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dharmaMatch Privacy Policy

We have created this privacy policy to demonstrate our commitment to protecting your personal information and informing you about how we handle it. This privacy policy only applies to transactions and activities in which you engage, and data gathered, on the dharmaMatch dating platform and double-blind communications between dharmaMatch members (collectively, the "Site"). It does not apply to any other platform or offline point of contact between dharmaMatch members, or any other company and its consumers.

Please review this privacy policy periodically as we may make minor adjustments from time to time. In compliance with privacy laws, you will be emailed about major changes to this privacy policy. This privacy policy was last revised on 2025-04-10. Each time you visit the Site or provide us with information, by doing so you are accepting the practices described in this privacy policy at that time.

Your IP Address

Like most e-commerce websites, each time you visit the Site we collect your IP address and the web page from which you came.

For the safety of our members, we look for the location stated in your dharmaMatch profile to be accurate. We compare the geo-location of your IP address with the location stated in your dharmaMatch profile. If we find they are not close to one another, we reserve the right to print a warning next to your profile location to alert those browsing your profile of this discrepency.

We reserve the right to ban your IP from our site without warning if we find your profile is fraudulent or you otherwise pose a threat to our community.

Information We Collect From You

In order to operate the Site and to provide you with information about products or services that may be of interest to you, we may collect the following:

  1. Personal Information

    2. Information that can be used to contact you directly without using the Site, such as email, full legal name, or cell phone number.

  2. Copy Of Government Issued ID and Selfie

    3. Some users will be asked to verify their identity by submitting photos of their government-issued ID and a matching selfie. Stripe currently provides this identity verification service for dharmaMatch. Users can request this identity verification data be deleted from Stripe when they terminate their dharmaMatch account by emailing stripe_data_deletions@dharmamatch.com or requesting it via our Contact Us form. This identity verification session data held by Stripe will not be deleted by default when dharmaMatch deletes its data about the user; it needs to requested separately. If no request to delete identity verification session data is received, data from an identity verification session will remain on Stripe systems for 3 years.

  3. Financial Information

    4. Information necessary to process subscription payments, such as credit card information and billing address.

  4. Demographic Information

    5. Information that you submit, or that we collect, that is neither personal nor financial in nature; this may include, but is not limited to: zip/postal code, hometown, gender, screen name, age/birth date, purchase history, browsing history, search history, registration history, and the content of communications between you and other members on the Site.

    Demographic information is divided into two categories:

    1) Non-public information

    Any information not exposed or descernible from a user's dharmaMatch profile page (e.g. zip/postal code, purchase history, one-on-one communication between you and other members of the Site).

    2) Public information

    All other demographic information that appears on your dharmaMatch profile page.

    We ask that you do not list personal or financial information on your profile page (for example, don't use your address or password as your screen name), because if you do, it may be publicly exposed on the Site, and the information will then be treated as "demographic information" that is "public information."

Please note that nowhere on the Site do we knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 18, as we require that all users represent to us that they are at least 18 years old.

You may not include in your Member profile any direct personal contact information such as telephone numbers, street addresses, URLs, email addresses, social media profile names, or instant messenger handles. If this type of contact information is found in your profile, it will be removed by our staff.

Personally identifiable Information (PII)

We commit to keeping any personally identifiable information collected during registration private and secure; as an example, the fields below are only used to help us verify identity or perform double-blind matchmaking. Some of this information is required to register on our platform, other fields may be optional, depending on location.

  • (Legal) First Name
  • (Legal) Last Name
  • Email
  • Date Of Birth
  • Zip/Postal Code

No matter the profile privacy level selected, the fields listed above will never be shown on profile pages.

Special Categories of Personal Data

We process personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, bio-metric data, religious or philosophical beliefs only if provided by a user. These are optional, not required, fields in a dharmaMatch profile.

Information Other Websites Collect From You

On the Site we may place links to other websites operated by other parties (e.g. a link to our payment processor). Some of these other websites contain our brand names and trademarks and other intellectual property that we own, others may not. When you click on these links and visit these other websites, regardless of whether or not they contain our brand names, trademarks and other intellectual property, please be aware that we do not control these other websites or these other websites' business practices, and that this privacy policy does not apply to these other websites. The operators of these other websites may collect different kinds of information about you, and may use and disclose that information in different ways than we do. We encourage you to review their privacy policies to know how your information will be handled by them.

Here are links to the privacy policies of the sites we currently have a relationship with:

How We Use Personal Information

We use your email address and other contact information to help us efficiently operate the Site; to contact you in connection with your transactions and other activities on the Site (including, but not limited to, confirmation emails or important updates that could affect your relationship with dharmaMatch) and to alert you of new smiles or messages from other dharmaMatch members. You have the option to turn off email notification of new smiles and messages. These types of communications, are known as "Operational Communications."

If you opted-in during registration, we also use contact information to send you newsletters, information, offers, and other promotional materials for dharmaMatch's or third parties' goods or services. We attempt to send you offers that are of value to you, such as discounts, exclusive offers or special event information. To stop receiving such emails, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email or go to the "Accounts Settings" page in the Member Area and deselect the communications that you do not wish to receive.

To operate the Site, including processing your transactions and supporting your activities on the Site, we may share information about you with our agents, representatives, contractors, and service providers so they can provide us with support services such as authorization of credit card transactions, email origination receipt or support services, customer relationship management services, order fulfillment, and sweepstakes and promotional fulfillment. We only share the minimum necessary for the third-party to perform their task and get their agreement up front in writing that they will not use the information we provide them for any other purpose.

By purchasing, registering, or making reservations for products or services offered or sponsored by third parties on the Site, or electing to receive communications (such as emails or magazine subscriptions) or electing to participate in contests, sweepstakes, or other programs (such as discount or rewards programs), offered or sponsored by third parties on the Site, you consent to our providing the minimal customer information necessary to those third parties in order to provide these services. To understand how your information is being used, a link to the company's privacy policy will be present with the offer. Those third parties will use your personal information in accordance with their own privacy policies, not ours here.

In some cases, we may enter into a promotional relationship with another company in which we prominently display their brand name or trademarks on pages of the Site. These pages are known as "Co-Branded Pages" and these companies are known as "Co-Branded Companies." If the page on which you submit information is a Co-Branded Page, or was accessed by clicking on a link on a Co-Branded Page, then minimal customer information will be shared with the Co-Branded Company. Co-Branded Companies will use your information in accordance with their own privacy policies, not ours here. A link to the Co-Branded Company's privacy policy will be available at time of offer.

Any third party with whom we are allowed to share your information with is authorized to share & use your information in accordance with our contractual arrangements and may share your information with third parties of their own, in accordance with their own privacy policies - over which we have no control. You agree to not hold dharmaMatch responsible or liable for any action or non-disclosure of a such a downstream third-party. We will link to the current privacy policies of third-party companies we have relationships with on this page.

Please read the information below under the heading "Special Cases in Which We Share Personal and Financial Information" to learn about other times we may share your information and to what extent.

How We Use Financial Information

We use your financial information to check your qualifications, to bill you for products and services and to enable you to participate in discount, rebate and similar programs in which you may elect to participate. By making a purchase, or engaging in any other kind of activity or transaction that uses financial information, on the Site, you consent to our providing your financial information to our service providers and to such third parties as we determine are necessary to support and process your activities and transactions, as well as to your credit card issuer for their purposes. These third parties may include the credit card companies and banking institutions used to process and support the transaction or activity. By purchasing, or registering or making reservations for, products or services of third parties offered on the Site, or by participating in programs offered on the Site that are administered by third parties and that require you to submit financial information in order to use them, you also consent to our providing your financial information to those third parties. Additionally, if the page on which you submit information is a Co-Branded Page, or was accessed by clicking on a link on a Co-Branded Page, then we may share your financial information with the associated Co-Branded Company. Any of these various third parties (including Co-Branded Companies) may be authorized to use your financial information in accordance with our contractual arrangements with such third parties and in accordance with their own privacy policies, over which we have no control, and you agree that we are not responsible or liable for any of their actions or omissions. Additionally, you agree that we may use and disclose all such information so submitted to such third parties in the same manner in which we are entitled to use and disclose any other information that you submit to us. Please read the information below under the heading "Special Cases in Which We Share Personal and Financial Information" to learn more ways in which we may share your financial information.

Special Cases in Which We Share Personal and Financial Information

Your personal information or financial information may be passed on to a third party in the event of a transfer of ownership or assets, or a bankruptcy. We may also disclose personal information or financial information when we determine that such disclosure is necessary to comply with applicable law, to cooperate with law enforcement or to protect the interests or safety of dharmaMatch or other visitors to the Site. We also may disclose your personal information or financial information to our subsidiary and parent companies and businesses, and other affiliated legal entities and businesses with whom we are under common corporate control. Whenever personal information or financial information is disclosed under this paragraph, we may also disclose your demographic information along with it, on a non-anonymous basis. All of our parent, subsidiary and affiliated legal entities and businesses that receive your personal information, financial information, or non-anonymous demographic information from us will comply with the terms of this privacy policy with respect to their use and disclosure of such information.

How We Use Public Information and Other Demographic Information

We may review all demographic information. We may use public information to enable other users to find your profile, to determine whether they are a match for you and to communicate with you. We may use demographic information to tailor the Site and communications to your interests. We may also share demographic information with advertisers on an anonymous and aggregated basis (i.e., without telling the advertisers your identity). One of the reasons we may do this is to increase the likelihood that our advertisers' goods and services will appeal to dharmaMatch's users, so that we may target specific ads at specific demographic groups. Our sharing of demographic information with advertisers is anonymous (i.e., we do not tell advertisers which particular dharmaMatch users are members of which demographic groups), subject to the rest of this privacy policy. When you respond to an advertisement, however, we ask you to remember that if that ad that is targeted to a demographic group and you decide to give the advertiser your personal information, then the advertiser may be able to identify you as being a member of that demographic group. Please also be aware that when we disclose your financial information or personal information to a Co-Branded Company, as described above, we may also disclose to that Co-Branded Company your demographic information, other than the content of one-on-one communications between you and other members. Please also be aware that we may disclose your demographic information on a non-anonymous basis as described above in the paragraph titled "Special Cases in Which We Share Personal and Financial Information." Also, to read further details about how we may use your public information, see our Terms of Use.

Cookies

Like most websites, our dating Site uses cookies to keep track of your logged-in state and other activity on the Site, as well as to enhance your experience on the Site. If you wish to disable these cookies, the "help" portion of the toolbar on most browsers will tell you how. However, if you set your browser to disable cookies, you may not be able to access certain areas on the Site.

We may use cookies for the following reasons and purposes:

  1. To provide the service you have asked for. Some cookies are essential so you can navigate through the website and use its features. Without these cookies, we would not be able to provide the services you've requested. For example, some cookies allow us to identify subscribers and ensure they can access the subscription-only pages. If a subscriber opts to disable these cookies, the user will not be able to access all of the content that a subscription entitles them to. These cookies don't gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering where you've been on the Internet. Essential cookies keep you logged in during your visit.

  2. To improve your browsing experience. These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make, such as your language or region, and provide improved features. These cookies remember your preferences and settings, including marketing preferences, remembering if you've filled in certain forms, so you're not asked to do it again. We might also use these cookies to highlight Site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.

Children's Privacy

Our Site is not directed to children under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect any personal information about children under the age of 18. If we obtain actual knowledge that we have collected personal information about a child under the age of 18, that information will be promptly deleted from our database, unless it is necessary to retain it for legal purposes.

If a parent believes that his or her child has submitted personal information to us, he or she can contact us via email. We will promptly delete the information upon learning that it relates to a child under the age of 18. Please note that it is possible some of this information may remain archived in web logs and back-up archives after we delete the information from our active database.

Your California Privacy Rights

We will not share any personal data with third-parties for their direct marketing purposes to the extent prohibited by California law. If our practices change, we will do so in accordance with applicable laws and will notify you in advance. California law requires that operators of online services disclose how they respond to a Do Not Track signal. When sent the Do Not Track signal we will not include 3rd-party tracking (e.g. Google Analytics, Facebook Pixel) on the page. We currently have zero 3rd-party tracking on our dating app site, regardless if the Do Not Track signal is sent or not.

EU Users' Rights

This section of our Privacy Policy applies to the users of our platform in the EU. We would like to inform you about your EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) rights and how we safeguard them.

  1. Your GDPR rights to be informed, to access, rectify, erase, or restrict the processing of your personal information. You have the right to receive free information about what personal data we have obtained about you, where it is stored, for how long, for what purposes it is used, to whom it was disclosed. You have the right to require that we, without undue delay, rectify of inaccurate personal data concerning you. That means you can request we change your personal data in our records, or have you incomplete personal data completed. You have the "right to be forgotten," i.e. to have us delete your personal information, without undue delay, if the data is no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which it was collected. However, GDPR gives us the right to refuse erasure if we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for keeping your information.

  2. GDPR gives you the right to restrict processing if any of the following applies:

    1. If you contest the accuracy of your personal data, we will restrict processing it for a period enabling us to verify its accuracy.

    2. The processing is unlawful and you oppose its erasure and request instead the restriction of its use.

    3. We no longer need your personal data for the purposes of the processing, but you require us to restrict processing for the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims.

    4. You have objected to processing pursuant to Article 21(1) of the GDPR pending the verification whether our legitimate grounds override yours.

  3. Right to data portability. Upon request, we will provide you your personal data in our possession, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. You have the right to transmit that data to another controller if doing so does not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

  4. Right to object. You can object, on grounds relating your particular situation, at any time, to processing of your personal information, if based on point (e) or (f) of Article 6(1) of the GDPR. We will then have to stop processing, unless we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing. If you object to the processing for direct marketing purposes, we will have to stop processing for these purposes.

  5. Right to withdraw consent. GDPR grants you the right to withdraw your earlier given consent, if any, to processing of your personal data at any time.

  6. Rights related to automated decision making. As a responsible business, we do not rely on any automated decision making, such as profiling.

Data Retention

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active, or for as long as we need it to fulfill the purposes for which we have initially collected it, unless otherwise permitted or required by law. We will retain and use information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our rights. We will cease to retain your personal data, or remove the means by which the data can be associated with you, as soon as it is reasonable to assume that such retention no longer serves the purpose for which the personal data was collected, and is no longer necessary for legal or business purposes.

Our Security Precautions

The Site has security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Our secure server software (SSL) is the industry standard and among the best software available today for secure commerce transactions. We encrypt all of your personal and financial information as it travels over the Internet and we store your financial information on our servers in encrypted form. Your information may be transferred to and maintained on computer networks which may be located outside of the state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction in which you reside, and the country or jurisdiction in which these computer networks are located may not have privacy laws as protective as the laws in your country or jurisdiction.

Changing Our Privacy Policy for Previously Gathered Information

If at any point we decide to use particular personally identifiable information in a manner different from that stated at the time it was collected, we will notify users by way of an email or by providing 30 days notice on the Site. Please note that we will continue to have the right to change our privacy policy and practices, and how we use your personally identifiable information, without notice, as described in the first paragraph of this Privacy Policy, provided that such changes shall only apply to information gathered on or after the date of the change.

How You Can Access and Update Your Email Preferences, Personal Information and Public Information

We give you the opportunity to opt-out of certain communications and modify personal information or demographic information you have provided to us, and to hide demographic information from, or make demographic information visible to, the public users of the Site, at anytime by going to the Account Settings or My Profile section of the Site. Please be aware that it may take several hours for the changes you make to take effect on the public areas of the Site. We thank you for your patience. Please note that changing or deleting your information through the "Account Settings" or "My Profile" section of the Site, or otherwise opting-out of receipt of email communications from dharmaMatch, will only change or delete the data in our database for purposes of future activities on the Site and for managing future communications from dharmaMatch. These changes and deletions will not change or delete emails or information that we may have already forwarded to other users or credit card companies or any other third parties, all as provided above in this privacy policy.

If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, the practices of the Site, or your dealings with the Site, please contact us at:

dharmaMatch
2912 Diamond Street #135
San Francisco, CA 94131

Or fill out our contact us form.

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