Privacy Policy

Last Modified: October 13, 2020

We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this policy. This Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”) discusses the information we collect from you and how we use it. When we say “thready,” “our,” “we,” or “us,” we’re talking about Thready, Inc. This Privacy Policy applies to all of our messaging and related services, features, and software and our website (together, “Services”) unless otherwise specified. When we refer to “our servers” in this Privacy Policy, we are referring to servers owned, maintained and operated by Google that our Services are hosted on.

Please read our Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, do not download, register with, or use our Services. By downloading, registering with, or using our Services, you agree to this Privacy Policy.

Please also read through our Terms of Service (“Terms”), which describes additional terms under which you use our Services.

Your Information

thready receives or collects information when we operate and provide our Services, including when you install the thready app and when you access or use our Services.

Information You Provide

Your Account Information. You provide your mobile phone number to create a thready account, and you may also add other information to your account, such as your name and profile picture.
Your Contacts. When you create a direct 1:1 chat or add people to a group chat, you provide us with the phone numbers of those people from your phone’s contacts. You confirm that you are authorized to provide us with that information.
Your Messages. thready is cloud-based meaning we store your messages, photos, videos and GIFs (and potentially messages containing other forms of multimedia that we may support from time to time) from your conversations on our servers, so that, even if you lose or get a new phone, you will be able to access your data on your primary device and any of your other devices that we may support from time to time.
Customer Support. In the event you contact us about your use of our Services, you may provide us with information, such as copies of your messages and the best way to get in contact with you so we can provide you with customer support.

Information We Automatically Collect

Your Usage and Related Information. We collect information about our Services, including diagnostic and performance-related information. This includes information about your use of thready, including how you use our Services, your Services settings and how you interact with others using our Services. For example, we may collect data on the number of messages you send and receive and how many threads you’ve used. To help us make thready better, we maintain things like diagnostic, crash, and performance logs and reports.
Your Device. When you install the thready app or access or use our Services, we collect information about your device, which may include your device’s hardware model, operating system information, IP address, mobile network information (including phone number and signal strength), device identifiers and the general area (e.g., Los Angeles) from where your device accesses our Services (but we do not collect your precise location).
Log Information and Cookies. We also collect log information when you use our website to better operate and provide our Services, including to understand where our website traffic is generated from and which parts of our website are most popular. That information includes, among other things, details about how you’ve used our Services; device information, such as your web browser type and language; access times; pages viewed; IP address; identifiers associated with cookies or other technologies that may uniquely identify your device or browser and pages you visited before or after navigating to our website. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. If you prefer, you can usually remove or reject browser cookies through the settings on your browser or device. Keep in mind, though, that removing or rejecting cookies could affect the availability and functionality of our Services.

Information About You Provided by Third-Parties

Information Others May Provide About You. thready receives information from third parties that may include information about you. For example, when people you know use our Services, they may provide your phone number from their phone’s contacts just as you may provide their phone number, or they may send you a message or send messages to groups you’re a member of.
Third Party Providers. From time to time, we may also work with third party providers to help us with our operations and improve, market and support our Services. For example, we work with companies, such as Google and Apple, to (i) distribute our apps and provide our infrastructure, delivery and other systems, (ii) help us understand how people are using our Services, and (iii) help us better market our Services. These providers may, from time to time, provide us with information about you in some circumstances (e.g., app stores may provide us reports to help us diagnose and fix service issues).

How We Use Your Information

We use all the information we have to allow us to operate, provide, improve, deliver, understand, customize, support, and market our Services. Here are some of the ways we use your information to do that:

We may send you messages through the thready app or otherwise. For example, we may use your contact information to respond to your customer support inquiries or to share information about our Services, including new features and product updates.
We monitor, track, review, and analyze trends and usage of our Services.
If another user has your phone number stored as a contact on his or her device and wants to create a chat with you or add you to a group chat, we use your phone number to locate your account and connect you with that user.
We use your phone number to verify and confirm your account.
We may use your information to enhance the safety and security of our Services.
We may use your information to enforce our Terms of Service and other usage policies.

We also store some information locally on your device. For example, we store your messages as local cache so that you can open the thready app and view content faster.

Information That You And We May Share

You share your information as you use and communicate through our Services, and we share your information to help us operate, provide, improve, deliver, understand, customize, support, and market our Services.

Your Account Information. Your phone number and profile name and photo may be available to anyone who uses our Services that has your phone number in their phone’s contacts or is a member of a group chat that you're also a member of.
Your Contacts and Others. The people you communicate with while using our Services may save, forward or share your information (including your phone number and messages, including photos, videos, GIFs and other multimedia you share) with others, whether through our Services or otherwise. You can use the block feature in our Services to manage the users of our Services with whom you communicate.
Third-Party Providers. From time to time, we may work with contractors, service providers and other third parties we use to support our business and help us operate, improve, deliver, support and market our Services, and we may share your information in connection therewith. When we share information with any such third-parties in this capacity, we require them to use your information on our behalf in accordance with our instructions and terms.
Other Third Parties. If thready gets involved in a merger, asset sale, financing, liquidation or bankruptcy, or acquisition of all or some portion of our business to another company, we may share your information with that company before and after the transaction closes.

Assignment, Change Of Control And Transfer

All of our rights and obligations under our Privacy Policy are freely assignable by us to (i) any of our affiliates, (ii) in connection with a merger, acquisition, restructuring, or sale of assets, or (iii) by operation of law or otherwise, and we may transfer your information to any of our affiliates, successor entities, or new owners.

Managing Your Information

If you would like to edit, change or delete your information, we allow you to do that through the following tools:

Editing and Changing Your Information. If you would like to change the mobile number associated with your account, please contact us here. From your user profile screen, you can also edit your profile name and change your profile picture at any time.
Block Users. You can use our block feature to manage the users with whom you communicate.
Deleting Your Messages. You have two options at any time to delete any message you’ve sent using our Services. You can either use the “Delete for me” option which will remove the message from your device but not from the device(s) of any recipient(s), or use the “Delete for all” option which will delete the message from your device and the device(s) of any recipient(s). Simply press and hold on the message that you would like to delete and select the desired delete option.
Revoking Permissions. If you let us use your information, you can always change your mind and simply revoke your permission by changing the settings on your device if your device offers those options. Of course, if you do that, certain services may lose full functionality.
Deleting Your Account. You may delete your thready account at any time from your My Account screen. Deleting your account permanently removes all your messages, groups and contacts from your device. This action cannot be undone. Please note that if you delete the thready app from your device without doing so from our in-app delete feature:
- your account would continue to remain active and your information would continue to be stored on our servers as though you were an active user; and
- if someone were to obtain the number associated with your thready account (e.g., because you got a new phone number and someone else was assigned your old phone number), that person would be able log into your account and access your information.

Please remember that even when you delete your account, it does not affect the information other users have relating to you, such as their copy of the messages you sent them, and as a result, messages you sent may remain on our servers.

Third-Party Content

Our Services may allow you to access, use or interact with third-party websites, apps, content and other products and services ("Third-Party Services"). This Privacy Policy does not address, and we are not responsible for, the privacy, information or other practices of the providers of Third-Party Services, including their collection, usage, disclosure and data security policies and practices.

Law And Protection

We may use and disclose your information if we reasonably believe that such use or disclosure is reasonably necessary to do any of the following:

Comply with or respond to any legal process, governmental request, or applicable law, rule, or regulation.
Investigate or remedy potential violations of our Terms or enforce our Terms (or any other applicable terms and policies).
Prevent, detect, investigate, and address (i) fraud or any other illicit or illegal activity and (ii) security or technical issues.
Protect the rights, property, and safety of our users, us or others.

Users In The European Union

If you’re a user in the European Union, you should know that Thready, Inc. is the controller of your personal information. Here is some additional information we would like to bring to your attention:

Bases For Using Your Information

Your country only allows us to use your personal information when certain conditions apply. These conditions are called “legal bases” and, at thready, we typically rely on one of four:

Legitimate Interest. One reason we might use your information is because we have—or a third party has—a legitimate interest in doing so. For example, we need to use your information to provide and improve our Services, including protecting your account, delivering your messages, providing customer support, and helping you find people to message with on our Services. An important point to understand about legitimate interest is that our interests don’t outweigh your right to privacy, so we only rely on legitimate interest when we think the way we are using your data doesn’t significantly impact your privacy or would be expected by you, or there is a compelling reason to do so.
Consent. In some cases we’ll ask for consent to use your information for specific purposes. If we do, we’ll make sure you can revoke your consent in our Services or through your device permissions. Even if we’re not relying on consent to use your information, we may ask you for permission to access data like contacts and location.
Contract. One reason we might use your information is because you’ve entered into an agreement with us.
Legal Obligation. We may be required to use your personal information to comply with the law, like when we respond to valid legal process or need to take action to protect our users.

Your Right To Object

You have the right to object to our use of your information. With many types of data, we’ve provided you with the ability to simply delete it if you don’t want us processing it anymore. For other types of data, we’ve given you the ability to stop the use of your data by disabling the feature altogether. You can do these things in the app. If there are other types of information you don’t agree with us processing, you can contact us.

International Transfers

We may collect your personal information from, transfer it to, and store and process it in the United States and other countries outside of where you live. Whenever we share information of EU users outside the EU we make sure an adequate transfer mechanism is in place.

Complaints?

If you’re based in the EU, you can always file a complaint with the supervisory authority in your Member State. For example, if you’re based in the UK you can file a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

World Operations

You agree to our information practices, including the collection, use, processing and sharing of your information as described in this Privacy Policy, as well as the transfer and processing of your information to the United States and other countries globally where we have or use facilities, service providers, or partners, regardless of where you use our Services. You acknowledge that the laws, regulations, and standards of the country in which your information is stored or processed may be different from those of your own country.

Updates To Our Policy

From time to time, we may update or amend our Privacy Policy. In such case, we will provide you with notice of any such updates or amendments, as appropriate, and update the “Last Modified” date at the top of this Privacy Policy. Please note that your continued use of our Services confirms your acceptance of our Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time. If you do not agree to our Privacy Policy, as it may be amended from time to time, you must stop using our Services. Please review our Privacy Policy from time to time.

Account and Messages Self-Destruction

If you stop using thready and do not log in for at least six months, your account may be deleted along with all messages, media, contacts, and every other piece of data stored on our servers. Additionally, even if your account is active, we reserve the right to delete and remove from our servers any of your messages that are not on threads that are older than twelve months.

California Residents

If you’re a California resident, you have certain privacy rights under California law, including the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 . Our California Privacy Notice specifies these rights. You can access that notice here.

Children Under the Age of 13

Our Services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn we have collected or received personal information from a child under 13 without verification of parental consent, we will delete that information. If you believe we might have any information from or about a child under 13, please contact us at contact@getthready.com.

Questions? Contact Us

If you have any questions about our privacy practices or this Privacy Policy, please contact us by email at contact@getthready.com.