We at Thinking Chat® know that your privacy is important. As used in this policy, "Thinking Chat" refers to all websites (including http://thinkingchat.com), properties, and services owned or operated by Rice Global Enterprises Inc. (“Rice Global”) related specifically to Rice Global’s wholly owned subsidiary Thinking Chat.
Below you can find information about when and how we collect information from you when you visit our site, register, or concerning your computer or device ("Information"), including Personally Identifiable Information (defined below), how we use such Information, and the circumstances under which we may disclose such Information to others. This Privacy Policy is part of Thinking Chat's Terms of Use and describes the privacy practices and GDPR policies of Thinking Chat. For GDPR specific updates refer to section III below.
By visiting the Thinking Chat® website, visiting a Thinking Chat® client website that uses Thinking Chat’s technology and/or this policy, or registering for our service, you acknowledge that you accept and consent to the practices outlined in this Privacy Policy.
Please note that this Privacy Policy does not apply to the practices of companies other than Thinking Chat, or to individuals whom Thinking Chat® does not employ or manage, including any of the third parties to which Thinking Chat® may disclose Information as set forth in this Privacy Policy.
Thinking Chat Agent's Collection and Use of Visitor Information:
Thinking Chat® and its clients use Thinking Chat's code, software and service ("Service") to obtain information from website visitors in order to offer assistance with visitors which are interacting with web pages ("Visitor Information"). This allows Thinking Chat® and its clients to engage visitors in an automated chat session with the goal of helping visitors find what they need more quickly and/or allow a Thinking Chat Automated Agent to forward the visitor’s needs to a human for follow-up assistance to the visitor. Clients use Thinking Chat’s service in a number of industries in order to provide a communication tool that delivers chat messages to the client’s personnel 24x7x365 thus improving efficiency and saving time. Please note that Thinking Chat® itself uses the Thinking Chat Technology to obtain insights into visitors' activities on https://thinkingchat.com.
The data Thinking Chat® collects may include names, emails, visitor preferences, and customized data that varies from client to client but typically includes information about visitors' questions or inquiries about the website, such as specific information about products or services.
Thinking Chat® may also collect certain Information about a visitor's computer that may be furnished by the visitor's browser, such as:
Thinking Chat's Disclosure of Visitor Information
Except as disclosed in Section II below, Thinking Chat® never sells or shares any Visitor Information with individuals or companies other than the specific client on whose website Thinking Chat® collected the Visitor Information.
The Information provided to non-clients is in the form of: aggregated reports and/or statistics that identify the collective behavior of visitors to client websites, as opposed to the behavior or activity of specific or identified individuals.
Our Clients' Use of Thinking Chat
Thinking Chat® encourages its clients to abide by all applicable laws, rules and regulations and follow legal and ethical best practices. Nevertheless, Thinking Chat® has no control over its clients' activities or the disclosures made by its clients on their websites, and it cannot be held responsible for any client's failure to make these disclosures on its website or its use of Visitor Information that is not permitted under this Privacy Policy or otherwise. Thinking Chat® accepts no liability for its Clients’ Use of the Thinking Chat technology. For more details on the terms that apply to our clients' use of the Thinking Chat service, please see Thinking Chat's Terms of Use.
Use of CookiesIt is Thinking Chat's policy to use cookies (small text files that Thinking Chat stores locally on your computer) on client sites for one or more of the following purposes: to help website visitors by identifying them as a new or returning visitor; to assess usage patterns and perform traffic analysis; identify preferences; diagnose problems with our servers; analyze trends; and otherwise administer Thinking Chat® products and services.
If you do not wish to have Thinking Chat® place and use cookies on your computer, you should set your browser preferences to refuse all cookies, including first-party cookies, before accessing Thinking Chat® or other websites that may use Thinking Chat. However, in that case our automated Agents may not be able to assist you in finding what you are looking for on our website or our Client’s website. Thinking Chat® is not responsible for any failure by you or your browser to accurately implement or communicate your browser preferences or settings. Please note that if you set your browser to reject cookies, some features of the websites you visit may be unavailable. In addition, please be aware that even if you configure your browser settings to reject all cookies, your activity on Thinking Chat® client websites will still be recorded by the Service. However, if you reject all cookies, Thinking Chat® will not be able to determine whether or not you are a new or returning visitor.
How Thinking Chat® Collects Visitor Information
Thinking Chat® clients use customized and proprietary JavaScript tracking code provided by Thinking Chat® to collect and transmit Visitor Information to Thinking Chat's servers. When a user visits a website that uses Thinking Chat's Service, this code contacts Thinking Chat's servers and enables Thinking Chat® to collect information while visiting our client's website. This information is then stored on Thinking Chat's web servers and databases for use in providing visitor chat transcripts or performing analysis and producing reports for the Thinking Chat® client. When a visitor engages with a Thinking Chat Automated Agent on our website or a Client website they are engaging to request information. The visitor’s name, email, and information they requested is recorded so that Thinking Chat® or Thinking Chat’s Client can contact the visitor to assist them with their request.
Opting Out of Information
If you wish to opt out of Thinking Chat® collecting Visitor Information when you visit Thinking Chat® or Client websites, you can limit information you provide or choose not to engage with a Thinking Chat Agent. We typically use your email only to contact you to provide information you have requested. However, we may use your email and other addresses and contact information for customer support, required notifications, product and policy updates, product opportunities, marketing releases, but we will not use this information for anything else not described in this Policy. If you receive an email from Thinking Chat® you can opt-out.
Client Information
When individuals or companies register to use the Thinking Chat® Service, register to use a trial version of Thinking Chat, or request additional information about Thinking Chat®, Thinking Chat may require Personally Identifiable Information, such as name, e-mail mailing address, phone number, financial information (e.g., credit card number, billing address), and/or website to be tracked, to process the registration or request ("Client Information"). When a client registers for the Thinking Chat Service, some of these pieces of information may be temporarily stored in encrypted format in a cookie. Thinking Chat® may use this information to process and fulfill your request, register your account, check your qualifications for registration and/or to bill you for products and services. Thinking Chat® may also use Personally Identifiable Information you submit to us to provide Thinking Chat's products and services, personalize and tailor your experience on Thinking Chat, understand how clients are engaging with Thinking Chat, request additional information necessary to process or fulfill your order; determine if you are satisfied with the Thinking Chat service; inform you that an upgrade is available; or to contact you with information about Thinking Chat, including information about new or existing products and services or special offers. For example, we may periodically send instructions on how to better use our service, or promotional materials or notifications related to our products and services to the email address associated with your account.
This Policy does not apply to the policies or practices of any third parties.
Payment Processors
Like many companies that accept payment online or by credit card, Thinking Chat relies on third-party payment processors to process financial payments, such as Paypal, Stripe, Wepay, etc. When you make payments to Thinking Chat to obtain or use Thinking Chat's products or services, Thinking Chat may share Personally Identifiable Information, such as your name, address, and credit card information, with qualified third parties in order to process your order.
Disclosure of Visitor Information and Client Information to Service Providers and Law Enforcement/Legal Process Information and/or Client Information (including Personally Identifiable Information) may be shared with certain third-party companies and individuals that help facilitate technical aspects of the Thinking Chat Service or perform functions related to the administration of Thinking Chat, such as Amazon's Web Services, which provides storage facilities for Thinking Chat, Infusionsoft which provides email services and web forms, or another CRM Email provider. These third parties perform tasks on our behalf and are contractually obligated not to disclose or use Visitor Information or Client Information for any other purpose. However, Thinking Chat® is not responsible in the event that Personally Identifiable Information is disclosed at a result of a breach or security lapse at any such third party.
Change of Control
If Thinking Chat, or substantially all of its assets, is acquired by another company or successor entity, Visitor Information and/or Client Information will be one of the assets transferred or acquired by the purchaser or successor. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any purchaser of or successor to Thinking Chat® or its assets may continue to collect, use and disclose your information as set forth in this policy.
Thinking Chat® also reserves the right to disclose any Visitor Information or Client Information (including Personally Identifiable Information) to: (i) comply with any law, regulation, or legal request; (ii) enforce, apply, or investigate breaches of the Terms of Use or other agreements; (iii) respond to public requests; or (iv) protect the rights, property, user experience, or safety of Thinking Chat, our employees, our users, or others.
Security and Protection of Visitor Information and Client Information
We use reasonable efforts to maintain accurate information on our customers, and have adopted and implemented reasonable security procedures to protect any such information collected. We constantly monitor our systems, which are protected using security measures. However, we cannot guarantee that the information submitted to, maintained on, or transmitted from our systems will be completely secure. Thinking Chat® cannot guarantee the security of such information and cannot be held responsible for unauthorized access to Thinking Chat client accounts.
Policy Concerning Children Under Age of 13
Thinking Chat® does not knowingly or intentionally collect Personally Identifiable Information from children under 13 or from websites that are directed to children under 13.
Use of Data
As a strict company policy – we do not contact the website visitors of our customers or partners. We do not sell or rent visitor data from EU/UK citizens or provide data to 3rd parties except under specific guidelines for the purposes of improving our quality or if requested by regulatory authorities. The extent of our use of EU/UK data is to review chat transcripts to improve the quality of our service.Consent
We require that visitors to a website in the UK/EU provide consent prior to starting the chat. We can verify that a visitor consented based on their date of chat transcript and by requiring consent to start the chat.Data Retention
For tax purposes the law requires us to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transactional Data) for six years after they stop being customers. When deciding what the correct time is to keep the data for we look at its amount, nature and sensitivity, potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, the processing purposes, if these can be achieved by other means and legal requirements. In some circumstances we may anonymize your personal data for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.Data Security
We will work to maintain the security of our data using appropriate protocols, technology, and common sense. We have put in place security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, altered, disclosed, or accessed without authorization. We also allow access to your personal data only to those employees and partners who have a business need to know such data. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they must keep it confidential. We maintain internal data security guidelines.International Transfers
International transfers occur if we share your personal data within our group of companies which involves transferring your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA). We are subject to the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulations that protect your personal data. Where we transfer your data to third parties outside of the EEA, we will ensure that certain safeguards are in place to ensure a similar degree of security for your personal data. As such: we may transfer your personal data to countries that the European Commission have approved as providing an adequate level of protection for personal data; or If we use US-based providers that are part of EU-US Privacy Shield, we may transfer data to them, as they have equivalent safeguards in place; or Where we use certain service providers who are established outside of the EEA, we may use specific contracts or codes of conduct or certification mechanisms approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.
If none of the above safeguards is available, we may request your explicit consent to the specific transfer. You will have the right to withdraw this consent at any time. Again, our use-case is based on improvement of quality control.
Data Breaches
If there is a data breach of sensitive data we must report it to the authorities within 72 hours and follow our internal data breach protocol.
Removal of Data
If a UK/EU citizen requests removal of their personal data we must remove it and follow our internal data removal protocol.
GDPR Training
We will work to ensure employees and authorized contractors understand our GDPR policies.
GDPR Enforcement
It is a violation of our company policy for any Thinking Chat employee or contractor to use any EU/UK data for any purpose other than quality control or service improvement. Violations of our policy can result in immediate termination of the employment or relationship with our company.
Your Legal Rights
Under data protection laws you have rights in relation to your personal data that include the right to request access, correction, erasure, restriction, transfer, to object to processing, to portability of data and (where the lawful ground of processing is correct) to withdraw consent. If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please email us at support (at) thinkingchat.com
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excess or refuse to comply with our request in these circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you.
If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We should be grateful if you would contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.
Changes to Our Privacy Policy
Thinking Chat® retains the discretion to amend or modify this policy from time to time. Use and disclosure of Information we obtain is subject to the later of: (1) the policy in effect at the time such Information is collected or (2) any subsequent policy to which you agree or of which you have notice, if you elect to use Thinking Chat or a Thinking Chat client site (including the Thinking Chat website) following such acceptance or notice. If we make material changes in the way we use or disclose Personally Identifiable Information, we will notify you through one or more of the following means: to the email associated with your account, or through direct communication to your Thinking Chat account. Your continued access to or use of Thinking Chat or websites that use Thinking Chat following notice of material changes to this Privacy Policy shall constitute consent to any amendments and/or modifications.
For More Information
Thinking Chat® welcomes any questions or comments about this Privacy & GDPR Policy or our privacy practices. Any such comments or questions should be submitted via e-mail to: info (at) thinkingchat.com.
Effective Date of this Privacy Policy:
This Privacy Policy is effective as of May 25, 2018.
Privacy Policy | GDPR Policy
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