Privacy Policy

We may collect, transmit, and store information about you in connection with your use of the Service, including any information you send to or through the Service. We use that information to provide the Service’s functionality, fulfill your requests, improve the Service’s quality, engage in research and analysis relating to the Service, personalize your experience, track usage of the Service, provide feedback to third party businesses that are listed on the Service, display relevant advertising, market the Service, provide customer support, message you, back up our systems, allow for disaster recovery, enhance the security of the Service, and comply with legal obligations. Even when we do not retain such information, it still must be transmitted to our servers initially and stored long enough to process.

Please also note:

Account Information: When you create a Sabawyan account, we store and use the information you provide during that process, such as the first and last name you enter, email address, zip code, physical address, and any other information you may provide during the account creation process, such as a gender, or phone number. We may publicly display the first name and last initial that you provide, as well as any photo or other content you submit through the account creation process, as part of your account profile. We also store and use any preferences you provide to personalize your user experience, including dining and activity preferences. You can later modify some of the account information you provide through your account settings. If you believe that someone has created an unauthorized account using your personal information, you can request its removal by flagging it.

Public Content: Your contributions to the Service are intended for public consumption and are therefore viewable by the public, including your photos, ratings, reviews, tips, lists, Collections, compliments, Community posts, Balwah posts, and edits to business page information. Your account profile (e.g., first name, last initial, city, neighborhood, the month and year you created your Balwah account, profile photos and list of friends on Balwah) is also intended for public consumption, as is some of your other activity through the Service, like how you vote on other people’s contributions (e.g., useful, funny, cool, helpful, or not helpful), which contributions you like, where you check-in (including when friends on Balwah tag you in their own check-ins), which contributions or users you follow, and which businesses you follow or bookmark. You can limit the public nature of some of these activities through your account settings.

Communications: When you sign up for an account or use certain features, you are opting to receive messages from other users, businesses, and Balwah. You can manage some of your messaging preferences through your account settings, but note that you cannot opt out of receiving certain administrative, transactional, or legal messages from Balwah. For example, if you make a reservation, order food, place yourself on a waitlist, or request a quote from a business through the Service, we may send you messages about your transaction using the contact information you provide, including through automated SMS text messages to your phone number. We may also track your actions in response to the messages you receive from us or through the Service, such as whether you deleted, opened, or forwarded such messages, and share that information with other parties to your messages (for example, to let them know if you have viewed their message). When a user requests a quote or similar information from multiple businesses through the Service, we may disclose to those businesses information about the status of the user’s requests, such as whether any business has responded to the request, the type of response provided (for example, a quote or a request for more information), and whether the user has responded to any business’s reply. If you exchange messages with others through the Service, we may store them in order to process and deliver them, allow you to manage them, and we may review and disclose them in connection with investigations related to use of the Service, as well as our efforts to improve the Service. We may not deliver messages that we believe are objectionable, such as spam messages, fraudulent solicitations, or requests to exchange reviews for compensation. If you send or receive messages through the Service via SMS text message, we may log phone numbers, phone carriers, and the date and time that the messages were processed. Carriers may charge recipients for texts that they receive. We may also store information that you provide through communications to us, including from phone calls, letters, emails and other electronic messages, or in person. If you are a representative of a business listed on Balwah, or use a phone number associated now or previously with such a business, we may contact you, including by phone or email, using the contact information you provide us, make publicly available, or that we have on record for your business. Our communications with you, including phone calls, may be monitored and recorded for quality purposes.

Transactions: If you initiate a transaction through the Service, such as a reservation or purchase, we will collect and store information you provide associated with your transaction, such as your name, phone number, address, email, and payment information, as well as any other information you provide, in order to process your transaction, send communications about the transaction to you, and facilitate future transactions. This information may be shared with third parties, and third parties may share such information with us, for the same purposes. When you submit credit card numbers and other sensitive payment information, that information is encrypted using industry standard technology. If you write reviews about businesses with which you transact through the Service, we may publicly display the fact that you transacted with those businesses in connection with such reviews. For example, if you make a dining reservation through the Service and later write a review about your experience, we may publicly display the fact that you made your reservation through the Service.

Activity: We store information about your use of the Service, such as your search activity, the pages you view, the date and time of your visits, businesses you call using our mobile applications, and reservations, purchases, or transactions you make through the Service. We also store information that your computer or mobile device may provide to us in connection with your use of the Service, such as your browser type, type of computer or mobile device, browser language, unique device identifier, advertising identifier, location (including geolocation, beacon based location, and GPS location), and requested and referring URLs and mobile applications. We may also receive and store your location whenever our mobile applications are running, including when running in the background, if you enable our mobile apps to access such information in the course of using the Service. You may be able to limit or disallow our use of certain location data through your device or browser settings, for example by adjusting the settings for our applications in iOS or Android privacy settings.

Different Devices: You may access the Service through different devices (e.g., your mobile phone or personal computer) and different platforms (e.g., the Balwah website or Balwah mobile apps). The information that we collect and store through those different uses may be cross-referenced and combined, and your contributions through one Balwah platform will typically be similarly visible and accessible through all other Balwah platforms.

Professional Information: If you represent a business on Balwah, we may collect and display information about you related to your business activities, such as a business name that may incorporate your name, or a publicly available business address that is also used as a home address. We will also collect and display information about your professional background that you choose to share with us through the Service, such as information about your professional licenses or certifications, or your professional history or specialties.