Privacy Statement
Surface Travel, Inc. ("Surface Travel, also referred to as “we,” “our,” or “us”), operates the website www.insidehotels.com (the “Site”) and offers access to travel services related to or offered on the Sites (“Services”) (accessed, and/or used, via personal computers, mobile devices, tablet computers or otherwise). Inside Hotel’s Services may include, without limitation, applications, and downloadable mobile applications related to the Site or provided through the Site. Please note that certain features or Services discussed in this Privacy Policy may not be offered on the Site at any particular time. This Privacy Policy describes the type of information we or third parties may collect from you while you visit or otherwise interact with the Site and Services and how we may use and share that information. This Privacy Policy also explains the choices you can make about the ways this information is used by us. Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. In addition, please review the Terms of Service provided at the Site, which governs your use of the Site. Additional terms or requirements may apply to certain Service offerings and these additional terms will accompany such Service offerings at the time we collect the information. By accessing and using any of the Site and Services, you are accepting the policies and practices described in this Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service. Each time you visit the Site or use the Services, you agree and expressly consent to our collection, use and disclosure of information that you provide as described in this Policy. If you do not agree with this Privacy Policy or the Terms of Service, please do not use the Site or the Services.
Unless specifically stated otherwise, this Privacy Policy applies to information collected on the Site and Services that post or link to this Privacy Policy. The Site and Services may also be governed by separate or additional policies and may not apply to information about you collected by our affiliated providers, third party web sites (e.g., ad serving and tracking services), hotels or airlines car rentals, third party service providers or offerings with which you make travel arrangements through the Site, or which the Site links to, or is otherwise accessible from the Site. The information collected or received by third parties are subject to their own respective privacy policies, which we encourage you to review. We are not responsible for compliance with other websites’ privacy policies or practices.
Our goal is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient experience and we take certain steps to protect your information. Collection of information is usually grouped into three categories: Personal Information, which is information that is personally identifiable to a specific visitor, user or member (further defined below), non-personally identifiable information, which is information that is passively collected and information you may provide that is traceable to a computer or device but does not include Personal Information and is therefore not traceable back to you and cannot be used to identify a specific visitor, users or member (further defined below) and aggregate information, which is general demographic information collected from large numbers of Site visitors and users of Services that does not identify any individual member and is aggregated into statistical data and information. We may use or disclose non personal and aggregate information about you with third parties for any purpose, including but not limited to describe our user base to current or potential partners, investors, hotels and advertisers, to understand and more fully describe market needs and user preferences and to make recommendations to visitors, users and members of the Site. Depending on the circumstances, we may or may not charge third parties for this information, or limit the third parties’ use of such information. You agree that we may use your Personal Information for any or all of the following reasons:
- To provide customer support, products and services you request;
- To record your preferences, makes reservations and discuss your reservations;
- As permitted by and to company with, any legal or regulatory requirements or provisions;
- To resolve fee and billing disputes;
- To audit compliance with our policies and contractual obligations;
- To prevent potentially illegal or prohibited activity;
- To market to you regarding our products, services, and promotional offers and the products, services and promotional offers of others;
- To customize and improve our Site and Services, advertising and marketing; and
- For any other purpose to which you consent.
As used in this Privacy Policy, “Personal Information” means information collected online from the Sites about an individual that can be used to distinguish or trace an individual’s identity either alone, or in combination with other personal or identifying information that is linked or linkable to a specific individual, such as a first and last name, a physical street address, an e-mail address, a telephone number, a social security number, or any other information that permits the physical or online contacting of a specific individual. You can browse the Site without telling us who you are or revealing any Personal Information about yourself. However, there are certain features and services (including social networking) that may not be available for your use without providing Personal Information. If you choose to provide us with Personal Information, you consent to the transfer and storage of that information on our servers. Further, you consent to e-mail or other marketing communications sent by us, unless you unsubscribe from such messages or opt-out, as described below. We may collect and store the following Personal Information:
- Your responses to the offerings and advertisements presented on the Site;
- Information about the Site, Services or features that you use, and how frequently you use them;
- Commercial, transaction-related information (such as credit card or other preferred means of payment, billing or shipping information, or a history of products purchased through the Site);
- Your responses to or entries for hotel and travel related surveys, sweepstakes, and contests and requests for services, products, newsletters or information;
- Customer service information about you as a user of the Site, including any suggestions you submit to us for review;
- Dispute resolution, correspondence through our Site, and correspondence sent to us;
- Your activity on the Site, and information you may send to us in the form of a photo, testimonials and writings;
- Other supplemental information from third parties;
- Information we ask you to provide to authenticate yourself; and,
- Information from other companies, such as demographic and navigation data
As used in this Privacy Policy, “Non Personal Information” means and may include, but is not limited to, information collected passively through the use of technology such as cookies, beacons, algorithms as well as information you provide that is not traceable back to you and cannot be used to identify a specific individual, including: gender, age, marital status, household income, city and state, listening and streaming metrics, when such user provided information is not associated with or linked to your Personal Information. Surface Travel may also use server logs and capture certain Non Personal Information such as the operating system being used, or the IP address or other unique identifiers, such as Device Identifiers (defined below). This Non Personal Information is generally used to help Surface Travel plan system enhancements and understand which content and Services are compatible with users’ web browsing systems. It is also used to create anonymous reporting of Non Personal Information for internal and external clients; create aggregated portraits of the users of the Services that represent anonymous demographic information but not Personally Identifiable Information. This Aggregated Information is used among other things, to determine trends and needs and also to supply market research to potential partners to help them understand who the visitors of the Site and Services are and your IP address is a number that is assigned by your Internet service provider to your computer to identify your location. A device identifier is a number that is automatically assigned to your device (“Device Identifier”) used to access the Site or Services and our computers identify your device by its Device Identifiers. When Surface Travel associates Non Personal Information or a Device Identifier with Personal Information, Surface Travel will treat it as Personal Information in accordance with this policy for so long as the information is combined.
When you make a reservation for someone else through the Site, we will request personal Information and travel preferences about your travel companion. Please be sure that you have received consent from your travel companion prior to providing us with their personal information and travel preferences.
Some of the ads you receive on Site pages are customized based on predictions about your interests generated from your visits to the Site (“Behavioral Advertising”). Surface Travel adheres to the Self-Regulatory Principles for Online Behavioral Advertising (the “Principles”), developed by leading industry associations to apply consumer-friendly standards to online behavioral advertising across the Internet and mobile devices. To learn more about the Principles, and how to opt-out of Behavioral Advertising please go to www.aboutads.info.
The Site can be accessed from mobile devices (“Mobile App(s)”). If you use a Surface Travel Mobile App, the information you submit through the Mobile App and the information we may collect through the tracking devices and otherwise (as detailed elsewhere throughout this Privacy Policy) is, unless otherwise indicated governed by this Privacy Policy. Certain Mobile Apps and other online Services require your location information for the feature to work. Please select the Mobile App from within your device’s settings tab for information about how to opt out of providing location information. When you use a Mobile App or view content on the Site we may automatically collect and store the same types of information collected via the Sites. A Mobile App may contain a unique Mobile App number, which we may use to access the performance of our Mobile App or other online Service, provide tech support, conduct research, generate analytics, to address internal online service operations and respond to your needs. This information may also be used by us to personalize the service offerings and advertising you receive through our Mobile App. In particular, Surface Travel’s streaming Mobile Apps may feature third party proprietary software which can track your streaming and/or listening preferences to contribute to market research. To learn how to opt out, please see information available in the settings tab. Surface Travel may share your usage and personal information with operating systems, carriers and platform providers and /or other mobile apps either operated by us or third parties, as well as any other entities described in any particular Mobile App. Some Mobile Apps may be supported via advertising and collect data to help the online service serve ads. Surface Travel may work with third party analytic companies to understand how and how often the service is being used. We may also work with advertisers and third party advertising networks.
To enhance your experience with the Site, we may use "cookies." Cookies are small data files that we place in your computer’s browser when you visit the Sites. We may use cookies for a number of purposes, such as tracking usage patterns, measuring the effectiveness of advertising, to help serve advertisements, limiting multiple responses and registrations, facilitating your ability to navigate the Sites, and as part of a verification or screening process. Cookies automatically identify your web browser whenever you visit the Sites, help us determine which areas are popular and further personalize your experience on the Sites. If you do not wish to allow for use of cookies, you can generally opt-out of providing this information by setting your browser to reject cookies. However, please be aware that some areas of the Site may not provide you with an acceptable user experience if you have disabled the use of cookies. Please refer to www.aboutads.info for more information.
The Site and our e-mail messages may contain a small graphic image called a web beacon that monitors and collects certain limited information about the viewer of the web page or e-mail message. Web beacons typically are very small (generally 1-by-1 pixel) and invisible to the user, but, in general, any electronic image viewed as part of a web page or e-mail message, including an advertisement or HTML content, can act as a web beacon. We may use web beacons or similar technologies for a number of purposes, including without limitation, to count visitors to our web pages or to monitor how our users navigate the Sites, and we may include web beacons or similar technologies in e-mails in order to count how many e-mails (or particular articles, links, etc.) that we send are actually opened. Additionally, our advertising providers may use web beacons or similar technologies to personalize and measure the effectiveness of their advertisements using data gathered over time from users of the Sites.
Upon visiting the Site, we may collect and store your browser type and IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer the Site, to help identify and analyze user trends, to customize content and advertisements offered to you, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use.
Please note that whenever you publicly disclose information about yourself online (e.g., through email, social networking platforms, survey questions, message boards, or similar web pages), such information may be collected, exported and used by us in any manner we elect and may also be used by people that you do not know. Posting personal information in public places may result in unsolicited communications, including unwanted email messages or other forms of contact. Always be smart about the information you provide online. We bear no responsibility for any action or policies of any third parties who collect any information you may disclose on the Sites.
In addition to information that you provide or we collect through the Site and Services, we may verify or collect certain information about you from third parties. We may combine this third party information with information we have already collected from you via the Site and Services and use this information for a variety of reasons including customizing content made available to you, provide promotions and marketing offers tailored to your preferences and to improve the content of the Site and to help identify and analyze user trends, and to gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. Information received from third parties may include the following:
- Your activity on certain third party sites or services for which you have consented to connect or share through your account on the Site;
- Information from other companies, such as demographic and traffic data; and,
- Other information from your interaction with our Site, services, content and advertising, collected by third party advertisers or providers including computer and/or mobile device connection and location information, browser type, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the sites, ad data, IP address and standard web log information.
The Site offers online hotel and travel related services, which you make arrangements through our Site and who fulfill your arrangements. The hotel and travel-related services, you make arrangements with, will ask you to provide certain Personal Information, including credit card or other payment data. By making arrangements through this Site, you are authorizing us to disclose to suppliers the information required to complete the reservation and deliver the Services. The financial information that you provide will be used by Surface Travel or its partners to bill you for products and services that you request and for any other uses to which you have consented. By giving the Site your payment data and related Personal Information, you are authorizing us to give that information to the merchant and credit card company and/or you are authorizing Surface Travel’s partner directly to confirm and fulfill your order. In addition, Surface Travel and/or our partners will use contact information from the order form to fulfill your orders and for customer service purposes. Surface Travel will not otherwise use or distribute your financial information without your prior approval.
Other Third PartiesSurface Travel may share or transfer the information it collects with third parties including vendors, service providers, advertisers, contractors and Surface Travel agents acting on behalf of Surface Travel and who help to operate the Site. Examples of such service providers include third parties that provide processing, storage, technical or fulfilment services, data analysis, customer service and emails, audio and video streaming, Surface Travel may provide these companies with access to user information, including Personal Information, to carry out the services they are performing for you and Surface Travel. While Surface Travel may use third party analytics providers to evaluate and provide Surface Travel with information about the Site and Services, the Site audience and Site content, Surface Travel does not share Personal Information with these analytics service providers, but the providers may set and access their own cookies, web beacons and embedded scripts on your device and they may otherwise collect or have access to information about you, including Non Personal Information.
Third Party ContentWhen you are visiting the Site, certain content may be served directly by third parties. This third party content may use cookies, web beacons, Javascript or other technologies. We do not have access to or control the use of such technology by third parties, including the information they collect or how they use such information.
Third Party Applications and WebsitesSurface Travel may not own or operate all applications, Services or websites (e.g., Hotel and other travel related websites) accessible through the Site, or otherwise made available to you by Surface Travel. Similarly, data may be collected through applications owned or operated by different parties on a particular device or through a particular application for the purpose of delivering ads or providing advertising related services or statistical reporting. As a result, when you use these third party applications or websites, we may share your information along with the location of your computer or mobile device to enable your use of such services and for age verification and security purposes, and to allow visitors to contribute to marketing research via third party measurement software included within the application among other purposes. Surface Travel may offer you the option to connect your activity on the Site with certain third party services such as Facebook, or Twitter (“Third Party Services”). When you consent to publish your information or activity on the Site to any Third Party Services, such information will be viewable by the communities on such Third Party Services and may be used by such Third Party Services in accordance with their posted privacy practices, or if another member in your friend list uses a third party application or website, it may receive your non-private member information so that you may be separately linked with your friend. If third party applications or websites seeks any further information, your consent should be requested. We cannot guarantee that such applications or websites will follow our privacy practices, so we encourage you to always review their information sharing policies and to report any application or website that may be in violation of our privacy practices.
Surface Travel Employees, Vendors and ContractorsOur employees, agents and contractors shall have a “need-to-know” business reason to obtain access to your Personal Information. We may share your Personal Information with those who help us manage or provide content or other services for the Sites (e.g., forum administration, order fulfillment, statistical analyses, data processing), or with outside contractors, agents or sponsors who help us with the administration, judging and prize fulfillment aspects of contests, promotions and sweepstakes. Such outside contractors, agents or sponsors may temporarily store some information on their servers, but they may only use your Personal Information to provide the Sites with a specific service and not for any other purpose without your consent. We may also provide your Personal Information to a third party where you have chosen to receive certain information and have been notified that the fulfillment of such a request requires sharing your Personal Information. We also may share your Personal Information with any affiliated companies and partners if we have a business reason to do so.
Legal ComplianceWe may access or disclose your Personal Information without your consent in order to: (i) protect or defend our legal rights or property, including those of our affiliated companies or their employees, agents and contractors (including enforcement of our agreements); (ii) protect the safety and security of other users of the Sites or members of the public, including responding to claims that a listing or other content violates the rights of others, or protect anyone’s rights, property, or safety; (iii) protect against fraud or for risk management purposes; or (iv) comply with the law or legal process.
The following sub-headings apply only to the extent that registration is available on the Site.
Access to Personal InformationYou have the opportunity to correct, update or remove Personal Information you have provided to us at any time. Upon entering the Site, you may sign in using your previously issued login name and password. After signing in, click on "My Page" and you will have the option of either modifying or deleting your profile settings through the “Edit Profile” or “My Account” links. “My Account” may contain your email address, name, and password settings and related travel information. It may also contain other information so that you don’t need to re-enter it each time you make a reservation. Further it may contain details about your participation in our loyalty or awards programs and travel preferences. We may also keep all other information you have elected to provide to us. We will also retain in your My Account, the Personnel Information of individuals for whom you have made reservations on your behalf. If you have forgotten your login name or password, click the "Forgot your password?" link, and following verification, your login name and/or password will be sent to your email address.
Opt-OutYou may opt-out of receiving e-mail communications from us at any time by either following the instructions to unsubscribe within an email you receive from this Site or by logging in to your account and selecting “Email Alerts” under the “My Account” link. As explained above, if you choose not to provide us with information sought on registration or sign up forms, it is possible that you will not be able to access or use certain features of certain Sites.
Surface Travel employs reasonable security measures consistent with standard industry practice to secure information collected through the Surface Travel Site. We also use internal protections to limit access to your Personal Information to only those people who need the information to perform a specific request. However, we cannot guarantee that your Personal Information will never be disclosed in a manner inconsistent with this Privacy Policy (e.g., as a result of unauthorized or otherwise unlawful third party access), and you transmit such information to us at your own risk.
If Abuse OccursAlthough we make every effort to ensure that our e-mail list is safe, the Internet is such that we cannot guarantee that our list is invulnerable to attacks. If you believe there has been a breach of our security, please contact us at once at helpdesk@Surface Travelhotels.com.
We will retain your Personal Information in our database in accordance with our standard policies and applicable laws. This period may extend beyond the end of your relationship with us.
We reserve the right to change our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use at any time. If we make changes, we will post them and will indicate at the top of this page the policy’s new effective date. We encourage you to refer to visit this Privacy Policy frequently to stay informed regarding our current privacy practices. Unless stated otherwise, our current Privacy Policy applies to all information that we have about you and your activity on our Surface Travel Sites.
As the owner of this Site, Surface Travel retains all ownership rights to the information collected at this Site. In the event any Site or any Service is sold or Surface Travel goes through a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company, or sale of all or a portion of its assets, your Personal Information will likely be among the assets transferred. You acknowledge that such transfer may occur and are permitted by this Privacy Policy.
If you have any additional questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us any time by email at helpdesk@insidehotels.com.