Validos Privacy Policy

Date last updated 05/01/2022

Validos takes privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains who we are, how we collect, share, and use personal information about you, and how you can exercise your privacy rights.

Our Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Validos website: www.validos.com (and any subdomains). When you use our Sites and Services, you agree to comply with our Terms of Use and consent to the terms of this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy, including having you personally identifiable information (“Personal Information” as defined below) used in any of the ways described in this Privacy Policy, you may not use the Site and Services, do not create an account on the Site and Services, and/or ask for your account information to be deleted.

About Validos

Validos offers a public website where users register and are authenticated to determine if they are an employee of a Technology and/or Service Provider or an employee of a US Based Transmission and Distribution Utility company. With this separation, Validos provides a 2 sided marketplace to allow users to search for and share information about technology products, services, and providers, communicate with other users, and contribute recommendations and reviews of various technology products. Utility users can also connect with providers directly.

Information We Collect and How We Use It

We receive, store, and process certain types of personal information about you and the company you represent from your use of the Site and Services, automatic data collection, and from certain third parties.

What Categories and Types of Information We Collect

We may collect, transmit and store information about you if you are a visitor or registered user of our Site and Services. We collect various categories of personal information when you use the Site and Services. We intend to collect the following categories of Personal Information:

Examples

Identifiers - First Name, Last Name, Email address.

Commercial Information - Details of software products and/or services provided, purchased, obtained or considered

Internet or other electronic network or device activity information - Search history, information on your interactions with a website, application, or advertisement

Geolocation Data - Physical location, generally.

Business contact information - Name, email address, business address, telephone number, company name, title, company commercial details

How We Receive Personal Information

Directly from you. When you visit our Site and Services, log-in as a registered user, or provide your information in a form on our Site and Services, we will collect and store that information.

Indirectly from you. When you navigate and interact with our Site and Services, some information is automatically collected by cookies and similar technologies. Not all information collected may be personal information, and some cookies are necessary to use different functionalities of our Site and Services. The personal information collected may include information about your computer and internet connection, like IP address, operating system, and browser type.

From Other Sources. We also may periodically obtain both personal and non-personal information about you from affiliated entities, business partners, and other independent third-party sources and add it to other information about you. For example, if you visit our Site and Services by “clicking-through” from a site operated by one of our business partners and you have registered with that partner, then information about you that you have provided to that partner may be shared with us, such as contact information and demographic information.

Why We Use Your Personal Information

We may use Personal Information as permitted by law, for the following business purposes:

To provide the Site and Services and various functions related to services offered on the Site and Services. When you create an account on the Site and Services, we store and use the information you provide during that process. This may include your first and last name, your email address, the company you work for, and any other information you may provide during the account creation process. We may, if you consent, publicly display content you supply as part of your account profile. We also store and use any preferences you provide to personalize your user experience, including the types of software services and products that you use.

Any content that you submit to the Site and Services is intended for public display and are therefore viewable by the public, including your name, email, phone number, interests, and any company information associated with your account. You can limit the public nature of some of this information in your account settings.

To fulfill any contact requests you make on the Site and Services. When you request additional information on a certain third-party service or product listed on our Site, we will use the information you provide to connect you with the provider of that service or product. In the case you choose to limit the amount of personal information that can be shared to a third party, the information will be shared at a non-specific aggregate level.

To engage in research and analysis related to the Site and Services. We store and use the information to identify and fix errors, understand how visitors use our Site and Services, research and test different features, and analyze how visitors arrive at and use our Site and Services.

To personalize your experience. We store and use the information provided by you, such as the software products and services you use or have used, or are researching on the Site and Services, to personalize and make recommendations to you based on your provided information.

To improve and understand the usage of the Site and Services. We store and use information about your use of the Site and Services, such as your search activity, pages viewed, and the date, time, and duration of your visits, to understand and improve the usage of the Site and Services.

To provide details of third-party software providers' product(s) on the Site and Services.  We store and display information about third-party software products

To provide feedback to third-party businesses that are listed on the Site and Services. We store and use information about you or provided by you in an anonymized, aggregated format to assist our business partners in understanding their potential customers or current users.

To enhance the security of the Site and Services. We store and use the information to ensure the security of our Site and Services. For example, we use the information collected by certain cookies to determine if you are logged in and to detect unauthorized access to your account.

To comply with legal obligations. We use and share your information as necessary to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process; we also may use and share your information to establish or exercise our legal rights, to defend against legal claims, or as otherwise required by law.

We may use and share your personal information when we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal or suspected illegal activities; to protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of Validos, our Site and Services visitors and registered users, our licensees, and others.

We may use and share your personal information in connection with a corporate transaction, such as a divestiture, investment, merger, consolidation, or asset sale, or in the unlikely event of bankruptcy.

Do-Not-Track

Validos does not currently respond to Do-Not-Track signals. You may, however, adjust your preferences for certain tracking, for example, by disabling cookies or using ‘private’ or ‘incognito’ browsing modes.

Reviews and Other Content Published on Our Site

If you leave a review on the Site and Services or participate on a discussion board, your review(s) or comments will be publicly available on and off of our Site and Services. You can submit reviews and comments anonymously if you would like.

Before you submit a review, please note the following:

Submitting content is entirely voluntary.

By submitting content, you grant Validos an authorization to publicly publish the content and sub-license the content according to our Terms of Use. This means that we can authorize: the providers of software products and services to share this content through their websites, social media sites, or other marketing materials, such as slide decks or case studies, and/or the operators of other publicly-available websites, social media sites, platforms, or mobile apps to republish this content.

How We Share Your Information

Validos may share your Personal Information with the providers of products and services listed on our Site and Services, with our business partners, with our service providers, with various social media networks, our affiliates, and any other third parties whom you authorize us to share your information with. More detail about who we share your personal information with, and what types of personal information they receive from us, can be found below.

Sharing with other Validos users in your Utility organization as determined on Site and Services. If you register as a Utility user when registering with Validos your personal information will be available to other registered users within your Utility. 

Sharing with providers of products and services listed on the Site and Services. When you expressly request to be contacted by requesting more information or requesting a demo of a product or service, we will share your personal information with the provider of the software product or service with whom you’ve asked to be connected, in order to fulfill your request.

In fulfilling your request, we will provide the following personal information, to the extent you provide it:

• First and last name
• Email address
• Company name and title

Sharing your content. When you submit content on the Site and Services the content and any personal information you have associated with that content, may be shared with our syndication partners at either a detailed or aggregate level based on account settings. This information may be displayed publicly on other social media sites, third-party software marketplaces, the providers of software products and services listed on our Site and Services, and the operators of other publicly-available websites, platforms, or mobile apps that we have authorized to share this content through their websites, social media sites, platforms, mobile apps, or other marketing materials, such as slide decks or case studies.

In sharing your content, we will share the following personal information, to the extent you provide it:

• First name, last initial
• The profile picture associated with your Validos account
• Your job title
• Your employer

Sharing with our service providers. Validos uses third party service providers to support or provide services for us in connection with the Site and Services, such as hosting, security and fraud prevention, technical and user support, tracking and reporting usage of the Site and Services, marketing, and other functions. We share your information with them as necessary to perform tasks on our behalf and they are obligated to not disclose or use it for any other purpose.

Sharing with our affiliates. We share information from or about you with our affiliates and require them to abide by this policy. If another company were to acquire Validos, or all or substantially all of our assets, that company would then possess any information Validos has from or about you, and will collect, use, and disclose that information solely as described in this policy.

Disclosures and Transfers of Information. Validos does not disclose Personal Information to third parties, except when one or more of the following conditions is true:

• We have your permission to make the disclosure;
• The disclosure is necessary for the purpose for which the Personal Information was obtained;
• The disclosure is to the provider from whom you purchased services through the Site and Services;
• The disclosure is permitted by relevant law;
• The Personal Information to be disclosed is otherwise publicly available in accordance with the applicable law;
• The disclosure is reasonably related to the sale or other disposition of all or part of our business or assets;
• The disclosure is for our own marketing purposes, or, with your authorization, for the marketing purposes of third parties;
• The disclosure is combined with information collected from other companies and used to improve and personalize services, content, and advertising from us or third parties;
• The party to whom the disclosure is made controls is controlled by, or is under common control with Validos;
• The disclosure is in our sole discretion necessary for the establishment or maintenance of legal claims or legal compliance, to satisfy any law, regulation, subpoena, or government request, or in connection with litigation;
• The disclosure is in our sole discretion about users who we believe are engaged in illegal activities or are otherwise in violation of our Terms, even without a subpoena, warrant or court order; or
• The disclosure is to outside businesses to perform certain services for us, such as maintaining our Site and Services, mailing lists, processing orders and delivering products and services, sending postal mail, providing marketing assistance, confirming your identity for review integrity, and data analysis, including third parties outside the country or jurisdiction in which you reside.

Prior to sharing your Personal Information with others, agreements are made between Validos and such outside parties to whom we are transferring data to provide for the allowable use and security of the transferred information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and applicable law. If Validos becomes aware that any such outside party is improperly using or disclosing Personal Information, it will notify that outside party and request that it take reasonable steps to cease such use or disclosure.

We may provide certain Personal Information as a service to others for their marketing purposes. We may also disclose your de-identified, aggregate-level commercial demographics to Providers when you submit User Content relating to those Providers. If you properly notify us that you no longer want us to share your Personal Information, we will cease sharing your Personal Information. However, except as otherwise stated in this Privacy Policy, we do not directly control the third parties to which we share such Personal Information and you will need to further notify such third parties directly if you would like them to cease use of your Personal Information.

We may also disclose aggregate visitor data in order to describe the use of the Site and Services to our existing or potential business partners or other third parties, or in response to a government request. We may also share aggregated demographic and preference data with third parties to enable the provision of targeted information, promotions, offers and/or discounts on products and services.

Choice: Accessing Your Information and Opt-in/Opt-out Requests

You can review, edit, and control some of the information we collect about you on your "Profile" after logging in to your account. You cannot, however, unsubscribe from receiving certain emails, such as account status, unless you close your account and fulfill any existing contractual obligations.

You can also ask us whether we are keeping information about you; ask how your information is being used; ask us to update or correct your information, or ask that your account be deleted by sending an email to victoria@validos.com specifying the nature and scope of your request. Please state in your correspondence the details of your request. We may require proof of your identity before we provide you with the requested information. We allow you to challenge the data that we hold about you and, where appropriate, you may have certain data erased, rectified, amended, or completed.

Your Data Privacy Rights

Depending on where you are located and/or live, you may exercise certain data privacy rights, and Validos will facilitate the exercise of those rights.

California and European Privacy Rights

This privacy policy describes how we may share your information for marketing purposes. It applies to all Validos customers, including California and European residents:

• We share information with others as more fully set forth above in Disclosures and Transfers of Information.
• We share your information with other parts of our business and with our service providers. See above: Disclosures and Transfers of Information.

Nevada Privacy Rights

Under Nevada law, Nevada residents may opt-out of the sale of certain “covered information” collected by operators of websites or online services. We currently do not sell covered information, as “sale” is defined by such law, and we don’t have plans to sell this information. Please become familiar with our data practices as set forth in this privacy policy. We may share your data as explained in this privacy policy, such as to enhance your experiences and our services, and those activities will be unaffected by a Nevada do not sell request. You may also have other choices regarding our data practices as set forth elsewhere in this privacy policy.

International Transfers

If you are accessing our Site and Services from outside the United States, please be aware that your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection laws of the United States may not be equivalent to or as comprehensive as the data protection laws as those in your country.

Your Personal Information may be processed outside your jurisdiction, including in countries and jurisdictions that are not subject to an adequate decision by the European Commission or your local legislature or regulator, and that may not provide for the same level of data protection as your jurisdiction.

Security

We have implemented appropriate administrative, technical, and physical security procedures to help protect the personal information you provide to us.

For example, only authorized employees are permitted to access personal information that you do not publish on the Site and Services, and they only may do so for permitted business functions. Our security and privacy policies are periodically reviewed and enhanced as necessary, and only authorized personnel have access to personal information that you have not published on the Site and Services.

Please bear in mind that the submission of information over the Internet is never entirely secure. We cannot guarantee the security of information you submit via our Site and Services while it is in transit over the Internet, and any such submission is at your own risk.

Children’s Privacy

The Site and Services is a general audience site and does not offer services directed to individuals under 18 years of age.

No one under the age of 18 may provide any information to or on the Site and Services. We do not knowingly collect personal information from individuals under 18.

If you are under 18, do not use or provide any information on this Site and Services or on or through any of its features, do not register on this Site and Services, use any of the interactive or comment features of this Site and Services, or provide any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, email address, or any screen name or user name you may use. Should an individual whom we know to be under the age of 18 send personal information to us, we will delete or destroy such information as soon as reasonably possible. If you believe we might have this type of information, please contact us.

Data Retention

Validos retains your personal information where we have an ongoing legitimate business need. For example, we may retain your information to prevent, investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with the Site and Services or to comply with legal obligations. We may also retain copies of your personal information in our backup archives. Please note that software product and service providers listed on the Site and Services cannot remove their profile page, ratings, or reviews by closing their accounts.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

Validos may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you about material changes to this Privacy Policy by either sending a notice to the email address you provided to us and/or by other measures that are appropriate to provide you with notice. We will obtain your consent to any material Privacy Policy changes if and where this is required by applicable data protection laws.

You can see when this Privacy Policy was last updated by checking the “last updated” date displayed at the top of this Privacy Policy.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or want to communicate with our Validos, please contact us at victoria@validos.com.

Please provide your identification and contact details, including your email address used to register with this Site and Services, and a complete explanation of your concern.