Privacy Policy

Last Updated: June 03, 2024

This privacy policy (as amended from time to time, this “Privacy Policy”) governs how ModCore Inc., doing business as Essential™, and our parent, subsidiary, and affiliate companies (collectively, “Essential”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) use Personal Information (defined below) that we collect, receive, and store about each visitor and user (each, a “User,” and specifically you, “you” or “your”) of our owned and operated website, http://essential.gg/, and of our other affiliated websites, subdomains, mobile versions, applications (including mobile applications), and online media under our operation and control, as well as all backup, mirror, replacement, or substitute websites or webpages we make available as part of the services we provide, and the download, purchase, license, rental, and use of Essential’s products and services thereon, including, without limitation, Essential’s modifications to the Minecraft® game (each, a “Mod”), digital coin currency (collectively, “Coins”) used to redeem certain digital goods for use in the Minecraft® game (each, a “Digital Good”) through Essential’s in-game marketplace functionality (the “Store”), and subscription services (each, a “Subscription Service”) (collectively, the “Service”).

Your privacy is very important to Essential, and in order to best protect your information, Essential has adopted this Privacy Policy, which applies to any and all information you submit to Essential in connection with your access to and/or use of the Service. This Privacy Policy describes the information Essential collects from you through the Service, how Essential uses that information, and its legal basis for doing so. It also covers whether and how that information may be shared and your rights and choices regarding the information you provide to Essential. It also covers whether and how that information may be shared and your rights and choices regarding such information.

By using the Service, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Policy (including new versions of this Privacy Policy when and as they go into effect), and Essential’s Terms and Conditions of Use (the “Terms of Use”), which are available at http://essential.gg/terms and govern this Privacy Policy and contains all disclaimers of warranties and limitation of liabilities, and which constitutes a legally binding agreement between Essential and each individual, corporation, limited liability company, partnership, association, or other entity or party (a “Person”) that visits or uses the Service (collectively, “Users,” and each, a “User”, “you” or “your”).

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully prior to your use of, or creation of a registered User account (an “Account”) on, the Service. If you do not agree to abide by this Privacy Policy, please do not use the Service or create an Account.

1. Information We Collect and Receive

In order for us to (i) provide you with the services and functionalities offered via the Service, (ii) engage in troubleshooting activities, and (iii) improve upon the Service’s performance, safety, and security, Essential may collect and process some or all of the following types of information about you:

• Personal Information. Essential collects certain information that could be directly associated with a User, or used to contact or identify a User, without the aid of additional information (“Personal Information”) that you provide when using the Service, including:
  • When a User creates an Account, such User’s Essential username/password, email address, and player profile (i.e., Minecraft Unique User Identifier (“Minecraft UUID”)). While we do not actively monitor the interactions between Users of the Service and are under no obligation to do so, we may in certain cases collect information related to your interactions and communications with other Users of the Service, including, without limitation, Minecraft UUID of sender and participants, the message contents, time of message transmission, and identifier of group the message was sent in.
  • Information about your form of payment (i.e., credit card, payment card, Gift Certificate (as defined in the Terms of Use), or other payment method and the expiration date and security/CVV code, if applicable), the billing address associated with such form of payment, and other information relevant to your purchase of Coins or a Subscription Service through the Service (collectively, “Transaction Information”).
• Usage Information. Information that is not Personal Information, but that relates to your usage of the Service or that is necessary for the proper functioning or improvement of the Service, including: (i) times and dates and the extent of your usage of the Service; (ii) time zone, language, screen resolution, and other usage preferences you select when using the Service; (iii) device keyboard settings; (iv) items purchased through the Store, configurations made to these items, Minecraft version, Mod loader version, identifier, and version of Minecraft modifications running concurrently to Essential; (v) usage history such as areas and pages within the Service that you access or use and/or which buttons in the Service you click on; (vi) search terms you type in on the Service; (vii) the URL or advertisement that may have referred you to the Service; (viii) the search terms you entered into a search engine or app store that may have led you to the Service; (viii) the mobile platform or service provider you use, and (ix) other device and Service access information such as your browser type, operating system, IP address, referring/exit pages, and other unique device identifiers, as well as your push notification token.
• Behavioral Information. Your contact or subscriber information, which we link with your activity on the Service across all your devices using your email or Minecraft UUID details, related Users based on your Service behavior, and opt-ins and communication preferences.
• Metadata. When you submit, upload, post, or transmit content, information, or other materials in or through the Service (“User Content”), you automatically upload certain metadata that is connected to the User Content. Metadata describes other data and provides information about your User Content that will not always be evident to the applicable viewer. In connection with your User Content, the metadata can describe how, when, and by whom the piece of User Content was collected and how that User Content is formatted. It further includes certain Personal Information, such as your account name and Minecraft UUID, that enables other Users to trace back the User Content to your Account. Metadata will further consist of additional Personal Information that you chose to provide.
• Third-Party Information. Information about you that we may receive from third-party Persons. For example, we may supplement certain information that we collect from you with outside records.
• Customer Support. We collect information that you provide to us, including any Personal Information, when you contact us for customer support purposes.

While certain types of information described above, such as Usage Information and Third-Party Information, are generally non-identifying on a standalone basis, we may in certain instances combine this information with other information collected on the Service as described above. If we ever combine non-identifying information with Personal Information or other information that enables you to be identified, we will treat such combined information as Personal Information. We do not currently use your Personal Information for automated decision making which produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you.

2. European Union Users

European Union data protection law requires a “lawful basis” for collecting and retaining Personal Information from citizens or residents of the European Economic Areas (the “EEA”). Our lawful basis for collecting such information about you is permitted under Article 6, Sections 1(a), 1(b), 1(c) and 1(f) of the EU general data protection regulation 2016/679 (as amended from time to time, “GDPR”), which are summarized below.

• Consent: In certain cases, you have affirmatively provided us with your consent to collect your Personal Information for a specific purpose, such as providing your email address when you create your Account or making certain User Content publicly available on the Service.
• Contract: We may need your Personal Information to comply with our contractual obligation to deliver the Service, such as fulfilling a Subscription Service or other transactional services.
• Legal Obligations: Sometimes the law requires us to collect and use your Personal Information, such as applicable tax laws that may require us to retain records of payments made through the Service (including through the Store).
• Legitimate Interests: This is a technical term that means we have a good and fair reason to use your Personal Information and we do so in ways which do not harm your interests and rights, such as to pursue our legitimate interests in a way that might reasonably be expected as part of running our business and that does not materially impact your rights, freedom, or interests. For example, we (i) use identity, device, and location information to prevent abuse of the Service by Users and to keep the Service secure, (ii) may also send you promotional communications about our Service and other services subject to your right to opt-out, and (iii) analyze how Users interact with our Service or other Users (although we are not obligated to do so) so we can understand better what elements do or do not work well, what services/functionalities may be necessary or desirable to provide you with the best User experience on the Service, and to ensure the safety and security of the Service, which allows us to improve and develop the quality of the online experience we offer all our Users.

3. Use of Information We Collect

We may use the information we collect about/from you to:

• Identify you and potentially improve and/or customize the Service, including products and services offered thereon;
• Process your transactions through the Service, including, without limitation, your purchase of a Subscription Service, Coins, or Digital Goods;
• Send you administrative notices or Account notifications;
• Send you requested Service information;
• Address inquiries and respond to customer service requests, questions, and comments;
• Administer your Account and manage your Account profile information;
• Send you newsletters and emails;
• Contact you with offers, promotions, and other product specials;
• Send you more relevant marketing communications and general Service information/updates;
• Create a more personalized User experience and customize certain content you see on the Service;
• Identify trends, conduct data analysis and determine the effectiveness of our marketing and promotions and other service offerings;
• Improve your User experience and increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the Service and functionality offerings;
• Maintain security;
• Enforce our Terms of Use and applicable law;
• Analyze Service usage and other trend data;
• Solicit feedback, reviews, and other information regarding your experience with the Service, including, without limitation, with respect to certain features and functionalities that you would like to see on the Service, or that we have recently rolled out onto the Service;
• Test new features, service offerings, and functionalities on the Service; or
• Other purposes that we believe are necessary to protect our rights and the rights of other Persons, or as otherwise described to you at the time of collection.

We may also use certain collected information on an aggregated and/or anonymized basis to conduct market research, engage in project planning, troubleshoot issues, or help detect and protect against error, fraud, or other criminal activity.

4. Email Notifications and Opt-Out

Essential maintains a strict “no-spam” policy. Unless you requested otherwise in your account settings at the time of your initial registration or specifically opt-out as provided herein, by accepting the Terms of Use and this Privacy Policy, you expressly agree that we may use your information to contact you by email in order to deliver you information that is relevant to your use of the Service such as administrative notices, product/service enhancements or “newsletters”, or that, in some cases, is targeted to your interests, such as information about User Content or service/functionalities offerings that we believe you may be interested in learning more about. You may choose to stop receiving these email communications from us by following the instructions included in such communications or by contacting us at requests@essential.gg. If a third-party vendor provides such newsletters, you may unsubscribe in accordance with the instructions provided in such newsletters or by such a vendor. If you are having problems unsubscribing, please contact us at requests@essential.gg by forwarding the newsletter, if applicable, to requests@essential.gg and including in the Subject line the word “Unsubscribe,” and you will be removed within seven (7) business days. Please note that we will not process any unsubscribe requests submitted as direct replies to any newsletter.

5. Sharing Your Information

Information that May be Publicly Accessible

Certain Personal Information that you upload to the Service (such as certain Account profile information), certain User Content (such as that which you upload to and make public on the Service), and certain Service usage information, will automatically, or upon your selection, be made publicly available to other Users on the Service. Transaction Information will never be made publicly available to other Users on the Service. You acknowledge and agree that certain Account information (such as your Account profile name, Minecraft UUID, and/or User Content, etc.) that you provide in connection with (i) the registration of your Account and (ii) your general use of the Service, such as uploading User Content, will be publicly viewable by certain or all Users of the Service. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of the other Users who will view and use this information, so you should carefully consider whether to upload any User Content on the Service or how you identify yourself on the Service. You should not disclose your home address or the address of your place of business, or other locations you frequent on a regular basis in any User Content.

Information We May Share with Third Parties

We may share aggregated usage information and may otherwise disclose non-Personal Information that we collect to third-party Persons. However, absent your prior consent, we will share your Personal Information with third-party Persons only in the ways that are described in this Privacy Policy, including as set forth below, and we do not otherwise sell your Personal Information to third-party Persons.

• We may use third-party Persons to outsource one or more aspects of our business and/or Service operations (including, but not limited to, email or customer service functions, data processing, payment processing, web analytics, maintenance, online advertising, social media plug-in integrations, and security execution and clearing services), in which case, we may provide your Personal Information to such third-party Persons in connection with the performance of such activities. Such third-party Persons will only use your Personal Information to the extent necessary to perform their functions and will be contractually bound to process your Personal Information only on our behalf and in compliance with our requests.
• Essential offers for purchase Subscription Services as well as Coins redeemable through the Store for Digital Goods, and partners with certain third-party payment processors, namely Tebex Limited (“Tebex”), to facilitate those transactions, in which case the payment information you submit will be collected and used by such payment processor in accordance with their respective privacy policies (which, for Tebex, may be found at https://www.tebex.io/legal/privacy). Any third-party payment processor, including Tebex, may share information with Essential regarding transactions it processes, such as Transaction Information, in accordance with their respective privacy policies and/or other agreements with Essential.
• We also work with (or may in the future work with) analytics service providers, advertisers and ad agencies, and other vendors to provide them with information regarding traffic on the Service, including pages viewed, content interacted with, and actions taken by Users when visiting the Service; to serve advertisements on other websites, within mobile apps and elsewhere online; and to provide us with information regarding the use of the Service and the effectiveness of our advertisements and other marketing campaigns. Our service providers may collect certain information about your visits to, and activity on, the Service as well as other websites or services, they may set and access their own tracking technologies on your device (including cookies and web Beacons [as further explained under Sections 7 and 8, respectively]), and they may use that information to show you targeted advertisements. Some of these parties may collect Personal Information when you visit the Service or other online websites and services. We may also share certain non-Personal Information with these parties, in connection with the services they provide to us.
• In the event that we undergo reorganization, are sold to or merged with a third-party Person, or sell all or substantially all of our assets to a third-party Person, any Personal Information we hold about you may be transferred to that reorganized Person or third-party Person in compliance with applicable law.
• In the unlikely event of our bankruptcy, insolvency, reorganization, receivership, or assignment for the benefit of creditors, or the application of laws or equitable principles affecting creditors’ rights generally, we may not be able to control how your Personal Information is treated, transferred, or used.
• We may also share your information with any parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of our corporate group, only for the purposes set out above, to assist in the improvement and optimization of the Service, in order to prevent illegal uses, increase user numbers, development, engineering, and analysis of information or for our internal business purposes.
• In addition to the foregoing, we also reserve the right, and you hereby authorize us, to share or disclose (including, without limitation, to law enforcement agencies, public authorities, governmental departments, or other similar organizations) information we collect, including your Personal Information, and any other information, records, or electronic communications of any kind, when we determine (in our sole discretion), that the disclosure of such information is necessary to identify, contact, or bring legal action against you if:
  • You are or may be violating the Terms of Use or this Privacy Policy, or if otherwise necessary to enforce our Terms of Use or other policies governing the Service;
  • You are interfering with our or any third-party Person’s rights or property;
  • You are violating any applicable law, rule, or regulation;
  • Necessary or required by any applicable law, rule, or regulation, including a subpoena or similar legal process or request/order;
  • Necessary or required for purposes of public importance, to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of other Persons, investigate security, technical issues or fraud, or respond to a government request;
  • Requested by governmental authorities in the event of any investigation, act of terrorism, or instance of local, regional, or national emergency;
  • Necessary to support any audit, or to comply with similar corporate governance functions; and/or
  • Consented to by you.

6. Storage and Transfer of Information

• Information collected by Essential may be stored and processed in the United States or any other country in which we or our agents maintain facilities. By using the Service, you expressly consent to any such transfer and storage of information outside of your country of residence, where data protection laws may be different and/or less stringent. However, we will endeavor to take reasonable measures to keep up an adequate level of data protection also when sharing your Personal Information with such countries.
• Essential makes no representation or warranty with respect to any duty to permanently store any information you may provide or that we otherwise collect about you. We strive to keep our processing activities with respect to your Personal Information as limited as possible. In the absence of specific retention periods set out in this Privacy Policy, we will retain the information we collect from or about you only as long as necessary to provide you with the Service or our other services, which includes for the duration of, but could extend beyond, your active participation on the Service, or as otherwise set forth in this Privacy Policy, and to the extent set out in this Privacy Policy and as necessary to comply with our legal and/or statutory obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and protect our legal rights. Additionally, we may retain indefinitely any aggregated, anonymized, or pseudonymized information which we may collect and maintain and may, from time to time, transfer or merge your information collected off-line to our online databases or store off-line information in an electronic format. By using the Service and providing us with information (including Personal Information), you waive any claims that may arise under your own or any other local or national laws, rules, or regulations or international treaties. This Privacy Policy applies to your information for as long as your information is in our possession, even if you terminate or discontinue your use of the Service.
• With respect to any Personal Information that may be originally collected and stored in the EEA, if and when we transfer your Personal Information to countries outside the EEA, we will do so under the European Commission’s model contracts for the transfer of Personal Information to third countries (i.e., standard contractual clauses) pursuant to 2004/915/EC or 2010/87/EU (as appropriate) (collectively, the “Standard Contractual Clauses”). For a copy of these Standard Contractual Clauses, please contact us at requests@essential.gg.

7. Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Essential may use cookies, for example, to keep track of your preferences and Account profile information, or to engage in certain retargeting activities that we feel will better enhance your User experience and the efficiency and effectiveness of the Service and certain other services and functionalities offered thereon. Cookies are also used to collect general usage and volume statistical information that does not include Personal Information. We may also use another company or third-party service to place cookies on your computer to collect non-personally identifiable information to compile aggregated statistics for us about Users of the Service.

Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored as text files by your Internet browser on your computer’s hard drive. Most Internet browsers are initially set to accept cookies. You can set your browser to refuse cookies from websites or to remove cookies from your hard drive, but if you do so, you may not be able to access or use portions of the Service, or certain offerings on the Service may not function as intended or as well. Also, some browsers have “do not track” features that allow you to tell a website not to track you. These features are not all uniform. If you block cookies, certain features on the Service may not work. If you block or reject cookies, not all of the tracking described herein will stop. Please note that certain options you select are browser- and device-specific.

A more detailed list of the cookies we currently, or in the future may, use and how we use, or may use, them are as follows:

• Security: We secure the Service with cookies that facilitate security features and allow us to detect activity that might violate our rules and Terms of Use, such as unauthorized access or activity.
• Localization: We use some cookies to help us provide localized experiences, such as displaying the Service in the local language.
• Service Features: We use certain cookies to provide greater functionality to the Service and help us deliver our products and services.
• Performance: We use performance cookies to help us route traffic between servers and understand how the Service is performing so we can provide users with the best experience possible.
• Analytics and Research: We use certain cookies and other technologies to help us to understand, improve, and research features and content on the Service.
• Marketing and Online Behavioral Advertising: We may use cookies to help us deliver targeted advertisements through web browsers and on social media platforms based on your activity on the Service and to track the performance of those ads. In some cases, our partners may also use cookies to provide us with information about your interactions with their services, as applicable. Those third-party cookies would be subject to such third-party service’s privacy policies. The Self-Regulatory Program for Online Behavioral Advertising program provides consumers with the ability to opt-out of having their online behavior recorded and used for advertising purposes. Visit http://optout.aboutads.info/ to opt-out of having your online behavior collected for advertising purposes.

8. Web Beacons

The Service may contain electronic images known as web beacons (sometimes called single-pixel gifs) and are used along with cookies to compile aggregated statistics to analyze how the Service is used.

We use third-party Persons to gather information about how you and other Users use the Service. For example, we will know how many Users access a specific page and which User Content they clicked on. We use this aggregated information to understand and optimize how the Service is used.

9. Link to Third-Party Websites

The Service may include links to other websites, mobile applications, or services (“Third-Party Sites”), whose privacy practices may differ from those set forth herein. Such links are not an endorsement by Essential of those Third-Party Sites and/or the products or services they offer. If you visit Third-Party Sites or submit information, including Personal Information, to any of those Third-Party Sites, your visit is governed by, and the information, including Personal Information, is processed, stored, and handled in accordance with their privacy statements. We encourage you to carefully read the privacy statement of any Third-Party Site you visit, as it may differ substantially from that of this privacy statement. Essential makes no representations or warranties with respect to, nor is Essential responsible for the privacy policies of, any Third-Party Sites. If you decide to click on any such links or access any Third-Party Sites appearing on the Service, you do so at your own risk.

10. Your Rights

In certain circumstances you have the right to access the Personal Information that we collect/hold about you and to correct, update, or request deletion of your Personal Information. Prior to the fulfilment of your request concerning your Personal Information, we will ask you to verify your identity before we can act upon your request.

You have the following rights:

• The right to require free of charge (i) confirmation of whether we process your Personal Information and (ii) access to a copy of the Personal Information retained;
• The right to request proper rectification, removal, or restriction of your Personal Information;
• Where processing of your Personal Information is either based on your consent or necessary for the performance of a contract with you and processing is carried out by automated means, the right to receive the Personal Information concerning you in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format or to have your Personal Information transmitted directly to another company, where technically feasible (data portability);
• Where the processing of your Personal Information is based on your consent, the right to withdraw your consent at any time without impact to data processing activities that have taken place before such withdrawal or to any other existing legal justification of the processing activity in question;
• The right not to be subject to any automatic individual decisions which produces legal effects on you or similarly significantly affects you; and
• The right to take legal actions in relation to any breach of your rights regarding the processing of the Personal Information, as well as to lodge complaints before the competent data protection regulators.

As far as we process your Personal Information on the basis of our legitimate interests, you can object to processing at any time. You can find a detailed description of our processing activities and the legal basis in the sections above. If you object to such processing, we ask you to state the grounds of your objection in order for us to examine the processing of your Personal Information and decide whether to adjust the processing accordingly.

11. Do Not Track Requests

Please note that your browser setting may allow you to automatically transmit a “Do Not Track” signal to websites and online services you visit. There is no consensus among industry participants as to what “Do Not Track” means in this context. Like many websites and online services, we do not alter our practices when we receive a “Do Not Track” signal from a visitor’s browser. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

12. Security

The security of your information is important to us, and we take steps to ensure that your information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Information, for example, by encryption, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted through the Service; any transmission is at your own risk.

We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect your information, both during transmission and once we receive it, and to keep such information confidential (unless it is non-confidential by nature, for example, publicly-available information) and free from any unauthorized alteration. However, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, and the nature of security risks is constantly evolving, as are the technical and organizational industry standards relating to management of those risks. While we strive to keep current our security technology and will review, refine, and upgrade our security technology as we deem appropriate based on new tools that may become available in the future, the complete and absolute security of any information collected, stored, or used by us cannot therefore be guaranteed. In the unlikely event that an unauthorized third-party Person compromises our security measures, we will not be responsible for any damages directly or indirectly caused by an unauthorized third-party Person’s ability to view, use, or disseminate such information, including Personal Information. If you ever discover inaccuracies in our data or if your Personal Information changes, we urge you to notify us immediately.

If you have any questions about security on our Service, you can contact us at requests@essential.gg.

13. Information Relating to Children

Our Service is not directed to children under the age of thirteen (13), and we do not knowingly collect, use, or disclose Personal Information from (i) children under the age of thirteen (13) or (ii) children between the age of thirteen (13) and eighteen (18) (or any other applicable age required to be deemed to have reached the ages of majority under the applicable law of the state or jurisdiction of such child’s primary residence) that do not have parental or legal guardian consent to use the Service. If we ever discover that we have inadvertently collected Personal Information from children under the age of thirteen (13) on or through the Service, we will delete it from our records as soon as possible.

If you believe that we have Personal Information about, or have collected Personal Information from, (i) a child under the age of thirteen (13), or (ii) between the ages of thirteen (13) and eighteen (18) (or any other applicable age required to be deemed to have reached the age of majority under the applicable law of the state or jurisdiction of such child’s primary residence) without parental/legal guardian consent, or that such a person is using the Service, please see the Terms of Use for available remedies, including how to contact us to report the unauthorized use.

14. Sweepstakes, Contests, and Promotions

Essential may offer sweepstakes, contests, and other promotions through the Service (each, a “Promotion”) that may require registration. By participating in a Promotion, you are agreeing to the official rules that govern that Promotion, which may contain specific requirements of you, including, except where prohibited by law, allowing the sponsor(s) of the Promotion to use your name, Minecraft UUID, voice, likeness, or other indicia of persona in advertising or marketing associated with the Promotion. If you choose to enter a Promotion, your Personal Information may be disclosed to third-party Persons or the public in connection with the administration of such Promotion, including, without limitation, in connection with winner selection, prize fulfillment, and as required by law or permitted by the Promotion’s official rules, such as on a winner’s list.

15. Contacting Us

In the event that you wish to make a complaint or request concerning your Personal Information or our privacy practices, or have questions, concerns, or comments about this Privacy Policy, please contact us in the first instance at legal@essential.gg and we will endeavor to deal with your request as soon as possible. You can also write to us at ModCore Inc., Leopoldstr. 2-8, 32051 Herford, Germany, Attention: Essential Privacy Policy. This is without prejudice to your right to launch a claim with your data protection authority or follow the dispute process set forth in the Terms of Use.

16. Updates; Notification of Privacy Policy Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect changes to our information practices from time to time at our sole discretion. If we make any material changes to this Privacy Policy we will notify you by posting such changes on the Service prior to the change becoming effective. We will also update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this Privacy Policy, which reflects the effective date of such Privacy Policy. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy for the latest information on our privacy practices. Once a change becomes effective, your continued use of the Service and/or creation of an Account shall automatically constitute your acceptance of such changes.

17. Notice to Residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia

This section provides additional details about the Personal Information we may collect about Users residing in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia (each, a “Resident”) and the rights afforded to them, respectively, under California Civil Code Section 1798.83 and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020), the Colorado Privacy Act of 2021, the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act of 2022, the Utah Consumer Privacy Act 2022, and the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act of 2021 (collectively, as amended from time to time, “U.S. Data Privacy Laws”). Residents are entitled to additional privacy rights which are further described below. Residents who wish to request further information about our compliance with the above referenced statutes or who have questions more generally about our Privacy Policy or U.S. Data Privacy Laws and our privacy commitments to our Users should not hesitate to contact us in accordance with the procedures set forth below.

What Information We Collect

The “Information We Collect and Receive” section above details the limited types of Personal Information that Essential collects and has collected through the Service within the last twelve (12) months, including certain information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular Resident or his or her device.

Personal Information does not include:

• Information publicly available from government records;
• Deidentified or aggregated information from Residents; or
• Information excluded from the scope of U.S. Data Privacy Laws, including (i) health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data and (ii) information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

How We Use Personal Information

We collect Personal Information for the business and commercial purposes described in the “Use of Information We Collect” section above.

We share Personal Information with the categories of third-party Persons described in the “Sharing Your Information” section above. We do not sell (as such term is defined in U.S. Data Privacy Laws) Personal Information we collect (and will not sell it without providing a right to opt out).

Please note that we do use third-party cookies for certain purposes as further described in the “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” section above.

Residents’ Rights and Choices with Respect to Their Personal Information

Subject to certain limitations, U.S. Data Privacy Laws provide Residents with specific rights regarding their Personal Information. This section describes your rights under U.S. Data Privacy Laws and explains how to exercise those rights, which specifically includes:

• Right to request to know more details about the categories or specific pieces of Personal Information we collect (including how we use and disclose this information);
• Right to request deletion of their Personal Information;
• Right to request correction of their Personal Information;
• Right to opt out of any “sales” of Personal Information that may be occurring; and
• Right to not be discriminated against for exercising the foregoing rights.

Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights

You have the right to request that Essential disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your Personal Information over the past twelve (12) months. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, Correction, and Deletion Rights subsection below), we will disclose to you:

• The categories of Personal Information we collected about you;
• The categories of sources for the Personal Information we collected about you;
• Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that Personal Information;
• The categories of third-party Persons with whom we share that Personal Information;
• The specific pieces of Personal Information we collected about you (also called a “data portability request”); and
• If we sold or disclosed your Personal Information for a business purpose, two separate lists disclosing the following: (i) sales, identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient purchased and (ii) disclosures for a business purpose, identifying the Personal Information categories that each category of recipient obtained.

Deletion Request Rights

You have the right to request that Essential delete any of your Personal Information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see Exercising Access, Data Portability, Correction, and Deletion Rights subsection below), we will delete (and direct our service providers to delete) your Personal Information from our records, unless an exception applies.

We may deny your deletion request if retaining the information is necessary for us or our service provider(s) to:

• Complete the transaction for which we collected the Personal Information, provide a good or service that you requested, take actions reasonably anticipated within the context of our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform our contract with you;
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity, or prosecute those responsible for such activities;
• Debug products to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise their free speech rights, or exercise another right provided for by law;
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when the information’s deletion may likely render impossible or seriously impair the research’s achievement, if you previously provided informed consent;
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with consumer expectations based on your relationship with us;
• Comply with a legal obligation, including those under applicable law; or
• Make other internal and lawful uses of that information that are compatible with the context in which you provided it.

Correction Request Rights

Subject to certain exceptions, you have the right to request that we rectify, correct, or update your Personal Information that we collected and retained to the extent such Personal Information is inaccurate. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request (see, Exercising Access, Data Portability, Correction, and Deletion Rights subsection below) we will use commercially reasonable efforts to correct the inaccurate Personal Information.

Exercising Access, Data Portability, Correction, and Deletion Rights

To exercise the access, data portability, correction, and deletion rights described above, please submit a verifiable consumer request to us by email at requests@essential.gg.

Only you, or a person that you authorize to act on your behalf pursuant to your written permission, may make a verifiable consumer request related to your Personal Information. You may also make a verifiable consumer request on behalf of your minor child.

You may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a twelve (12)-month period. The verifiable consumer request must:

• Provide sufficient information that allows Essential to reasonably verify you are the person about whom we collected Personal Information or an authorized representative; and
• Describe your request with sufficient detail that allows us to properly understand, evaluate, and respond to it.

We cannot respond to your request or provide you with Personal Information if we cannot verify your identity or authority to make the request and confirm the Personal Information relates to you.

Making a verifiable consumer request does not require you to create an Account. However, we do consider requests made through your password protected Account sufficiently verified when the request relates to Personal Information associated with that specific account.

We will only use Personal Information provided in a verifiable consumer request to verify the requestor’s identity or authority to make the request.

Response Timing and Format

Essential endeavors to respond to a verifiable Resident’s request within forty-five (45) days of its receipt. If Essential requires more time (up to ninety (90) days), we will inform you of the reason and extension period in writing. If you have an Account, we will deliver our written response to that Account. If you do not have an Account, we will deliver our written response electronically.

Any disclosures we provide will only cover the twelve (12)-month period preceding the verifiable consumer request’s receipt. The response we provide will also explain the reasons we cannot comply with a request, if applicable. For data portability requests, we will select a format to provide your Personal Information that is readily usable and should allow you to transmit the information from one entity to another entity without hindrance.

Personal Information Sales Opt-Out and Opt-In Rights

We will not sell your Personal Information to any Person. If in the future, we anticipate selling your Personal Information to any Person, we will provide you with advance notice thereof and opt-out rights required by U.S. Data Privacy Laws.

Non-Discrimination

Essential will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights under U.S. Data Privacy Laws. Unless permitted by U.S. Data Privacy Laws, Essential will not:

• Deny you products or services on the Service;
• Charge you different prices or rates for products or services on the Service, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties;
• Provide you a different level or quality of products or services on the Service; or
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of products or services on the Service.

California Shine the Light Law

Essential complies with the California Shine the Light Law (California Civil Code Section 1798.83) by not disclosing Personal Information of its customers (including those who are California residents) to third parties for their direct marketing purposes unless those customers first affirmatively agree to Essential’s disclosure for that purpose, at no cost to the customer, as further described in this Privacy Policy. For more information about how Essential complies with the California Shine the Light Law and your rights, please contact us at requests@essential.gg.

18. Contacting Essential

If you have any questions or comments about this notice, the ways in which Essential collects and uses your information described above and in the Privacy Policy, generally, your choices and rights regarding such use, or wish to exercise your rights under California law or U.S. Data Privacy Laws, please do not hesitate to contact us by email at requests@essential.gg.

Essential will endeavor to deal with your request as soon as possible. This is without prejudice to your right to launch a claim with your data protection authority or follow the dispute process set forth in the Terms of Use.

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