage information including, for example, search keywords, favorites, browsing history, and purchase history.

Aggregated Information: SPECNET may share demographic information with business partners, but it will be aggregated and de-personalized so that personal information is not revealed.

Service Providers: SPECNET also needs to engage third-party companies and individuals (such as research companies, and analytics and security providers) to help us operate, provide, and market the Services. These third parties have only limited access to your information, may use your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are obligated to SPECNET not to disclose or use your information for other purposes. Our engagement of service providers is often necessary for us to provide the Services to you, particularly where such companies play important roles like helping us keep our Service operating and secure. In some other cases, these service providers aren’t strictly necessary for us to provide the Services, but help us make it better, like by helping us conduct research into how we could better serve our users. In these latter cases, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to make our Services better.

Business Reorganization: In some cases, SPECNET may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interests, particularly our interest in making decisions that enable our business to develop over the long term. In these types of transactions (such as a sale, merger, liquidation, receivership, or transfer of all or substantially all of SPECNET’s assets), member information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. If SPECNET intends to transfer information about you, SPECNET will notify you by email or by putting a prominent notice on the Site and the App, and you will be afforded an opportunity to opt out before information about you becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Third Parties: Third-party plug-ins also collect information about your use of the Site. For example, when you load a page on SPECNET that has a social plug-in from a third-party site or service, such as a “Like” or “Send” button, you are also loading content from that third-party site. That site may request cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the third-party site. In addition, certain cookies and other similar technologies on the Site are used by third parties for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer or mobile device each time you use the Services. Please be aware that when you use third-party sites or services, their own terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those sites or services. SPECNET chooses and manages these third-party technologies placed on its Sites and Apps. However, these are third-party technologies, and they are subject to that third party’s privacy policy. For more information, see our Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy. We rely on your consent to drop and read these cookies when not technically necessary or when not required based on another purpose such as legitimate interest.

This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (such as other members who sell using the Services, certain third-party providers on whom we rely to provide certain services, or API users) that SPECNET does not own or control or individuals that SPECNET does not employ or manage, except as otherwise provided for in the Terms or as required by law. If you provide your information to such third parties in connection with your use of the Services, different practices may apply to the use or disclosure of the information that you provide to them. While SPECNET requires these third parties to follow SPECNET’s privacy and security requirements, SPECNET does not control the privacy or security policies of such third parties. To the full extent applicable in your jurisdiction, SPECNET is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of these sellers, API users, or other websites on the internet, even those linked to or from the Services. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and ask questions of third parties before you disclose your personal information to them. For the purposes of European law, these sellers, third party providers, and API users are independent controllers of data, which means that they are responsible for providing and complying with their own policies relating to any personal information they obtain in connection with the Services.

SPECNET operates a global service. If you reside outside of North or South America, your personal information is controlled by SPECNET Ireland UC. By using our Services, you understand that SPECNET Ireland UC may share some of the information it gathers with SPECNET, Inc. (its US parent company) or other SPECNET affiliates for purposes described in this privacy policy, including for ID verification, transaction reviews, and payment processing.

The United States, European Economic Area (“EEA”) Member States, and other countries all have different laws. When your information is moved from your home country to another country, the laws and rules that protect your personal information in the country to which your information is transferred may be different from those in the country in which you live. For example, the circumstances in which law enforcement can access personal information may vary from country to country. In particular, if your information is in the US, it may be accessed by government authorities in accordance with US law.

To the extent that SPECNET is deemed to transfer personal information outside of the EEA, we rely separately, alternatively, and independently on the following legal bases to transfer your information:

Model Clauses

The European Commission has adopted standard contractual clauses (also known as Model Clauses), which provide safeguards for personal information that is transferred outside of Europe. We often use these Model Clauses when transferring personal information outside of Europe. You can request a copy of our Model Clauses by emailing legal@SPECNET.com.

Privacy Shield

SPECNET, Inc. does not participate in Privacy Shield at this time. However, SPECNET Ireland UC may rely on the EU-US Privacy Shield to transfer personal information to some of our third party service providers in the United States, where they are certified to receive such information under the Privacy Shield Program.

Necessary for the Performance of the Contract between SPECNET and its Members

SPECNET provides a voluntary service; you can choose whether or not to use the Services. As we operate in countries worldwide and use technical infrastructure in the U.S. to deliver the Services to you, in accordance with the contract between us (our Terms of Use), we need to transfer your personal information to the U.S. and to other jurisdictions as necessary to provide the Services. Simply put, we can’t provide you with the Services and perform our contract with you without moving your personal information around the world.

The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and after it is received, for example encryption is used for certain information (such as credit card numbers) using TLS (transport layer security). Unfortunately, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Your account information is protected by a password. It is important that you protect against unauthorized access to your account and information by choosing your password carefully and by keeping your password and computer secure, such as by signing out after using the Services. SPECNET offers advanced security features and settings for members, such as two-factor authentication for signing in, and sign in history and notifications; you can view more information in your account settings.

If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at inquiry@SPECNET.com.

SPECNET will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, for as long as your account is active (i.e., for the lifetime of your SPECNET member account), or as needed to provide the Services to you. If you no longer want SPECNET to use your information to provide the Services to you, you may close your account. SPECNET will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your information to comply with applicable tax/revenue laws), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this policy. In addition, SPECNET sellers may also be required to retain and use your information in order to comply with their own legal obligations. Please note that closing your account may not free up your email address, username, or shop name (if any) for reuse on a new account. We also retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period of time, except in cases where they are used for site safety and security, to improve site functionality, or we are legally obligated to retain them for longer time periods.

Your Rights & Choices

Certain privacy laws around the world, including the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), provide users with rights related to their personal information. Consistent with those laws, SPECNET gives you the choice of accessing, editing, or removing certain information, as well as choices about how we contact you. You may change or correct your SPECNET account information through your account settings. You may also remove certain optional information that you no longer wish to be publicly visible through the Services, such as your name. You can also request to permanently close your account and delete your personal information. Depending on your location, you may also benefit from a number of rights with respect to your information.While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply in limited cases.

Right to Access & Portability: You can access certain personal information associated with your account by visiting your account privacy settings. You can request a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format and information explaining how that information is used. See this Help Center article for more information.

Right to Correction: You have the right to request that we rectify inaccurate information about you. By visiting your account settings, you can correct and change certain personal information associated with your account.

Right to Restrict Processing: In certain cases where we process your information, you may also have the right to restrict or limit the ways in which we use your personal information.

Right to Deletion: In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, except information we are required to retain by law, regulation, or to protect the safety, security, and integrity of SPECNET. See this Help Center article for more information.

Right to Object: If we process your information based on our legitimate interests as explained above, or in the public interest, you can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. Where we use your personal data for direct marketing purposes, you can object using the unsubscribe link in such communications or changing your account email settings.

Right to Withdraw Consent: Where we rely on consent, you can choose to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information using specific features provided to enable you to withdraw consent, like an email unsubscribe link or your account privacy preferences. If you have consented to share your precise device location details but would no longer like to continue sharing that information with us, you can revoke your consent to the sharing of that information through the settings on your mobile device. This is without prejudice to your right to generally permanently close your account and delete your personal information.

The CCPA provides California residents with the following additional rights:

Right to Know: California residents may request disclosure of the specific pieces and/or categories of personal information that the business has collected about them, the categories of sources for that personal information, the business or commercial purposes for collecting the information, the categories of personal information that we have disclosed, and the categories of third parties with which the information was shared.

Right to Opt-Out: To the extent that SPECNET “sells” personal information(as that term is defined under the CCPA), California residents are entitled to opt-out of the “sale” of data at any time (see below for more information).

If you would like to manage, change, limit, or delete your personal information, you can do so via your SPECNET account settings. Alternatively, you can exercise any of the rights above by contacting us by submitting a message through our contact form available in our Help Center, chat support, or through any other channels available via our Help Center. Once you contact us to exercise any of your rights, we will confirm receipt of your request.

Limiting use of, or deleting, your personal information may impact features and uses that rely on that information. However, we will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights, including otherwise denying you goods or services, providing you with a different level or quality of services, or charging you different prices or rates for services. If you need further assistance, you can contact SPECNET through one of the channels listed below under “Contact”. We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

Please note that we may verify your identity before we are able to process any of the requests described in this Section, and in our discretion, deny your request if we are unable to verify your identity. As a part of this process, government or other identification may be required. You may designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. In order to designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requester’s valid government issued identification, and the authorized agent’s valid government issued identification, and we may verify the authenticity of the request directly with you.

You may also control the receipt of certain types of communications from SPECNET in your account settings. SPECNET may send you messages about the Services or your activity. Some of these messages are required, service-related messages for members (such as transactional messages or legal notices). Other messages are not required, such as newsletters. You can control which optional messages you choose to receive by changing your account settings, and you can learn more in the “Messages from SPECNET” Section of this policy. If you no longer wish to use the Services or receive service-related messages (except for legally required notices), then you may close your account. Click here to learn how to close your account.

SPECNET.org follows a standard procedure of using log files. These files log visitors when they visit websites. All hosting companies do this and a part of hosting services’ analytics. The information collected by log files include internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet Service Provider (ISP), date and time stamp, referring/exit pages, and possibly the number of clicks. These are not linked to any information that is personally identifiable. The purpose of the information is for analyzing trends, administering the site, tracking users’ movement on the website, and gathering demographic information.

Like any other website, SPECNET.org uses ‘cookies’. These cookies are used to store information including visitors’ preferences, and the pages on the website that the visitor accessed or visited. The information is used to optimize the users’ experience by customizing our web page content based on visitors’ browser type and/or other information.

For more general information on cookies, please read “What Are Cookies”.

You may consult this list to find the Privacy Policy for each of the advertising partners of SPECNET.org.

Third-party ad servers or ad networks uses technologies like cookies, JavaScript, or Web Beacons that are used in their respective advertisements and links that appear on SPECNET.org, which are sent directly to users’ browser. They automatically receive your IP address when this occurs. These technologies are used to measure the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns and/or to personalize the advertising content that you see on websites that you visit.

Note that SPECNET.org has no access to or control over these cookies that are used by third-party advertisers.

SPECNET.org’s Privacy Policy does not apply to other advertisers or websites. Thus, we are advising you to consult the respective Privacy Policies of these third-party ad servers for more detailed information. It may include their practices and instructions about how to opt-out of certain options. You may find a complete list of these Privacy Policies and their links here: Privacy Policy Links.

You can choose to disable cookies through your individual browser options. To know more detailed information about cookie management with specific web browsers, it can be found at the browsers’ respective websites. What Are Cookies?

Under the CCPA, among other rights, California consumers have the right to:

Request that a business that collects a consumer’s personal data disclose the categories and specific pieces of personal data that a business has collected about consumers.

Request that a business delete any personal data about the consumer that a business has collected.

Request that a business that sells a consumer’s personal data, not sell the consumer’s personal data.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.

We would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

The right to access – You have the right to request copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service.

The right to rectification – You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request that we complete the information you believe is incomplete.

The right to erasure – You have the right to request that we erase your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to restrict processing – You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to object to processing – You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.

The right to data portability – You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us.