Record Details:

BillMonk

Organization:
Facility Type: Open Business*
Status: Open

Address:
, WW 00000

Region:
County/Parish:

Website: https://www.billmonk.com/about/privacy







This organization provides Temporary or Permanent Service? Temporary

Notes:

This org is listed in this database because it has what we consider a GOOD PRIVACY POLICY.

Whether it's a good business or not, we don't know.

Here is how we found them:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2006/10/best-privacy-policy-ever

October 4, 2006 | By Kevin Bankston
Best Privacy Policy Ever?

Cory over at Boing Boing blogged last week about an online service that helps you manage bills and informal cash flows with your roommates and friends. The service, called BillMonk, is interesting, but what's even more interesting is BillMonk's privacy policy, which is the shortest, clearest, and most substantively protective policy we've read in a long while.

The BillMonk policy is a mere 729 words, almost all of which a third-grader could understand (by comparison, Google's general privacy policy is 1867 words, not counting the supplemental policies for specific products; AOL's is 2481; and MSN's is a whopping is 3377). But you don't need many words to communicate broad, unequivocal privacy assurances like this one from BillMonk:

"We will never sell, rent or share your personal information with a 3rd party, especially your email addresses and phone numbers, without your express permission, unless required by law. Never ever!"

The lesson? Long, hard-to-read privacy policies are usually bad privacy policies. If a company plans to protect your privacy, it won't need lots of weasel words, CYA language, ambiguous constructions and excess verbiage. If, like BillMonk, it has no intention of ever sharing your data except when presented with a valid subpoeana or search warrant, it can just say what BillMonk says: "Never ever!"

(Bonus privacy points: BillMonk apparently uses SSL to encrypt all interactions with its site.)

HERE'S THEIR PRIVACY POLICY:

By using Billmonk.com, you agree to the collection and use of your personal information as described in this policy. If we make any significant changes to this policy, we will notify you by posting a notice of such changes on the login page.

We care deeply about protecting your privacy. Please send us any questions and/or comments you may have.

Summary

* We will never spam you or give your personal information to anyone.
* You control when and how we send messages to you.
* You can wipe your account at any time.
* Other users:
o ...can't see you unless they already know your email address or have interacted with you financially.
o ...can't see any of your financial transactions except for the ones that involve them.

How we treat your information

We will never spam you.
We do send notifications for new and modified transactions, but you can turn these off.

Your friends may request that we send you a reminder to pay or collect outstanding debts, but this is only ever initiated by them - never by us. These messages cannot be customized, and so they cannot be used for spam.

We will never disclose your personal information without your permission.
We will never sell, rent or share your personal information with a 3rd party, especially your email addresses and phone numbers, without your express permission, unless required by law. Never ever!

We give you full control over your information, including the ability to wipe it from our system.
You can update your account information and preferences at any time. You can destroy your account when you choose. Details on what happens when accounts are destroyed can be found here.

We will only access your personal information when:

* You specifically request us to do so (e.g. you are having technical difficulties).
* It is required by law.
* It is necessary to maintain our system.

We will protect your information from other users.
Nobody can see a bill unless they're part of it. You can only be added to a bill by someone who already knows how to get in touch with you via email or phone.

We may sell, rent or share information about user habits in aggregate only.
We will never do so in a manner that could even remotely be individually identifiable.

For example, we could collect and share information like "what is the average price of dinner for people aged 22-26 living in New York City when they go out with 3 or more friends?" but we would NOT share information like "what are the spending habits of one New Yorker aged 22-26?"
What information do we collect?

Personal: Name, email addresses, phone numbers, password
All passwords are stored on our server in encrypted form - not even we can tell what they are! If you lose your password, we will generate a new one and send it to you.

Optional: Gender, date-of-birth, zip code
These help us gather demographic information on our users. We may also share this information in the aggregate only. See above.

Transactions: Bills, loans, payments
We deal in information about money and debts, not actual money and debts. We're not a bank. Think of us, instead, as a bulletin board. The information we store about the debts and credits between people is strictly informative, and carries with it no actual monetary backing or obligations.

Usage: Number of logins, last login, activity and error logs
This data helps us monitor Billmonk's health, and diagnose errors and slowness issues when they crop up.

Cookies and log files

Billmonk.com sends a "cookie" to your computer that contains an identification number that is unique to the computer you are using. We use this cookie to provide you with a continuous experience, and for us to record how our service is being used.

As is done with most web sites, we log each visit to each web page. A log entry can contain information typically found in the "header" of your web browser's request such as the browser type you used, your Internet Protocol address, and the date and time of day. We may also log your cookie's identification number and the URL of the last site you visited. This log information is important for security, audit, quality improvement, as well as for monitoring the health of our service.

Version 1.0, January 6, 2005

Info Source/Changes:

Created At: Wed Feb 08 20:08:54 +0000 2012
Updated At: Wed Feb 08 20:08:54 +0000 2012
Updated By: tfri

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