Privacy Notice

At Florida Merchant Services (“FMS”), we respect your concerns about privacy. This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) relates to the collection of personal information from users of our websites, including but not limited to those provided on our behalf by third party service providers (“Sites”) and mobile applications (“Apps”) in the course of our business activities.

For this Notice, “FMS”, “we” and “us” refers to Florida Merchant Services, and its affiliate or third-party service providers, as the context requires. Our privacy practices vary depending on the services we provide. For some products and services, where required, we will provide additional privacy notices before collecting your personal information. Please read this Notice carefully. If you have any questions, you may contact us at info@floridamerchant1.com or by the methods provided in the “Contact” section of our website.

FMS provides financial transaction products and services to businesses. Those products and services include payment processing, security compliance, point of sales solutions, and other complementary payment solution products and services, (collectively the “Services”). This Notice is a supplement, not a replacement, to any documentation for our Services and relates specifically to information we collect through our Sites and Apps.

Please be aware that not all of the information in this Notice will be directly applicable to our handling of your personal information. This Notice provides an overview of the possible circumstances in which we may interact with your personal information. If you have any questions about our processing of your personal information, please contact us at info@floridamerchant1.com.

FMS collects personal information from users of our Sites and Apps who might be our Customers, prospective Customers, and Customers’ end users who engage with our Sites and Apps as part of the Services we provide to our Customers. For this Notice, Customers are those legal entities who have a written agreement with FMS to use the Services.

Because FMS’ relationship with Customers’ end users is indirect, we process such end user personal information only for the purposes of providing the Services, in accordance with our each Customer’s instructions. If you are an end user who has a relationship with one of our Customers and you have a question about how your personal information is collected, used, or shared, or would like to exercise any rights you may have with respect to your personal information, please contact the Customer directly.

Through our Sites and Apps, subject to your consent if required by law, we may collect the following personal information:

• Identifiers (including name and contact information including telephone number, email address, or postal address)
• Information protected against security breaches (such as social security number, financial account information and username and password)
• Commercial information (such as your access and purchase history, the products and services we provide to you, your marketing preferences, or information you provide in any communication with us or when you participate in any blog, community or forum on our Sites)
• Internet/electronic activity (see “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” for additional information)
• Professional or employment related information (such as your status with the organization with which you are affiliated or information you provide as a job applicant)
• Geolocation
• Inferences from the foregoing such as your preferences, characteristics or predispositions

Data anonymization and aggregation.

Subject to your consent if required by law, we may anonymize or aggregate your personal information in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it, in order to use the anonymized or aggregated data. For example, we may use anonymized or aggregated data for statistical analysis including to analyze trends, for product development, and for risk assessments and cost analysis. We may share anonymized or aggregated data with our affiliates or with other third-party service providers.

Sources of Personal Information

We collect personal information from several sources that we use to provide our Services to you, to analyze and improve our Services, and to communicate with you. Those sources include:

Information that you provide to us: We collect personal information that you provide to us when you set up an account with us, use our Services, or communicate with us. For example, if you register for an online account with us, we may request your name, contact information and business information. Providing us with personal information about yourself is voluntary, and you can always choose not to provide certain information, but then you may not be able to take advantage of or participate in some of the Services.

Information collected from third parties: We may collect information about you from third parties in the course of providing our Services to you. For example, we may collect personal information from credit-reporting agencies to enable us to identify you, prevent possible fraud and to deliver the Services to you.

Information collected through technology: When you visit our Sites or Apps (or when you use any of our Services) we may collect certain information about your location, usage, or device through technology such as cookies (see “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” below for more information). We may collect geolocation in the Apps for the purpose of enabling location-based Services.

Subject to your consent if required by law, we may use your personal information for the following business purposes:

• Providing our Services and related support: including to help fulfill your requests for products and Services; to communicate with you about your use of our Services; to respond to your inquiries; to provide troubleshooting and other technical support; and for other customer service and support purposes.
• Protecting the integrity of the Services: including to verify your identity; to detect and prevent fraud and unauthorized activities; to facilitate software; to preserve the integrity of the Services and our systems, and prevent unauthorized access and activities; to enforce our applicable terms; and to protect the rights and safety of others.
• Analyzing and improving the Services and our business: including to better understand how users access and use our Services; to evaluate and improve the Services and our business operations; to develop new features, offerings and Services; to conduct surveys and other evaluations; and for other research and analytical purposes.
• Personalizing the Services: including to tailor content we send or display on our Sites and Services (e.g., for your geographic area); to offer personalized help and instructions; and to otherwise personalize your experiences with the Services.
• Advertising, marketing and promotional purposes: including to reach you with more relevant ads and to evaluate, measure and improve the effectiveness of our ad campaigns; to contact you about our Services, and those of our affiliates, as well as other information we think may interest you. Where required by applicable law, we will obtain your consent to use your personal information for marketing and related purposes.
• Securing and protecting our business: including to protect and secure our business operations, assets, services, network and information and technology resources; to investigate, prevent, detect and take action regarding fraud, unauthorized access, situations involving potential threats to the rights or safety of any person or third party, or other unauthorized activities or misconduct.
• Defending our legal rights: including to manage and respond to actual and potential legal disputes and claims, and to otherwise establish, defend or protect our rights or interests, including in the context of anticipated or actual litigation with users or third parties.
• Auditing, reporting, corporate governance, and internal operations: including relating to financial, tax and accounting audits; audits and assessments of our operations, privacy, security and financial controls, risk, and compliance with legal obligations; our general business, accounting, record keeping and legal functions; to maintain appropriate business records; to enforce company policies and procedures; and related to any actual or contemplated merger, acquisition, asset sale or transfer, financing, bankruptcy or restructuring of all or part of our business.
• Complying with legal obligations: including to comply with the law, our legal obligations and legal process, such warrants, subpoenas, court orders, and regulatory or law enforcement requests.

How we Share the Personal Information We Collect

We share your personal information in the manner and for the purposes described below:

• With FMS affiliates where such disclosure is necessary to provide you with our Services or to manage our business.
• With third party service providers whose systems, applications, products or services help us to provide the Services. For example, we share personal information with IT service providers who help manage our back-office systems or administer our Sites and Apps. These service providers have agreed to confidentiality restrictions and have agreed to use any personal information we share with them, or which they collect on our behalf, for the purpose of providing the contracted service to us.
• With our Customer with whom you are also engaging when you use the Services. For example, you may be using a FMS Site to log into your account with our Customer. FMS will share the personal information you provide in order to fulfill your request. You may also receive communications from the Customer. Each such Customer operates independently from FMS and their collection and use of your personal information is not subject to this Notice but to their own privacy notices.
• With other third parties including financial institutions such as Visa®, MasterCard®, Discover® Card services, and banking institutions involved in supporting, clearing or settling payment-related transactions.

FMS may also disclose personal information about you if it believes such disclosure is necessary to comply with laws or respond to lawful requests and legal process, to enforce our agreements, policies and terms of use and to protect or defend the rights, safety or property of FMS, users of the Services or any person.

In addition, subject to applicable legal requirements, we may share personal information in connection with or during negotiation of any merger, financing, acquisition, bankruptcy, dissolution, transaction or proceeding involving sale, transfer, divestiture, or disclosure of all or a portion of our business assets to another company.

We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

Subject to your consent if required by law, we may appoint an affiliate company to process personal information in a service provider role. In most cases, we will remain responsible for that company’s processing of your personal information pursuant to applicable data privacy laws.

We will take appropriate steps to ensure that transfers of personal information are in accordance with applicable law, are carefully managed to protect your privacy rights and interests and limited to countries which are recognized as providing an adequate level of legal protection or where alternative adequate arrangements are in place to protect your privacy rights.

Subject to your consent if required by law, we will collect and process your personal information as necessary to set up and administer your sign up to, and use of, the log in facility available on our Sites and Apps. We will use “cookies” to “remember” the machine or other device you use to access our Sites (see “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” below). Please remember that if we contact you, we will never ask you for your password in an unsolicited email, message or phone call. If you choose to use the log in facility available on our Sites and Apps, you are required to adhere to the security procedures we establish in the documentation we provide you as part of the Services.

A “cookie” is a text file that is stored to your browser when you visit a website.

Unique device identifiers like IP address or UDID recognize a visitor’s computer or other device used to access the internet. Unique device identifiers are used alone and in conjunction with cookies and other tracking technologies for the purpose of “remembering” computers or other devices used to access the Sites and Apps.

Cookies can be classified by duration and by source:

Duration. The Sites use both “session” and “persistent” cookies. Session cookies are temporary – they terminate when you close your browser or otherwise end your “active” browsing session. Persistent cookies remember you on subsequent visits. Persistent cookies are not deleted when you close your browser, and they will remain on your computer or other device unless you choose to delete them (see below for “How to Delete or Block Cookies”).

Source. Cookies can be “first-party” or “third-party” cookies, which means that they are either issued by or on behalf of FMS or by a third-party operator of another website. For an example of a third-party cookie, our Sites may contain a Facebook “like” button, which would set a cookie that can be read by Facebook. Our Sites may use both first-party and third-party cookies.

The cookies that we may use on the Sites fall into the following categories:

Strictly Necessary Cookies. These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions taken by you such as logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies but blocking them may impede the functionality of the Sites.

Performance Cookies. These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Functionality Cookies. These cookies enable the Sites to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third-party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies, then some of these services may not function properly.

Targeting Cookies. These cookies may be set through our Sites by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites. They are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

How to Delete or Block Cookies     

On some Sites, when technically feasible, we will enable tools to help you make choices about cookies. You may also delete or block cookies at any time by changing your browser settings. You can click “Help” in the toolbar of your browser for instruction or review the cookie management guide produced by the Interactive Advertising Bureau available at www.allaboutcookies.org. If you delete or block cookies, some features of the Sites may not function properly.