Privacy Policy

Last Updated:  April 27, 2023

1.     ACKNOWLEDGEMENT AND ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS

Verne Journey, LLC has adopted this Privacy Policy (“Policy”) to govern the collection, use, and disclosure by its website, Scout, of information it collects when you or your computer (collectively, “you” or “your”) use, access, or interact with its primary website, https://www.scoutforpets.com, and any sub-domains and associated web-based and mobile applications (collectively, “Scout”, together with Verne Journey, LLC, “the Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). We are fully committed to protecting your privacy.  

This Policy describes the policies and procedures that apply to all information collected when you use Scout. By accessing Scout, you acknowledge and fully understand our Policy and freely consent to the information collection and use practices described in this Policy. 

2.     PARTICIPATING MERCHANT POLICIES

Related services and offerings of merchants, vendors, and other third parties, including our pet care provider clients, may utilize Scout’s platform or client portal in serving their end-users, including you. For instance, Scout utilizes third-party services such as Google Analytics to help us improve our site and end-user experience.  Such third parties have their own privacy policies and statements that can be viewed by clicking on the corresponding links within each party’s respective website. Online merchants and others who participate in or engage Scout’s platform or client portal are encouraged to participate in industry privacy initiatives and to take a responsible attitude towards consumer privacy. However, since we do not have direct control over the policies or practices of participating third parties, we are not responsible for the privacy practices or contents of those sites. We recommend and encourage that you always review the privacy policies of merchants, vendors, and other third parties before you provide us any personal information or complete any transaction with such parties directly.

3.     INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT

As further set forth below, we collect certain information from and about our users and visitors to Scout both explicitly, based on responses and data provided directly by you, and implicitly, based on Internet Protocol (“IP”) addresses and device information that is transmitted as you use Scout.  We and our customers use and share this information as may be necessary from time to time to fulfill operational obligations and processes, such as collecting contact and payment information to schedule and process payments.  

Please also be aware that users and visitors of Scout, including our pet care provider clients, may collect information beyond the scope of the information we collect as they may customize and determine necessary to their particular business operations and needs.  We never use this information for third-party marketing purposes.  

We collect information in four ways: from our web server logs, cookies, you, and our mobile application.

a.     Web Server Logs

When you visit or use Scout, we may track information to administer the site and analyze its usage. Examples of information we may track include:

·      your IP address;

·      the kind of browser or computer you use;

·      number of links you click within the site;

·      the state or country from which you accessed the site;

·      date and time of your visit;

·      name of your Internet service provider;

·      web page you linked to our site from; and

·      pages you viewed on Scout.

b.    Use of Cookies

We may use cookies to personalize or enhance your user experience. A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you, encrypted and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you personalize a web page, or navigate within a site, a cookie helps the site to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. Hence, this simplifies the process of delivering relevant content and eases site navigation by providing and saving your preferences and login information as well as providing personalized functionality.

We reserve the right to share aggregated site statistics with partner companies, but do not allow other companies to place cookies on Scout unless there is a temporary, overriding customer value.  You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies. If you reject cookies by changing your browser settings, then be aware that this may disable some of the functionality of Scout.

c.     Personal Information of Users

Users and visitors to Scout may be permitted to manage reservations and offer or purchase particular pet care services. When you register, we may request some personal information such as name, address, email, telephone number or facsimile number, account number and other relevant information. If you are a pet owner purchasing a service from your particular pet care provider(s), we may request financial information. Any financial information we collect is used only by our pet care provider clients to bill for any services purchased by end-user customers. If you transact business by credit card, this information may be forwarded to your credit card provider.

Scout does not store your credit card information.  Instead, we utilize a third-party vendor who is Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant and responsible for storing and charging your payment details.  For other types of registrations, we will ask for the relevant information. You may also be asked to disclose personal information to us so that we can provide assistance and information to you. For example, such data may be warranted in order to provide online technical support and troubleshooting.  

We will not disclose personally identifiable information we collect from you to third parties without your permission except to the extent necessary, including:

·      to fulfill your service requests for products or services;

·      to protect ourselves, our customer or our vendors from liability or to defend our rights, including investigations of fraud or misconduct; 

·      to third parties who have agreed in writing to maintain such information in confidence and use such information solely in their performance of services to us;

·      to respond to legal process or comply with law, including subpoenas;

·      to entities under common ownership or control with us or to our owners; or

·      in connection with a merger, acquisition, or liquidation of the Company.

d.    Mobile Application

Users of Scout may download and utilize our mobile application in addition to the Scout website. The mobile application collects and stores information about you and your device in order to enable the functionality of Scout. 

In addition to the information we collect as listed in 3. INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND HOW WE USE IT, c. Personal Information of Users the mobile application also collects and stores the following:

·      Your Location. For Pet Care Providers, you or your employer can opt-in to track your location for all or some services provided for pet owners. Your location will only be tracked for the duration of each service provided.

·      Your Camera and/or File system. When sending messages via the mobile application it is possible to including images, videos and/or files. We need access to your file system and/or camera in order to provide this functionality.

We will not disclose personally identifiable information we collect from you to third parties without your permission except to the extent necessary, including:

·      to fulfill your service requests for products or services;

·      to protect ourselves, our customer or our vendors from liability or to defend our rights, including investigations of fraud or misconduct; 

·      to third parties who have agreed in writing to maintain such information in confidence and use such information solely in their performance of services to us;

·      to respond to legal process or comply with law, including subpoenas;

·      to entities under common ownership or control with us or to our owners; or

·      in connection with a merger, acquisition, or liquidation of the Company.

4.     USE OF SCRIPTS, WEB BEACONS OR OTHER TECHNOLOGIES

Scout pages may use scripts, electronic images known as “web beacons” (sometimes also called single-pixel gifs) or other technologies to count users who have visited our pages and to deliver co-branded services. We may include scripts or web beacons in promotional e-mail messages or newsletters in order to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon.

Some of these technologies may be placed by third-party service providers to help determine the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns or email communications. These technologies may be used by these service providers to place a persistent cookie on your computer. This allows the service provider to recognize your computer each time you visit certain pages or emails and compile anonymous information in relation to those page views, which in turn enables us and our service providers to learn which advertisements and emails bring you to our website and how you use the site. We prohibit web beacons from being used to collect or access your personal information.

5.     ACCESSING WEB ACCOUNT INFORMATION

We will provide you with the means to ensure that personally identifiable information in your web account file is correct and current. You may review this information by contacting us by sending an email to our support attendant – support@scoutforpets.com.

6.     DO NOT TRACK

We have not implemented any technology that would effectively recognize do not track signals and note that some content available on Scout is made available through relationships with third-party providers who we do not control and who may collect and/or disclose personally identifiable information.

7.     HOW TO CORRECT OR UPDATE YOUR INFORMATION

To update this information made available to us, please contact us at:

Verne Journey, LLC 

Attention: Scout 

12600 Triskett Road

Cleveland, OH 44111 US

 

8.     HOW WE PROTECT INFORMATION

We use commercially reasonable procedures to protect the personal information that we collect from you against loss, theft and misuse, as well as unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. We have developed and implemented and continue to maintain and monitor a written information security program applicable to all records containing personal information. This security program is appropriate to the size, scope and type of our business, the resources available to us, the amount of stored data and the need for security and confidentiality of the personal information we store. No security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our databases or the security during transmission to us of the information you supply over the Internet. You can help us by taking precautions to protect your personal information when you are on the Internet and only disclose information that you want made public. Change your passwords often using a combination of letters and numbers and make sure to use a secure web browser.

For the purposes set out in this Policy, personal information may be transferred to, processed, stored and accessed by us, our affiliates and third parties in the United States and in other jurisdictions where we or they operate. Courts and other authorities in these jurisdictions may, in certain circumstances, be entitled to access your personal information. By using Scout, you consent to this transfer, processing, storage and access of your personal information in and/or outside of the jurisdiction in which you reside.

9.     AGGREGATE DATA

We may share and publicize aggregate and/or de-identified information shared with third parties and the public.

10.  SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING CHILDREN UNDER 13

We care about protecting the privacy of children. We do not and will not specifically market to or knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13 for marketing purposes. Because some information is collected online, it may not appear to be the personally identifiable information of a child under 13. If a child under 13 submits personally identifiable information to us and we learn that the personally identifiable information is the information of a child under 13, we will attempt to delete the personally identifiable information as soon as possible. If you are under 13, please do not register for any of our services or provide us any information about yourself (such as your name, email address or phone number).

11.  SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING RESIDENTS OF CALIFORNIA

As required by the California Online Privacy Protection Act (“California Act”) and the California Business and Professions Code, this Policy identifies the categories of personally identifiable information that we collect through Scout about individual consumers who use or visit Scout and the categories of third-party persons or entities with whom such personally identifiable information may be shared.

Depending on the visitor’s activity at Scout, certain personally identifiable information (as that term is defined in the California Act) may be collected, in addition to information set forth in other sections of this document. For purposes of the California Act, the term “personally identifiable information” means individually identifiable information about an individual consumer collected online by us from an individual and maintained by us in an accessible form, and may include any of the following: (1) a first and last name; (2) a home or other physical address, including street name and name of a city or town; (3) an email address; (4) a telephone number; (5) a social security number; (6) any other identifier that permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual; and (7) information concerning a user that Scout collects online from the use, and maintains in personally identifiable form, in combination with an identifier described within this Policy.

See more about the California Act at http://consumercal.org/about-cfc/cfc-education-foundation/california-online-privacy-protection-act-caloppa-3/#sthash.0FdRbT51.dpuf.

12.  CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We have the discretion to amend this Policy from time to time. When we do, we will also revise the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this Policy to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we collect. Your continued use of Scout and our services constitutes your ongoing agreement to this Policy and any updates.

13.  TRANSLATIONS

This Policy is executed in English. You agree and acknowledge that you have reviewed this Policy in English. To the extent that any translations of this Policy are provided, they are solely for convenience and are of no binding effect. The English language version of this Policy shall control.

14.  CONTACTING US

If you have questions regarding our Policy, its implementation, failure to adhere to the Policy and/or our general practices, please contact us at support@scoutforpets.com or send your comments to:

Verne Journey, LLC 

Attention: Scout 

12600 Triskett Road

Cleveland, OH 44111 US

We will use our commercially reasonable efforts to promptly respond and resolve any problems or questions.