Blockshares, LLC (“Blockshares,” “we” or “us”), respects and values your privacy. The following policies apply to the collection of data by Blockshares and its subsidiaries and affiliates. If you have any concerns or questions regarding the Blockshares privacy policy, you should first contact us directly at info@blockshares.com.
This policy discloses the types of information we collect and how we use this information, as well as the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. We also explain how any personal or personally identifiable information that we may request will be used. We also detail below our security policy, which describes how your valued personal information is protected.
Personal Information We Collect From You and About You
Blockshares collects personal and financial information from you while you use the Site; most of this collection occurs during your account registration. Most of the information collected is required for legal or security purposes, although some is optional. Additional information may be collected during your subsequent use of the Site, whenever you choose to provide it.; but in order to make investments through the Site, it is legally mandatory that certain information be provided.
Blockshares, in general, collects certain types of information from you:
Certain personal information must be supplied during the investor registration process, as indicated below, in order to (a) enable you to log in to the Site, (b) establish your ability to view offering materials and to make investments through the Site (for U.S. residents, such ability is restricted to “accredited investors” with a certain level of annual income or net worth), (c) verify that you are at least 18 years of age, (d) guard against potential fraud, (e) contact you if there is a problem with your account, and (e) maintain regular communications with you as may be necessary to inform you of upcoming investment opportunities and other company updates. This basic personal information includes your name, email address, home address and phone number, date of birth, social security number and/or tax identification number, employer, and job title.
When you subscribe to make an investment in one of the opportunities listed on the site, you will again be asked for some of the same personal data as well as some additional data, such as your bank routing number and bank account number. This information is needed in order to enable us or our broker-dealer and banking partners to utilize your bank account to originate funds transfers and later to make investment distributions to you.
Additionally, we gather names and email addresses of users who have contacted us through the Site with inquiries about our company, investment opportunities or our online platform. We collect this data for the sole intent of responding to such inquiries and do not store the contact information (unless requested by those who have made the inquiry) as in the case of a resume submitted by a job applicant.
Lastly, we collect data about your computer and your visits to the Site, such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit, and page views through the use of log files. We use this aggregated information in the administration of the Site to improve its functionality and to evaluate the viability and results of particular marketing campaigns, search engine optimization strategies and other advertising activities. We use non-identifying and aggregated information to help optimize the Site based on the needs of our network of users.
Notifications and Communications From Our Site
Blockshares will send you periodic email notifications. These email notifications are mandatory components of your transactions on our platform, such as confirmations of specific actions you have taken. These required communications and notices are usually sent to notify you of a change in status such as when you are confirmed as an investor, or for legal or security purposes. For example, certain notifications are sent for your own protection to ensure that another person cannot make a change to your account without your knowledge. In other cases, these notifications involve changes to various legal agreements or Site policies. Typically, you may not opt out of such service-related emails.
When you register as an investor, you will receive emails that confirm specific actions you requested; these will include emails to which you must respond to complete your registration, and notifications confirming your account registration. Subsequently, you will receive emails when a new investment opportunity is offered, as well as updates concerning the progress of the funding of such opportunity or offering other pertinent project specific information. If you make an investment through the Site, we, Bancbox, or Four Oaks Bank and Trust, will also send you confirmations of the investment and occasional updates as to the status of that investment and the timing of distributions pertaining to that investment. We may also send you responses to emails you send us, if appropriate. Occasionally, Blockshares will also send user surveys, requests for user feedback regarding user experience and Site operations or marketing offers from us or from us on behalf of our marketing partners. The completion of these surveys or requests for feedback or acceptance of any offer is strictly optional. If you do not wish to receive these offers, surveys or user feedback emails, please opt out in any offer email you receive from us.
How and When Your Information Is Shared With Other Parties
Blockshares does not sell or rent personal information about its users for marketing purposes. We do, however, work with a number of trusted partners who perform essential functions as part of our operations.
In addition to our relationship with the banking partners Bancbox and Four Oaks Bank & Trust Company, we also work with (among others) providers of hosting services for the Site, electronic signature providers, and electronic payment service providers. We may engage third parties to help us to carry out certain other internal functions such as account processing, client services or other data collection relevant to our business; example of such companies might include companies that perform data processing, reporting, tax documentation, custody or escrow services. Information is shared with these third parties only to the extent necessary for us to process the investment transactions you initiate or perform other specific services, like collections. Our partners are legally mandated to keep your personal information private and secure.
Your investment profile information may, in a general way, be made publicly available for use on the “Statistics” page of the Site or in other summaries of aggregate investment information.
If you use our blog on the Site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of this forum, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in this forum.
We may share your information with law enforcement or other government agencies as required by law or for the purposes of limiting fraud. We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order or legal process. We further reserve the right to disclose any of your personal information that we believe, in good faith, appropriate or necessary to take precautions against liability, to investigate and defend against any third party claims or allegations, to assist government enforcement agencies, to protect the security or integrity of the Site or our service, or to protect the rights, property or personal safety of Blockshares, its users, issuers, or others.
Where You Can View and Correct Your Information
Blockshares urges you to review your information regularly to ensure that it is correct. If you believe that any of your information is incorrect, or if you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, please contact us at info@blockshares.com
Web-Related Information Collection
When you visit the Website, whether or not you register for an account, we may send one or more cookies – small text files containing a string of alphanumeric characters – to your computer. “Cookies” are small text files that may be placed on your web browser when you visit our Site that store information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting the Site. We use cookies when you sign in, to keep track of your personal session, including some account identifiers so that we can ensure that you are the only person making changes to your account. We also use cookies to track your activity on the Site as a unique person. All of this information is stored in an encrypted fashion for security reasons, and none of your personal data is stored. You can set your web browser to inform you when cookies are set or to prevent cookies from being set. Please note, however, that if you decline to use cookies, you may experience reduced functionality and slower site response times; subsequently, by declining to use our authentication-related cookies, you may be prevent yourself from having the ability to use the Website altogether.
Blockshares (or our service providers, such as Google Analytics_______) may also collect web usage data related to your use of the Service. This may include, for example, information regarding which of our web pages you access, the frequency of such access, and your product and service preferences. This data collection may be accomplished by using cookies, web beacons, page tags or similar tools that are set when you visit the Website. Such web usage information may include your Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring or exit pages, click stream data, operating system and the dates , times and frequency that you visit the Website. Web usage data and similar information may be used for administrative purposes, to assess the usage, value and performance of our online products and services, and to improve your experience with the Service. As with cookies, the web usage information collected is aggregated, anonymous "click stream" and transactional data, and is not associated with any users as individuals.
Links to Other Sites
If you follow any links that direct you away from the Site, this privacy policy will not apply to your activity on the other websites you visit. We do not control the privacy policies or the privacy practices of any third parties.
International Users
The Site may be accessed by users located outside the United States. If you choose to use the Service from the European Union or other regions of the world with laws governing data collection and use that may differ from U.S. law, then please note that you are transferring your personal information outside of those regions to the United States, and that by providing your personal information on or through the Site then you consent to that transfer.
Security Policy
We limit access to the personal information we have about you to those employees who have a legitimate business need to access such data. In keeping with industry standards and practices, we maintain appropriate electronic, physical and procedural safeguards and controls to protect any of your information. The Site is built upon a secure infrastructure with multiple layers of protection and we use industry standard encryption technologies to safeguard your information.
Users are required to identify and authenticate themselves prior to accessing sensitive portions of the Site. Generally, identification and authentication take place through the use of your user name and a password and/or while logging in with one of our technical support staff.
You can take several precautions to protect the security of your computer and personal information. For instance, you can use a well-chosen password, and restrict access to your email account. You can also install and regularly update antivirus and firewall software to protect your computer from external attacks by malicious users. When you are finished with a session on the Site, be sure that you log out and close the browser window.
If we learn of a security systems breach, then we may attempt to notify you electronically so that you can take appropriate protective steps. We may also post a notice on or through the Site in the event of a security breach. Depending on where you live, you may have a legal right to receive notice of a security breach in writing.
You should also be aware of fraudulent attempts to gain access to your account information known as "phishing," whereby scammers try to bring unsuspecting people to a website by using a genuine-looking email purporting to be from a legitimate company. Sometimes, either in the email itself or on this fake site, scammers will ask for login information to gain access to people's accounts and withdraw their money.
Blockshares will never send you an email asking you for your login information. In general, you can protect yourself against phishing by never providing personal or login information via a link contained in an email; instead, go the website directly. You might also make it a habit to check the URL of a website to be sure that it begins with the correct domain. In the case of Blockshares, you should always ensure the URL begins with https://blockshares.com or https://www.blockshares.com.