What Information Does This Privacy Policy Cover?

This Privacy Policy covers our treatment of personally identifiable information. “Personal Information” generally refers to any unencrypted or non-deidentified information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked with a particular person, but, the definition of “Personal Information” may vary depending on the state or country in which you reside, and that state’s or country’s definition will apply to your Personal Information in the context of this Privacy Policy. Please see additional information below on the particular information we may collect.

Personal Information does not include your Personal Information that has been deidentified, pseudonymized, anonymized, aggregated, and/or otherwise processed so as to be unidentifiable in such a way that the data can no longer be attributed to a specific individual (by reasonable means) without the use of additional information, and where such additional information is kept separate and under adequate security to prevent unauthorized re-identification of a specific individual such that one could not, using reasonable efforts, link such information back to a specific individual (collectively, all of the foregoing in this sentence being referred to as “De-Identified Personal Information”).

Individuals Under the Age of 18

We do not knowingly collect, solicit or maintain Personal Information from anyone under the age of 18 or knowingly allow such persons to register for our Services. If you are under 18, please do not send any Personal Information about yourself (such as your name, address, telephone number, or email address) to us. No one under age 18 should provide any Personal Information to or on the Services. In the event that we learn that we have collected Personal Information from a child under age 18 without verification of parental consent, we will use commercially reasonable efforts to delete that information from our database. Please contact us if you have any concerns

Types of Information We Collect

We collect several categories of Personal Information from and about you as summarized in the following table:

Sensitive Personal Information that is “publicly available” shall not be considered sensitive Personal Information or Personal Information.

How We Collect Your Information

The Personal Information we collect through our Website includes information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. We also collect Personal Information you provide to us in our sales offices, model homes, and design studios, and information we may collect from third parties. We may also ask you for information when you enter a contest or promotion sponsored by us, when you report a problem with our Website, records and copies of your correspondence when you contact us, and responses to surveys and consumer reviews we and our service providers might ask you to complete.

– Information You Post:

For example, we may collect information you post in a public space on service provider websites for surveys and consumer reviews. This may include Ratings & Reviews features from service providers.

– Social Media Information:

We may collect information you post on our social media pages. We may also collect your social media profile information.

– Information You Submit

For example, we may collect information when you contact us through the “Chat” feature on our Website. We collect information submitted in connection with creating an account with us, completing an application, making a home purchase, including information you submit to us such as a deposit via check, debit card, or other methods of providing deposits to us.

We collect information in different ways.

Directly from You. For example, when you:

– Fill out a Guest Information or registration card at a Ascend Communities sales office.

– Make a purchase in our sales offices or design studios.

– Create a personalized MyAscend account.

– Sign up to receive promotional emails or text messages (including offers and sales alerts).

– Sign up to join a Ascend Communities homebuying club or similar homebuying education program conducted by us.

– Participate in one of our promotional sweepstakes, contests, surveys, consumer reviews or focus groups.

– Use a service provider rating and review feature.

– Submit a request to our Customer Service team.

– Interact with Ascend Communities social media pages.

– Apply for a job opening with Ascend Communities.

– Are referred to us by another customer.

In other Ways.

We collect information when you:

– Enable location-based features on our platforms.

– Click on sponsored links or third-party advertisements.

– Use the Wi-Fi Services provided in some sales, offices, model homes, or design studios.

– Visit sales, offices, model homes, or design studios; we may use cameras and doorbell cameras in and around our locations for operational purposes.

– Receive or interact with our communications and platforms that may contain cookies or pixels.

From Third Parties.

We may receive information about you from other sources. For example, this may include receiving information from:

– Our business partners, including online advertising networks and companies that co-sponsor our promotions.

– Social media platforms, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Tiktok and Instagram.

– Companies that provide information to supplement what we already know about you, including data brokers.

By Combining Information. We may:

– Combine information that we collect in our locations with information we collect through our platforms.

– Combine information we collect about you from the different devices you use to access our platforms.

– Combine information we get from third parties with information we already have about you.

How We Use Personal Information

Examples of how we may use your information include:

To Provide Our Products and Services.

This could include fulfilling your requests for home purchases, home related services, or other services.

To Improve Our Products and Services.

We may use your information to make our digital platforms, sales offices, model homes, design studios, and other products and services better. We may also use your information to customize your experience with us throughout the browsing, purchasing, and owning process.

To Understand Your Interests.

For example, we may use your information to better understand what home options, upgrades, and services, may interest you and customers like you based on information we collect about you and your household.

To Respond to Your Requests or Questions.

This may include responding to your customer feedback.

To Communicate with You

We may communicate with you about your account or our relationship. We may also contact you about this Privacy Policy or our Terms and Conditions.

For Security Purposes.

This could include protecting our company and our customers. It may also include protecting our platforms.

For Marketing Purposes.

We may provide you with information about new communities and special offers. We may use your information to serve you ads about our communities and offers. We may tell you about new features or updates. These might be third-party offers or products we think you might find interesting including home-related information, offers, periodic updates, advertising, homebuyer surveys, requests for ratings & reviews, information on solar systems, telecommunications, alarms, smart home devices, and other information we believe will be of interest to our customers. These service providers are only allowed to use personal contact information for the purpose of providing the specific services requested by us. For more information about your choices related to these communications, see the Choices section below.

How We Share Your Information

We do not sell our mailing or contact lists to unaffiliated third parties. However, Ascend Communities may share your email address and contact information with our selected service providers for home-related offers and other information we believe will be of interest to our customers, unless you indicated on a Guest Information or registration card or other material that you do not wish to be so contacted. From time to time, Ascend Communities may decide that it is more efficient to use service providers to perform specific services, such as performing surveys or publishing reviews. If we use a service provider to provide specific services, then information (such as contact information) may be shared with that party to the extent necessary for the service provider to provide these services. These service providers are only allowed to use personally identifiable information for the purpose of providing the specific services requested by Ascend Communities.

Ascend Communities may aggregate Personal Information and disclose such information in aggregate to advertisers for other marketing and promotional purposes. However, in these situations we will not disclose to these entities any information that could be used to personally identify you.

Creating a MyAscend account, signing up for an interest list, or submitting a contact form may result in follow up correspondence from a Ascend Communities representative. You may remove your email address from the distribution lists of Ascend Communities or our business partners at any time by notifying us or the business partners, respectively. To unsubscribe from marketing emails, please view the Choices Regarding Your Information section below.

As part of the normal operation of this Website, we may collect and, in some cases, disclose information about you. Personally identifiable information about you may be used to improve our marketing and promotional efforts, to statistically analyze usage of the Website, to improve our Website content and to customize our Website’s content and layout. We believe these uses allow us to improve our Website and better tailor it to meet our user’s needs. We may use your first and last names, email address, your mailing address and telephone number, to contact you from time to time about our services.

Internally.

We may share your information within Ascend Communitites and its affiliates and subsidiaries, including, but not limited to our affiliates for financial services, title insurance services, and insurance agency services.

On Our Platforms.

For example, we may display information you post on our service provider review feature.

With Our Service Providers.

We may share your information with third parties who perform services on our behalf. For example, this may include merchandise vendors and suppliers for customer service. It may also include companies that send emails on our behalf.

With Our Business Partners.

For example, this may include third parties that provide financial products and services related to our business. It may also include a third party that co-sponsors a contest or promotion.

Required Disclosures:

Except as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, we will not disclose your Personal Information to any third party unless required to do so by law, court order, legal process, or subpoena, including to respond to any government or regulatory request, or if we believe that such action is necessary to (a) comply with the law, comply with legal process served on us or our affiliates, subsidiaries, contracted vendors, or affinity partners, or investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities; (b) enforce our Terms; (c) take precautions against liability; (d) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (e) assist government enforcement agencies or to meet national security requirements; (f) to protect the security or integrity of our Website, our Services, or any software we provide related thereto; or, (g) exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of us, our users or others.

We will attempt to notify you about these requests unless: (i) providing notice is prohibited by the legal process itself, by court order we receive, or by applicable law, or (ii) we believe that providing notice would be futile, ineffective, create a risk of injury or bodily harm to an individual or group, or create or increase a risk of fraud upon us, our users, our Website, or our Services. In instances where we comply with legal requests without notice for these reasons, we will attempt to notify that user about the request after the fact if we determine in good faith that we are no longer legally prohibited from doing so and that no risk scenarios described in this paragraph apply.

It is likely that the identity and categories of such third parties will change during the life of your account. We require that our third-party service providers only use your Personal Information as necessary to provide the requested services to us and each service provider is subject to a set of terms consistent with the applicable portions of this Privacy Policy.

Your Consent to Disclosure/Transfer/Sale of Your Personal Information:

You consent (and shall not object) to our disclosure, transfer, and/or sale of your Personal Information, De-Identified Personal Information, and other information you provide to us, as well as the rights you have granted or consented to in this Privacy Policy  (collectively, “Transferred Information”) to a potential or actual buyer or acquirer of our company or other successor for the purpose of considering or undergoing a merger, divestiture, restructuring, reorganization, dissolution, change in control, or sale or transfer of some or all of our assets (each of the foregoing referred to as a “Transfer”), whether as a going concern or as part of bankruptcy, liquidation or other court proceeding, in which Personal Information held by us is among the assets transferred. We cannot make any representations regarding the use or transfer of Transferred Information that we may have in the event of our bankruptcy, reorganization, insolvency, receivership, or an assignment for the benefit of creditors. Furthermore, except as required by law, we are not and will not be responsible for any breach of security by any third parties or for any actions of any third parties that receive any of the Transferred Information that is disclosed to us.

Posting Content

You also may submit information, such as comments, reviews, testimonials, etc., to be published or displayed (“posted”) on public areas of the Website, or transmitted to other users of the Website or third parties (collectively, “Content”). Your Content is posted and transmitted to others at your own risk. We cannot control the actions of other users of the Website with whom you may choose to share your Content. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your Content will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. You agree to and do hereby grant us a royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, and worldwide right to Use, modify, and perform any Content you post to our Website, or that you submit for posting. The term “Use” includes, but is not limited to, use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, edit, delete, translate, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, and make derivative works of the content.

If we permit you to post Content, you agree to comply with our Content Posting and Community Guidelines, available here, which are incorporated herein. We may post Content on our Website you post to our Facebook or other social media account pages. The right to Use you grant us also extends to any content we may post on our Website that you have posted at other websites, e.g., Google.

Your Privacy Rights

We will not discriminate against you because you exercised your rights under this section of the Privacy Policy.

For purposes of exercising your rights above, please note the following regarding how we collect and use your Personal Information as described in this policy:

These rights can be exercised by completing and submitting the OneTrust webform.

To learn more about submitting a request under this section of the Privacy Policy, please see the How to Contact Us section, below.

Security

The Internet is not 100% secure. We cannot promise that your use of our sites will be completely safe. We encourage you to use caution when using the Internet. We use reasonable means to safeguard Personal Information under our control. A user identification and a password are needed to access certain areas of Ascend Communitites platforms. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. You should maintain good internet security practices. Where you have password-protected access to certain parts of the Website or Services, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. You should not share your password with anyone. You must prevent unauthorized access to your account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer or device and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account. If your email account or Facebook account is compromised this could allow access to your account with us if you have given us those details and/or permitted access through those accounts. If your email account is compromised it could be used to ask us to reset a password and gain access to your account with us. If you think that any of your accounts have been compromised you should change your account credentials with us, and in particular make sure any compromised account does not allow access to your account with us. The information you share in public areas may be viewed by other users. We’ll never email you to ask for your password or other account login information. If you receive such an email, please send it to us so we can investigate.

Storage of Information

Information we maintain may be stored in the United States. If you live outside of the United States, you understand and agree that we may transfer your Personal Information to the United States. This site is subject to U.S. laws, which may not provide the same level of protections as those in your own country.

Data Retention

The time periods for which we retain your Personal Information depend on the purposes for which we use it. We will keep your Personal Information for as long as your account is active, or as long as you are a registered account holder of our Services or for as long as we have another business purpose to do so and, thereafter, for no longer than is required or permitted by law, or our records retention policy, reasonably necessary for internal reporting and reconciliation purposes, or to provide you with feedback or information you might request. This period of retention is subject to our review and alteration.

Following termination or deactivation of your account, we may retain your profile information and all information posted to public areas of the Website. Following termination or deactivation of your account, we may retain your Personal Information and other data, but will maintain it as confidential according to the Terms, this Privacy Policy, and as required by applicable law. We have the right to delete all of your Personal Information and other data after termination of your account without notice to you.

We may retain De-Identified Personal Information for as long as we choose.

How to Contact Us

You may also write to us at the address listed below for Postal Mail:

Ascend Communities, LLC

4001 E Broadway Rd, Suite B7

Phoenix, AZ 85040

Attn: Ascend Communities

Please include your full name, email address, phone number, and your data access or opt-out request in your written correspondence.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns with respect to our privacy practices or this Privacy Policy, please feel free to contact us at sales@ascend-communitities.com.

Choices Regarding Your Information

You have certain choices about how we use your information.

Email:

Use the “Unsubscribe” link at the footer of any Ascend Communities promotional email.

Email us at sales@ascend-communities.com.

Text Messages:

Our Services may include sending you Short Message Service (“SMS”) messages which may deliver to your wireless device (unless you communicate further with us). Message frequency may vary.  We may use your information to contact you about your visit(s) to our communities, purchases, or informational and service-related communications. You may remove your information by replying “STOP” to the SMS text message you received. After you send the SMS message “STOP” to us, we will send you an SMS message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed. Alternatively, you may submit your request by email to us, including the email address and phone number you registered with us, or by any reasonable means. After this, you will no longer receive SMS messages from us. If you want to join again, just sign up as you did the first time and we will start sending SMS messages to you again. For help, please reply to a text with HELP. Message and data rates may apply, depending on your cell phone plan. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

Postal Mail:

To be removed from our global marketing mailing lists, send your request, including your full name and mailing address, to the address listed above.

If you do not wish to receive future email offers and notifications, email us at sales@ascend-communities.com