Privacy Policy

Last Updated: October 26, 2023

1. Introduction

Welcome to AvShort ("we," "us," or "our"). We operate the website avshort.com (the "Site") and provide related SMS, email marketing, and link shortening services (collectively, the "Services"). We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy notice, or our practices with regards to your personal information, please contact us at contact@avshort.com.

This privacy notice describes how we might collect, use, store, and/or share ("process") your information when you use our Services, such as when you:

  • Visit our Site.
  • Register for an account and use our Services.
  • Engage with us in other related ways, including sales, marketing, or events.

Reading this privacy notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, please do not use our Services.

2. What Information Do We Collect?

Information You Disclose to Us

In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register on the Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.

The personal information we collect includes:

  • Contact Information: such as your name and email address.
  • Credentials: such as passwords and similar security information used for authentication and account access. (Note: We store password hashes, not plain text passwords).
  • Payment Information: If you subscribe to paid services, we (or our third-party payment processors) may collect data necessary to process your payment, such as your payment instrument number (e.g., a credit card number), and the security code associated with your payment instrument. All payment data is stored by our payment processor and you should review its privacy policies.
  • Content Data: We may collect data related to the content you create or manage through our Services, such as SMS message content, email campaign content, email lists, and original/shortened URLs. You are responsible for ensuring you have the necessary rights and consents for any personal data contained within this content, especially recipient phone numbers and email addresses.

Information Automatically Collected

In Short: Some information — such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address and/or browser and device characteristics — is collected automatically when you visit our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use, or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity (like your name or contact information) but may include device and usage information, such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, referring URLs, device name, country, location, information about how and when you use our Services, and other technical information. This information is primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services, and for our internal analytics and reporting purposes.

Like many businesses, we also collect information through cookies and similar technologies.

3. How Do We Use Your Information?

In Short: We process your information for purposes based on legitimate business interests, the fulfillment of our contract with you, compliance with our legal obligations, and/or your consent.

We use personal information collected via our Services for a variety of business purposes described below:

  • To facilitate account creation and logon process.
  • To provide, operate, and maintain our Services.
  • To manage user accounts and provide customer support.
  • To process your transactions and manage payments.
  • To send administrative information, such as changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
  • To send you marketing and promotional communications (where permitted by law and with opt-out options). You can opt-out of our marketing emails at any time.
  • To respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the use of our Services.
  • To protect our Services (e.g., for fraud monitoring and prevention).
  • To enforce our terms, conditions, and policies for business purposes, to comply with legal and regulatory requirements, or in connection with our contract.
  • To analyze usage trends and improve our Services.
  • For other business purposes, such as data analysis, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, and to evaluate and improve our Services, products, marketing, and your experience.

4. Will Your Information Be Shared With Anyone?

In Short: We only share information with your consent, to comply with laws, to provide you with services, to protect your rights, or to fulfill business obligations.

We may process or share your data that we hold based on the following legal basis:

  • Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose.
  • Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
  • Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
  • Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process.
  • Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.

More specifically, we may need to process your data or share your personal information in the following situations:

  • Business Transfers: We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
  • Third-Party Service Providers: We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: payment processing, data analysis, email delivery (for transactional and potentially marketing emails), SMS gateway providers, hosting services, customer service, and marketing efforts. We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
  • Affiliates: We may share your information with our affiliates, in which case we will require those affiliates to honor this privacy notice.

5. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless otherwise required by law.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (such as tax, accounting, or other legal requirements). Typically, this means we will keep your personal information as long as you have an active account with us.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

6. How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?

In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.

We have implemented appropriate technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. These include measures like hashing passwords, using HTTPS, access controls, and regularly reviewing our information collection, storage, and processing practices. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure, so we cannot promise or guarantee that hackers, cybercriminals, or other unauthorized third parties will not be able to defeat our security and improperly collect, access, steal, or modify your information. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Services is at your own risk.

7. What Are Your Privacy Rights?

In Short: In some regions, such as the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom (UK), and Canada, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information.

Depending on your location, you may have the following data protection rights:

  • The right to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information.
  • The right to request rectification or erasure.
  • The right to restrict the processing of your personal information.
  • If applicable, the right to data portability.
  • The right to object to the processing of your personal information.

If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Please note however that this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing before its withdrawal.

To exercise these rights, please contact us at contact@avshort.com. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable data protection laws.

You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information.

Account Information: You may at any time review or change the information in your account or terminate your account by logging into your account settings or contacting us. Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases. However, we may retain some information in our files to prevent fraud, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our Terms of Service and/or comply with legal requirements.

8. Updates to This Notice

In Short: We will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Last Updated" date and the updated version will be effective as soon as it is accessible. If we make material changes to this privacy notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by directly sending you a notification. We encourage you to review this privacy notice frequently to be informed of how we are protecting your information.

9. How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?

If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at contact@avshort.com or contact us via the form on our Contact Us page.