Privacy policy

(Last update: september 6, 2016)

1. Livincolombia privacy policy

Livincolombia (here in after referred to as “Livincolombia”, “we”, “us” or “our”) operates a platform that helps people to create, list, discover and book unique accommodations around the Colombian territory, whether through our website or our mobile applications (“Platform”).

Livincolombia refers to Inversiones Livin Colombia S.A.S located at the address: Cra 35 A no. 3-55 oficina Livincolombia, Cali, Colombia.

This Privacy Policy is intended to inform you about how we treat Personal Information that we process about you. If you do not agree to any part of this Privacy Policy, then we cannot provide the Platform or Services to you, and you should stop accessing the Platform and deactivate your Livincolombia Account. You can send an e-mail to servicioalcliente@livincolombia.com to deactivate your Livincolombia Account.

2. What types of information does Livincolombia gather about its users?

a. Information that you give us

We receive, store and process information, including Personal Information that you make available to us when accessing or using our Platform and Services. Examples include when you:

fill in any form on the Platform, such as when you register or update the details of your user account, or when you supply ID and other verification information;

access or use the Platform, such as to search for or post Accommodations, make or accept bookings, pay for Accommodations, book or pay for any associated services that may be available (such as but not limited to cleaning), post comments or reviews, or communicate with other users;

communicate with Livincolombia; and

share information with another Member.(host and/or guest)

b. Information we get from your use of our Platform

We also receive, store and process information, possibly including Personal Information, when you access or use our Platform and Services, including but not limited to:

• Mobile Data

When you use certain features of the Platform, in particular our mobile applications we may receive, store and process different types of information about your location, including general information (e.g. IP address, zip code) and more specific information (e.g. GPS-based functionality on mobile devices used to access the Platform or specific features of the platform). If you access the Platform through a mobile device and you do not want your device to provide us with location-tracking information, you can disable the GPS or other location-tracking functions on your device, provided your device allows you to do this. See your device manufacturer’s instructions for further details.

• Log Data

We may also receive, store and process Log Data, which is information that is automatically recorded by our servers whenever you access or use the Platform, regardless of whether you are registered with Livincolombia or logged in to your Livincolombia Account, such as your IP Address, the date and time you access or use the Platform, the hardware and software you are using, referring and exit pages and URLs, the number of clicks, device event information, pages viewed and the order of those pages, and the amount of time spent on particular pages.

• Cookies and other Tracking Technologies

Livincolombia uses cookies and other similar technologies, such as mobile application and other device identifiers, on the Platform. We may also allow our business partners to use their cookies and other tracking technologies on the Platform. As a result, when you access or use the Platform, you will provide or make available certain information to us and to our business partners.

While you may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings, we do not change our practices in response to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser or mobile application. We track your activities if you click on advertisements for Livincolombia services on Third-Party platforms such as search engines and social networks, and may use analytics to track what you do in response to those advertisements.

We may, either directly or through Third Parties we engage to provide services to us, also continue to track your behavior on our own Platform for purposes of our own customer support, analytics, research, product development, fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, as well as to enable you to use and access the Platform and pay for your activities on the Platform. We may also, either directly or through Third-Parties we engage to provide services to us, track your behavior on our own Platform to market and advertise our services to you on the Platform and Third-Party websites. You may also be able to control advertising cookies provided by publishers, for example Google’s Ad Preference Manager. Please note that even if you choose to opt-out of receiving targeted advertising, you may still receive advertising on or about the Platform – it just will not be tailored to your interests. In addition, if you disable cookies, you may lose some of the features and functionality of using our Platform, Application and Services, as cookies are necessary to track and enhance your use and access.

Third Parties may not collect information about users’ online activities on the Platform except as described in this policy.

• Third-Party social plugins

Our Platform may use social plugins which are provided and operated by Third-Parties, such as Facebook’s Like Button.

As a result of this, you may send to the Third-Party the information that you are viewing on a certain part of our Platform. If you are not logged into your account with the Third-Party, then the Third Party may not know your identity. If you are logged into your account with the Third Party, then the Third Party may be able to link information about your visit to our Platform to your account with them. Similarly, your interactions with the social plugin may be recorded by the Third Party.

Please refer to the Third Party’s privacy policy to find out more about its data practices, such as what data is collected about you and how the Third Party uses such data.

3. How Livincolombia uses and processes the information that you provide or make available.

a. We use, store and process information about you for the following general purposes:

• to enable you to access and use the Platform;
• to enable you to communicate with other Members, including but not limited to by sending them messages or other information during the Booking process;
• to operate, protect, improve and optimize the Platform, Livincolombia’s business, and our users’ experience, such as to perform analytics, conduct research, personalize or otherwise customize your experience, and to provide customer service;
• to help create and maintain a trusted and safer environment on the Platform and Services, such as detection and prevention of actual and potential fraud and other harmful activity, conducting investigations and risk assessments, enforcing our Terms and policies, verifying the address of your listings, verifying any identifications provided by you (including by comparing the photo on that identification to another photo you provide to us), and conducting checks against databases and information sources (such as but not limited to public government databases) for fraud detection and prevention, risk assessment and harm prevention purposes. In this regard, we may do any or all of the foregoing with or without further notifying you;
• to send you service, support and administrative messages, reminders, technical notices, updates, security alerts, and information requested by you;
• to send you marketing, advertising, and promotional messages and other information that may be of interest to you, including information about Livincolombia, our services, or general promotions for partner campaigns and services. You can unsubscribe or opt-out from receiving these communications in your settings (in the “Account” section) when you login to your Livincolombia Account;
• to administer referral programs, rewards, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, or other promotional activities or events sponsored or managed by Livincolombia or our Third Party business partners; and
• to comply with our legal obligations, resolve any disputes that we may have with any of our users, and enforce our agreements with Third Parties.

b. How Livincolombia Uses and Processes User Communications

We may, either directly or through Third-Parties we engage to provide services to us, review, scan, or analyze your communications with other users exchanged via the Platform for fraud prevention, risk assessment, regulatory compliance, investigation, product development, research and customer support purposes. For example, as part of our fraud prevention efforts, the Platform may scan and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other websites. This helps to prevent fraudulent actors from asking Guests to send them money outside of the Platform, such as by bank transfer or other money transfer methods. We may also scan, review or analyze messages for research and product development purposes to help make search, booking and user communications more efficient and effective, as well as to debug, improve and expand product offerings. We will not review, scan, or analyze your communications for sending Third-Party marketing messages to you. We will also not sell these reviews or analyses of communications to Third Parties. We will also use automated methods to carry out these reviews or analyses where reasonably possible. However, from time to time we may have to manually review some communications. By using the Platform, you consent that Livincolombia, in its sole discretion, may, either directly or through Third-Parties we engage to provide services to us, review, scan, analyze, and store your communications, whether done manually or through automated means.

4. When Livincolombia discloses or shares your personal information, and to whom.

IMPORTANT: When you use the Platform, your data may be sent to Colombia and possibly other countries.

We may transfer, store, use and process your information, including any Personal Information, to countries outside of Colombia including the Colombia Please note that laws vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, and so the privacy laws applicable to the places where your information is transferred to or stored, used or processed in, may be different from the privacy laws applicable to the place where you are resident.

Your Personal Information may be disclosed as follows:

1. Parts of your public profile page that contain some Personal Information may be displayed in other parts of the Platform to other users for marketing purposes or if you post content in a community forum or other features on the Platform that are visible to the general public.
2. Your public Listing page will always include some minimum information such as the city and neighborhood where the Accommodation is located, your listing description, your calendar availability, your public profile photo, your responsiveness in replying to Guests’ queries, and any additional information you share with other Members. Your public Listing page may also include aggregated demand information (such as number of page views over a period of time). Parts of your public Listing page may be displayed in other parts of the Platform to other Members and/or Third Party platforms for marketing purposes. The Platform may also display the Accommodation’s approximate geographic location on a map, such that a user can see the general area of the Accommodation.
3. The Platform allows your public profile and public Listing pages to be included in search engines, in which case your public profile and public Listing pages will be indexed by search engines and may be published as search results. If you change your settings or the information on your public profile or public Listing pages, Third-Party search engines may not update their databases quickly or at all. We do not control the practices of Third-Party search engines, and they may use caches containing outdated information, including any information indexed by the search engine before you change your settings or the information on your public profile or public Listing pages.
4. When you submit a request to book an Accommodation, your full name, and the full name of any confirmed Guests staying with you, and other Personal Information you agree to pass through to the Host(s) will become visible to the Host(s) of any Listing you Book or request to Book. We may also disclose parts of your public profile; your public Wish List; other Member reviews of you; and any additional information you share with other Members. In addition, if you agree to be contacted by the Host(s) by phone before your request to Book is accepted, and the Host(s) decides to do so. We will not share your phone number unless there is a confirmed booking; if there is a confirmed booking, your phone number will become visible to the Host(s)/Guest, who may call you directly.
5. When your request to book an Accommodation is accepted by the Host(s) or when a Guest books your Accommodation, we will disclose some of your Personal Information to the Host(s) and any confirmed Guest(s). However, your billing and payout information will never be shared with another user.
6. When a Host accepts your request to book an Accommodation, the Host may elect to use Third-Party services available through the Livincolombia platform to assist with managing the Accommodation, such as cleaning services and lock providers. The Host may use features on the Livincolombia platform to share information about the Guest with that Third-Party service provider for the purposes of coordinating the stay or managing the Accommodation, including check-in and check-out dates, Guest name, Guest’s phone number, and the Guest’s anonymized email address.
7. When a Guest stays at your Accommodation or when you stay at a Host’s Accommodation, we may ask you to review the Guest, Host, or the Accommodation. If you choose to provide a review, your review may be public on the Platform. Likewise, another Member’s review of you as a Guest or Host may be public on the Platform.
8. We may distribute parts of the Platform (including your Listing) for display on sites operated by Livincolombia’s business partners and affiliates, using technologies such as HTML widgets. If and when your Listings are displayed on a partner’s site, information from your public profile page may also be displayed.
9. Livincolombia may provide your Personal Information to its Affiliates, including Livincolombia Payments, and their employees, to use and process your Personal Information in the same way and to the same extent that we are permitted to under this Privacy Policy. These related entities comply with the same obligations that we have to protect your Personal Information under this Privacy Policy.
10. We may also engage Third Parties, who may be located outside of Colombia, to provide services to us, including but not limited to technology services and services to help verify your identification, to help match the photo on your ID to other photos of yourself you send to us, to conduct checks against databases such as but not limited to public government databases (where legally allowed), to otherwise assist us with fraud prevention and risk assessment, to assist us with customer service, to serve targeted ads, and to facilitate the payments or reimbursements you request (such as Concur and American Express). We may provide Personal Information about you to these Third Parties, or give them access to this Personal Information, for the limited purpose of allowing them to provide these services. For example, if we hire Third Parties, where permitted by applicable law, to conduct checks against databases such as but not limited to public government databases, we may provide your Personal Information, such as your full name and date of birth, to the Third Parties for the limited purpose of allowing them to conduct such checks, including background or registered sex offender checks, on our behalf. We will ensure that such Third Parties have contractual obligations to protect this Personal Information and to not use it for unrelated purposes.
11. Hosts and Guests expressly grant us permission, without further notice, to store, transfer and disclose data and other information relating to them or to their transactions, bookings, Accommodations and Occupancy Taxes, including, but not limited to, personally identifiable information such as Host or Guest’s name, listing addresses, transaction dates and amounts, tax identification number(s), the amount of taxes received by Hosts from Guests, or allegedly due, contact information and similar information, to the relevant Tax Authority.
12. You acknowledge, consent and agree that Livincolombia may access, preserve and disclose your account information and Collective Content if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary (a) to respond to claims asserted against Livincolombia; (b) to comply with legal process (for example, subpoenas and warrants), including legal process associated with national security and law enforcement; (c) to enforce and administer our agreements with users, such as the terms and conditions and this Privacy Policy, (d) for fraud prevention, risk assessment, investigation, customer support, product development and de-bugging purposes; or (e) to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Livincolombia, its users or members of the public.

We will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify users about law enforcement requests for their data unless:

• providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law; or
• we believe that providing notice would (a) be futile, (b) be ineffective, or (c) would create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or (d) create or increase a risk of fraud upon Livincolombia’s property, its Members, the Platform, Application, or Services (collectively, “Risk Scenarios”).

In instances where Livincolombia complies with legal requests for user data without notice to the user for the reasons described above, Livincolombia will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify that user about the request after the fact if we determine in good faith that we are no longer legally prohibited from doing so and that no Risk Scenarios apply.

We may also publish, disclose and use Aggregated Information and non-personal information for industry and market analysis, demographic profiling, marketing and advertising, and other business purposes.

5. Business transfers by Livincolombia

If Livincolombia undertakes or is involved in any merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets or bankruptcy or insolvency event, then we may sell, transfer or share some or all of our assets, including your Personal Information. In this event, we will notify you before your Personal Information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

6. How to access, change or delete your information, or cancel your Livincolombia account.

You may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information in your Livincolombia Account. If you would like to correct your information or cancel your Livincolombia Account entirely, you can do so by logging in to your Livincolombia Account. Please also note that any reviews, forum postings and similar materials posted by you may continue to be publicly available on the Platform in association with your first name, even after your Livincolombia Account is cancelled.

7. Securing your personal information

We are continuously implementing and updating administrative, technical, and physical security measures to help protect your Personal Information against unauthorized access, destruction or alteration. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, and no method of storing electronic information, can be 100% secure. So, we cannot guarantee the security of your transmissions to us and of your Personal Information that we store.

8. Your privacy when you access third party websites and resources

The Platform will contain links to other websites not owned or controlled by Livincolombia. Livincolombia does not have any control over Third-Party websites. These other websites may place their own cookies, web beacons or other files on your device, or collect and solicit Personal Information from you. They will have their own rules about the collection, use and disclosure of Personal Information. We encourage you to read the terms of use and privacy policies of the other websites that you visit.

Some portions of the Platform implement Google Maps/Earth mapping services, including Google Maps API(s). Your use of Google Maps/Earth is subject to Google’s terms of use (located at www.google.com/intl/en_us/help/terms_maps.html) and Google’s privacy policy (located at www.google.com/privacy.html), as may be amended by Google from time to time

9. Changes to this privacy policy

We may change how we collect and then use Personal Information at any time and without prior notice, at our sole discretion. We may change this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make material changes to the Privacy Policy, we will notify you either by posting the changed Privacy Policy on the Platform or by sending an email to you. We will also update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. If we let you know of changes through an email communication, then the date on which we send the email will be deemed to be the date of your receipt of that email.

It’s important that you review the changed Privacy Policy. If you do not wish to agree to the changed Privacy Policy, then we will not be able to continue providing the Platform and Services to you, and your only option will be to stop accessing the Platform and Services and deactivate your Livincolombia Account.

10. Cookie policy

Livincolombia uses “cookies” in conjunction with the Platform to obtain information. A cookie is a small data file that is transferred to your device (e.g. your phone or your computer) for record-keeping purposes. For example, a cookie could allow the Platform to recognize your browser, while another could store your preferences and other information.

Your browser may allow you to set how it handles cookies, such as declining all cookies or prompting you to decide whether to accept each cookie. But please note that some parts of the Platform may not work as intended or may not work at all without cookies.

a. Livincolombia cookies and Third Party cookies

Livincolombia may place our cookies on your device via the Platform. Accordingly, our Privacy Policy will apply to our treatment of the information we obtain via our cookies.

We may also allow our business partners to place cookies on your device. For example, we use Google Analytics for web analytics, and so Google may also set cookies on your device. As further explained below, Third Parties may also place cookies on your device for advertising purposes.

There are two types of cookies used on the Platform, namely “persistent cookies” and “session cookies”.

Session cookies will normally expire when you close your browser, while persistent cookies will remain on your device after you close your browser, and can be used again the next time you access the Platform.

b. Other technologies

The Platform may also use other technologies with similar functionality to cookies, such as web beacons and tracking URLs to obtain Log Data about users. We may also use web beacons and tracking URLs in our messages to you to determine whether you have opened a certain message or accessed a certain link.

c. Uses for Livincolombia cookies

Livincolombia uses cookies and similar tracking technologies for a number of purposes, such as the following:

• to enable, facilitate and streamline the functioning of the Platform across different webpages, devices and browser sessions.
• to simplify your access to and use of the Platform and make it more seamless.
• to monitor and analyze the performance, operation and effectiveness of the Platform, so that we can improve and optimize it.
• to show you content (which may include advertisements) that is more relevant to you.
• for fraud detection and prevention.

d. Uses for Third-Party cookies

Our partners’ cookies are intended to obtain information to help them provide services to Livincolombia. For example, Third Parties we engage to provide services to us may track your behavior on our Platform to market and advertise Livincolombia listings or services to you on the Platform and Third-party websites, or to help us detect or prevent fraud or conduct risk assessments. Third Parties websites that use cookies and other tracking technologies to deliver targeted advertisements on our Platform and/or Third-Party websites may offer you a way to prevent such targeted. You may also be able to control advertising cookies provided by publishers, for example Google’s Ad Preference Manager. Please note that even if you choose to opt-out of receiving targeted advertising, you may still receive advertising on or about the Platform – it just will not be tailored to your interests.

In addition, Facebook places a cookie via the Platform that allows Facebook to obtain aggregated, non-Personal Information to optimize their services.

e. Disabling Cookies

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your browser setting to decline cookies by visiting the Help portion of your browser’s toolbar. If you choose to decline cookies, please note that you may not be able to sign in, customize, or use some of the interactive features of the Platform. Flash cookies operate differently than browser cookies, and cookie management tools available in a web browser will not remove flash cookies.