PRIVACY POLICY
Personal information is data that can be used to identify or contact a single person.
You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with Monster or an affiliated company. Monster and its affiliates may share this personal information with each other and use it consistent with this Privacy Policy. They may also combine it with other information to provide and improve our products, services, content, and advertising. You are not required to provide the personal information that we have requested, but, if you chose not to do so, in many cases we will not be able to provide you with our products or services or respond to any queries you may have.
Here are some examples of the types of personal information Monster may collect and how we may use it:
What personal information we collect or process
Monster VoIP processes and in certain situations collects personal information as needed to deliver its Products and Services and manage its business. When collecting personal information, Monster VoIP does so in a reasonable and lawful manner.
The types of information and the purposes for which Monster VoIP collects or processes personal information may include:
Indirect End User Phone Contact Information (Personal Identifiable Information)
Monster VoIP acts as a data processor regarding indirect end user personal identifiable information and our clients act as the data controller of such data. During Monster VoIP’ processing and protection of such data, all use will be in conformity with the data controller’s instructions.
Specifically, only when enabled via system permission on MonsterVoIP Mobile Android and MonsterVoIP Mobile iOS, both shows personal contacts within the respective application. When the user sends an SMS message to one of his/her phone contacts, or when the user initiates a call to one of his/her phone contacts, the phone number is sent securely through Monster VoIP’ API. Monster VoIP does not store this number with any other PII, and it cannot be directly or indirectly attributed to any person or persons; Monster VoIP stores only the phone number and pertinent metadata to be compliant with all applicable state and federal laws, and Monster VoIP does not share this data with any advertisers or third parties under any circumstances. A user can revoke phone contact access on his/her mobile device at any time, and his/her app experience is not hindered or interrupted.
MonsterVoIP Mobile Android and iOS also uses Gravatar, only when enabled via Settings and UIConfigs, which is a service that provides avatar images linked to the MD5 hash of the user’s email address. This means that, only when Gravatar use is enabled, we hash each contact’s email address and send it to Gravatar to try and retrieve an avatar image. MD5 hashes cannot be directly or indirectly attributed to any person or persons, and we only send the MD5 hash to Gravatar, never the email address in plain text. As with phone contacts, a user can revoke Gravatar access at any time in Settings or via UIConfig, and his/her app experience is not hindered or interrupted.
When you purchase a product or service, download software or a software update, connect to our services, contact us including by social media or participate in an online survey, we may collect a variety of information, including your name, mailing address, phone number, email address, contact preferences, device identifiers, IP address, location information, credit card information and profile information where the contact is via social media.
When you share your content using Monster services or invite others to participate in Monster services, Monster may collect the information you provide about those people such as name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. Monster will use such information to fulfill your requests, provide the relevant service, or for anti-fraud purposes.
In certain jurisdictions, we may ask for a government issued ID in limited circumstances including when setting up services, for the purpose of determining creditworthiness, or as required by law.
How we use your personal information
We may process your personal information: for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, with your consent, for compliance with a legal obligation to which Monster is subject or when we have assessed it is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Monster or a third party to whom it may be necessary to disclose information.
- The personal information we collect allows us to keep you posted on Monster’s latest product announcements, software updates, and upcoming events. If you don’t want to be on our mailing list, you can opt-out anytime.
- We also use personal information to help us create, develop, operate, deliver, and improve our products, services, content, and advertising, and for loss prevention and anti-fraud purposes. We may also use your personal information for account and network security purposes, including in order to protect our services for the benefit of all our users, and pre-screening or scanning uploaded content for potentially illegal content. Where we use your information for anti-fraud purposes it arises from the conduct of an online transaction with us. We limit our uses of data for anti-fraud purposes to those which are strictly necessary and within our assessed legitimate interests to protect our customers and our services. For certain online transactions we may also validate the information provided by you with publicly accessible sources.
- We may use your personal information, including date of birth, to verify identity, assist with the identification of users, and to determine appropriate services.
- From time to time, we may use your personal information to send important notices, such as communications about purchases and changes to our terms, conditions, and policies. Because this information is important to your interaction with Monster, you may not opt out of receiving these communications.
- We may also use personal information for internal purposes such as auditing, data analysis, and research to improve Monster’s products, services, and customer communications.
- If you enter into a sweepstake, contest, or similar promotion we may use the information you provide to administer those programs.
- If you apply for a position at Monster or we receive your information in connection with a potential role at Monster, we may use your information to evaluate your candidacy and to contact you. If you are a candidate, you will receive more information about how Monster handles candidate personal information at the time of application.
Source of your personal information where they are not collected from you
We may have received your personal information from other persons if that person has shared their content with you using Monster products, or invited you to participate in Monster services or forums. We may also validate the information provided by you with a third party for security and fraud prevention purposes.
If you are a potential candidate for employment with Monster, we may have received your personal information from third parties such as recruiters or external websites. We will use the personal information we receive to contact you about a potential opportunity or in evaluating your candidacy. If you did not provide us your personal information directly, we will inform you of the source when we first contact you regarding your candidacy. For research and development purposes, we may use datasets such as those that contain images, voices or other data that could be associated with an identifiable person. When acquiring such datasets, we do so in accordance with applicable law in the jurisdiction in which the dataset is hosted. When using such datasets for research and development, we do not attempt to re-identify individuals who may appear therein.
Collection and Use of Non-Personal Information
We also collect data in a form that does not, on its own, permit direct association with any specific individual. We may collect, use, transfer, and disclose non-personal information for any purpose. The following are some examples of non-personal information that we collect and how we may use it:
- We may collect information such as language, zip code, area code, unique device identifier, referrer URL, location, and the time zone where an Monster service is used so that we can better understand customer behavior and improve our products, services, and advertising.
- We may collect information regarding customer activities on our website and from our other products and services. This information is aggregated and used to help us provide more useful information to our customers and to understand which parts of our website, products, and services are of most interest. Aggregated data is considered non‑personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
- We may collect and store details of how you use our services, including search queries. This information may be used to improve the relevancy of results provided by our services. Except in limited instances to ensure quality of our services over the Internet, such information will not be associated with your IP address.
- With your explicit consent, we may collect data about how you use your device and applications in order to help app developers improve their apps.
If we do combine non-personal information with personal information the combined information will be treated as personal information for as long as it remains combined.
Cookies and Other Technologies
Monster’s websites, online services, interactive applications, email messages, and advertisements may use “cookies” and other technologies such as pixel tags and web beacons. These technologies help us better understand user behavior, tell us which parts of our websites people have visited, and facilitate and measure the effectiveness of advertisements and web searches. We treat information collected by cookies and other technologies as non‑personal information. However, to the extent that Internet Protocol (IP) addresses or similar identifiers are considered personal information by local law, we also treat these identifiers as personal information. Similarly, to the extent that non-personal information is combined with personal information, we treat the combined information as personal information for the purposes of this Privacy Policy.
Monster and our partners also use cookies and other technologies to remember personal information when you use our website, online services, and applications. Our goal in these cases is to make your experience with Monster more convenient and personal. For example, knowing your contact information, hardware identifiers, and information about your computers or devices helps us personalize your services and provide you with better customer service.
If you want to disable cookies, check with your provider to find out how to disable cookies. Please note that certain features of the Monster website may not be available once cookies are disabled.
As is true of most internet services, we gather some information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type and language, Internet service provider (ISP), referring and exit websites and applications, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information to understand and analyze trends, to administer the site, to learn about user behavior on the site, to improve our product and services, and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. Monster may use this information in our marketing and advertising services.
In some of our email messages, we use a “click-through URL” linked to content on the Monster website. When customers click one of these URLs, they may pass through a separate web server before arriving at the destination page on our website. We may track this click-through data to help us determine interest in particular topics and measure the effectiveness of our customer communications. If you prefer not to be tracked in this way, you should not click text or graphic links in the email messages. Pixel tags enable us to send email messages in a format customers can read, and they tell us whether mail has been opened. We may use this information to reduce or eliminate messages sent to customers.
Disclosure to Third Parties
At times Monster may provide third parties with certain personal information to provide or improve our products and services, including to deliver products at your request, or to help Monster market to consumers. When we do, we require those third parties to handle it in accordance with relevant laws. Personal information will never be shared with third parties for their marketing purposes.
Service Providers
Monster shares personal information with companies who provide services such as information processing, fulfilling customer orders, delivering products to you, managing and enhancing customer data, providing customer service, assessing your interest in our products and services, and conducting customer research or satisfaction surveys. These companies are obligated to protect your information and may be located wherever Monster operates.
Others
It may be necessary − by law, legal process, litigation, and/or requests from public and governmental authorities within or outside your country of residence − for Monster to disclose your personal information. We may also disclose information about you if we determine that for purposes of national security, law enforcement, or other issues of public importance, disclosure is necessary or appropriate. We may also disclose information about you, but only where there is a lawful basis for doing so, if we determine that disclosure is reasonably necessary to enforce our terms and conditions or protect our operations or users. This could include providing information to public or governmental authorities. Additionally, in the event of a reorganization, merger, or sale we may transfer any and all personal information we collect to the relevant third party.
Protection of Personal Information
Monster takes the security of your personal information very seriously. Monster protects your personal information during transit using encryption. When your personal data is stored by Monster, we use computer systems with limited access housed in facilities using physical security measures. Your data is stored in encrypted form including when we utilize third-party storage.
When you use some Monster products, services, or applications or post on a Monster forum, chat room, or social networking service, the personal information and content you share is visible to other users and can be read, collected, or used by them. You are responsible for the personal information you choose to share or submit in these instances. For example, if you list your name and email address in a forum posting, that information is public. Please take care when using these features.
The Existence of Automated Decision-Making, Including Profiling
Monster does not take any decisions involving the use of algorithms or profiling that significantly affects you.
Integrity and Retention of Personal Information
Monster makes it easy for you to keep your personal information accurate, complete, and up to date. We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy and our service specific privacy summaries. When assessing these periods we carefully examine our need to collect personal information at all and if we establish a relevant need we only retain it for the shortest possible period to realize the purpose of collection unless a longer retention period is required by law.
Access to Personal Information
For personal information we hold, we will provide you with access (including a copy) for any purpose including requesting that we correct the data if it is inaccurate or delete the data if Monster is not required to retain it by law or for legitimate business purposes. We may decline to process requests that are frivolous/vexatious, jeopardize the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or for which access is not otherwise required by local law. We may also decline aspects of deletion or access requests if we believe doing so would undermine our legitimate use of data for anti-fraud and security purposes as described earlier.
Children & Education
We understand the importance of taking extra precautions to protect the privacy and safety of children. Children under the age of 18, or the equivalent minimum age in the relevant jurisdiction, are not permitted to use Monster services or the Monster website.
Location-Based Services
To provide location-based services on Monster products, Monster and our partners and licensees, such as maps data providers, may collect, use, and share precise location data, including the geographic location of your Monster hardware or other devices. Where available, location-based services may use GPS, Bluetooth, and your IP Address, along with crowd-sourced Wi-Fi hotspot and cell tower locations, and other technologies to determine your devices’ approximate location. Unless you provide consent, this location data is collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you and is used by Monster and our partners and licensees to provide and improve location-based products and services. For example, your device may share its geographic location with application providers when you opt in to their location services.
Some location-based services offered by Monster, such as E911 services, require your personal information for the feature to work.
Third‑Party Sites and Services
Monster websites, products, applications, and services may contain links to third-party websites, products, and services. Our products and services may also use or offer products or services from third parties.
Information collected by third parties, which may include such things as location data or contact details, is governed by their privacy practices. We encourage you to learn about the privacy practices of those third parties.
International Users
All the information you provide may be transferred or accessed by entities around the world as described in this Privacy Policy. Personal information, relating to Monster services, regarding individuals who reside in a member state of the European Economic Area and Switzerland is controlled and processed by Monster Technology, LLC. Monster uses approved Model Contractual Clauses for the international transfer of personal information collected in the European Economic Area and Switzerland.
Monster abides by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Cross Border Privacy Rules System. The APEC CBPR system provides a framework for organizations to ensure protection of personal information transferred among participating APEC economies.
Our Companywide Commitment to Your Privacy
To make sure your personal information is secure, we communicate our privacy and security guidelines to Monster employees and strictly enforce privacy safeguards within the company.
Privacy Questions
If you have any questions or concerns about Monster’s Privacy Policy or data processing or if you would like to make a complaint about a possible breach of local privacy laws, please contact us. You can always contact us by phone at the relevant Monster support number for your region.
When a privacy question or question about personal information received in response to an access/download request is received we have a dedicated team which triages your contact to address your issue. Where your issue may be more substantive in nature, we may request more information from you. All such substantive contacts receive a response within seven (7), days wherever possible – providing a response on the issue raised, requesting additional information where necessary or indicating that a response will require additional time. If you are unsatisfied with the reply received, you may refer your complaint to the relevant regulator in your jurisdiction. If you ask us, we will endeavor to provide you with information about relevant complaint avenues which may be applicable to your circumstances.
Where your complaint indicates an improvement could be made in our handling of privacy issues we will take steps to make such an update at the next reasonable opportunity. In the event that a privacy issue has resulted in a negative impact on you or another person, we will take steps to address that with you or that other person.
Monster may update its Privacy Policy from time to time. When we change the policy in a material way, a notice will be posted on our website along with the updated Privacy Policy.
