Effective Date: June 8, 2020
Last Reviewed: June 14, 2022
ML Genius Holdings, LLC (“Genius,” “we” or “us”) is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how information about you or associated with you is collected, used and disclosed by ML Genius Holdings, LLC, which owns and operates Genius services. This Privacy Policy applies to the services, features, content, and applications offered by Genius, including without limitation, at genius.com (the “Website”) (such services, together with the Website, the “Service”). For more information about our Service, please visit our About Genius page. Any capitalized terms used but not defined in this Privacy Policy are defined in our Terms of Service available at: https://genius.com/static/terms, which is incorporated by this reference.
This Privacy Policy outlines our handling practices and how we collect and use the Personal Data you provide during your interactions with us and our Services. As used in this Privacy Policy, “Personal Data” means any information that can be used to individually identify a person or that is related to a natural person, under applicable data privacy laws, rules, or regulations. This information may include, but is not limited to, name, email address, postal or other physical address, credit or debit card number, title, and other personally identifiable information. This Privacy Policy does not cover the practices of companies we do not own or control or people we do not manage.
If you are located in the European Union (“EU”), United Kingdom, Lichtenstein, Norway, Iceland or Switzerland, or certain US states, you may have additional rights with respect to your Personal Data, as further outlined below.
If you have any questions about whether any of the foregoing applies to you, please contact us using the information set forth in the “Contacting Us” section below.
We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time, for reasons such as operational practices or regulatory changes. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will bring them to your attention by changing the Effective Date, posting the updated Privacy Policy on this page, sending you an email, and/or by some other means. Each time you use the Service or provide us with information, you accept the practices described in this Privacy Policy as applicable at that time.
What Personal Data Do We Collect From You? We collect Personal Data about you when you provide such information directly to us, when third parties such as our business partners or service providers (including, but not limited to, social networks and analytics services) provide us with Personal Data about you, or when Personal Data about you is automatically collected in connection with your use of our Service. We also receive information about you from some of our service providers who assist us with marketing or promotional services related to how you interact with our websites, applications, products, services, advertisements or communications. In some cases, we combine non-Personal Data about you with Personal Data we have about you.
The following chart details the categories of Personal Data that we collect and have collected over the past twelve (12) months. Throughout this Privacy Policy, we will refer back to the categories of Personal Data listed in this chart.
Category of Personal Data: Personal Identifiers
Source: You/Third Parties (e.g Facebook or Twitter)
Personal Data Collected:
Category of Personal Data: Internet or other similar network activity information
Source: You/Third Parties
Personal Data Collected:
The following sections provide additional information about how we collect your Personal Data.
You Directly:
Third Party Sources:
How Do We Use Your Personal Data?
Online Behavioral Advertising: Some of our advertising (“Behavioral Advertising”) involves using tracking tools such as cookies, pixel tags, and web beacons, to collect information about a user’s online activities (over time and across non-affiliated websites and applications) and providing ads to the user based the user’s interests (as inferred from the user’s online activity) or use of our Service. Behavioral Advertising may appear on our Service or on other websites or services. Information used for Behavioral Advertising may be provided to us by you, or derived from the usage patterns of particular users on the Service and/or services of third parties. We work with third parties to provide Behavioral Advertising, such as advertising networks, data exchanges, traffic measurement service providers, marketing analytics service providers, and other third-party service providers (collectively, “Advertising Service Providers”). Advertising Service Providers perform services such as facilitating targeting of advertisements and measuring and analyzing advertising effectiveness on the Service (collectively, all such services, “Targeting Services”). Targeting Services help us display Behavioral Advertising, prevent you from seeing repeated ads, and enable us to research the usefulness of ads.
Genius will be the controller of your Personal Data that is provided, collected, and/or processed pursuant to this Privacy Policy. We will only process your Personal Data if we have a lawful basis for doing so. Lawful bases for processing include consent, contractual necessity, and our “legitimate business interests” or the legitimate business interest of others, as further described below.
Contractual Necessity: We process some Personal Data as a matter of “contractual necessity”, meaning that we need to process the data to perform under our Terms of Service with you, which enables us to provide you with the Service. When we process data due to contractual necessity, failure to provide such Personal Data will result in your inability to use some or all portions of the Service that require such data.
Legitimate Business Interest: We process Personal Data for certain purposes when we believe it furthers the legitimate business interest of us or others (e.g. our users). Examples of these legitimate business interests include:
We will not collect additional categories of Personal Data or use the Personal Data we collected for materially different, unrelated, or incompatible purposes without providing you notice.
How and With Whom Do We Share Your Data?
We share your Personal Data in the instances described in this Privacy Policy. We also share information with others in an aggregated and anonymous form that does not reasonably identify you directly as an individual. For further information on your choices regarding your information, see the “Your Choices Regarding Your Data” section below.
Remember, our Service allows you to connect with others and share information about yourself with other individuals. Your profile information, including your user name, avatar, and personal narrative, and comments you make on the Website, will be available publicly to other members of the Service by default and in some cases will be searchable by search engines which can display your information publicly.
Similarly, your name and avatar will be displayed alongside any comments you make on the Website and will be displayed on our homepage alongside your IQ if you make The Weekly IQ Leaderboard, on our Contributors list, or in connection with your comments and reactions to our blog and to other contributors. By using the Service, you acknowledge that you understand and agree that your profile information will be displayed publicly.
Disclosures of Personal Data for a Business Purpose
Business Purposes: We share Personal Data with vendors, third party service providers, and agents who work on our behalf and provide us with services related to the purposes described in this Privacy Policy for the following business purposes:
Disclosures in the Past Twelve (12) Months: Over the past twelve (12) months, we have disclosed the following categories of your Personal Data to service providers or other parties for the business purposes listed above:
Service providers: We share Personal Data with these third parties as needed to perform services for us and under reasonable confidentiality terms. We disclose your Personal Data to the following categories of service providers and other parties:
Other Disclosures: We also share Personal Data when we believe it is necessary to:
Company Transactions: We would share Personal Data with third parties in connection with any company transaction, such as a merger, sale of company assets or shares, reorganization, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company or third party or in the event of bankruptcy or related or similar proceedings. For example, if we choose to buy or sell assets, user information is typically one of the transferred business assets. Moreover, if we, or substantially all of our assets, were acquired, or if we go out of business or enter bankruptcy, user information would be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party, and we would share Personal Data with the party that is acquiring our assets. You acknowledge that such transfers may occur, and that any acquirer of us or our assets may continue to use your Personal Data as set forth in this policy.
Online Merchant Store: Our online merchant store is currently hosted by Shopify Inc. (“Shopify”) and Teespring, Inc. (“Teespring”). Shopify and Teespring provide us with the online e-commerce platform that allows us to sell certain merchandise to you. When you provide Personal Data in connection with a purchase on or through the Service, such Personal Data is stored through Shopify’s and Teespring’s data storage, databases, and the general Shopify and Teespring applications. Shopify and Teespring may transfer, process or store your data outside of the United States and such data may be subject to disclosure as required by applicable law. For more information, you can read Shopify’s Terms of Service (https://www.shopify.com/legal/terms) or Privacy Statement (https://www.shopify.com/legal/privacy) and Teespring’s Terms of Service (https://teespring.com/policies/terms) or Privacy Statement (https://teespring.com/policies/privacy).
Sales of Personal Data
In this section, we use the term “sell” (and variations of the term, such as “sold”) as it is defined in the CCPA. We sell your Personal Data, subject to your right to opt-out of these sales to the following parties (see the “Your Rights” section below for information about how to opt-out).
We sell your Personal Data to the following categories of third parties:
Over the past twelve months, we have sold the following categories of your Personal Data to third parties:
You may have additional rights regarding your Personal Data, including depending on where you are located. These rights may include rights under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), if you are located in the EU, United Kingdom, Lichtenstein, Norway or Iceland or under applicable U.S. state privacy laws, such as the CCPA.
Marketing Communications: If you do not want to receive promotional emails from us, you can click the “unsubscribe” button on the promotional email communications or email us at [email protected] with the subject “Marketing Opt-Out”. Note that you will not be able to unsubscribe or opt-out of non-promotional messages regarding your account, such as account verification, password reminders, changes or updates to features of the Service, or technical and security notices.
We share your Personal Data, such as email address and user name, with some third parties for their marketing purposes if we determine they have products or services which may be of interest to you. If you wish to have your user name and email address excluded from any such sharing with partners, please email [email protected] with the subject “Marketing Opt-Out.” If you have any questions about this opt-out or our marketing practices, please email us at [email protected].
We may use YouTube API Services to make YouTube functionality available via the Service. Use of YouTube is governed by Google’s Privacy Policy. If we have access to data via YouTube API Services, you may revoke our access to your data via your Google account security settings permissions page.
Behavioral Advertising and Tracking Tools: You can opt-out of certain Behavioral Advertising activities by doing one or more of the following. Please note that you will need to opt-out of each browser and device for which you desire to apply these opt-out features.
Please note the following with respect to opting out of Behavioral Advertising:
Personal Data Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In: You have the right to opt-out of the sale of your Personal Data. To do so, click the following links: Do Not Sell My Personal Information and https://liveramp.com/opt_out/.
For more information about these rights please see refer to the “Your Privacy Rights” section below.
Security: Genius cares about the security of your information and uses commercially reasonable physical, administrative, and technological safeguards to preserve the integrity and security of all information we collect. For example, Genius uses industry standard Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology to allow for the encryption of Personal Data you provide to us. You should help protect your data by appropriately selecting and protecting your password and/or other sign-on mechanism; limiting access to your computer or device and browser; and signing off after you have finished accessing your account. In the event that any information under our control is compromised as a result of a breach of security, we will take reasonable steps to investigate the situation and where appropriate, notify those individuals whose information may have been compromised and take other steps, in accordance with any applicable laws and regulations.
Data Retention: We retain Personal Data about you for a period of time consistent with the original purpose of collection, whether or not you have an account with us. For instance, we may retain your Personal Data for as long as you have an open account with us or as otherwise necessary to provide you the Service, and for a reasonable period of time afterward. In some cases we retain Personal Data for longer, if doing so is necessary to pursue our legitimate business interests, conduct audits, comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes or collect fees owed, enforce our agreements, or as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law, rule or regulation. Afterwards, we retain some information in a depersonalized or aggregated form but not in a way that would identify you personally. If you wish to change or delete your profile and Personal Data, you can contact us at [email protected], and we will amend or delete your Personal Data within a reasonable time after your request, if feasible, or if you reside in the EU, as set forth in Section 8 below. Because of the crowd-sourced and collaborative nature of our service, however, we will not be able to delete content you post to public areas of our site. We may be able to anonymize your information such that you will no longer be reasonably identifiable.
The Service is hosted and operated in the United States (“U.S.”) through Genius and its service providers, and if you are not located in the U.S., laws in the U.S. may differ from the laws where you are located. By using the Service, you acknowledge that any Personal Data about you, regardless of whether provided by you or obtained from a third party, is being provided to Genius in the U.S. and will be hosted on U.S. servers, and you authorize Genius to transfer, store and process your information to and in the U.S., and possibly other countries. You hereby consent to the transfer of your data to the U.S. pursuant to EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, the details of which are further set forth below.
Genius has been certified to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection and use of Personal Data transferred from the EU. For more information about the Privacy Shield Program, and to view Genius’s certification, please visit www.privacyshield.gov. Genius is committed to the Privacy Shield Principles of (1) notice, (2) consent, (3) accountability for onward transfer, (4) security, (5) data integrity and purpose limitation, (6) access and (7) recourse, enforcement and liability, with respect to all Personal Data received from within the EU in reliance on the Privacy Shield. The Privacy Shield Principles require that we remain potentially liable if any third party processing Personal Data on our behalf fails to comply with these Privacy Shield Principles (except to the extent we are not responsible for the event giving rise to any alleged damage). Genius’s compliance with the Privacy Shield is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.
Please contact us at [email protected] with any questions or concerns relating to our Privacy Shield Certification. If you do not receive timely acknowledgment of your Privacy Shield-related complaint from us, or if we have not resolved your complaint, you can also resolve a Privacy Shield-related complaint through JAMS, an alternative dispute resolution provider located in the United States. You can visit https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-privacy-shield for more information or to file a complaint, at no cost to you. Under certain conditions, you can also be entitled to invoke binding arbitration for complaints not resolved by other means.
As noted in the Terms of Service (https://genius.com/static/terms), we do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 (or if you are in the EU, we do not knowingly collect or solicit Personal Data from anyone under the age of 16). If you are under 13 (or under 16 in the EU), please do not attempt to register for the Service or send any Personal Data about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected Personal Data from a child under age 13 (or under age 16 in the EU), we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 13 (or under 16 in the EU) may have provided us Personal Data, please contact us at [email protected]. Please contact us at [email protected] if you have any questions about children's privacy.
The Service, from time to time, contains links to and from third party websites of our partner networks, advertisers, partner merchants and retailers. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for their policies. Please check the individual policies before you submit any information to those websites.
NEVADA RESIDENT RIGHTS
If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of certain Personal Data to third parties who intend to license or sell that personal data. You can exercise this right by contacting us at [email protected] with the subject line “Nevada Do Not Sell Request.” Please include your full name (first and last), email address, and username (if you have one). Please note that we do not currently sell your Personal Data as sales are defined in Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 603A.
CALIFORNIA RESIDENT RIGHTS
If you are a California resident, you have the rights outlined in this section. Please see the “Exercising Your Rights” section below for instructions regarding how to exercise these rights. If there are any conflicts between this section and any other provision of this Privacy Policy and you are a California resident, the portion that is more protective of Personal Data shall control to the extent of such conflict.
If you have any questions about this section or whether any of the following applies to you, please write to us at the following address:
ML Genius Holdings, LLC
1222 6th St.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Alternatively, you can send us an email at [email protected] with the words “California Privacy Rights” in the subject line.
Disclosures for Marketing: Under California Civil Code Sections 1798.83-1798.84, Genius users who are residents of California may request certain information about our disclosure of Personal Data during the prior calendar year to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.
Access: You have the right to request certain information about our collection and use of your Personal Data over the past 12 months. We will provide you with the following information:
Disclosures for Business Purposes: If we have disclosed your Personal Data for a business purpose over the past 12 months, we will identify the categories of Personal Data shared with each category of third party recipient. If we have sold your Personal Data over the past 12 months, we will identify the categories of Personal Data purchased by each category of third party recipient.
Deletion: You have the right to request that we delete the Personal Data that we have collected from you. Under the CCPA, this right is subject to certain exceptions: for example, we may need to retain your Personal Data to provide you with the Services or complete a transaction or other action you have requested. If your deletion request is subject to one of these exceptions, we may deny your deletion request.
Exercising Your Rights: To exercise the rights described above, you must send us a request that (1) provides sufficient information to allow us to verify that you are the person about whom we have collected Personal Data, and (2) describes your request in sufficient detail to allow us to understand, evaluate, and respond to it. Each request that meets both of these criteria will be considered a “Valid Request.” We may not respond to requests that do not meet these criteria. We will only use Personal Data provided in a Valid Request to verify you and complete your request. You do not need an account to submit a Valid Request. We will work to respond to your Valid Request within 45 days of receipt. We will not charge you a fee for making a Valid Request unless your Valid Request(s) is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that your Valid Request warrants a fee, we will notify you of the fee and explain that decision before completing your request. You may submit a Valid Request using the following methods:
Personal Data Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In: You have the right to opt-out of the sale of your Personal Data. To do so, click the following links: Do Not Sell My Personal Information and https://liveramp.com/opt_out/.
Once you have submitted an opt-out request, we will not ask you to reauthorize the sale of your Personal Data for at least 12 months. However, you may change your mind and opt back in to Personal Data sales at any time by clicking the following link: Opt-In.
If you are between 13 and 16 years of age, you must authorize us to sell your Personal Data, which you may do by clicking the Opt-In link above. If you are under 13 years of age, your parent or guardian must authorize us to sell your Personal Data, which your parent or guardian may do by clicking the Opt-In link above.
We Will Not Discriminate Against You for Enforcing Your Rights Under the CCPA: We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights under the CCPA. We will not deny you our goods or services, charge you different prices or rates, or provide you a lower quality of goods and services if you exercise your rights under the CCPA. However, we may have different tiers of Services as allowed by applicable data protection laws (including the CCPA) with varying levels of quality of the goods or services you receive related to the value of Personal Data that we receive from you.
EUROPEAN UNION RESIDENT RIGHTS
If you are located in the EU, the United Kingdom, Lichtenstein, Norway, or Iceland, and use or access the Service, you may have certain rights with respect to your Personal Data, including those set forth below. For more information about these rights, or to submit a request, please email [email protected]. Please note that in some circumstances, we may not be able to fully comply with your request, such as if it is frivolous or extremely impractical, if it jeopardizes the rights of others, or if it is not required by law, but in those circumstances, we will still respond to notify you of such a decision. In some cases, we may also need to you to provide us with additional information, which may include Personal Data, if necessary to verify your identity and the nature of your request.
To address your individual rights or if you have any privacy-related questions or comments related to this Privacy Policy, please contact us using the following information:
Name: ML Genius Holdings, LLC
Address: 1222 6th St
Santa Monica, CA 90401
Email: [email protected]
Designated EU representative
Address: Attn: Genius
DP-Dock GmbH
Ballindamm 39
20095 Hamburg, Germany
Email: [email protected]
Designated UK representative
Address: Attn: Genius
DP Data Protection Services UK Ltd.
16 Great Queen Street
Covent Garden, London, WC2B 5AH, United Kingdom
Email: [email protected]