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Privacy Notice

Updated November 30, 2023

IZEA Worldwide, Inc. (“IZEA”) owns and operates IZEA.com and the Flex and The Creator Marketplace platforms (collectively, the “Platform”), an online marketplace that connects marketers with content creators (the “Marketplace Services”) on a variety of sites hosted and operated by IZEA (the “Sites”). IZEA provides Platform users with access to its Marketplace Services pursuant to the applicable terms of service and privacy notice(s).

By accessing or using the Marketplace Services, you are consenting to the collection, use and disclosure of your information in accordance with this Privacy Notice. If you do not consent to the same, please do not access or use the Marketplace Services. We may modify this Privacy Notice at any time without any prior notice to you and will post the revised Privacy Notice on our Site(s). The revised Privacy Notice will be effective upon posting and your continued access or use of the Marketplace Services after such time will constitute your acceptance of the revised Privacy Notice. We therefore recommend that you periodically review this page. 

The following details our Privacy Notice (the “Notice”) for the Sites and describes the types of information we gather from those persons visiting the Sites and how we use such information. We understand the importance of privacy and accordingly, treat all information received in a responsible manner. This Notice applies to all of the services offered by IZEA Worldwide, Inc. and its subsidiaries and affiliates (the “services”) on the Sites. By accessing the Sites, you agree to be bound by the Notice. If you do not agree to the terms of this Notice, please do not use the Sites. 

Data Controller 

The data controller for the information you provide or that is collected by IZEA pursuant to this Privacy Notice is: IZEA Worldwide, Inc., 1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804. 

Use of Information Collected by Us 

IZEA may collect two types of information from users of our Sites: “personal information” (such as name, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number, date of birth, social media profile, gender, ethnicity, marital status, etc.) and “aggregate information” (such as frequency of visits to any of the Sites, search terms entered, Site pages most frequently accessed, browser type, etc.). IZEA uses collected personal information for its primary business purpose of providing marketing and advertising services, and all related purposes, including matching Creators with Marketers for advertising and marketing opportunities, creating accounts and profiles, processing payment, dispute resolution, managing customer orders, and communication between users. We also use this information in an effort to improve your experience on the Sites and to communicate with you about information that you request, to help us target specific services or offers to you, to contact you for troubleshooting purposes or support, to enforce our Terms of Service or protect our Site(s), for administrative purposes, to help us develop and improve our Sites, or to tailor our Sites to your interests.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, IZEA’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. By using the YouTube API Services, you are agreeing to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. IZEA’s use and transfer of information received from YouTube API Services to any other app will adhere to the Google Privacy Policy.”

Collecting and Using Your Personal Information 

IZEA collects personal information that is voluntarily provided when users sign up for an IZEA site or service, fill out a form, engage with a chatbot, connect a third-party platform, or enter a promotion. Specifically, when you sign up for our Platform through one of our Sites or interact with our widgets and bots (including Shakebot), we ask you for personal information such as your name, address, social media connections, and email address. We may also request payment account information (such as PayPal or a credit card) which is encrypted and provided to third parties for the purpose of processing payment(s). 

In addition, IZEA collects supplemental data from public sites, IP addresses, and connected social media channels (via an API for which you can select the types of information IZEA may access), to create a more robust user profile and increase the odds that a marketer will locate your profile for content opportunities. 

As a Creator agreeing to the Terms of Service and Privacy Notice when creating an account on our Site(s), you express consent to the access and collection of data and content from the social media accounts you have connected, including followers, friend lists, photos, videos, or similar content published through those social media accounts. You have the option to change these choices made at registration, at any time. However, the decision to disconnect a social media account will not remove content or data previously gathered under your authorization. 

IZEA will process the data acquired through your social media accounts to identify you and present your profile as a Creator to Marketers with access to our Site(s), so that they may offer you Opportunities within the Platform or using the Discovery feature. IZEA may also use the data associated with your profile, including metrics, images, videos, and content, to promote or market IZEA and its products and services. 

As a Marketer agreeing to the Terms of Service and Privacy Notice when creating an account on our Site(s), upon registration you will be asked to provide an email address, establish a password, and provide payment account information. This data is required in order to make our services available to you. 

As a user of the Site(s), we may communicate with you using the email address you have provided, for purposes such as providing you with Opportunities, delivering support to enhance your user experience, communicating news about IZEA or features and functionalities of the Platform, or presenting you with surveys or commercial offers you may be interested in. You may control your email preferences within your account in the Platform. 

When you access our Site(s), we may collect information to include your name, company name, email address, mailing address, and other information you provide when engaging with our chatbot. These interactions are subject to our Privacy Notice. By carrying on a written conversation with our chatbot, you consent to receiving communications from the bot and to the processing and maintenance of your conversation via Hubspot in accordance with any terms of use or privacy notice that may apply in connection with that platform. Because our chatbot utilizes artificial intelligence to communicate with you, it may provide information that is an inaccurate response to your requests in its interactions with you. You agree that IZEA shall not be liable to you or any third party for our chatbot providing inaccurate information to you.

Should you integrate your account with Shopify or Google, you are also agreeing to be bound by the following: Google Privacy Policy (as well as Google’s security revocation site, Google Security Settings); Shopify Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You understand that it is possible for the content of e-mail communications sent or received via Google’s Gmail integration to be viewable by IZEA for purposes of support, dispute resolution, and troubleshooting, and you acknowledge that emails (excluding attachments) will continue to be stored on the platform unless you manually choose to delete the same.

Collecting and Using Your Aggregate Information 

IZEA also aggregates information that, by itself, does not identify who you are, such as frequency of visits to the Sites, search terms entered, browser type, etc. IZEA uses the aggregated information to provide its services and remuneration, as well as to determine the use of our Sites and to monitor, audit and analyze information pertaining to our business metrics. 

Sharing, Selling and Trading of Your Personal Information Collected Online with Third Parties 

IZEA does not share, rent, sell or disclose personal information to third parties, except as described in this Privacy Notice. IZEA shares personal information with our affiliated entities and subsidiaries, with Marketers, and with third-party service providers such as payment processing companies, ad services, payment recovery services, data providers, data analytics providers, and background checking services. These Marketers and third-party service providers are not authorized to retain, share, store or use your personal information for any purposes other than the purpose for which it was transferred (such as, to provide the services for which they have been hired to provide, to offer you opportunities within the Platform(s), or to provide Opportunities outside of the Platform as permitted via features such as Discover), without your express consent. In addition, in order to protect against potential fraud, we may verify with third parties the personal information you provide when you sign up for an account or when you participate in certain features or programs offered through our Sites. In the course of such verification, we may receive personal information about you, which will be shared with such third parties. We do not sell, trade or otherwise share your personal information with unrelated third parties for their own marketing purposes. 

In the following circumstances, IZEA may elect to share or transfer your personal information to unrelated third parties: (i) to comply with a legal requirement, regulation, judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on IZEA, (ii) to investigate a possible crime, such as fraud or identity theft; (iii) in connection with the sale, purchase, merger, reorganization, liquidation or dissolution of IZEA; (iv) when we believe it is necessary to protect the rights, property, or safety of IZEA or other persons, (v) to enforce your agreements with us, including the Terms of Service or Privacy Notice, or to respond to claims that your use of the Marketplace Services violates any third-party rights or applicable law; or (vi) as otherwise required or permitted by law. 

It should be noted that on some portions of the Sites, users can choose to have their personal information displayed. If users choose to have their personal information displayed on the Site(s), they will be given forewarning that the action they are about to take will make their personal information publicly available on the Site(s). 

Sharing, Selling and Trading Aggregate Information Collected Online with Third Parties 

We may share, sell or trade with third parties aggregated, non-personal information, such as the number of users who searched for a particular term, for example, or how many users clicked on a particular advertisement. As stated earlier, such information does not identify you individually. 

Contests/Sweepstakes 

From time-to-time, we may request information from users of our Sites in connection with a contest or a sweepstakes. Participation in these contests or sweepstakes is completely voluntary and the user therefore has a choice whether or not to disclose this information. Information requested may include contact information and supplementary information on your interests, opinions and preferences. We will use the contact information to notify winners. We may publish winners’ first name, last initial and city of residence on the Sites and in order to comply with state law, we may be required to share: (i) winners’ first name, last name and address with state agencies and (ii) winners’ first name and last name, and possibly city or state, with persons requesting such information via the mail. 

Cookies 

Cookies are pieces of information which websites transfer to your computer’s web browser for storage on your computer’s hard drive. When you visit the Sites, we may place one or more cookies on your computer to uniquely identify your browser. We use cookies to improve the quality of our service by storing user preferences and tracking user trends, such as how people blog. We store minimal personal information in cookies and protect this information. We do not store complete records or credit card numbers in cookies. You may choose to set your computer to not accept cookies, but some features and services on the Sites may not function properly if your cookies are disabled. To learn more about how we use these and your choices in relation to these tracking technologies, please refer to our Cookie Policy. 

Notice to Canadian Residents 

We collect, use and disclose your personal information with your consent, which may be express or implied. You may withdraw your consent to the use and disclosure of your personal information by us or by third parties for marketing purposes at any time by contacting us as specified below under “Contact Us.” If you would like to access, update, or ask us to delete your preferences or the personal information that we have collected about you, please contact us, and we will respond to your request within 30 days. 

Notice to California Residents 

Please review the California Privacy Notice for terms applicable to your use of the Sites: California Privacy Notice 

Your Rights 

Depending on the law that applies, you may have a right to access and rectify or erase your personal data or receive a copy of your personal data, restrict or object to the active processing of your data, ask us to share (port) your personal information to another entity, withdraw any consent you provided to us to process your data, a right to lodge a complaint with a statutory authority and such other rights as may be relevant under applicable laws. To exercise these rights, you can write to us at privacy@izea.com. We will respond to your request in accordance with applicable law. You may opt-out of direct marketing communications or the profiling we carry out for marketing purposes by writing to us at privacy@izea.com. Do note that if you do not allow us to collect or process the required personal information or withdraw the consent to process the same for the required purposes, you may not be able to access or use the services for which your information was sought. 

Do Not Track Policy 

Our Sites are not designed to respond to “do not track” signals received from browsers. 

Use of Pixel Tags/Clear GIFs/Web Beacons 

A pixel tag, also known as a clear GIF or web beacon, is an invisible tag placed on certain pages of our Sites but not on your computer. When you access these pages, pixel tags generate a generic notice of that visit. They usually work in conjunction with cookies, registering when a particular computer visits a particular page. If you turn off cookies, the pixel tag will simply detect an anonymous website visit. 

Retaining and Securing Your Information 

We take reasonable and appropriate security measures designed to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage, and processing practices, and introducing security measures, including physical security measures, to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data. 

We restrict access to personal information to IZEA employees, service providers and agents who need to know that information in order to operate, develop or improve our services. These individuals are bound by confidentiality obligations. 

However, given the inherent risks, no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security, and any information you transmit to us is done at your own risk. IN NO EVENT WILL IZEA OR ITS SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES OR ANY PARTY INVOLVED IN CREATING, PRODUCING OR DELIVERING THE SITES BE LIABLE IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR ACCESS, USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITES, OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DEFECT, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, COMPUTER VIRUS OR LINE OR SYSTEM FAILURE (INCLUDING LOSS PROFITS, LOSS OF BUSINESS OR DATA, BUSINESS INTERRUPTION, AND DAMAGES THAT RESULT FROM INACCURACY OF THE INFORMATION OR INCONVENIENCE, DELAY, OR LOSS OF THE USE OF THE SITES). THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS APPLY WHETHER THE ALLEGED LIABILITY IS BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE STRICT LIABILITY OR ANY OTHER BASIS, EVEN IF IZEA OR ITS AFFILIATES OR ANY OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. 

We will retain your personal information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice or until you request otherwise, unless a longer retention period is required for record-keeping, reporting, or other legitimate reasons like enforcement of legal rights, fraud prevention, or as otherwise permitted by law. Residual anonymous information and aggregate information, neither of which identifies you (directly or indirectly), may be stored indefinitely. 

The criteria used to determine our retention periods include: 

The length of time we have an ongoing relationship with you and provide services to you (for example, for as long as you have an account with us or keep using the Sites) 

Whether there is a legal obligation to which we are subject (for example, certain laws require us to keep records of your transactions for a certain period of time before we can delete them) 

Whether retention is advisable considering our legal position (such as, for statutes of limitations, litigation or regulatory investigations) 

Integrity of Your Data 

IZEA processes personal information only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Policy. We review our data collection, storage and processing practices to ensure that we only collect, store and process the personal information needed to provide or improve our services. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the personal information we process is accurate, complete, and current, but we depend on our users to update or correct their personal information whenever necessary. 

Copyright Infringement/DMCA Notice 

If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any submission on the Sites’ message boards or any other content on the Sites infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(3), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by providing our designated copyright agent with the following information in writing: 

(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed; 

(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site; 

(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to locate the material; 

(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit the service provider to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail; 

(v) A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and 

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed. 

IZEA’s designated agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement is: Copyright Agent, 1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804 USA or copyrightagent@izea.com. Only DMCA notices should go to the designated copyright agent; any other comments, requests, or other communications should be directed to privacy@izea.com. You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the requirements of this Section, your DMCA notice may not be valid. 

Children and Privacy 

Our Sites are not directed to children and we will not request personally identifiable information from anyone who we know to be under the age of 18, unless we have obtained verifiable parental consent from a parent or legal guardian. If we become aware that a user under the age of 13 has registered with any of our Sites, provided personally identifiable information, and IZEA has not obtained prior verifiable consent from a parent or legal guardian, we will immediately remove the user’s personally identifiable information from our files. 

Links to Other Websites 

The Sites may contain links to websites operated by other people or companies. Those websites may have their own privacy policy (which you are encouraged to review) or no privacy policy at all. IZEA does not have any control over nor responsibility for those websites or their content or policies, and we provide the links solely for the convenience of our visitors. 

Business Transfers 

In the event that IZEA sells substantially all of its assets, or one of IZEA’s business units are acquired, personally identifiable information of visitors to and users of the Sites, and other aggregated information, will likely be one of the transferred assets. 

Changes to this Policy 

The “Updated” date at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Notice was last revised. We will notify you before any material change takes effect so that you have time to review the changes. Any change becomes effective when we post the revised Privacy Notice. Your use of the Sites following these changes means that you accept the revised Privacy Notice. 

Corrections/Information Removal/Opt-Out 

If your name, e-mail or postal address, telephone number or other personal information changes, you may update, correct or omit the relevant information by contacting us at IZEA Customer Service, 1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804 USA or by visiting IZEA.com and submitting a ticket under the “Creator Support” or “Marketer Support” option. If you prefer not to receive newsletters or other marketing e-mails from IZEA, please let us know by clicking on the unsubscribe link within any newsletter or marketing e-mail you receive. If you prefer not to receive marketing mail via postal carrier, please let us know by sending a request to: IZEA Marketing, 1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804USA. Please be sure to include in any e-mail or postal mail, your full name, e-mail address, postal address, and any message. Please note that such requests may take up to ten (10) days to become effective. 

Your Choices about Your Personal Information 

If you would like to review, correct, update, suppress, restrict or delete personal information that you have previously provided to us, or if you would like to receive an electronic copy of your personal information for purposes of transmitting it to another company (if this right to data portability is provided to you by law), you can contact us at info@izea.com or by mail: 

1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804 

In your request, please make clear what personal information you would like to have changed, whether you would like to have your personal information suppressed from our database, or other limitations you would like to put on our use of your personal information. For your protection, we only fulfill requests for the personal information associated with the particular email address that you use to send us your request, and we may need to verify your identity before fulfilling your request. We will try to comply with your request as soon as reasonably practicable. 

Please note that we often need to retain certain data for recordkeeping purposes and/or to complete any transaction that you began prior to requesting a change or deletion (e.g., when you make a purchase or enter a promotion, you may not be able to change or delete the personal information provided until after the completion of such purchase or promotion). Our databases and other records may have residual data which will not be removed. In addition, we also may not allow you to review certain data for legal, security or other reasons. 

If at any time you believe that the Sites have not adhered to this Privacy Notice, please let us know. We will use good faith efforts to determine and correct the problem. 

If you are an EEA resident, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority about how we process your personal information. 

Contact Us 

If you have any questions or concerns about this Notice, please feel free to contact us any time through the Sites or at Privacy Notice Concerns Coordinator, c/o IZEA Worldwide Inc., 1317 Edgewater Drive, Suite 1880, Orlando, FL 32804 USA or Privacy@izea.com