Terms of ServicePrivacy and Cookies Policy

Privacy and Cookies Policy

Last updated: February 14, 2023

Introduction

Homes and its affiliates (“Homes”, “we”, “us” and “our”) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your Personal Information by complying with this policy. By accessing our Service, using any of our products or services, or by providing Personal Information to us, you consent to this policy.

This policy describes:

  • How we collect, use, disclose, and protect the Personal Information of our customers and users of our Services (“you”)
  • Describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you use our services (the “Services”), which includes our website https://homes.ca (our “Website”)
  • Our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.

When we talk about “Personal Information”, we mean any information about an identifiable individual, which includes information that can be used on its own or with other information to identify, contact, or locate a single person. Personal Information does include business contact information, including your name, title, or business contact information.

This policy applies to information we collect, use, or disclose about you:

  • on or through the Services;
  • in email, text, and other electronic messages between you and us, or that you transmit through the Services;
  • when you interact with our advertising and application on third-party websites and services if those applications or advertisements include links to this policy.

The Services may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, services, social networks, or applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow the third party to collect or share data about you. If you follow a link to a third-party website or engage a third-party plugin, please note that these third parties have their own privacy policies and we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. We do not control these third-party websites, and we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

This policy does not apply to information that you provide to or is collected by any third party, through any application or content (including advertising) that may link to or be accessible from or through the Services.

Capitalized terms not defined in this policy have the meanings provided in the Terms of Service.

Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices for collecting, processing, and storing your information. If you do not agree with our policies and practice, your choice is not to use our Services. By accessing or using the Services, you confirm that you understand, accept, and consent to the practices described in this policy.

This policy may change from time to time. Your continued use of the Services after we make changes indicates that you accept and consent to those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.

Information We Collect

We collect and use several types of information from and about you, including:

  • Personal information, that we can reasonably use to directly and indirectly identify you, such as your name, email address, telephone number, Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, and any other identifier we may use to contact you.
  • Non-personal information, that does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity or directly relate to an identifiable individual, such as demographic information, or statistical or aggregated information. Statistical or aggregated data does not directly identify a specific person, but we may derive non-personal statistical or aggregated data from Personal Information. For example, we may aggregate Personal Information to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific feature on the Services.
  • Technical information, browser type and version, time zone settings, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, or information about your internet connection, the equipment you use to access our Services, and usage details.
  • Details about your interactions with the Services, including full Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), clickstream to, through, and from the Services (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), or methods used to browse away from the page.

Personal Information

We may collect Personal Information that can reasonably be used to directly and indirectly identify you or contact you, such as:

  • Contact Information — such as your email address, phone number and first and last name.
  • Other Information. You may otherwise choose to provide us Personal Information when you fill out forms; conduct a search; engage with third-party advertisers; and/or use any other features available at any time on the Services.

Non-Personal Information

We collect non-personal information that does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity or directly relate to an identifiable individual, such as demographic information, or statistical or aggregated information. Statistical or aggregated data does not directly identify a specific person, but we may derive non-personal statistical or aggregated data from personal information. For example, we may aggregate personal information to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific feature on the Services.

Information Automatically Collected from Your Use of Our Services

We automatically collect information when Users access the Platform via their computer and/or mobile device, such the type of browser you’re using; your browser settings; the type of device you’re using; what operating system your device is running; what mobile network you use; and your phone number. We also collect information obtained from cookies, and monitor what activities you perform on our Website, and collect Log Data.

When you use the Services, our systems automatically collect information that your browser or device transmits to use (“Log Data”), such as:

  • Technical information, including your login information, IP address, real-time location browser type and version, time zone settings, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, or information about your internet connection, mobile network information including carrier name and phone number, your application version number, the equipment you use to access our Services, and usage details (including the searches you make).
  • Details about your interactions on the Services, including full Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), clickstream to, through, and from the Services (including date and time), products you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), methods used to browse away from the page, or ay phone number used to call our customer service number.
  • Location data. The types of location data we collect depends on your device and account settings. We use your location data to serve you relevant search results, appropriate rental resources, and relevant suggested listings.

How We Use Information We Collect

We use information we collect or receive, including Personal Information:

  • to provide you with information, products, or services that you request from us;
  • to provide you with relevant search results;
  • to communicate with you directly;
  • to maintain and improve our Services, and other products and services (for example, by analyzing the Services and using the Homes Data, we can ensure that our Services are working as intended, troubleshoot issues, and to make improvements to our Services);
  • to improve our marketing and customer relationships and experiences;
  • to develop new Services;
  • to improve the safety and reliability of the Services and our Services. This includes detecting, preventing and responding to fraud abuse, security risks and technical issues that could harm our Users, the public or the Services;
  • to better understand your needs and the needs of all Users, and to diagnose problems, analyze trends, assess urban real estate markets, improve the features and usability of our Services, and to better understand and serve our Users, both current and prospective
  • to measure and understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
  • in any other way we may describe when you provide the information;
  • as permitted by law; and
  • for any other purpose for which you consent.

Cookies

We use tracking technology (“Cookies”) on the Website, including web beacons to collect information and Log Data. Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website in order to track your use of the site and to improve your user experience. We utilize session identification Cookies (“Session Cookies”) to enable certain features of the Website and better understand how you interact with the Services. This helps us monitor aggregate usage by all Users, web traffic routing on the Website, and to improve our Services and the Services overall.

  • Session cookies. Our Services use Session Cookies, which help improve your overall user experience by storing certain information from your current visit to the Services on your device or computer, including login information among other details. These Session Cookies enable the Services to remember session details so that you can move easily and seamlessly within the Website. These Session Cookies have limited functionalities and expirations. Unlike persistent Cookies, Session Cookies are deleted from your device or computer when you log off from the Services, leave the Website, and/or close your Internet browser. Third party advertisers on the Website may also place or read Session Cookies on your Internet browser. While you may disable the usage of Cookies through your browser settings, we do not change our practices in response to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser until you re-launch your browser. This means that we are able to track and store Session Cookies from your particular session on the Services even if you disabled Cookies on your browser settings, but we will not do so during subsequent sessions unless and until you revert your browser’s Cookies settings and once again permit us to do so. If you do not accept Cookies, you may not be able to use all portions of the Website or Services, or enjoy all the functionality of the Services. By visiting the Website, or using our Services, you agree to the use of Cookies in your browser and HTML-based emails.
  • Performance and Remarketing Cookies. Among our service providers are certain trusted partners that we work with who help us serve advertising on the Website. In addition, we also work with service providers who are trusted data analytics companies that may also put Cookies on your device. For example, Homes uses Google Analytics Remarketing to improve your experience with the Services which, among other things, allows us to use retargeting identifiers through Google’s network, which permits Google to track your use of the Services and subsequently you may see ads for the Services when you are on other websites on the Google network. Given this, Google may place or read Session Cookies on your Internet browser and we will prompt you with a pop-up window when you initially use the Services to provide your consent to our use of Cookies, which will link to this Privacy Policy. In your review of this Privacy Policy and acknowledgment of this use of Cookies, you are also giving us your acknowledgment that you have read and accepted Google’s privacy policy (“Google Privacy Policy”), which we encourage that you review here: https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies?hl=en-CA.

We also use several third party vendors to help deliver ads on the Services when you visit certain pages on our Website, which may then permit you to leave our Website and visit certain third party sites.

Please note that this Privacy Policy covers only our use of Cookies and does not include use of Cookies by any third parties. We advise you to visit the privacy policies of the respective service providers, third party advertisers and other companies whose pages you visit as a result of your interaction with such parties on the Services in order to satisfy yourself of their respective privacy practices.

Advertisers

We disclose information we collect or receive from you to advertisers and advertising networks that require the information to select and serve relevant advertisements to you and others. We do not disclose data about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate de-identified information about our users. We may also receive aggregate and de-identified statistics from our third-party advertisers and partners about User engagement with such advertisements.

Data Analytics

  • Google Analytics.
    • We use Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic and provides insights related to the performance of our marketing, content, and products. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Services. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network. We use the insights gained from Google Analytics to improve our services, assess further market need for additional research and development, and isolate key potential third-party advertisers and partners to work with in order to further develop the Services and our Services offered, among other things.
    • You can opt-out of having your activity on our Services made available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about your activity on the Services.
    • For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy Terms web page: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.
  • Google Display Advertising.
    • We use Google Ads to serve you with personalized and relevant advertisements based on your interactions with us. Google Ads use Cookies to serve these personalized and relevant advertisements. You can disable these specific Cookies that track prior visits to the Site for the sake of follow-up advertising by such third parties by opting out directly at https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads.

General

We may also disclose your Personal Information for any other purpose permitted by law or to which you consent.

Data Retention

Except as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law, we will retain your Personal Information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it. We may anonymize your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you. We may use such anonymized data for any legitimate business purpose without further notice to you or your consent.

Changes to Our Privacy and Cookies Policy

It is our policy to post any changes we make to our privacy policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our Users’ Personal Information, we will notify you by email to the primary email address specified in your account or through a notice on the Services home page.

We include the date the privacy policy was last revised at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active, and deliverable email address on file for you, and for periodically visiting our Services and this privacy policy to check for any changes.