UPDATE: After hearing from an overwhelming number of brokers in the span of a few hours, Dotloop agreed to automatically opt-out all ValleyMLS.com users from this policy. Thank you to everyone who took action. We are very pleased with this resolution.
The Full DotLoop Privacy Policy can be found below:
Our Commitment to Privacy
When you use dotloop, we know you’re trusting us with your data. We also know we have a responsibility to respect your privacy, and we work hard to do just that. This policy explains how we collect and use personal information, and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used. By providing personal information to dotloop through our websites, you consent to dotloop collecting information about you and your transaction(s) on your behalf, and to dotloop using and sharing your personal information in accordance with this policy. This Privacy Policy applies to websites operated by dotloop, LLC, including dotloop.com. Dotloop is a Zillow Group company, and the Privacy Policy for other Zillow Group companies can be found here.
Personal Information Collected by Dotloop
This policy applies to all information collected or submitted through dotloop’s websites, including dotloop.com. We collect personal information directly from you during the account creation process and when you upload, create, sign, and complete documents using dotloop. This may include the information contained within your transaction documents. We often also collect information about you from someone else on your behalf, such as your real estate agent, brokerage, or local MLS. We collect this information to complete your transactions, communicate with you about your transactions, to improve and expand our services, and for internal purposes, such as gaining insight into the broader real estate market.
If you have a paid account with us, you are an “Account Owner,” and we’ll ask you to provide payment information to maintain your account. When we do so, those parts of our website use framing technology that preserves the look and feel of our website but allows your payment data (such as a credit card number) to be sent securely and directly to our payment processor instead of to dotloop. We do not collect or store any of your payment card data.
We may collect non-personally identifiable information such as occupation, language, ZIP code, area code, unique device identifier, location, and the time zone where dotloop.com is used so that we can understand user behavior and improve our website to better suit our users. For example, we may tell an advertiser that X number of individuals visited a certain area on our website, or that Y number of men and Z number of women filled out our registration form, but we do not share personally-identifiable information in this way.
Collection of Device and Activity Data
Like most websites, we gather certain information automatically. This information may include Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, Internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, the files viewed on our site (like HTML pages, graphics, etc.), operating system, date/time stamp, and/or clickstream data. We use this information to analyze trends in the aggregate and administer and improve our sites.
Dotloop and its partners use cookies, tags, or similar tools to analyze trends, administer the website, track users’ movements around the website, and to gather demographic information about our user base. You can control the use of tracking tools at the individual browser level, but if you choose to disable these tools, some of the features or functions on our website or service may no longer work for you.
How We Use and Share Information
We use the information you provide when processing or completing a transaction on dotloop to provide our services. Dotloop and its affiliates may also use the information collected from you to provide you with additional information about services, partners, promotions, and events you may be interested in. Every marketing email from dotloop or its affiliates contains instructions on how to opt out of receiving further marketing emails. While we do not sell your personal information to third parties, we may share your information with third parties who offer services that we think you’ll be interested in (“Third Party Sharing”).
We also use the information you provide about someone else for communications required during the transaction process; for example, if you’re an agent, we’ll use your client’s email address to let them know they need to sign a document. If you provide personal information about your client(s) to us in order to complete a transaction, you represent and warrant that you have obtained their consent to do so. We may share that information with outside parties to complete a transaction for Third Party Sharing.
If you want to opt out of such Third Party Sharing, please email us with your request at support@dotloop.com. We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive.
We may share information provided to us on or after January 1, 2016 with Zillow Group and its subsidiaries (“Affiliate Sharing”). We or these affiliates may use the information we collect for our internal purposes, for example, to understand and gain insight into trends in the real estate market and to improve our home valuation models. These insights are applied at an aggregate level; neither we nor our affiliates will use data from individual transactions or properties to obtain leverage regarding specific transactions or inform decisions about individual properties. If you have registered for a user account (a “Registered User”), you can opt out of Affiliate Sharing by emailing us at support@dotloop.com. As a Registered User, you control the sharing permissions applicable to your view of your loop(s); other participants in the same loop(s) may make different choices regarding whether to share their loop views, which may contain similar or duplicative information. If you opt out of Affiliate Sharing prior to the Effective Date of this policy, none of your information will be shared with our affiliates; if you opt out after the Effective Date, your choice will be effective only for information you provide after you opt out.
We also provide a number of third-party integrations, such as with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, back-office software, and other tools that enhance and improve our customers’ businesses. When those users enable those integrations, data from dotloop may be shared with those systems. We’re not responsible for those tools or how they’re used; they’re governed by their own policies, which you should review or ask your real estate professional about.
We may provide your personal information to our service providers. These companies provide services to help us with our business activities such as improving system performance or offering customer service. These companies are authorized to use your personal information only in order to provide these services to us.
If we enter into a business transaction, such as a merger with or an acquisition by another company, or a sale of some or all of our assets, your personal information may be among the assets that are transferred or disclosed as part of such a transaction. If this happens, we’ll let you know by email and/or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership or uses of your personal information, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal information.
We also disclose information where we are required to do so by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or similar legal process; when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect the rights, privacy, safety or property of dotloop, Zillow Group, or any other person or entity; to prevent and combat fraud; or where the information is already public. Where we are required to disclose your information pursuant to legal process, we will attempt to let you know before disclosure unless we are prohibited from doing so by law.
We partner with a third-party ad network to either display advertising on our website or to manage our marketing on other sites. Our ad network partner uses cookies and Web beacons to collect non-identifiable information about your activities on this and other websites to provide you targeted advertising based upon your interests. If you wish to not have this information used for the purpose of serving you targeted ads, you can opt-out by clicking here. Please note this won’t reduce the number of ads you see; you will continue to receive generic ads.
Finally, we never use or share the personal information provided to us online except as described in this policy without also providing you an opportunity to opt out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.
How We Protect Information
To prevent unauthorized access, maintain data accuracy, and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to help safeguard and secure the information we collect online. When you enter sensitive information (such as a credit card number) on our order forms, we encrypt the transmission of that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). You should note, though, that the internet is not a 100% secure environment. We can’t guarantee that information you provide or that we maintain may not be accessed, copied, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards. If you have any questions about security on our website, you can contact us at securityquestions@dotloop.com.
How You Can Access Your Information
If you are a Registered User, you can retrieve, correct, or update your information by accessing your account on dotloop.com or by contacting us at the contact information listed below. We will usually respond to your request within 45 days; if for any reason we need more time, we’ll let you know. If you are a client of an Account Owner or Registered User, you can obtain the information related to your transaction from that Owner or User. We do not provide data contained in dotloop to non-account holders without a subpoena. With regard to data shared with our affiliates, you can exercise your rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act or similar laws by submitting a request here.
If you want to obtain data from a dotloop account (including activity logs and contents of documents) and you are not the Account Owner, you must either obtain the consent of the account holder or provide us with a properly-served subpoena or court order as required by law. You can find information about serving a subpoena here.
We’ll keep your information for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide you services, or as long as we’re required to by law. We’ll use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.
Other Things You Should Know
We do our best to ensure that your personal information is as accurate as necessary and generally retain personal information as long we need it to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected.
We operate in the United States. Any information provided through dotloop.com will be processed and stored in the United States, where privacy laws may offer different levels of protection from those in other countries. As we mentioned, your personal information may be subject to access by and disclosure to law enforcement agencies in the United States.
In most cases and subject to legal or contractual restrictions, you are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue using our services at any time upon reasonable, advance notice.
Links to Third Party Websites
Our website may contain links to other websites. We’re not responsible for the content or privacy practices employed by other sites. You should review the privacy policies of these websites before disclosing any personal information to or through them.
Our website and application uses the Google Maps Application Programming Interface (API), and the Google Privacy Policy is incorporated into this policy.
Testimonials
We may display personal testimonials of satisfied customers on our site in addition to other endorsements. With your consent we may post your testimonial along with your name. If you wish to update or delete your testimonial, you can contact us at support@dotloop.com.
Social Media Features and Widgets
Our website may include Social Media Features, such as the Facebook “Like” button and Widgets, such as a “Share” button or interactive mini-programs that run on our site. These Features may collect information like your IP address, which page you are visiting on our site, and may set a cookie to enable the Feature to function properly. Social Media Features may be hosted either by a third party or directly on our Site. You can choose whether to use any of these Features; if you do, your use of a Feature is governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it. You should review those policies before you use any of those features.
Invite a User
If you choose to use our referral service to tell a friend or colleague about our site or share a document, we’ll ask you for that person’s name and email address. We’ll automatically send email inviting them to visit the site or register. We use this information only to send email and to track the success of our referral program.
Your friend or contact may email us at support@dotloop.com to request that we delete this information.
Dotloop Blog
Our website offers publicly-accessible blogs or community forums. Our blog is managed by a third-party application, and you might need to register or connect a social media profile in order to post a comment. We don’t have access to or control of the information you post to the blog. You’ll need to contact or log in to the third-party application if you want to remove information you’ve posted. To learn how the third-party application uses your information, please review their privacy policy.
Changes to the Policy
You agree to this policy when you use our services or provide information to us. If you don’t agree to this policy or the Terms of Use, please don’t use the website or provide your information to us. We may change, modify, add, or remove portions of this policy at any time. If we do, we’ll update this page to reflect the date of the last update. If we make any material changes, we’ll notify you either by email (sent to the email address specified in your account) or by a notice on dotloop.com before any changes go into effect. Please check this page periodically for changes. If you continue to use our Services after any changes take effect, those changes will apply to you and your information. The date of the last update is located at the bottom of this policy.
The Dotloop Data Privacy Guarantee Affirms That:
- Dotloop customers own the data they put into dotloop. This includes all customer data, from user information to transaction data.
- Notwithstanding any other part of this policy, neither dotloop nor its affiliates will use dotloop customer data to contact the buyer or seller involved in any transaction.
- Dotloop does not disclose customer data except as described in this policy. If we need to do anything else, we’ll ask first.
Legal Disclosures
In this section, we’ve provided some legally required disclosures under state privacy laws. There shouldn’t be anything surprising in this section; we’ve tried to explain our privacy practices in plain English throughout the rest of the policy.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act or CCPA, California residents have certain rights regarding their data, including:
- The right to know the categories of personal information we’ve collected and the categories of sources from which we got the information (see “Personal Information collected by dotloop” and the chart just below)
- The right to know the business purposes for sharing personal information (see “How We Use and Share Information”)
- The right to know the categories of third parties with whom we’ve shared personal information (see “How We Use and Share Information”)
- The right to access the specific pieces of personal information we’ve collected and the right to delete your information (see “How You Can Access Your Information”)
- The right to not be discriminated against if they choose to exercise their privacy rights.