Privacy Policy for NewAer – A Cool New Proximity-Based Service
Last modified: 1/4/13

This Privacy Policy applies to the NewAer Proximity Platform, the application ToothTag and all the products and services or partner services offered by, and the websites operated by, NewAer, Inc. or licensors of such technologies. (We refer to ourselves below as “us,” “our,” or “we” – we assume you know who “you” are.) The “terms of service” that you agree to when you use our services are available here www.NewAer.com/terms.

Please read and understand those terms before you use our services because there is important legal stuff there for you to know.

Because your privacy is important to us, we want to tell you very clearly how our products and services collect radio signals and use location information.

We want to tell you upfront about some the key things we think you ought to know right away under “Conspicuous Disclosures,” but please read this whole Privacy Policy because it is all important. We expect that our users will use our services for useful, fun and social purposes. Please be careful, though, because your location information could be subject to abuse, misuse, and monitoring by friends, family, or other people. Any use of our Proximity Platform for criminal or unlawful purposes, or for offensive behavior, harassment, stalking or other behavior that would be highly offensive to reasonable people, is strictly forbidden. NewAer reserves the right to immediately terminate a mobile device or user account who fails to abide by these standards.

Especially Important Disclosure:

Please focus on the fact that the Proximity Platform works by collecting the “addresses” that smartphones and other wireless devices transmit publicly for the very purpose of being discovered and making electronic connections with other devices – sort of like nametags at a conference. We do not know your phone number or your friends’ phone numbers nearby. NewAer has created an evolution of location-based services called proximity services, because you or other applications can set up rules to make things happen depending on whether you are in range, or out of range, of devices that you or someone else has tagged. We may also allow you to enable our use of GPS or cellular tower network information in some instances as well.

It is also important for you to know that we do not and cannot collect any “content” from any of your calls, emails, posts, tweets, etc., or other communications that go over your smartphone, or the websites you visit. We just collect the device addresses, and then it is up to you or your friends to link whatever other information or services that you choose to associate with a tagged device. This association feature can incorporate many types of your favorite social media, including your Twitter user name, Linked-in Profile, Facebook name or location data like a Foursquare venue and more—as long as you had previously chosen to make those profiles or feeds unrestricted and public in your privacy settings.

For our service to work, by the way, you need to enable your phone hardware settings for Bluetooth, WiFi, Near Field Communications (NFC if you have it) and GPS and in some instances you need to have a cellular or WiFi data connection to the Internet.

If you have any questions about or suggestions for this Privacy Policy or any of our products, services or websites, please feel free to contact us through our website or write to us at:

NewAer, Inc. 

10990 Wilshire #140

Los Angeles, CA 90024

www.newaer.com
email: [email protected]
telephone: (909) 638-2377

If you have any good ideas for our Privacy Policy, please tell us. If we revise this Policy, we will let you know on this page (accessed via our web page), so please check frequently. Since our concept is new, we hope to get some good feedback that will help us improve in every way – including privacy!

If we make any important changes to our Policy that could let us use or share personal information that we previously collected from you in new ways that we have not already told you about, we will ask for your specific permission for the new things we would like to do.

Additional Very Important Disclosures

First a brief explanation about how our uncommonly cool proximity-based service works. This is actually pretty interesting so definitely read this part:

The NewAer Proximity Platform and applications like ToothTag and its technology license partners work because smartphones and other wireless devices have radio transmitters that let them connect to networks or other devices through the air.

Each of these radios has a number or name that is unique to that piece of equipment; you can think of it as a sort of “radio address” that is broadcast into the air so that other devices can “discover” and connect with them.

NewAer technologies let your smartphone discover these radio addresses and “tag” them so you can tell when you and your smartphone get close to an important device. NewAer collects and uses these unique equipment identifiers so that users like you know when they are the same physical space with other devices whose radio addresses they have tagged. We call this a “proximity” application because users can get notified when a device they’ve tagged comes into or goes out of range, or make certain things happen automatically when you and your smartphone get close to another device you’ve tagged.

“Proximity” for our purposes means how close are you to the device you’ve tagged:

• Range for WiFi transmitters is around 100 feet.
• Range for Bluetooth transmitters is around 30 feet.
• Range for NFC transmitters is under an inch.
• Range for GPS is around 30 feet.
• Range for cellular towers is around 100 feet in cities and more in rural areas.

While smartphones and other gadgets publicly broadcast a number of different unique radio addresses, NewAer only collects and uses the publicly discoverable names and numbers for WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, Near-Field-Communications (NFC) devices and some cellular tower location data depending on the technology or carrier. When you sign up to use our service, ToothTag allows you to discover and tag your devices by their unique WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS or NFC addresses. These are based on people’s devices that broadcast publicly or if they check in on popular social networks which contain location information.

While all this radio address information is public, we protect your privacy and other people’s privacy by conspicuously disclosing the following practices to you, and limiting our collection, use, disclosure and storage of information as described below

“Tagging” Devices

NewAer’s technologies allow you to “tag” (i.e., discover and capture) MAC addresses (i.e., unique alphanumeric equipment identifiers assigned by the device manufacturer) and device names (that can be assigned by either the manufacturer or the individual user such as “John Smith’s wireless router,” “Jane Doe’s iPhone,” “Motorola Headset 9700,” “BMW Bluetooth System,” etc.) for any WiFi access point or radio, or Bluetooth, NFC transmitter that is within range of your NewAer Proximity Platform-enabled smartphone.

Any broadcasting WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS or NFC radio or transmitter that is within range of your smartphone can be tagged using ToothTag.

When you tag a device, you can designate a name for that device and what kind of device it is and who or what goes along with that device. For example, “my Droid,” or “Susie’s phone,” or the nickname of your house or coffee shop.

Linking Tagged Devices to Other Services, Like “Foursquare”

You can choose to link tagged devices to public information on third-party services like “Foursquare.” This can be useful, fun and social, but remember that you are responsible for any information disclosed by using these other services, and any information on those third-party services or websites is, of course, governed by their privacy policies.

We use open standards like oAuth to enable other service offerings, which is a common practice for software like ours to enable enhanced features or offerings.

Letting Restaurants and Other Businesses Know You Might Be Interested in Their Offers

As more and more restaurants, cafes, bars, stores and other businesses subscribe to our Proximity Platform (as retail partners), you will be able to let their WiFi or other radio networks send you special offers and other messages when you are within their range.

• We will not provide any personal information – like your mobile phone number, your name or address – to any third party (including our retail partners), using our technology. Mostly because we do not know or collect this ourselves.
• If you opt-out to this feature of NewAer, you will not receive special offers and messages from retail partners, even if you choose to tag them, when your smartphone comes into range of their WiFi or other radio networks.
• You can decide to cancel your opt-in or out of this feature of NewAer at any time, or limit the kinds of offers and messages you receive as specified in our application or those that license our technology.

Automated Rules

While you remain a user of NewAer or our subsequent products or partner services, you may set up “rules” or automated actions that take place when one or more devices come in or out of range to your smartphone or in or out of range of another subscriber of our services. For example, you could set up a rule that your smartphone buzzes you when your friend’s tagged device is within range of your phone; or you could set up a rule to have your computer start up your favorite playlist when your smartphone is within range of your tagged home WiFi network.

Analyzing and Sharing Location, Movement and Device Data, Including Legal Requests

NewAer servers will have considerable information about when and where our user’s devices tag other devices, how long devices stay within proximity, and similar information about locations, movements and number of devices.

• We may analyze this location and movement data on an anonymous (non-personally identifiable) basis so that we can improve our products and services or develop new products or services.
• If you or your friends link your devices to public social profiles on websites like Linked-In, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or other similar accounts, we can help you find friends or likeminded people when you are out traversing the real world.
• We may share anonymous, aggregate information with third parties, but we will never provide any private information or unique addresses or other identifiers from any device of any NewAer user or other person.
• We may analyze your data in order to provide you with personalized products, services, offers or other information. If you do not want to be presented with offers, you can opt out of this capability.
• You should keep in mind that the government, including law enforcement and public health or safety officials, may request information from us by court order, search warrant, subpoena or other legal process. Where we believe in good faith that the request is lawful, we may turn over the requested data to these authorities. Where data is requested from us for litigation purposes like trials or pre-trial discovery, we may also be required to turn over data. If we believe that a public health or safety emergency, or a possible crime, requires us to provide data to first responders or others, we may also feel compelled to provide them with relevant information in our control. We will give you advance notice before we turn over any information under any of these circumstances, so long as we are legally permitted to provide you with advance notice, and where providing advance notice would be feasible and reasonable.

Security on your Smartphone

Your tags will be stored on your smartphone or backed up on a cloud database in a file that can only be accessed by the ToothTag application, or an application which you have installed that licenses the technology.

The stored “tag” information will include all the information you have designated for the tagged device, including any personal information you have associated with the tag (such as “Susie’s phone” or “John Smith’s iPhone”), as well as the radio address for that device (such as the MAC address, SSID name or the default device name assigned by the manufacturer).

Security on our Servers

Your tags and rules may also be stored on a secure NewAer or partner web page that you will only be able to access with your unique user name and password.

We will store all this information on servers with appropriate commercial security technology and practices, but as you know, there are no guarantees of perfect security due to unforeseen circumstances, weak passwords on a user account, brute force attacks or other cyber-attacks.

Checking, Changing or Deleting Your Information

Your tags (including all of the information described above) will also be stored on our servers for as long as you remain a user of ToothTag or an application that licenses our proximity services, and you will always have access to check, edit, correct or remove information that we have stored about you or your devices.

If you terminate your subscription to NewAer, we will delete all of your personal information, including your tags, within 45 days of your termination, except if (and only so long as) we need to retain that information to comply with a government request that we believe in good faith is lawful, or to comply with subpoenas or other legal process, or if necessary to protect our legal rights or property.

Additional Privacy Disclosures

In addition to our Proximity Platform-based service, we also collect information through our websites. This next section of our Privacy Policy describes what information we collect and how we use it.

• Information From or About You – When you sign up for ToothTag or another application or device licensing our technology, we ask you to provide us with certain user information. We may combine that with information from other NewAer services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services, and to make them more interesting and relevant to you. For certain services, we may give you the opportunity to opt out of our combining such information. You can log on to your NewAer or partner web page to learn more about the information associated with your NewAer account.
• “Tagged” Device Information – We won’t repeat the information we “conspicuously,” and hopefully clearly, told you about at the beginning of this policy. But we did want to mention again here that we do collect that information. Please scroll back up and read the disclosures we made earlier, because they are really important!
• Cookies – When you visit our sites, we send one or more cookies or comparable technologies to your computer or other device. We use cookies and similar technologies to improve the quality of our service, storing user preferences, tracking usage and trends. We may also use cookies and similar technology to help us and our retail business partners and advertisers serve and manage ads across our services.
• Server Log Information – When you access our services, our servers automatically record certain information. Our server logs may include information about your interaction with our services, Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time of your request and one or more cookies or other information that may uniquely identify your browser or your account.
• User Communications – When you send us messages, including email or other communications, we may retain those communications in order to respond to you, process your questions or requests, and improve our services. We may also collect and maintain information associated with those messages, such as your phone number, the wireless carrier associated with your number, the content of the message you sent to us, and the date and time of the interaction. We may use your email address to communicate with you about our services.
• Third Party Applications and Offers – We may make third party applications and offers available for you to use, download or accept through NewAer and our other services. We will only provide the personal information you authorize us to provide to any third party. Information collected by the third party provider is governed by their privacy policies. Also, please go back and re-read the information above about some of our retail business partners under “Restaurants and Businesses” above.
• Location-Based Data – As you well know by now, NewAer is an evolution of a location-enabled service called proximity services. If you use our services, we will collect and use the information as we have disclosed above, in the “conspicuous disclosures” section!
• Providing or Protecting our Products and Services – Of course, we may also use the information we collect to provide, maintain, protect, and improve our services (including advertising services), develop new services, and protect our rights or property or of our users.

If we use information that we have already collected from you in a manner different than the purpose we originally explained to you, then we will ask for your consent before we use it in the new way.

Choice

You can use your NewAer account web page to review and control the information stored in your account.

Most browsers are initially set up to accept cookies, but you can reset your browser to refuse all cookies or to indicate when a cookie is being sent. However, some of our features and services may not function properly if your cookies are disabled.

You can also disable Proximity Platform services, including location-based services, at any time by doing any of the following: (1) disabling the “location” feature of your smartphone, (2) removing the ToothTag or the partner application itself, or (3) turning off your WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS and NFC radios and transmitters.

Information Sharing

We only share personal information with other companies or individuals outside of NewAer or ToothTag if:

• We have your consent. We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information. Remember that the choice is yours as to which, if any, of our partners receive information from the Proximity Platform.
• We provide such information to our subsidiaries, affiliated companies or other trusted businesses or persons for the purpose of processing personal information on our behalf. We require that these parties agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
• We have a good faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of such information is reasonably necessary to (a) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request, (b) enforce or investigate possible violations of our Terms of Service, (c) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, or (d) protect against harm to the rights, property or safety of NewAer, its license partners, users or the public as required or permitted by law.
• If NewAer, Inc. becomes involved in a merger, acquisition, or any form of sale of some or all of its assets or stock, the information we have collected, including your personal information, may be transferred or shared in connection with the transaction; but we will require the recipient of the information to maintain the security and confidentiality of any transferred information and provide notice to you before any of your personal information becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Information Security

We have implemented appropriate security measures, including administrative, technical and physical safeguards, to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. No security measures are foolproof, however, and should we experience a breach of security that could compromise your personal information, we will notify you in accordance with applicable law.

It is our policy to provide notifications, whether such notifications are required by law or are for marketing or other business related purposes, to you via email notice, written or hard copy notice, or through conspicuous posting of such notice on our website, as we determine in our sole discretion, to the extent permitted by law.

Accessing and Updating Personal Information

You may access your personal information on your NewAer web page, where you have various options for checking, correcting, editing or deleting data.

Children’s Privacy

Protecting the privacy of young children is especially important. For that reason, we do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 13 or knowingly allow such persons to sign up as NewAer Proximity Platform users.

If you are under 13, please do not send any information about yourself to us, including your name, address, telephone number, or email address. No one under age 13 is allowed to provide any personal information to or on NewAer. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at [email protected].

Enforcement

If we receive formal written complaint, we will try to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the user and any appropriate regulatory authorities to try to resolve any complaints or concerns in a reasonable and satisfactory manner. You can send it to our mailing address or [email protected].

Changes to this Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. We commit not to reduce your rights under this Privacy Policy for data we have already collected without your agreement. We will post any Privacy Policy changes on this page and our home page, and, if the changes are significant, we will provide a more prominent notice (such as by email notification to you of Privacy Policy changes).

Your Feedback on this Privacy Policy Will Help Us Develop “Best Practices”

Like any cutting edge technology, it may take a while to develop best practices, and we welcome your thoughts on this. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions for this Privacy Policy or any of our products, services or websites, feel free to contact us at:

NewAer, Inc.
10990 Wilshire #140
Los Angeles, California 90024
email: [email protected]