Splitwise™ Legal

We have a document like this so that you understand that, among other things, we are not offering you the website "as-is" without a warrantee, and that bills entered on this site are not legally binding contracts of some kind. Splitwise™ is currently in beta-testing, so some additional features, such as deleting your account and changing your email preferences, are not functional temporarily and some features of the website may not work exactly as planned. We may modify this document periodically as we launch new features, or as necessary, and post it here. It also includes our privacy policy, which is, in plain English:

Privacy policy highlights:

  • We won't spam you or give away your email address to other parties without your express permission (for exceptions, see below) .
  • We won't use information you provide to personally identify you unless we are contacting you for support purposes.
  • We will email you when we release new features, and when you have a notification generated by activity in your group. We plan to have an email preference page soon which will allow you to modify when these emails occur and to let you opt out.
  • We will allow you to completely delete your group at any time (and will not hold your data hostage, i.e, will try and provide a way for you to download it), but it may be retained in backups.
  • Transactions are only visible to the people involved with them on the shared groups you create. We will do our best to keep these private from all 3rd parties.
  • We will only track user behavior on an aggregate level - nothing that will be personally identifiable to you. For instance, we might be interested in the average rent of our users in Boston, and share this information, but we would not share how much you specifically pay for rent.
  • We may share your anonymous expense/location information to show you specific advertisements, or for in-organization analysis to improve our site. If you live outside the US, we will be storing data on our computers in the US and following US privacy laws.
  • If you provide information about your landlord, we may try to contact your landlord in the future to try and recruit them for a rent payment service.

Basic terms of use

  • Description: Splitwise™ (the Service) is a free service designed to help you split rent and other bills between roommates, by letting each roommate list shared expenses and payments and having the Service keep track of the sharing math. You agree that this service is provided AS-IS and on an AS AVAILABLE basis.
  • Informal debts: The website allows users who share an group to post debts and payments as they please. These are calculated into a determination of debts by the Service. You agree that you understand these debts are not legally binding, and represent informal information sharing among roommates. You agree that the Service cannot guarantee the accuracy of information entered by users.
  • Conditions of use: You agree that you will use the Service for its intended purpose, and in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations: local, state, and national, and international, as applicable. You agree not to use the service in a fraudulent, disruptive, aggressive, manipulative, or inappropriate matter. Split The Rent reserves the right, but has no obligation, to investigate your use of the service for compliance with appropriate use and terminate your access to the Service, or in order to comply with law, regulation, legal process or government request.
  • What you represent: You agree to represent yourself honestly, that all of the information you provide is true, correct, and current, to the best of your knowledge, and that you have the necessary rights, power, authority, and age to agree to these Terms and to perform the acts required of you by the agreement.
  • No warranty: Split The Rent does not represent that the Service is error-free, complete, or can be relied upon. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ìAS ISî AND ìAS AVAILABLEî WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND AND YOU ARE USING THE SERVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK. SPLIT THE RENT DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, REGARDING THE SERVICE, INCLUDING WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
  • Termination and Refusal of Service: Your access to the Service may be terminated at any time, for any reason, at Split The Rent's discretion.
  • Privacy and Security: The Service is for your personal use only. Personal information provided to the site may be stored on computers in the United States and in any place Split The Rent operates. You agree that Split The Rent may disclose personal information provided to us, including content of emails, messages, and data entered into the site, if required to by law or government request such as a warrant, or as specified in the Privacy Policy contained below. You must be 13 years or older to use this service. You are responsible for preventing unauthorized access to your account.
  • No Liability: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL JONATHAN BITTNER, RYAN LAUGHLIN, OR SPLITWISE.COM BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES (INCLUDING EMOTIONAL DISTRESS) ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL SPLITWISE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY AMOUNT FOR SERVICES RENDERED PERSUANT TO THIS AGREEMENT.
  • Indemnification: You agree to hold Splitwise™, its employees, agents, and representatives, as harmless and indemnify Splitwise™, Ryan Laughlin, and Jonathan Bittner, from any third party claim arising from or in any way related to your use of the Service, including liability or expense arising from all claims, losses, damages (actual and consequential), suits, judgments, litigation costs, and attorneyís fees, of every kind and nature.
  • Modifications to the Agreement: You agree that Splitwise™ may modify this agreement at any time, effective immediately, by posting a new agreement. You agree that even if you have not personally visited the website with the new terms of this agreement, that they may have force immediately.
  • Severability: If any part of this agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the provision shall be deemed to be superseded by a valid enforceable provision in its place that closely matches the intent of the original agreement, and all other parts of the agreement shall be enforced.
  • Exercise: You agree that the failure of Splitwise™ to exercise or enforce any part of this agreement and terms does not constitute a waiver of the rights of provisions of this agreement.
  • Jurisdiction: You agree that this agreement shall be interpreted according to the laws of the State of Massachusetts.
  • Entire agreement: These Terms comprise the entire agreement between you and Splitwise™ with respect to the above subject matter.

Privacy Policy Details

Splitwise™ provides this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of www.splitwise.com (the "Site"). This Privacy Policy applies only to information that you provide to us through this Site. This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on the Site at this location. You are advised to consult this policy regularly for any changes as it will change as we add new content and features. Unless otherwise defined in this Privacy Policy, terms used in this Privacy Policy have the same meanings as in our Terms of Service (http://www.splitwise.com/terms).

As used in this policy, the terms "using" and "processing" information include using cookies on a computer, subjecting the information to statistical or other analysis and using or handling information in any way, including, but not limited to collecting, storing, evaluating, modifying, deleting, using, combining, disclosing and transferring information within our organization or among our affiliates within the United States or internationally.

I. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFER

YOUR INFORMATION MAY BE TRANSFERRED TO AND MAINTAINED ON COMPUTERS LOCATED OUTSIDE OF YOUR STATE, PROVINCE, COUNTRY OR OTHER GOVERNMENTAL JURISDICTION WHERE THE PRIVACY LAWS MAY NOT BE AS PROTECTIVE AS THOSE IN YOUR JURISDICTION. IF YOU ARE LOCATED OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES AND CHOOSE TO PROVIDE INFORMATION TO US, Splitwise™ TRANSFERS PERSONAL INFORMATION TO THE UNITED STATES AND PROCESSES IT THERE. YOUR CONSENT TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY FOLLOWED BY YOUR SUBMISSION OF SUCH INFORMATION REPRESENTS YOUR AGREEMENT TO THAT TRANSFER.

II. Information Collection and Use

Our primary goal in collecting information is to improve our site by using aggregate statistics about our users. This allows us to develop new features, and increase value-to-the-user and our revenue by providing relevant advertisements and services, such as local ads or services that the users account shows that they don't have. We are not intending profile individual users.

IIa Personally Identifiable Information

When you register with Splitwise™, we will ask you for personally identifiable information. This refers to information about you that can be used to contact or identify you ("Identity Information"). Identity Information includes, but is not limited to, your name and email address, your housemates, your address, your IP address, your shared expenses, and your landlord's address, but does not include your credit card number or billing information. In the future, we may offer premium services for payment, in which case we may also ask for your credit card number and billing information ("Billing Information") (Identity Information and Billing Information together, "Personal Information"). We use your Personal Information mainly to provide the Services and administer your inquiries.

We also collect the other information that you provide as part of Site's product, and the registration and the administration and personalization of your profile webpage (e.g., without limitation, expenses, friend's emails, gender, age, individual preferences or demographic information) ("Non-Identifying Information").

We may combine your Personal Information with Non-Identifying Information and aggregate it with information collected from other Splitwise™ Users (defined below) to attempt to provide you with better Services, to their value, and to analyze how our Site and Services are used. We may also use the combined information without aggregating it to serve you specifically, for instance to deliver a product to you according to your preferences or restrictions.

We may also use your Personal Information to contact you with Splitwise™ newsletters, and updates via email as specified in your notification settings. If you decide (at any time) that you no longer want to receive these emails from us, please update your notifications settings in the user settings or contact support@splitwise.com. Please note that we may also use your Personal Information to contact you with information related to your account and your use of our Services; you may not opt out of these notifications.

II.b Logs

When you visit the site, whether as an Splitwise™ user or a non-registered user just browsing (all referred to as "Splitwise™ User"), our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website ("Log Data"). This Log Data may include information such as your computer's Internet Protocol ("IP") address, browser type or the webpage you were visiting before you came to our Site, pages of our Site that you visit, the time spent on those pages, information you search for on our Site, access times and dates, data you enter into information fields, and other statistics. We use this information to improve our service, monitor and analyze use of the Site and the Services and for the Site's technical administration, to increase our Site's functionality and user-friendliness, and to better tailor it to our visitors' needs. We also use this information to verify that visitors to the Site meet the criteria required to process their requests. We do not treat Log Data as Personal Information or use it in association with other Personal Information, though we may aggregate, analyze and evaluate such information for the same purposes as stated above regarding other Non-Identifying Information.

II.c Phishing

Identity theft and the practice currently known as "phishing" are of great concern to Splitwise™. Safeguarding information to help protect you from identity theft is a top priority. We do not and will not, at any time, request your credit card information, your account ID, login password, or national identification numbers in a non-secure or unsolicited e-mail or telephone communication. For more information about phishing, visit the Federal Trade Commission's website at http://www.ftc.gov.

II.d Cookies

Like many websites, we use "cookies" to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that we transfer to your computer's hard disk for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies for two purposes. First, we utilize persistent cookies to save your registration ID and login password for future logins to the Site. Second, we utilize session ID cookies to enable certain features of the Site, to better understand how you interact with the Site and to monitor aggregate usage by Splitwise™ Users and web traffic routing on the Site. Unlike persistent cookies, session cookies are deleted from your computer when you log off from the Site and Services and then close your browser. Third party service providers used on the Site (such as Google for maps and charts) may also place or read cookies on your browser. You can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all portions of the Site or all functionality of the Services.

III. Information Sharing and Disclosure

III.a Overview

Splitwise™ is designed to enable users to share expenses with friends and keep track of private repayment agreements for rent, utilities/bills, and shared incidental expenses. These sharing platforms (referred to as "Groups") are private, and information and expenses posted in an Group is only visible to other members of the group. However, any user in that Group my add additional members to the Group, so it is the joint and sole responsibility of Group members to safeguard who they invite into their Group sharing platform.

WE WILL NOT GIVE, SELL, RENT, SHARE, OR TRADE ANY OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION TO ANY THIRD PARTY EXCEPT AS OUTLINED IN THIS POLICY OR WITH YOUR CONSENT.

III.b Splitwise™ shares information with your Housemates

When you register through the Site and submit your Personal Information to create an Group, invited or added email addresses ("Housemates") will see your email address, username, a name for the group, and bills and expenses you add ("Required Member Identifiers"). You can choose what other Personal Information you provide as part of your Group profile ("Other Member Information") (together, your "Profile Information") and to whom this additional information will be visible. We will display your Profile Information to your Housemates and anyone your Housemates add to the Group. We recommend that you guard your anonymity and sensitive information and we encourage members to think carefully about what information about themselves they disclose in their profile pages.

III.c We aggregate Non-Identifying Information

We may share aggregated information that does not include Personal Information and we may otherwise disclose Non-Identifying Information and Log Data with third parties for industry analysis, demographic profiling, blog posts analyzing sharing patterns, and other purposes. Any aggregated information shared in these contexts will not contain your Personal Information.

III.d We comply with laws and Law Enforcement

Splitwise™ cooperates with government and law enforcement officials and private parties to enforce and comply with the law. We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process (including but not limited to subpoenas), to protect the property and rights of Splitwise™ or a third party, to protect the safety of the public or any person, or to prevent or stop activity we may consider to be, or to pose a risk of being, any illegal, unethical or legally actionable activity.

III.e Third parties

We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Services, to provide the Services on our behalf, to perform Site-related services (e.g., without limitation, maintenance services, database management, web analytics and improvement of the Site's features) or to assist us in analyzing how our Site and Services are used. These third parties may have access to your Personal Information; if they do, this access is only so that they may perform these tasks on our behalf and they are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

III.f Business Transfers

Splitwise™ may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy.

IV. Changing/Deleting Your Information

All Members may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information in their registration profile by contacting us at support@splitwise.com or editing the relevant part of their profile. If you would like us to delete your record in our system, please contact us and we will attempt to accommodate your request if we do not have any legal obligation to retain the record. See below for privacy contact information.

V. Security

Splitwise™ is very focused on keeping your information safe. We employ administrative, physical and electronic measures designed to protect your information from unauthorized access.

We will make any legally required disclosures of any breach of the security, confidentiality, or integrity of your unencrypted electronically stored "personal data" (as defined in applicable state statutes on security breach notification) to you via email or conspicuous posting on this Site in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, insofar as consistent with (i) the legitimate needs of law enforcement or (ii) any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.

VI. Links to Other Sites

Our Site contains links to other websites. If you choose to follow a third party link, you will be directed to that third party's website. The fact that we link to a website is not an endorsement, authorization or representation of our affiliation with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. We do not exercise control over third party websites. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. Other sites follow different rules regarding the use or disclosure of the personal information you submit to them. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the other websites you visit.

VII. Children

This Site is not directed to children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with Personal Information without their consent, he or she should contact us at support@splitwise.com. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information from our files.

VIII. Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@splitwise.com.