Privacy Policy & Terms of Use

 

 

The Long & Foster Companies, Inc. (“Long & Foster”) values you as our customer, and we want to address any privacy concerns you may have. To that end, we have set forth our Privacy Policy for handling the information you share with us online and through any documentation submitted as part of a transaction with Long & Foster. We want your decision to do business with us to be an informed one. We have adopted this Privacy Policy to explain what information may be collected when you utilize our applications and services, how we use this information, and under what circumstances we may disclose the information to affiliates and third parties. You should review this Privacy Policy frequently, as it may change from time to time without notice. Any changes will be effective immediately upon the posting of the revised Privacy Policy.

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1. Scope of Our Privacy Notice

This privacy notice applies to our collection, use, disclosure, and other processing of personal information related to:

• The use of our Sites or Services that display or link to this Policy

• Former, current and prospective clients, brokers, independent agents, and consumers

• Other individuals who use our Sites or Services, whose personal information we received related to the Sites and Services

All collection, use, disclosure, and processing of personal information by Long & Foster about individuals will vary depending upon use of our Sites and Services. This policy is intended to provide our general practices and procedures. In some cases, different or additional notices about our data collection and processing may be provided and apply to certain personal information.

This policy does not apply to job applicants or candidates who apply for employment with Long & Foster or to our employees and independent agents.

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2. Collecting Information

When you visit our consumer applications or purchase and/or sell real estate with Long & Foster, we may collect information about you that you share with us. We typically collect two kinds of information about you through our applications and real estate services: (a) information that you provide that personally identifies you; and (b) information that does not personally identify you, which we automatically collect when you visit our applications or that you provide to us.

1. Personally Identifiable Information: This identification information may include, but is not limited to, your name, physical address, email address, telephone, mobile and fax numbers, details of your real estate, lending, title and insurance needs and references, and other details of your life (“Personal Information”).

2. Non-Personally Identifiable Information: Our definition of non-personally identifiable information is any information that does not personally identify you (“Non-PII”). Non-PII can include certain personally identifiable information that has been de-identified; that is, information that has been rendered anonymous by a de-identification process. We obtain Non-PII about you from information that you affirmatively provide to us, either separately or together with your personally identifiable information. We also automatically collect certain Non-PII from you when you access any applications. This information can include, among other things, IP addresses, the type of browser you are using, the third-party website from which your visit originated, the operating system you are using, the domain name of your Internet service provider, the search terms you use on our applications, the specific web pages you visit, the duration and frequency of your visits, and location information.

3. Cookies, Web Beacons and other Tracking Technologies: As you may be aware, it is a common practice that when you visit our consumer applications, we may collect data through the use of cookies, web beacons or other tracking technologies (i.e. small text files placed on your computer by consumer applications), web server logs, and other web tools. This technology allows us to customize your online experience as well as track your use of our system so that we can improve your experience. The tracking data we collect may include, but is not limited to, the date, time and location of your visit, the time you spend, the web pages you view, the other consumer applications you visit, your search queries, and basic information about your computer, such as your Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, your domain name, your browser type, and the name of your internet service provider. By continuing to browse our site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but will also provide controls that allow you to block or delete them. Instructions for blocking or deleting cookies are generally available in your browser’s privacy or help documentation. If you choose to delete cookies, some settings and preferences controlled by those cookies, including advertising preferences, will be deleted and may need to be recreated. You may deactivate cookies if you do not want your browsing to be tracked.

When visiting our consumer-facing applications, you may be directed, through hyperlinks, to other consumer applications that are beyond our control. This Privacy Policy does not cover the collection of information by those other companies and consumer applications. Although we encourage third parties to provide their own privacy policies, we are not responsible for their activities, such as how they handle the information they collect online.

You can manage how your preferences regarding third party ad company cookies set by this Site or Service by reading the cookie discussion above.

Please also see the cookie discussion above for information about the third parties we may work with to display targeted ads on third-party sites and to measure the success of our marketing and campaigns. You may also obtain more information about targeted or “interest-based advertising” and opt-out of many ad networks at the industry websites below:

• Canada: www.youradchoices.ca

• EU: www.youronlinechoices.eu

• U.S.: www.aboutads.info

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3. Categories of Personal Information We Collect

In order to provide better services, we collect different types of personal information about you and your activities. The list below sets out generally the categories of personal information about you that we may collect and disclose to others for business purposes.

• Identifiers. Personal identifiers, such as name, telephone number, physical address, email address, government-issued identifiers (e.g., national identification numbers, driver’s license numbers), and signatures.

• Personal Information. This may include your credit card number, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number and so on. Please note that some personal information in this category may overlap with information in other categories.

• Protected Classification Characteristics Information. This includes characteristics of protected classifications under state or federal law, such as age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), source of funds, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).

• Device Information and Online Activity: Device and online identifiers, account login information, keystroke patterns indicative of human or bot website/app usage, mobile and web network activity and related information (such as Mac address, IP address, cookie IDs, browser activity, and other information associated with your browsing history), and social media information.

• Geolocation data. Physical location or movements.

• Commercial Information: Purchase and transaction history information (such as products or services you have purchased, rented, or returned), health and safety-related information, product testimonials, travel and vacation information, and competition entries.

• Professional or employment-related information. Current or past job history or performance evaluations.

• Biometric information. Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.

• Sensory Information: Audio, visual information, and other sensory information such as photographs and audio and video recordings.

• Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)). Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.

• Background Information: Background and criminal information, such as background checks and criminal convictions

• Inferences Information: Individual preferences and characteristics, such as inferences related to shopping patterns and behaviors, intelligence, and aptitudes.

We may share your identifiers, professional or employment-related information and information in some of the above-mentioned categories with third parties for business purposes.

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4. Basis for Processing of Personal Information

Certain laws, such as the Virginia Consumer Data Protection ACT (“VCDPA”), and EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), require that we inform covered individuals of the legal basis for our use and other processing of personal information.

All personal information we collect and process is done on one or more of the follow legitimate bases:

• Performance of contract: as necessary to enter into or carry out the performance of our contracts with affiliated businesses and third-party service providers.

• Compliance with laws: for compliance with legal obligations and/or defense against legal claims, including those in the area of labor and employment law, social security, and data protection, tax, and corporate compliance laws.

• Our legitimate business interests: in furtherance of our legitimate business interests including:

  • Performance of contracts with franchisees and other parties

  • Implementation and operation of global support (e.g., IT) services for our business operations

  • Customer relationship management and improving our Services, including marketing and analytics

  • Fraud prevention, including misuse of company IT systems or money laundering

  • Physical, IT, and network perimeter securityInternal investigations

  • Mergers, acquisitions, and reorganization, and other business transactions

• With your consent: where we have your consent and other applicable laws give you the right to withdraw your consent, which you can do this at any time by contacting us using the details Section 11. In some jurisdictions, your use of the Services may be taken as implied consent to the collection and processing of personal information as outlined in this privacy notice.

In addition, we may process your personal information where necessary to protect the vital interests of any individual.

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5. How We Use & Share Information Collected

1. Personal Information: We primarily use the identification information you voluntarily share with us to:

   1. Customize your online and/or real estate transaction experiences and to carry out your online requests;

   2. Tell you about our products, services and other offerings;

   3. Contact you for a variety of reasons, such as providing you promotional or marketing information for our products or those of our affiliated companies;

   4. Communicate with you about your real estate transaction;

   5. In certain instances, we may also share your personally identifiable information with our third-party vendors and marketing partners that, among other activities: perform functions on our behalf (or on behalf of our affiliated companies); administer our offerings; provide us marketing or promotional assistance; analyze our data; assist us with customer service; and offer other services and products that may be relevant to the purchase or sale of real estate. Our vendors agree to use this information, and we share information with them, only to carry out our requests;

   6. On occasion, we use your identification information to validate your identity;

   7. As for usage tracking data, we primarily use that information to operate and improve our consumer applications, and to further our marketing efforts.

You may opt-out from receiving future promotional or marketing information from us, our affiliated companies, and our third-party vendors, or direct that we not share your information with any affiliated companies or third-party vendors, as set forth below in Section 11. Except as provided in this Privacy Policy, our Terms of Use, or as set forth when you submit the information, your personally identifiable information will not be sold to any third parties or used in any manner outside the scope of this Privacy Policy without your prior approval. We further reserve the right to disclose your information under limited circumstances, such as to cooperate with law enforcement or judicial authorities as required by law or legal process, to protect our own legal rights, or to protect the public good.

1. Non-PII: We use Non-PII in a variety of ways, including to:

   1. Help analyze site traffic, understand customer needs and trends;

   2. Carry out targeted promotional activities;

   3. Improve our services and offerings.

We may use your Non-PII by itself or aggregate it with information we have obtained from others. We may share your Non-PII with our affiliated companies and third parties to achieve these objectives and others, but remember that aggregate information is anonymous information that does not personally identify any individual, device, or household.

Whenever you are online or on our applications, you run the risk that the information you provide will fall into the wrong hands. Although we implement and maintain commercially reasonable security procedures and practices to safeguard your privacy, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you provide to us. We accept no responsibility or liability for the activities of third parties.

By using our consumer applications and applications, you agree to our Terms of Use.

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6. Updating Information

If you would like to review the information about you that we have collected through our consumer applications, or to change that information, you can make that request by following the procedure indicated below in Section 11. We may require that you verify your identity before we process your request.

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7. Processing Location

We process your personal information in the United States. For users located outside of the United States, please see Sections 17 titled European Union / European Economic Area for more detailed information.

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8. Anti-Fraud Disclosure

Electronic communications such as email, text messages and social media messaging, are neither secure nor confidential. While Long & Foster has adopted policies and procedures to aid in avoiding fraud, even the best security protections can still be bypassed by unauthorized parties. Long & Foster will never send you any electronic communication with instructions to transfer funds or to provide nonpublic personal information, such as credit card or debit numbers or bank account and/or routing numbers.

YOU SHOULD NEVER TRANSMIT NONPUBLIC PERSONAL INFORMATION, SUCH AS CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD NUMBERS OR BANK ACCOUNT OR ROUTING NUMBERS, BY EMAIL OR OTHER UNSECURED ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION. EMAILS ATTEMPTING TO INDUCE FRAUDULENT WIRE TRANSFERS ARE COMMON AND MAY APPEAR TO COME FROM A TRUSTED SOURCE.

If you receive any electronic communication directing you to transfer funds or provide nonpublic personal information, EVEN IF THAT ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION APPEARS TO BE FROM Long & Foster or its affiliates, do not respond to it and immediately contact your real estate agent or title closer. Such requests, even if they may otherwise appear to be from Long & Foster, are likely part of a scheme to defraud you by stealing funds from you or using your identity to commit a crime.

To notify Long & Foster of suspected fraud related to your real estate transaction, send an email to privacy@longandfoster.com

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9. Updating Our Privacy Policy

We may, from time to time, change our Privacy Policy. We will notify you of any changes by posting our updated Privacy Policy on our consumer applications and inserting a new “Effective Date.”

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10. Data Retention

We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy notice unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. We may retain personal information for longer where required by our legal and regulatory obligations, professional indemnity obligations, or where we believe it is necessary to establish, defend or protect our legal rights and interests or those of others. With respect to the data and files we handle as a processor, we retain this personal information in accordance with our clients’ instructions.

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11. Rights and “Opt-Out”

Marketing. You may opt out from receiving marketing-related communications from us on a going-forward basis by contacting us or by using the unsubscribe mechanism contained in each email. We will try to comply with your request(s) as soon as reasonably practicable. Please note that if you opt out of receiving marketing-related emails from us, we may still send you important administrative messages, from which you cannot opt out.

Cookies and similar technologies. Please review your browser or device settings for certain cookies and see above to exercise certain choices regarding cookies.

Access, amendment and deletion. Under applicable privacy laws, you may have the right to request to review, make amendments, have deleted or otherwise exercise your rights over your personal information that we hold, subject to certain legal limitations and requirements. If you are subject to such a privacy law, you may submit a request to us related to your personal information:

• By submitting a request to us at privacy@longandfoster.com

• By contacting us at 1-888-536-0216 (toll free)

We follow applicable law to take steps to keep your personal information accurate, complete and up-to-date. In your request that is covered by an applicable privacy law, please make clear what personal information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your personal information suppressed from our database or otherwise let us know what limitations you would like to put on our use of your personal information. We may only implement requests (a) where required by applicable law and (b) with respect to the personal information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before implementing your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable.

As outlined below, if you are a Virginia resident, or if you are in the European Union/European Economic Area, you may have additional rights.

Deactivation. You can deactivate your account at any time by contacting us at the email address at the bottom of this page. However, you will not be able to access many of the services to deactivate your account. Please note that even if you request deactivation of your account, it may take some time to fulfill this request.

Responding to Requests. Please note that we may need to retain certain information for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transactions that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion. There may also be residual information that will remain within our databases and other records, which will not be removed. We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.

Additional information for certain jurisdictions. We are committed to respecting the privacy rights of individuals under all privacy laws applicable to us. Some privacy laws require that we provide specific information about individual rights to applicable consumers, which we have set forth at the end of this privacy notice:

Virginia: if you are a Virginia resident, you have certain rights, under Virginia privacy laws, regarding your personal information as set forth in Section 16.

EU/EEA: if you are in the European Union / European Economic Area, we provide further details about your rights under the GDPR in Section 17.

Other States with Consumer Data Privacy Laws: if you live in a state with consumer data protections, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”)), you may exercise those rights as described in Section 18.

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12. Children

The Services are not intended or directed to children under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect any personal information, or knowingly track the use of our Services, from children. If we have actual knowledge that personal information about a child under 18 years old has been collected, then we will take appropriate steps to delete any such personal information.

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13. Third-Party Websites

The Services may contain links to third-party services. We do not own, operate, or control the websites of third-parties, including those of independent franchisees. Therefore, this Policy will not apply to any services or websites operated by third-parties. If you click on those links, you will be directed to a third-party website where you will be subject to that service’s privacy policy or similar statement and terms of use, and we encourage you to read that policy statement. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party services, and we expressly disclaim any liability for their actions, including actions related to the use and disclosure of personal information by any such third parties.

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14. Effective Date and Changes to this Policy

This Privacy Policy is effective as of January 1, 2023.

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15. Contact Information

For questions and concerns about this Policy, our company can be reached at:

• Address: 3975 Fair Ridge Drive, 300S, Fairfax, Virginia 22033

• Email Address: privacy@longandfoster.com 

• Phone: Toll Free 1-888-536-0216

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