PRIVACY POLICY

Last updated May 18, 2018

Audio Imperia LLC commits to strong and transparent privacy practices. We will update this Privacy Statement from time to time in response to changing legal, regulatory or operational requirements. We will provide notice of any such changes (including when they will take effect) in accordance with law. Your continued use of our products or services after any such updates take effect will constitute acceptance of those changes. If you do not accept any updates to this Privacy Statement, you may cancel your use or service.

Our Privacy Policy explains the types of information that we may collect and hold, how that information is used and with whom the data is shared. It also sets out how you can contact us if you have any queries, concerns or complaints about this information. Some of our services also have their own privacy policy which provide details of the use of your information by that service. Where applicable, these service-specific policies may apply in addition to or instead of this policy.

Please note that third-party developers in connection with Audio Imperia LLC Products and services are responsible for data processing controlled outside of EU/EEA themselves. These companies may have their own privacy policies, which are generally available from the relevant websites for those products and services.

1.1. Information that you provide us or that is collected

You may be asked to provide your personal information anytime you are in contact with Audio Imperia or use a Audio Imperia product or our services. For example:

  • When you create a user account, purchase a product, register your product, download software or updates, or use a product or service, Audio Imperia may collect a variety of information; including your name, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address and contact preferences..
  • When you submit your contact details to participate in surveys or to receive marketing materials and promotions, we ask you for your name, age and contact details such as email address.
  • When you interact with our user support centres, we may keep information about the interaction, including your name, the product(s) you purchased, the reason why you contacted us and the advice we gave you.
  • When you use our online services, we may receive content that you choose to upload, such as product reviews, comments, photos and forum posts, or details of your interests and preferences that you choose to tell us about when, for example, selecting the services that you wish to receive.
  • When you join one of our loyalty programs, we may collect information relating to your use of the loyalty program and the rewards that you claim.
  • When you visit us at a public event, such as trade show or exhibition or participate in one of our surveys, competitions or prize draws, we may ask for information, such as your business card, name, contact details, interests and preferences.

Some of our online services, websites, and online-enabled products collect and provide us personal information about your use of them, including:

  • Details of the online content viewed with and interact with, such as your browser software, which pages you view and which items you ‘clicked’ on or added to your shopping basket.
  • Services, products or server logs, storing information about your use of our services, products or websites, such as your IP address, browser information (including HTTP user agent strings), HTTP client request information and the time and location of your activities, domain, device and application settings, errors and hardware activity.
  • Information about your hardware’s physical location, geo-location service or application.
  • Interests and preferences that you specify when setting up your browser, account, or other Internet enabled product or services.

In general, such online information is collected using digital identifiers such as browser cookies, plugins or your IP address. These identifiers are used to distinguish the information provided by your hardware or browser that you use. However, we may associate the collected information with one of your accounts, if for instance you are logged into our services when the information is collected. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details and cookie settings.

1.2. Information we may collect from other sources

Audio Imperia may also collect personal information from publicly available sources and third parties, including:

  • When purchasing our products or services, the payment gateway our platform uses may carry out credit and financial checks to ensure payment is not made fraudulently and that you have a suitable credit rating. Payment processing for our store is exclusively processed through Shopify and PayPal. We do not collect, process, or retain your payment data. It does not exist on nor pass through our web server. We have NO access whatsoever to your payment account information.

1.3. Information we may collect in relation to social networks

If you use any of Audio Imperia’s social network applications, pages or plugins or you use one of our products or services that interacts with social networks, we may process personal information from your social network accounts, such as:

  • If you click on social network functions such as “likes”, “+1”, “tweet” or similar buttons in one of our websites or services, we may receive, record and profile your social network activity related to our products and services, depending on your social network privacy settings. Please take note that the content that you view may be posted to your social network profile or feeds. We may receive information about your further interactions with such posted content (e.g., if your contacts click on a link in the posted content), which we may associate with the details that we store about you.
  • We use Facebook Ad Manager. To run interest-based ads within the Facebook commercial network, Facebook saves a cookie to your device, which stores data regarding your browsing habits with an alias. You can prohibit Facebook from collecting this data by selecting the applicable function pursuant to the web services www.youronlinechoices.com (EU) and www.aboutads.info/choices (US). Provided that you have a Facebook account, Facebook’s Data Policy applies.
  • Content Commenting. Facebook Comments is a content commenting service provided by Facebook, Inc. enabling the User to leave comments and share them on the Facebook platform.

For more information and for details about how you can control or restrict access to your social network profile, you must review the relevant social network provider’s privacy policy and guidelines on privacy and data safety.

1.4. How Audio Imperia uses collected personal information

Audio Imperia uses the personal information it collects:

  • To communicate with you and to send you important product and service related notices, such as information about purchases, information on technical services issues, support, security announcements and changes to our terms, conditions and policies.
  • To operate and to improve its online and digital services, websites and its contents, as well as the products and how to enhance their user-friendliness.
  • To provide you with the product or service you have requested or purchased, including checking that a payment is not made fraudulently.
  • To provide user care, warranty, returns and other after sales services.
  • To enhance our product and service quality and to educate our personnel to ensure quality, compliance and social responsibility.
  • To seek your input and opinions on Audio Imperia products and services, and to conduct surveys and collect user input about our products and services.
  • To facilitate and process your searches, enquiries and requests for information when you contact us about our products and services.
  • To process your employment requests and to consider employing you.
  • To keep you informed about new products, software updates and upcoming events, as well as to provide you with newsletters and other sales and marketing communications.
  • To monitor and enforce our user terms, policies and guidelines when you use Audio Imperia products, services or contents, as well as to prevent and to mitigate the risk of fraudulent use of such material.
  • To create anonymous, aggregated statistics about the use of our website, products, services and other programmes, which we may share with third parties and/or make available to the public.
  • To develop and improve new and existing Audio Imperia products and services, recommendations, advertisements and other communications and learn more about our user’s music and sound preferences in general.

You may at any time decide not to participate (opting-out) in our processing of your personal data by changing your Audio Imperia account settings or receiving specific instructions by email. If so, please take note that such opting-out may impact and restrict your use of our products and services, or prevent us to provide you with the warranted level of product and service quality and functionality. Notwithstanding, your privacy is of uttermost importance to us.

We may retain your information as long as it is necessary for us to fulfil the purposes outlined above or in this Policy. In addition, we may retain your information for an additional period as is permitted or required to, among other things, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements. Where and when required by applicable law, we shall delete your information. Please take note that certain personal information may remain on backup or storage media, even if we delete your information from active databases. However, we will take all reasonable efforts to ensure that such personal information remain confidential, protected (including anonymised) and not used for any other purposes than ensuring compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

1.5. Forums, blogs and Audio Imperia’s online information sharing sources

Each time you create or reply to a post or thread on a Audio Imperia website forum, blog, RSS or other information sharing sources, in addition to providing such online services, we may also record the forum, blog, RSS or information sharing source name and the time and date of your post or thread with your account details. We do this to better understand our users, to provide user tools and guidance and to select or tailor our products, services, marketing communications to reflect your use activity. We do not use the content of such posts or threads for any other additional purposes.

1.6. Interlinking collected information

We may link or combine the information that we collect from the different sources outlined above (including information received from our partners and third-party developers). Information may be linked via a unique identifier, such as a cookie, plugin or other account identifiers. Alternatively, we may decide to combine two or more databases into a single database of user information.

We may do this for your and/or our convenience (for example, to allow you to more easily register for a new product or services), to allow us to provide a more seamless user support whenever you contact us and to provide you with qualitative, personalised services, content, marketing and adverts.

1.7. Marketing communications and subscriptions

When you provide us with contact details, such as when you sign-up to our newsletter through the sign-up form on our website, create an account or contact our user support centres, you may be given the opportunity to receiving newsletters, product information and other communications by email from Audio Imperia. These communications may include, e.g. details about our latest products, services, or events (including product updates and special offers in which you may be interested).

We may also use your information to personalise and to target more effectively our marketing communications.

You can change your marketing communication preferences at any time by:

  • changing your account settings;
  • follow the “unsubscribe” link or instructions provided to you (typically at the bottom of an email or in connection to the place on the website where the information is collected); and/or
  • sending a written request to unsubscribe directly to our user support centres.

If you sign up for our newsletter we save your e-mail address, in order to send you the newsletter. You receive the newsletter only if you have subscribed to it. Unsubscribing from the newsletter is possible at any time and free of charge. To do so, please click on the link at the end of every newsletter or change the preferences of your user account accordingly.

Our e-mail communication can contain so-called hyperlinks („links“), which contain random but unambiguous identification numbers. We (or external service providers working for us, e.g., web-analysis service providers) can collect and store these identification numbers when your computer accesses these links, in order to retrieve additional information from our servers. The identification numbers in those links are neither merged with your name, nor your postal address or other personal data, unless you have explicitly allowed us to send information specifically matching your interests to you. We use these links and information regarding your accesses, in order to track your usage of our e-mails and our website and to record and evaluate the success of particular marketing measures. We use this information to improve our website and our e-mail newsletter, particularly by aligning our information and offers with the users’ individual interests and needs.

Please take note that we may occasionally send you important information about our products and services that you are using or have used (such as order confirmations, product safety announcements, product updates and service changes). These emails are not affected by your marketing communication preferences and/or subscriptions described above.

1.8. Children’s Privacy

Subject to Audio Imperia’s Terms of Service, you must be 16 years of age or older to subscribe and to use our products and services. However, Audio Imperia allows individuals under the age of 16 to utilise our products and service, but they may do so only with the involvement, supervision, and approval of a parent or legal guardian.

Audio Imperia considers a child to be anyone under the age of 16. We do not knowingly seek or collect personal information from or about children without the explicit consent of a parent or guardian.

If we become aware that personal information that has been submitted to us relates to a child without the consent of a parent or guardian, we will use reasonable efforts to:

  • Delete that personal information from our files as soon as possible.
  • Ensure, where deletion is not possible, that this personal information is not used further for any purpose, nor disclosed further to any third-party.

Any parent or guardian with queries and questions concerning personal data processing that may relate to their child should contact us by using the details provided in the “Contact us” section below.

2. SHARING OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

2.1. Sharing your information with third parties

In general, Audio Imperia does not sell, rent, share or otherwise disclose your personal information with third parties. Notwithstanding, in our endeavour to provide you with quality products and services, we may need to make certain exemptions to this general principle (in particular when information about you cannot be transferred in anonymous and/or in pseudonymised form).

  • We may disclose information about you to other Audio Imperia group companies. They may combine this information with other details they hold about you. Unless they provide you with their own privacy policy, they may use your personal details for the purposes explained in this policy.
  • We may use third-party service providers to process information on our behalf for the purposes outlined above, e.g. to fulfil orders, delivering download links (via Continuata Connect and Amazon S3), sending postal mail and emails, providing marketing, technical and support assistance, processing credit card payments, providing IT and cyber security services, providing fraud checking services and providing customer services etc.
  • We may disclose and use information about you with our third-party Developers to process information for the purpose of ensuring product compatibility and interlinkage with Audio Imperia products, modules and services to optimise your use of Audio Imperia products and services.
  • If you request or agree to receive information or newsletters from one of our business partners, we may provide that third-party with your details so that they can respond to your request.

For research and statistical purposes, we prepare anonymous, aggregate or generic data (including “generic” statistics) for a number of purposes outlined above. As we consider that you cannot reasonably be identified from this information, we may share it with any third-party (such as our partners, advertisers, industry bodies, the media and/or the general public). However, also in this we apply a restrictive approach in order to ensure a high level of security and safety.

Please take note that our third-party service providers, acting on our behalf, always operate only in accordance with our instructions, in line with this policy, and are subject to appropriate confidentiality, privacy and security obligations. However, other third-party providers, such as third-party developers, generally process shared information to develop and optimise their products and services. When using third-party developer products in Audio Imperia products and services, we recommend that you always read such third-party developer’s privacy policy and use terms before using their products or services in Audio Imperia products and services.

Additionally, we may also use and/or disclose information about you to:

  • government bodies and law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud, to comply with the law and to meet a reasonable request from such bodies;
  • third parties (including professional advisors) to enforce or defend the legal rights of Audio Imperia group company or the terms and conditions of our products and services; and
  • third-party investors, and theirs and our professional advisors, in connection with a corporate governance event such as a merger, business acquisition, tax or insolvency situation.
  • Other services allow you to share a link which if clicked on may allow the recipient to access your uploaded content.

You should not expect any information that you make available to others via Audio Imperia’s online services to be kept private or confidential. Any information, contents or links that you may voluntarily share with others may be forwarded by the recipients to others. You should always exercise caution or discretion when using such online services, in particular when using social network applications.

2.2. Transfer of personal data outside of the EU/EEA

We are a global organisation and provide our products and services to users across the globe. For the purposes explained in this policy, your information may be transferred to our group companies (including service providers operating on our or their behalf) and other third parties in countries which may not have the same level of data protection laws as those in the country where you are located. Currently, we predominantly utilise third-party service providers, business partners and developers located in the United States of America.

For more detailed information about international information transfers to our business partners, service providers and developers outside of the EU/EEA, please contact us using the details given in the “Contact us” section below.

3. INFORMATION SECURITY

3.1. How do we protect your information?

We have adopted and implemented a number of technical and administrative measures to protect your privacy from unauthorised access, use or alteration and unlawful destructions, including where appropriate the following steps:

  • Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption when collecting or transferring sensitive information, such as credit card details (SSL encryption is designed to make the data unreadable by anyone but Audio Imperia).
  • Limiting access rights to the information we collect about you (e.g., only those of our personnel who need your information to carry out our business activities are allowed access to process your information).
  • Implementing physical, digital and procedural safeguards in line with relevant business standards and guidelines.

3.2. What you should do to help us in protecting your information?

As general best practice on the Internet, it is recommended that users take great care with their accounts, and follow vigilantly some general safety rules:

  • Do not press a link that you do not expect to receive or not requested by us to press.
  • Do not use simple, trivial, or versatilely used passwords when creating an account or using our products and services.
  • Do not share your account information with any person claiming to represent Audio Imperia. For support purposes, we only need you to provide us with the email address you used when creating your Audio Imperia account.
  • Do install anti-virus, anti-phishing or anti-malware software on the hardware when using our Products and services.
  • Always contact us if you are unsure or in doubt of a communication received from Audio Imperia or a source claiming to be associated with us.
  • Never use an unlicensed Audio Imperia account fraudulently created to access our products and services.

Please see Audio Imperia’s user Terms of Service and End User License Agreement (EULA) for more information.

3.3. Cookies and other technologies

Some information is received and stored automatically whenever you interact with the Site. “Cookies” are one example of this type of information. In internet terms, a “cookie” is a text file that websites commonly send to visiting computers/devices to identify that visiting computer/device upon subsequent visits and to collect general usage data including statistical information. Other uses of Cookies include, for example:

  • Allowing the Site to recognize your device so you don’t have to enter the same information repeatedly;
  • Allowing the Site to remember your cart content so you don’t have to enter the same information repeatedly;
  • Recognizing that you have a username and/or password;
  • Allowing us to better understand how you are using the Services and/or Site to maximize efficiency and ensure sufficient capacity for quick delivery;

A “cookie” is a small amount of data sent from the server and stored on your computer’s hard drive. Most web browsers are automatically set up to accept cookies, but you can set your browser to refuse cookies or ask your browser to show you where a cookie has been set up. These settings will typically be found in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. In order to understand these settings, the following links may be helpful (otherwise you should use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details):

Please note that we do not recommend turning Cookies off as this may prevent you from using certain aspects of the Service and/or the Site.

Audio Imperia LLC may, from time to time, use third party services to display or distribute content on the Site, which may include analysis of data and/or management of content and/or services generally. The Site (or third-party sites) may use Cookies and/or similar web beacons to collect information that will enable us to provide you with the most efficient and personalized service. However, the cookies used on Audio Imperia’s websites does not normally contain information that identifies you personally.

3.3.1. Cookies on Audio Imperia’s websites

Audio Imperia uses session cookies as well as persistent cookies on its websites. A session cookie is a temporary cookie which is erased when a session is ended, i.e. usually when you close your browser, while a persistent cookie is stored in one of your browsers subfolders until deleted manually or the set duration period of the persistent cookie expires.

Audio Imperia uses cookies such as “ph_hasloggedin” in order to determine whether to show “sign up” or “log in” when prompting a user to log in, “ph_st_variants” in order to determine which version of a page to show to a user, and “ph_sessionid” in order to remember information about a logged in user and your cart content.

3.3.2. Third-party cookies on Audio Imperia’s websites

Audio Imperia also uses third-party cookies. Third-party cookies may be necessary in order for third parties to provide its services to Audio Imperia. Audio Imperia uses third-party cookies such as __ga in order to access Google Analytics data.

Google Universal Analytics uses so-called “cookies“, text files, which are saved to your computer and which allow for an analysis of your use of the website. The cookie-generated data regarding your use of this website will generally be forwarded to a Google server in the USA and stored there. For this website, the IP anonymization is activated, meaning your IP address will be truncated by Google within Member States of the European Union or other parties to the Agreement on the European Economic Area beforehand. Only in exceptional cases, the full IP address is sent to a Google server in the USA and is shortened there.

Google will use this data as a processor in accordance with § 11 of the German Data Protection Act (BDSG), in order to analyze your use of the website, to draft reports about website activities and to perform further services for the website’s operator in connection to website usage and internet usage. The IP address transmitted by your browser as part of Google Universal Analytics is not merged with other data held by Google. Additionally, a so-called User-ID will be used. This ID is not assigned to a particular device but to you personally. The User-ID enables the analysis of your behavior across devices (smartphone, tablet, notebook). The allocation of the User-ID to a user ensues once we have unequivocally identified you as a user. This happens generally when you are using your Audio Imperia user account. As soon as you have logged-in for the first time, a User-ID is allocated to you accordingly. It contains a unique, persistent, and non-personally identifiable string for a signed user. Once you log into our website the User-ID is sent to Google Universal Analytics. As far as Google is concerned, the User-ID functions as your alias. Google connects your online behavior and the User-ID to a profile. Google only receives the User-ID, not the information contained in the above-mentioned profile or other personal data of yours. A summarized version of the profile created in this way is accessible to us. We do not attach any other of your personal data to the profile connected to a User-ID.

You can object to the above-described data collection for each respective device by making use of the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on with future effect. More information on terms and services and safeguarding your data can be found here:

  • Universal Analytics usage guidelines
  • Safeguarding your data

Moreover, you can object to the transfer of a User-ID to Google by writing an e-mail to us (see email at the bottom of the page). You can prevent Google’s collection of the cookie-generated data related to your use of the website (including your IP address) as well as its processing by Google by downloading and installing the browser plugin offered by Google. Moreover, the operator of this website uses Google Universal Analytics to evaluate data from AdWords and the Double-Click-Cookie for statistical purposes. You can stop this at any time by using the Google Ads Preferences Manager, by changing the setting to “OFF”.

We use Google’s Dynamic Remarketing. To run interest-based ads within the Google commercial network, Google saves a cookie to your device, which stores data regarding your browsing habits with an alias. The Google Ads Preference Manager lets you see at any time, which conclusions Google draws from the cookie. Moreover, you also have the option there to make changes or to deactivate the data collection.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can modify your settings to decline cookies as well as delete existing cookies from your device if you prefer. If you choose to decline and/or delete cookies, you may not be able to use all features of Audio Imperia’s websites or services that depend on cookies.

4. ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION AND YOUR RIGHTS

4.1. Your rights

Audio Imperia wishes to inform you that you, as a data subject, are entitled to exercise certain rights related to our processing of your information, e.g. you have the right:

  • To request information on which personal data relating to you we collect, store, transfer or otherwise process, as well as for what purposes the information was processed and to whom it has been disclosed.
  • To prevent us to process your information in a manner that is likely to cause damage or distress to you, or to process your information for direct marketing purposes.
  • To be informed about the mechanics of automated decision-making processes that will significantly affect you.
  • To seek compensation for any damages that you suffer by any contravention of our legal obligations under privacy and data protection laws applicable to us for processing your information.
  • To call for action for us to rectify, block, erase, delete, or destroy inaccurate data that we process about you (including your legal right to be forgotten.
  • To request the supervisory authority to assess whether we have processed your data in contravention of our legal obligations under privacy and data protection laws applicable to us.
  • To request us to send you a copy of the information we store about you, and/or to have that data transmitted to another third-party.
  • To object to any automated profiling that may occur without your knowledge or approval.

You can exercise these rights by contacting us using the details given in the “Contact us” section below.

Please take note that we may reject requests that are unreasonable or not required by law, including those that would be extremely impractical, could require disproportionate technical effort, or could expose us to operational risks. Furthermore, we may retain information as required or permitted by applicable laws and regulations, including to honor your choices, for our billing or records purposes and to fulfil the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

4.2. Your choices

If you no longer want to receive certain communications from us, simply access the settings pages in the “Your Account” section of our website and follow the instructions on how to subscribe. Alternatively, click the “unsubscribe” link in our communications (or as otherwise instructed). Please note that you cannot unsubscribe from certain email correspondence from us, such as messages relating to your account transactions, software updates and instructions.

Furthermore, please take note that a complete removal of your user account or your email address will result in you not being able to use our products or service.

To exercise choices regarding cookies set through our website, as well as other types of online tracking, see the “Cookies and other technologies” section above.

4.3. 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 privacy authority where you reside. For contact details of your local Data Protection Authority, click here.

4.4 Contact

The controller of personal information in relation to this privacy policy is Audio Imperia LLC, 5663 Balboa Ave #335, San Diego, CA 92111, USA.

If you do not want us to retain or use your personal information, you may withdraw your consent (i.e. “opt out”), by contacting us at [email protected]. If you have any queries about this Privacy Policy or wish to resume receiving information which you may have previously opted-out of receiving, please contact us at (see email at the bottom of the page)

We reserve the right to change this Privacy Policy as we may deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law. Any changes will be immediately posted on the Site and you are deemed to have accepted the terms of any such amended Privacy Policy on your first use of the Site following such alterations.