Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy (this “Policy”) governs any and all data collection and usage by SmartEsq, Inc., a Delaware corporation (together with its affiliates, “SmartEsq,” “We,” “we,” “Us” or “us”) through our website  www.smartesq.ai and/or any sub-domains or other domains owned and/or operated by SmartEsq (collectively, the “Site”), and any of our other web-based, downloadable or other similar software and/or services (the “Services”).  For purposes of this Policy, the terms “You,” “you,” “Your,” or “your” refer to each user of the Site or the Services, as applicable, regardless of whether such user is an individual or an entity.

By using the Site and/or any Service, you are hereby accepting the terms and conditions stipulated within this Policy. If you are not in agreement with our terms and conditions, then you should refrain from further use of the Site or any Service. In addition, your continued use of our website following the posting of any updates or changes to our terms and conditions shall mean that you agree and accept such changes.

SmartEsq welcomes your questions or comments regarding this Policy. If you believe that SmartEsq has not adhered to the protocols herein, please contact us at:

Email: privacy@smartesq.ai

Phone: (212) 500-1219

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1. Why We Collect Information.  We are collecting your data for several reasons, including:

• To better understand your needs and provide you with the services you have requested;
• To fulfill our legitimate interest in improving our services and products;
• To send you promotional emails containing information we think you may like when we have your consent to do so;
• To contact you to fill out surveys or participate in other types of market research, when we have your consent to do so; and
• To customize the Site and Services according to your behavior and personal preferences.

2. Types of Information We Collect.

1. It is always up to you whether to disclose personal information (including any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person) (collectively, “Personal Information”) to us, although if you elect not to do so, we reserve the right not to register you as a user or provide you with any products or services.

2. SmartEsq may collect one or more types of Personal Information through your use of the Site or the Services, for example:

• Account Information: When you create an account with us, we will collect information associated with your account, including your name, contact information, account credentials, and transaction history.

• User Input: When you use our Services, we will collect information included in the input (including any message in our chatbot product), file uploads, or feedback that you provide to our Services.

• Communication Information: If you communicate with us, we will collect your name, contact information, and the contents of any messages you send.  
• Social Media Information: We have pages on social media sites including, but not limited to, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Medium, X (formerly known as Twitter), YouTube and Thread. When you interact with our social media pages, we will collect Personal Information that you elect to provide to us, such as your contact details. In addition, the companies that host our social media pages may provide us with aggregate information and analytics about our social media activity.

3. Means of Information Collection.  Our collection of information may be through one or more technological means, including:

• User Behavior Trackers: We may keep track of the websites and pages our users visit within the Site or other domains owned and/or operated by SmartEsq, whether the users visit them by using a personal computer, mobile device, tablet or other similar devices, in order to determine which SmartEsq services are the most popular.
• Automatic Collection of Information: Information about your computer hardware, mobile devices, and software may be automatically collected by SmartEsq. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses.

• Use of Cookies:  The Site may use “cookies”^[1] to help collect and/or analyze information about you or generated by you. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature. For example, if you personalize SmartEsq pages or subdomains, or register with SmartEsq or use of the Services, a cookie can help SmartEsq to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. You will have the ability to accept or decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Site or the Services.  Third-party vendors may also use cookies to serve ads based on a user’s past visits to our Site.

• Web Beacons: We may also use a technology called “web beacons”^[2] to collect general information about your use of the Site and interest of certain products or services we offer through the Site. The information we collect by web beacons allows us to statistically monitor the number of people who open our emails. Web beacons also help us to understand the behavior of our customers, members, and visitors.

4. Retention of Information.

3. Duration.  The Personal Information we collect from you will be stored for no longer than necessary. The length of time we retain said information will be determined based upon one or more of the following criteria:

• the length of time your Personal Information remains relevant;
• the length of time it is reasonable to keep records to demonstrate that we have fulfilled our duties and obligations; any limitation periods within which claims might be made;
• any retention periods required by applicable law or requested or recommended by the relevant regulators, professional bodies or associations; and
• the type of contract we have with you, the existence of your consent, and our legitimate interest in keeping such information as stated in this Policy.

4. Storage. We will store Personal Information on our internal servers and/or servers provided by qualified third-party hosting vendors reasonably selected by SmartEsq (including, without limitation, Google Cloud and Amazon Web Services) with whom we have contracted.  While we will seek to ensure that the privacy obligation under such vendor contracts is substantially similar to those under this Policy, you should be aware that the outcome may not necessarily be in our control, and SmartEsq is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such vendors.

5. Use of Information.

5. We do not now, nor will we in the future, sell, rent or lease any of our customer lists and/or names to any third parties.

6. We may make use of Personal Information we collect to assist in the operation of the Site and Services.

7. At times, we may find it necessary to use personally identifiable information as a means to keep you informed of any changes to our Site or Services, or other possible products and/or services that may be available to you from SmartEsq.

8. We may also be in contact with you with regards to completing surveys and/or research questionnaires related to your opinion of current or potential future services that may be offered.

9. SmartEsq may share certain Personal Information with certain third parties service providers (including, without limitation, Google Analytics) to help perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, improve the Services (including, without limitation, using one or more tools or techniques known as artificial intelligence, machine learning, neural networks, or natural language processing applications which we may choose in our sole discretion). We will use reasonable best efforts to (i) inform such third-parties of the nature of your Personal Information, and (ii) confirm such third-parties have established policies and procedures to protect the security of your Personal Information.

10. SmartEsq will share Personal Information with its officers, directors, employees, advisors, consultants, agents or other authorized representatives having a need to know and who have signed confidentiality agreements containing, or are otherwise bound by, confidentiality obligations.

11. SmartEsq may share your Personal Information as necessary to comply with any an information disclosure request made under law, governmental rule or regulation, court order, subpoena, warrant, or other valid legal authority, legal procedure, or similar process (each of such process, a “Legal Process”). SmartEsq will use commercially reasonable efforts to notify you with respect to any request with respect to such Legal Process unless the Development Partner is legally prohibited from doing so.

6. Security of Personal Information.

12. SmartEsq secures your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure by utilizing, among other things, the following means: security sockets layer (SSL) protocol, passwords and encrypted drives.  For example:

• When Personal Information is transmitted from SmartEsq to other websites or services, it will be protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.
• Wherever we collect sensitive information (e.g. address or date of birth), that information is encrypted and transmitted to us in a secure way. You can verify this by looking for a lock icon in the address bar and looking for “https” at the beginning of the address of the webpage.
• While we use encryption to protect sensitive information transmitted online, we also protect your information offline. Only employees who need the information to perform a specific job (for example, billing or customer service) are granted access to personally identifiable information. The computers and servers on which we store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

13. While we strive to take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or alteration of your personal information, unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure.  Accordingly, you acknowledge that: (i) there are security and privacy limitations inherent to the Internet which are beyond our control; and (ii) security, integrity, and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and us through this Site cannot be guaranteed.

7. Non-Identifying Information.  

14. We will collect, through the Site and the Services, aggregate, anonymized and/or redacted Personal Information that no longer directly identifies you (“Non-Identifying Information”).  

15. The Non-Identifying Information will not constitute Personal Information for purposes of this Policy.  We will maintain and store Non-Identifying Information in an anonymized and redacted form only and will not attempt to re-identify you by processing or reverse-engineering or decoding of any Non-Identifying Information, unless required by applicable law, rule or regulation, or as requested by any governmental agency or other regulator or self-regulatory organization, in each case having jurisdiction over the relevant subject matter.  We will perform statistical analysis and other analytical and technological methodologies on the Non-Identifying Information to improve our Site and Services, to learn more about our business, and/or to achieve other business purposes.

8. Amendments; Changes to the Policy.  

16. Updates to the Policy.  We reserve the right to amend, restate, supplement or otherwise modify this Policy from time to time. We will notify you about material changes to this Policy by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account, placing a prominent notice on the Site and/or other means that we deem reasonable.  Your continued use of the Site and/or Services after such modifications will constitute your: (a) acknowledgment of the modified Policy; and (b) agreement to abide and be bound by that Policy.

17. Change of Control.  If SmartEsq undergoes a Change of Control (as defined below), your Personal Information in aggregate with the Personal Information of other users of the Site or the Services may be deemed an asset of SmartEsq in connection with such transaction. You acknowledge that any acquirer of SmartEsq in the Change of Control transaction may continue to use your Personal Information as set forth in this Policy, subject to any amendments, restatements, supplements or other modifications that may be implemented by such acquirer in connection with or after such transaction. For purposes of this paragraph, “Change of Control” means (1) a merger or consolidation in which SmartEsq is a constituent party (or in which a subsidiary of SmartEsq is a constituent party and the Company issues shares of its capital stock pursuant to such merger or consolidation), other than a merger or consolidation in which the voting securities of SmartEsq outstanding immediately prior to such merger or consolidation continue to represent (either by remaining outstanding or by being converted into voting securities of the surviving entity) more than 50% of the combined voting power of the voting securities of the surviving entity outstanding immediately after such merger or consolidation, or (2) any transaction or series of related transactions in which in excess of 50% of SmartEsq’s voting power is transferred, other than the sale by SmartEsq of stock in transactions the primary purpose of which is to raise capital for SmartEsq’s operations and activities, or (3) a sale, lease, exclusive license or other disposition of all or substantially all (as determined by the Board of Directors of SmartEsq in its sole discretion) of the assets of SmartEsq other than a sale, lease, license or other disposition of all or substantially all of the consolidated assets of SmartEsq to an entity, more than 50% of the combined voting power of the voting securities of which are beneficially owned by shareholders of SmartEsq in substantially the same proportions as their beneficial ownership of the outstanding voting securities of SmartEsq immediately prior to such sale, lease, exclusive license or other disposition.

9. Links to Third-Party Sites.  The Site and our Services (including through any downloadable software) may contain links to other third-party websites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of any other site that collects personally identifiable information.

10. Minors.  Neither the Site nor any Service is directed to, and SmartEsq does not knowingly collect personal identifiable information from children under the age of eighteen (18). If it is determined that such information has been inadvertently collected on anyone under the age of eighteen (18), we will immediately take the necessary steps to ensure that such information is deleted from our system’s database, or in the alternative, that verifiable parental consent is obtained for the use and storage of such information. Anyone under the age of eighteen (18) must seek and obtain parent or legal guardian permission (as applicable) to use the Site or any Service.

11. E-mail Communications.  From time to time, we may contact you via email for the purpose of providing announcements, promotional offers, alerts, confirmations, surveys, and/or other general communication. All users and visitors to our website have the option to discontinue receiving communications from us. To discontinue or unsubscribe from our email communications, please send an email that you wish to unsubscribe to privacy@smartesq.ai

12. Privacy Rights of Residents of Designated Countries

18. This Section only applies to users of the Site or the Services who are located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom and/or Switzerland (collectively, the “Designated Countries”) at the time of data collection (such users, the “Designated Country Users”). If any terms in this Section conflict with other terms contained in this Policy, the terms in this Section as applied to the Designated Country Users shall control.

19. You should be aware that SmartEsq’s operations are located primarily in the United States. If you provide information to us, the information will be transferred out of the European Union (EU) and sent to the United States. We note that the adequacy decision on E.U.-U.S. Privacy became operational on August 1, 2016. This framework protects the fundamental rights of anyone in the EU whose personal data is transferred to the United States for commercial purposes. It allows the free transfer of data to companies that are certified in the US under the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework.^[3]

20. By providing Personal Information to us, you are consenting to its storage and use as described in this Policy.

21. We may ask you to identify which country you are located in when you use some of the Services, or we may rely on your IP address to identify which country you are located in. Where we rely only on your IP address, we cannot apply the terms of this Section to Designated Country Users that masks or otherwise obfuscates their location information so as not to appear located in the Designated Countries.

22. SmartEsq is a data controller with regard to any Personal Information collected from any Designated Country User. For purposes of this Section, a “data controller” is an entity that determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any Personal Information is processed. Any third parties that act as our service providers are “data processors” that handle your Personal Information in accordance with our instructions.

23. You may object to our processing at any time and as permitted by applicable law if we process your Personal Information on the legal basis of consent, contract or legitimate interests. We can continue to process your personal information if it is necessary for the defense of legal claims, or for any other exceptions permitted by applicable law.

24. If we process your Personal Information based on a contract with you or based on your consent, or the processing is carried out by automated means, you may request to receive your personal information in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format, and to have us transfer your personal information directly to another “controller”, where technically feasible, unless exercise of this right adversely affects the rights and freedoms of others.

25. If you believe we have infringed or violated your privacy rights, please contact us via the information provided herein so that we can work to resolve your concerns. You also have a right to lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority situated in a Designated Country of your habitual residence, place of work, or place of alleged infringement.

13. Privacy Rights of the Residents of California

26. This Section only applies to users of the Site or the Services who are located in the State of California at the time of data collection (such users, the “California Resident Users”). If any terms in this Section conflict with other terms contained in this Policy, the terms in this Section as applied to the California Resident Users shall control.

27. The California Consumer Privacy Act of 2019 (as may be amended from time to time, the “CCPA”) provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This Section describes your CCPA rights and explains how to exercise those rights.

28. You have the right to request that SmartEsq disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past twelve (12) months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:

• The categories of Personal Information we collected about you;
• The categories of sources for the Personal Information we collected about you;
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling such Personal Information (if applicable);
• -The categories of third parties with whom we share such Personal Information;
• The specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you (also called a data portability request); and
• -If we sold or disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing: sales, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient purchased; and disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the personal information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

29. You have the right to request that we delete any of your Personal Information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will delete (and make reasonable efforts to direct our service providers to delete) your Personal Information from our records, unless an exception applies.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, we may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

• Complete the transaction for which we collect the Personal Information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you;
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities;
• Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality.
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law.
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act (Cal. Penal Code § 1546 seq.);
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent;
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us;
• Comply with any legal obligation; or
• Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

30. To exercise the access, data portability, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by either:

• Emailing us at privacy@smartesq.ai; or
• Sending a letter at:

SmartEsq, Inc.

c/o Chief Data Officer

1345 Avenues of the Americas Fl 2

New York, NY 10105

31. Only you, or a person registered with the California Secretary of State that you authorize to act on your behalf, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your personal information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

32. You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a twelve (12)-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows us to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected personal information or an authorized representative and
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

33. We cannot respond to your request or provide you with any Personal Information if we cannot reasonably verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the Personal Information relates to you.

34. Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an account with us.

35. We will only Personal Information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

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