Privacy Statement

SMS Assist, L.L.C. (“SMS Assist”) is committed to protecting the privacy of all individuals who utilize the www.smsassist.com website. Please read the following Privacy Statement to understand how we collect, use and safeguard the information you may provide to us via this website. This Privacy Statement may be revised from time to time, so please revisit this page often to remain fully informed of our policies.

By using this website, or voluntarily providing your information to us, you consent to our collection and use of all information as set forth in this Privacy Statement. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Statement, please do not provide us with any information and do not use this website. This Privacy Statement is incorporated into and subject to the Terms of Use for the website.

Applicability of this privacy statement

This Privacy Statement applies solely to information and data you may provide to us or that we otherwise collect from you via the www.smsassist.com website, excluding information and data provided to us or that we otherwise collect from “Customers” or “Providers” of SMS Assist (or their employees or contractors) via “Customer” or “Provider” website portals accessible by logging in through this Site (“Customer Portal” and “Provider Portal,” respectively, and collectively, the “Portals”) (excluding the Portals, the “Site”). Use of the Customer Portal and Provider Portal are subject to separate Privacy Statements. In addition, this Privacy Statement does not apply to (i) information that may be collected by SMS Assist through any other means, including offline or (ii) information about you collected by any third-party services, applications, or websites or advertisements associated with, linked to or otherwise accessible from the Site (“Third-Party Sites”). The information collected or received by such Third-Party Sites is subject to the privacy policies and practices of the Third-Party Sites.

What information does SMS Assist collect from you?

Through your use of the Site, SMS Assist may collect from you: (i) personally identifiable information, and (ii) technical and other information.

  • General Web Site Visitors. When you browse the Site, you do so anonymously; no personally identifiable information is collected. However, as you navigate through the Site, technical information, such as cookies, may be automatically collected as provided below.
  • Contacting Us. The Site permits you to reach out to various SMS Assist departments through email. Whenever you send us an email, you will be providing us with your email address and any information you choose to provide in the text of your message. For example, you may choose to provide your full name, mailing address, or other information necessary or helpful for us to address your query or concern. If you are a prospective customer, you may choose to provide us with information on your industry, locations for service, and facilities spend. When submitting a query or request for information through messaging on the Site, you will be providing us with your email address, name, and any other information you choose to submit.
  • Applying for Careers at SMS Assist. Through the Site, you may apply for various open employment positions at SMS Assist. If you do so, you will be providing us with your first name, last name, email address, telephone number, resume, and any such other information that you decide to provide us.
  • Signing Up to be an SMS Assist Provider. Through the Site, you may choose to complete our provider onboarding tool. If you do so, you will be providing us with your first name, last name, email address, basic information about your company, service areas, service hours, rates, certifications, and any such other information that you decide to provide us to enable us to see if your company fits with our current needs.
  • SMS Assist Updates. The Site also permits you to receive email updates notifying you of new employment positions at SMS Assist or to subscribe to other updates, such as blog posts. In order to sign up to receive such updates, you need only provide us your email address.
  • Technical and Other Information. While you are browsing the Site, we automatically log your IP address (a number assigned to your computer when you use the Internet) and your activity while using the Site. Additionally, in order to personalize and enhance your experience on the Site, we may also collect information through “cookies.” These cookies may include, but are not limited to, persistent cookies and browser session cookies, such as required and functional cookies. Cookies are small strings of text that are sent by the Site to your browser and then stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. We use cookies to help diagnose problems with our servers and to administer the Site. We also use cookies to gather broad demographic information and to help identify your Site visits so that we may improve your user experience and determine whether you visited the Site from a particular Internet link or advertisement. While a code in the cookie file enables the Site to label you as a particular user, including identifying you by name or other personally identifiable information, such cookie files are encrypted in order to protect your information. The cookies that we use do not store any sensitive personal information, such as one’s credit card data, address, or personal passwords. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but it is possible to change your browser setup so that it does not accept cookies. However, rejecting cookies may prevent you from taking advantage of certain portions of the Site.

Tracking

We do not engage in the collection of personally identifiable information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites or online services. Accordingly, we do not currently process or comply with any web browser’s “do not track” signal or other mechanisms that provide consumers with the ability to exercise choice regarding the collection of personally identifiable information about your online activities over time and across third-party websites. However, we may from time to time allow third-party companies to collect certain non-personally identifiable information when you visit our Site which, through “tracking technologies,” can be combined with non-personally identifiable information during your visits to other websites in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These companies typically use a cookie or a third-party web beacon to collect this information. To learn more about this behavioral advertising practice, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org, and you may opt out of receiving cookies from third-party advertising networks by going to the Network Advertising Initiatives cookie opt-out page, which can be found at http://www.networkadvertising.org/managing/opt_out.asp.

How is your information used?

  • Our Use of Information. We collect, retain, and use your personally identifiable information for legitimate business purposes only, including, without limitation, the following: to respond to an inquiry from you or to address a request submitted by you (including contacting you directly to request additional information to process your inquiry or request); to contact you and to provide you information regarding SMS Assist and/or our services; in connection with decisions related to employment with SMS Assist; to evaluate whether your company aligns with SMS Assist’s current provider needs; to operate or improve the Site; to correspond with you regarding the Site or our services; to inform you of career opportunities at SMS Assist or developments in SMS Assist services, projects or events we believe may be of interest to you; to monitor Site visitor traffic patterns and Site usage; to comply with applicable laws, regulations and rules, and requests of relevant law enforcement and/or other governmental agencies; to enforce our Terms of Use; and/or to protect the rights, property, or safety of SMS Assist, our users, and others.
  • Sharing Information. We do not sell or rent your personally identifiable information to third parties. We share your information only with our service providers or as otherwise described herein to provide you with information or services with respect to which you provided the information. Also, we may from time to time share in aggregate, statistical form, non-personal information regarding the visitors to the Site, traffic patterns, and Site usage with our partners or advertisers. In addition, we will disclose information we maintain, including personally identifiable information: (i) when required to do so by law, or in response to a request from a law enforcement agency or authority or any regulatory authority; (ii) to protect the integrity or security of the Site or SMS Assist’s interests, rights, or property; or (iii) to enforce the Site’s Terms of Use.

Accuracy of personally identifiable information

We strive to maintain the accuracy of any personally identifiable information that may be collected from you, and will use our commercially reasonable efforts to promptly update our database when you tell us the information in our database is not accurate. It is your responsibility to ensure that such information is accurate, complete and up to date. You may obtain from us, by mail or email, the information in our records concerning yourself and the information you have provided to us about you. If you wish to make any changes to any personally identifiable information you have provided to us, you may do so at any time by contacting us at privacy@smsassist.com. We may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or fundamentally changing an existing practice), risk the privacy of others, or that would be extremely impractical (for instance, requests concerning information residing on backup tapes).

Opt out

You may opt out of receiving materials or other communications from us by following the opt-out link provided in any email received, or by contacting us at privacy@smsassist.com.

Children

In compliance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 6501-06 and 16 C.F.R. §§ 312.1-312.12, we do not knowingly collect information from children. By using the Site, you represent that you are not under 13 years of age.  No one under 13 years of age may provide any information to the Site.

Third-party sites

From time to time, SMS Assist may reference or provide links to Third-Party Sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any Third-Party Site with which you choose to interact. Please be aware that SMS Assist does not control, nor are we responsible for, the privacy policies or information practices of Third-Party Sites.

Protecting your personally identifiable information

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your information, especially all personally identifiable information, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information transmitted through the Site. Any transmission of personal information is at your own risk. We are not responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security measures we provide.

Business transfer

SMS Assist may, in the future, sell or otherwise transfer some or all of its assets to a third party.  The personally identifiable information and/or technical information we obtain from you via the Site may be disclosed to any potential or actual purchasers of such assets and/or may be among those assets transferred.

Acceptance of these terms

This Privacy Statement is incorporated into and subject to the terms of the SMS Assist Terms of Use. By using the Site and voluntarily providing your personally identifiable information to us, you consent to the collection and use of such personally identifiable information as set forth in this Privacy Statement. If you do not agree to the terms of this Privacy Statement, please do not provide us with any information and do not use the Site.

California Consumer Privacy Notice

Last Revised: June 26, 2020

This Notice provides you with our practices regarding the collection, use, and disclosure of your personal information. This Notice applies only to consumers who reside in the State of California. We adopt this Notice to comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), to the extent applicable to our business, and any terms defined in the CCPA have the same meaning when used in this Notice. This Notice is to be read together with, and supplements, the information we provide in our Privacy Statement above.

Collection and Disclosure of Personal Information. The following chart summarizes our personal data collection, use, and sharing practices in the preceding 12 months.

CCPA CategorySource of CollectionThird Parties with Whom We May Share This InformationDisclosed for a Business or Commercial Purpose
Identifiers (such as your name, postal or email address, phone number, and Internet Protocol address).You• Service providers
• Affiliates
Yes
Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)) (such as your name, address, telephone number, education, and employment history).You

Publicly-available websites
• Service providers
• Affiliates
Yes
Commercial information (such as cookie data).You and your device• Service providers
• Affiliates
• Internet cookie data recipients
Yes
Internet or other similar network activity (such as cookie data).You and your device• Service providers
• Affiliates
• Internet cookie data recipients
Yes
Geolocation data.You and your device• Service providers
• Affiliates
• Internet cookie data recipients
Yes
Professional or employment-related information (such as current or past job history or performance evaluations).You

Publicly-available websites
• Service providers
• Affiliates
Yes
Inferences drawn from other personal information (such as when you “like” a post on our social media platforms or cookie data).You and your device• Service providers
• Affiliates
• Internet cookie data recipients
Yes

SMS Assist has disclosed personal information to third parties in the past 12 months for the business purposes identified in “How is your information used? Sharing information” above.

No Sale of Personal Information. In the preceding 12 months, we have not sold any personal information.

For more information on what information we collect, see “What Information does SMS Assist Collect from you?” above. For more information about how your information is used, see “How is your information used?” above.

Your Right to Know, Access, and Delete Your Personal Information.

The CCPA grants California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights. Companies are prohibited from discriminating or retaliating against consumers who exercise their rights under the CCPA.

If you are a California resident, you have the following rights under the CCPA, and you may request that we:

  • Inform you about the categories of personal information we collected from you, the categories of sources, and the business purposes for collecting that personal information.
  • Provide individualized disclosures if and when SMS Assist ever sells your personal information or discloses it for business purposes.
  • Delete the personal information we collect from you, unless an exception applies under the CCPA.
  • Do not sell your personal information at any time (the “right to opt-out”), if you are 16 years of age or older.

If you would like to make any such requests, please contact us at the phone number or email provided below. You may be asked to verify your identity, as we take the security and confidentiality of your personal information very seriously.

“Shine the Light” Notice

California’s “Shine the Light” law (Civil Code Section § 1798.83) permits users of our Site that are California residents to request certain information regarding our disclosure of personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. To make such a request, please send an email to privacy@smsassist.com or write to us at 130 East Randolph Street, Suite 200, Chicago IL, 60601, Attention: General Counsel.

Effectiveness

This Privacy Statement is effective as of June 26, 2020. We reserve the right, at any time, to modify, alter, or update this policy, and any such modifications, alterations, or updates will be effective upon posting. In the event we modify this Privacy Statement, your continued use of the Site will signify your acceptance of the modified Privacy Statement.

Questions?

Questions regarding this Privacy Statement should be directed to privacy@smsassist.com. SMS Assist may also be contacted directly at the following address and phone number:

SMS Assist, L.L.C.
130 East Randolph Street, Suite 200
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: 312.698.7000
privacy@smsassist.com