At QuillFic Inc. ("QuillFic" "we" or "us"), we are deeply committed to protecting your privacy and keeping your information safe. QuillFic processes information about you in a few different ways. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose and keep information that can identify you ("Personal Information") when you create a  QuillFic account and use quillfic.com (the "Site"), or any of our mobile applications, to post content to the QuillFic community, including stories you create, comments and messages (the "Services").

Note that our Terms of Use, Content Guidelines, Publishing Agreement and DMCA Policy (collectively, with this Privacy Policy, the "Terms of Service") apply to this Privacy Policy. By creating an account with QuillFic, using the Services, or submitting any Personal Information via the Services, you are consenting to the collection, use and disclosure of your Personal Information as described below in this Privacy Policy. If you do not consent to the use of your Personal Information in these ways, please stop using the Services.

This is important; we hope you will take time to read it carefully.

Capitalized terms used and not defined in the Content Guidelines have the meaning given to them in the Publishing Agreement and/or the Terms of Use. 

What is Personal Information?

"Personal Information" is any information that can identify you. This may include, but is not limited to, your name, mailing address, telephone number, email address, Internet Protocol ("IP") address, age, gender, marital status, health information, financial status, credit card information and credit history.

Collection of Information 

We collect information you provide directly to us. For example, you share information directly with us when you create an account, fill out a form, submit or post content through our Services, purchase a membership, communicate with us via third-party platforms, request customer support, or otherwise communicate with us. The types of personal information we may collect include your name, display name, username, bio, email address, business information, your content, including your avatar image, photos, posts, responses, and series published by you, and any other information you choose to provide.

In some cases, we may also collect information you provide about others, such as when you purchase a Premium Member membership as a gift for someone (when such services become available). We will use this information to fulfill your request and will not send communications to your contacts unrelated to your request, unless they separately consent to receive communications from us or otherwise engage with us.

We do not collect payment information through our Services. We rely on third parties to process payments in connection with our Services. Any information you provide to facilitate such a payment is subject to the third-party payment processor's privacy policy, and we encourage you to review this policy before you provide any information to the payment processor.

Use of Information

We use the information we collect to provide, maintain, and improve our Services, which includes publishing and distributing user-generated content, personalizing the posts you see and operating our metered paywall. We also use the information we collect to:

• ●  Create and maintain your QuillFic account;
  
• ●  Process payments from Premium Members and payments to Writers, as more particularly described in the Publishing Agreement and the Terms of Use; 
• ●  Process transactions and send related information, such as confirmations, receipts, and user experience surveys;
• ●  Send you technical notices, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
• ●  Respond to your comments and questions and provide customer service;
• ●  Communicate with you about new content, products, services, and features offered by QuillFic and provide other news and information we think will interest you (see 'Your Choices' below for information about how to opt out of these communications at any time);
• ●  Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Services;
• ●  Detect, investigate, and prevent security incidents and other malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity and protect the rights and property of QuillFic and others;
• ●  Debug to identify and repair errors in our Services;
• ●  Comply with our legal and financial obligations; and
• ●  Carry out any other purpose described to you at the time the information was collected.

Sharing of Information 

We share Personal Information in the following circumstances or as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy:

• ●  We share Personal Information with other users of the Services. For example, if you use our Services to publish your Works and other content, or send private notes, certain information about you will be visible to others, such as your name, photo, bio, other account information you may provide, and information about your activities on our Services (e.g., your followers and who you follow, recent posts, claps, highlights, and responses).
  
• ●  Any information you include in your Work, comment, profile, bookmark, summary, or other content, including information about your religious views, political views or your sexual identity, or any personally identifying information such as your email address, location, or account username for other sites will be accessible by the general public if the content is marked public, and by QuillFic users and personnel if the content is marked accessible to QuillFic users only. If you save the content in draft form or "published" to your own account, it will be accessible by certain QuillFic personnel.
  
• ●  We share Personal Information with any member of our organization who reasonably needs access to user data to achieve the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
  
• ●  We share Personal Information with vendors, service providers, partners and consultants that need access to Personal Information in order to perform services for us, such as companies that assist us with web hosting, storage, and other infrastructure, analytics, payment processing, fraud prevention and security, customer service, communications, and marketing.
  
• ●  We may disclose Personal Information if we believe that disclosure is in accordance with, or required by, any applicable law or legal process, including lawful requests by public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. If we are going to disclose your personal information in response to legal process, we will give you notice so you can challenge it (for example by seeking court intervention), unless we are prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others or cause illegal conduct. We will object to legal requests for information about users of our Services that we believe are improper.
  
• ●  We may share Personal Information if we believe that your actions are inconsistent with our Terms of Service, if we believe that you have violated the law, or if we believe it is necessary to protect the rights, property, and safety of QuillFic, our users, the public, or others.
  
• ●  We share Personal Information with our lawyers and other professional advisors where necessary to obtain advice or otherwise protect and manage our business interests.
  
• ●  We may share Personal Information in connection with, or during negotiations concerning, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company.
  
• ●  Personal Information is shared between and among QuillFic and our current and future parents, affiliates, and subsidiaries and other companies under common control and ownership.
  
• ●  We share Personal Information with your consent or at your direction.
  
• ●  We also share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.
  

We collect, process and retain certain user-specific information for the following reasons

In addition to the foregoing, we collect information about what pages users access or visit including your interactions with integral QuillFic features such as claps, views, comments, bookmarks, subscriptions, shares as well as referral information (i.e. data about what site you are coming to the Site from) and whether there are errors in displaying Works to you. We need this information to maintain the integrity of the Site, the Service and the Work that we host; to provide you with the Content that you are seeking; to minimize "gaming" claps counts and spam; and for other legal and accounting/audit reasons.

• ●  You consent to our collection, processing, retention and display of your content, including personal data, when you upload a Work in a manner that is available to all QuillFic users, or the general public, depending on which you choose. We need such consent because your purpose in and reason for uploading Work to QuillFic is for that content to be visible to users and to the general public.
  
• ●  You consent to our collection, processing and retention of your Work and content, and Personal Information connected therewith, including display to you and certain QuillFic personnel when you upload a work in "draft" form (which is currently accomplished by publishing to your own account) ("Draft Content"). We need such consent because your purpose in and reason for uploading such Draft Content to  QuillFic is for that content to be accessible to you at a later date. In order for that content to be available to you, it also needs to be accessible to those on the QuillFic team who have access to our servers, and to the board of directors and various committees, if necessary to enforce the Terms of Service and maintain the integrity of the Service.
  
• ●  You consent to our collection, processing, retention and display of Personal Information and Work and content you submit for inclusion on your Profile page. We need such consent because your purpose in and reason for including information in your Profile is for that content to be visible to the general public.
  
• ●  You consent to our collection, processing, retention and display of text that you submit as comments, as well as your Personal Information associated therewith. We need such consent because your purpose in and reason for submitting a comment is for that content to be visible to the general public.
  
• ●  When you are logged in, you consent to our collection, processing, retention, display and use of your username as well as our association of it with claps that you submit. We need such consent because your purpose in and reason for submitting claps is for that content to be visible to the general public.
  
• ●  Whether you are logged in or not, you consent to our collection, processing, retention and use of your IP address for a limited time, including when you give claps. We need this consent because your purpose in and reason for submitting claps is to engage publicly with the Work that you enjoyed without publicly associating your clap with a username, and you wish for such claps to be publicly visible and disassociated from your QuillFic account, if you have one; and because we endeavour to count only one view of a URL per session on the "views" count for a work. Temporarily collecting, processing, and retaining IP addresses permits us to conduct internal management of claps and views.
  

Third-Party Embeds

QuillFic does not host some of the content displayed on our Services. Users have the ability to post content that is actually hosted by a third party, but is embedded in our pages (an "Embed"). When you interact with an Embed, it can send information about your interaction to the hosting third party just as if you were visiting the third party's site directly. For example, when you load a QuillFic post page with a YouTube video Embed and watch the video, YouTube receives information about your activity, such as your IP address and how much of the video you watch. QuillFic does not control what information third parties collect through Embeds or what they do with the information. This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected through Embeds. The privacy policy belonging to the third party hosting the Embed applies to any information the Embed collects, and we recommend you review that policy before interacting with the Embed.

Transfer of information to the United States and other countries

Our Services are mainly provided from our offices in Canada, however our servers may be hosted in other countries and Personal Information that you submit through the Services may be transferred to countries other than where you reside (for example, to our servers in the United States) for processing and storage. In addition, any third party service providers also may process or store your Personal Information on servers outside your country, including in Canada or the US.

By using any of the Services, or submitting any Personal Information via the Services, you authorize QuillFic and its authorized service providers to use and process your Personal Information in these countries. Please be aware that the privacy protections and the rights of authorities and government agencies to access your personal information in some of these countries may not be equivalent to those in your country.

Your Choices 

Account Information. You may access, correct, delete and export your account information at any time by logging into the Services and navigating to your Profile page. Please note that if you choose to delete your account, we may continue to retain certain information about you as required by law or for our legitimate business purposes.

Cookies. A cookie is a small file, stored on a user's hard drive by a website. Its purpose is to collect data relating to the user's browsing habits. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually adjust your browser settings to remove or reject browser cookies. You can choose to be notified each time a cookie is transmitted. You can also choose to disable cookies entirely in your internet browser, but this may decrease the quality of your user experience. We do not currently use cookies on our Site.

Communications Preferences. You may opt out of receiving certain communications from us, such as digests, newsletters, and activity notifications, by following the instructions in those communications or through your account's Profile page. If you opt out, we may still send you administrative emails, such as those about your account or our ongoing business relations.

Mobile Push Notifications. With your consent, we may send push notifications to your mobile device. You can deactivate these messages at any time by changing the notification settings on your mobile device.

Your California Privacy Laws 

The California Consumer Privacy Act or "CCPA" (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.100 et seq.) affords consumers residing in California certain rights with respect to their personal information. If you are a California resident, this section applies to you.

In the preceding 12 months, we may have collected the following categories of Personal Information: identifiers, commercial information, internet or other electronic network activity information, and inferences. For details about the precise data points we collect and the categories of sources of such collection, please see the Collection of Information section above. We collect Personal Information for the business and commercial purposes described in the Use of Information section above. In the preceding 12 months, we have disclosed the following categories of Personal Information for business purposes to the following categories of recipients:

QuillFic does not sell your Personal Information

Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to (1) request to know more about the categories and specific pieces of personal information we collect, use, and disclose about you, (2) request deletion of your personal information, (3) opt out of any sales of your personal information, if we engage in that activity in the future, and (4) not be discriminated against for exercising these rights. You may make these requests by emailing us at [email protected]. We will verify a webform request by asking you to provide identifying information. We will not discriminate against you if you exercise your rights under the CCPA.

If we receive your request from an authorized agent, we may ask for evidence that you have provided such agent with a power of attorney or that the agent otherwise has valid written authority to submit requests to exercise rights on your behalf. This may include requiring you to verify your identity. If you are an authorized agent seeking to make a request, please contact us.

Additional disclosures for individuals in Europe 

Although a condition of creating your account pursuant to our Terms of Services is that you must not be a citizen of the EU or UK, if you are currently located in the European Economic Area ("EEA"), the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you have certain rights and protections under applicable law regarding the processing of your personal data, and this section applies to you.

Legal Basis for Processing

When we process your personal data, we will do so in reliance on the following lawful bases:

• ●  To perform our responsibilities under our contract with you (e.g., providing the products and services you requested).
  
• ●  When we have a legitimate interest in processing your personal data to operate our business or protect our interests (e.g., to provide, maintain, and improve our products and services, conduct data analytics, and communicate with you).
  
• ●  To comply with our legal obligations (e.g., to maintain a record of your consents and track those who have opted out of non-administrative communications).
  
• ●  When we have your consent to do so (e.g., when you opt in to receive non-administrative communications from us). When consent is the legal basis for our processing your personal data, you may withdraw such consent at any time.
  

Data Retention

We store personal data associated with your account for as long as your account remains active. If you close your account, we will delete your account data within 14 days. We store other personal data for as long as necessary to carry out the purposes for which we originally collected it and for other legitimate business purposes, including to meet our legal, regulatory, or other compliance obligations.

Data Subject Requests

Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to request access to the personal data we hold about you and to receive your data in a portable format, the right to ask that your personal data be corrected or erased, and the right to object to, or request that we restrict, certain processing. To exercise your rights:

• ●  If you sign up for a QuillFic account, you may at any time request an export of your personal information from the Settings page, or by going to Settings and then selecting Account within our app.
  
• ●  You may correct information associated with your account from the Settings page, or by going to Settings and then selecting Account within our app, and the Customize Your Interests page to update your interests.
• ●  You may withdraw consent by deleting your account at any time through the Settings page, or by going to Settings and then selecting Account within our app (except to the extent QuillFic is prevented by law from deleting your information).
• ●  You may object at any time to the use of your personal data by contacting [email protected].

Questions or Complaints

If you have a concern about our processing of personal data that we are not able to resolve, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Authority where you reside. Contact details for your Data Protection Authority can be found using the links below:

• ●  For individuals in the EEA: https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en
• ●  For individuals in the UK: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/
• ●  For individuals in Switzerland: https://www.edoeb.admin.ch/edoeb/en/home/the-fdpic/contact.html

About possible changes:

If the Terms of Service and/or this Privacy Policy change at any point in the future, we will post the policy changes to the Site. Such changes will be used only for information provided by those who have visited, used, or accessed the Service after the effective date of such policy changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at the Site periodically to review the policies.

CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected].

If you are located in the EEA or the United Kingdom and have questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at [email protected]. 

Effective Date: January 2022.