HiChee Privacy Policy

Last updated: May 8, 2024

Friends and Guests LLC (“Friends and Guests” or “F&G”) operates an online marketplace and network connecting hosts and guests for the purpose of facilitating short-term lodging rental opportunities. In order to accomplish this purpose, F&G must collect personal information from both property owners who list their rental accommodations (“Hosts”) and travelers who book those accommodations for short-term lodging rentals (“Guests”). This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use and protect your personal information. It applies to hichee.com, hawaiichee.com, friendsandguests.com any subdomains of hichee.com, hawaiichee.com, friendsandguests.com and related mobile applications (hereinafter the “Website”).

The Website is operated by Friends and Guests LLC. The terms “users” or “you” as used in this Privacy Policy, refer to Hosts, Guests, others who use the tools, software or services that HiChee provides on the Website, and and all other visitors to HiChee’s Website.

We use information collected about you as explained in this Privacy Policy. Unless otherwise specified, the defined terms used in this privacy policy have the same meaning as in HiChee’s Terms and Conditions, available at Terms & Conditions. The Website may contain links to third-party websites. HiChee has no control over the privacy policies or content of those websites. The Website may also contain links to terms and conditions and privacy policies of third party providers who provide tools or services on the Website. Therefore, please read carefully any privacy policies on those links or websites before either agreeing to their terms or using those tools, services or websites.

By providing information to us when listing a property, searching for a property, using any tool or service on the Website, or otherwise using the Website, you expressly agree to this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy was last updated on the date set forth above and applies from that date. We may occasionally amend this Privacy Policy to reflect regulatory requirements, advances in technology, Website updates, and/or changes in our information collection and disclosure practices. When this policy is updated, HiChee will require you to manifest your assent by clicking “Agree” to HiChee’s Terms and Conditions, of which the Privacy Policy is incorporated by referenced therein.

How is your personal information collected?

Your personal information includes any data that identifies you, or from which you are or might be identified, including but not limited to your name, physical address, e-mail address, telephone number, and credit card information. We may collect, process, store, and use such data. We may also pass along such data to our affiliates for processing. Personal information that we obtain from users may be stored and/or processed in the United States and/or any other country in the world where we and/or our affiliates operate.

You acknowledge and agree that your personal information may be transmitted outside of the country where you reside, and you consent to said transfer of personal information outside your country of residence. Other countries may have different privacy and/or data protection laws than your country of residence. If HiChee transmits your personal information outside of your country of residence, we will take reasonable measures to protect your privacy rights in compliance with applicable data protection law and this Privacy Policy.

Our Website is not intended for children under the age of 18, and we do not intentionally collect, use, provide or process any personal information of children under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, please do not send your personal information to us.

HiChee may also use analytical tools to gather information regarding how our Website is used, including but not limited to Google Analytics. Detailed information on Google Analytics’ data processing activities is available in Google Analytics’ privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy. Cookies may be used to help gather this information. Please see the section on Cookies below for more information about how HiChee uses Cookies. HiChee does not control Google’s privacy policy or data collection efforts. Google’s privacy policy and additional relevant information can be found here: http://www.google.com/policies/.

The information we gather

There are a variety of ways in which we collect your personal information. If a Guest wishes to send an inquiry to a Host, HiChee may request your personal information, including but not limited to: your full name, address, telephone number, e-mail address, and a method of payment. We may also request personal information when you register as a Host or Guest on the Website or submit a listing. We may also use cookies or web beacons to gather information. For more information, see the specific section of our Privacy Policy below regarding cookies and web beacons. We may also collect information about your IP address, your mobile device, your location, navigation, click-stream data, what time you visited our Website and the duration of your visit, your search requests, the specific properties you viewed, and other details relating to your visit. If you connect your HiChee account with other online accounts, including but not limited to your Facebook account, we may collect that information as well. If you communicate with other Hosts or Guests through our Website, we may monitor such communications–whether through automated processes, manually, or both–for security and fraud prevention purposes, and/or to detect or prevent illegal activity.

If you sign up as a Host on the Website, we may send our Host newsletter to you. If you sign up as a Guest, we may send our Guest newsletter to you. Hosts and Guests may cancel their electronic subscriptions to HiChee newsletters at any time. However, it may take a few days for such cancellation to take effect. We may ask users to participate in surveys as a means of evaluating our current service offerings and/or developing new service offerings. You may accept or decline our invitation to participate in a survey at your option. If we make games available on the Website that allow for Hosts and Guests to connect with each other and/or third parties, we may collect any information you provide in connection with such activity.

If you access our Website using your mobile device, your mobile device may provide us with information about your location and/or your device, including but not limited to a unique identifier corresponding to your mobile device. We may use this information to provide you with customized advertising, search results, and/or other personalized content based on your location. Most mobile devices give you the option of opting out of location tracking services. If you have questions about how to opt out of location tracking services, you should contact the manufacturer of your mobile device and/or conduct an online search for how to turn off location tracking on your device.

If you speak with us by telephone, we may record your telephone call for quality control purposes. If we record your call, we will provide you with advance notice that the call is being recorded. We will maintain the recording in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.

We obtain your personal information when you provide it to us, when we automatically collect it pursuant to your use of the Website, and when we speak to you by telephone. We also may receive information about you and your activities from third-parties, including but not limited to financial institutions, your mobile telephone service provider, social media sites, and travel websites.

How do we use your personal information?

Our goal is to allow Hosts and Guests to tap into their existing social networks in order to discover unique vacation opportunities. All of the information we collect is used for that purpose. Specifically, we use your personal information as follows:

To develop, provide, enhance, and promote our services. Our core business is our real estate listing service. We use the information you provide to help Hosts list their short-term rental properties, and to help Guests find properties in locations they would like to visit.
To communicate with you. We may send you marketing communications (including but not limited to referral or rewards programs, surveys, sweepstakes, contests, and/or other promotional activities or events sponsored by HiChee or its affiliates), support and administrative messages, reminders, updates, security alerts, and information that you request. We may communicate with you about our services, and inform you of our policies and terms. We also use your information to respond to you when you contact us.
To promote safety and security. We use your information to prevent, investigate, and prosecute activity that may be harmful, fraudulent, or otherwise illegal. We may also compare information for accuracy and/or verify said information with third parties.
To enable you to communicate with other users. We allow Hosts and Guests to send messages and information to each other throughout the life cycle of each transaction, from the booking process through the end of the Guest’s stay, and thereafter if the Host needs to contact the Guest for any reason.
To comply with legal obligations. We may use your information to resolve disputes with our users, enforce our agreements with third parties, and/or comply with government requests for information, as further described below.

How is your personal information shared?

When you share and communicate using our Website, you choose the audience who can see what you share. For example, when you post a listing on HiChee, you select the audience for the listing, such as a customized group of individuals, all of the people on your Guest List, or members of a group. Likewise, when you send a message, you choose the people who are to receive the message. Public information is any information you choose to share with a public audience, as well as information in your public profile. Public information is available to all members of HiChee.

We may access, preserve, and/or share your information in response to a legal request, including but not limited to a search warrant, court order or subpoena, if we have a good faith belief that the law requires us to do so. This may include responding to legal requests from jurisdictions outside of the United States where we have a good faith belief that the response is required by law in that jurisdiction, affects users in that jurisdiction, and is consistent with internationally recognized standards.

We may also access, preserve and share information when we have a good faith belief it is necessary to detect, prevent, or address fraudulent or otherwise illegal activity, or to protect ourselves, you, or third parties, from death or imminent bodily harm. For example, we may provide information to third-party partners about the reliability of your account to prevent fraud and abuse. Information we receive about you, including financial transaction data related to purchases made through our Website, may be accessed, processed and retained for an extended period of time when it is the subject of a legal request or obligation, governmental investigation, or investigations concerning possible violations of our terms or policies, or otherwise to prevent harm. We also may retain information from accounts disabled for violations of our terms and conditions for at least a year to prevent repeat abuse or other violations of our terms.

We may also share your personal data with:
Our affiliates;
A Host or Guest if you have done business with that Host or Guest;
A third party performing services on our behalf;
Other companies or business entities, for example, if we are negotiating a merger or sale to that company or business entity;
Other companies we work with to feature all or part of our Hosts’ property listings or to otherwise provide promotional or other services related to HiChee’s business. This might include featuring your listings and photographs on other websites; or
Any third party you have asked us to share your personal data with – such as Facebook if you have asked us to connect with your Facebook account.

If the ownership or control of HiChee and/or the Website changes, we may transfer your information to the new owner.

Electronic inquiries and communications

Guests may send inquiries to Hosts via clickable links on the listings on the Website. Hosts and Guests may also communicate with each other via tools on the Website. In addition, Host and Guests may opt to make their phone numbers and/or e-mail addresses available on the Website.

We may, either directly or through affiliates who provide services to us, review, scan, or analyze your communications with other users exchanged via the Website for purposes of risk assessment, fraud prevention, regulatory compliance, research and product development, investigation, and customer support. For example, as part of our fraud prevention efforts, we may scan and analyze messages to mask contact information and references to other websites. This helps to prevent fraudulent actors from asking Guests to send them money outside of the Website, such as by bank transfer or other money transfer methods. We may also scan, review or analyze messages for research and product development purposes to help make search, booking and user communications more efficient and effective, as well as to debug, improve and expand product offerings. We will not review, scan, or analyze your communications for sending third-party marketing messages to you. We will also not sell these reviews or analyses of communications to third parties. We will use automated methods to carry out these reviews or analyses where reasonably possible. However, from time to time we may have to manually review some communications. By using the Website, you consent to us reviewing, scanning, analyzing, and/or storing your communications, whether done manually or through automated means.

How do we protect your personal information once we have it?

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to guard against unauthorized or unlawful use of your personal information. While no system can be completely secure, we believe the measures implemented by the Website reduce our vulnerability to security problems to a level appropriate to the type of data involved. We have security measures in place to protect our user database, and access to this database is restricted internally to those HiChee employees, contractors and agents who need to know that information in order to process it for us, and who are subject to strict contractual confidentiality obligations and may be disciplined up to and including termination if they fail to meet these obligations. However, the following items remain your responsibility:

To protect against unauthorized access to your HiChee account;
To ensure that no unauthorized person accesses your account while your computer or device is logged on to the Website;
To log out of your HiChee account when not in use;
To keep your password and other access information secret. Your password and login details are personal to you and should not be given to anyone else or used to provide shared access; and
To maintain good internet security. For example, 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. You should keep all of your account details secure. If you think that any of your accounts has 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. You should also inform us immediately, so that we can try to help you keep your account secure, and if necessary, warn anyone else who could be affected.

If you have asked us to share data with third party sites, however, the third party’s servers may not be secure. Credit card information is generally stored by our credit card processing partners, and we ask them to keep that data secure. We also use third parties to help us optimize our website flow, content and advertising.

Despite the reasonable security measures taken by HiChee and our affiliates, no method of transmitting information over the Internet or storing electronic information can be 100% secure. As a result, others may unlawfully intercept or access private transmissions or data. We cannot guarantee the absolute security of your personal information or communications transmitted via the Website.

Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

Like many websites, we use cookies and other tracking technologies to enhance the user experience. Accordingly, we may set and access cookies, web beacons, and other technologies on your computer.

Cookies

Cookies are small amounts of information stored in files within your computer’s browser. HiChee uses cookies as follows:

To help us recognize you as a previous visitor, and to save and remember any preferences you may have set while visiting the Website. For example, a cookie may save your login information so you do not have to log in every time you visit the Website;
To help us customize the content and advertisements you see when you visit the Website;
To help us measure and research the effectiveness of our interactive online content, features, advertisements, and other communications; and
To track Website analytics and use, and to help us improve our services.

You may delete and block all cookies from the Website, but if you do so, parts of the Website will not work. Even if you are only browsing the Website, certain information (including computer and connection information, browser type and version, operating system and platform details, and the time of accessing the Site) is automatically collected about you. This information will be collected every time you access the Website and it will be used for the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy.

You can reduce the information cookies collect from your device. One way to do this is often to change the settings in your browser. If you change your browser settings, you should know that (a) your use of the Website may be adversely affected (and possibly entirely prevented), (b) your experience of this and other sites that use cookies to enhance or personalize your experience may be adversely affected, and (c) you may not be presented with advertising that reflects the way that you use our Website and other websites. You find out how to make these changes to your browser at this site: www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will send cookies as soon as you visit our site. By using the Website, you consent to this, unless you change your browser settings.

Web Beacons

We gather and share information concerning the use of the Website by Hosts and Guests with one or more third-party tracking companies for the purpose of reporting statistics. To do this, we may use web beacons (also called transparent GIFs or “clear GIFs,” web bugs, pixels, or action tags). These technologies are strings of code that deliver a tiny graphic image on a web page or in an email. Web beacons can recognize certain types of information on your computer such as cookies, the time and date a page is viewed, and a description of the page on which the web beacon is placed. In general, any file served as part of a web page can act as a web beacon.

Web beacons may be used to track the traffic patterns of users from one page to another in order to maximize web traffic flow. Third parties also may use web beacons on the Site to receive auditing, research, and reporting information, or to understand your interests and select and deliver to you advertisements that are tailored to your interests.

CALIFORNIA DO NOT TRACK DISCLOSURES

While you may disable the usage of cookies through your browser settings, we do not change our practices in response to a “Do Not Track” signal in the HTTP header from your browser or mobile application. We track your activities if you click on advertisements for HiChee services on third party platforms such as search engines and social networks, and may use analytics to track what you do in response to those advertisements.

How do I correct or update my information?

You can see any personal information processed by us. The best way of seeing this if you are a Host is to log on to your account by using the “Owner Login” tab at the top of the screen. You can see your basic details and correct or update them at your convenience. We also want to give you the opportunity to identify any inaccuracies in any other information we hold about you. Where possible, if we receive notice that any personal information is inaccurate, we will make appropriate corrections. You can ask to see, update or amend any information we hold about you by contacting us.

How do I opt-out of receiving marketing communications from you?

We may contact you for marketing purposes. Unless you opt out of receiving such communications, this could include contacting you by phone or email.

You may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us by the following means:

Contact us at help@hichee.com;
Follow the instructions included in each communication or newsletter;
Mail the request to us, addressed to Privacy, c/o Friends and Guests LLC, 141 Makahiki Street, Paia, Hawaii 96779.

Please remember that if you change your preferences it may take a few days for the changes to take effect.

How do I delete my account and any stored information/data?

If you wish to delete your account and any stored information/data, please follow the instructions or contact HiChee Support. To delete your account permanently follow the instructions:

Contact us at help@hichee.com;
On the subject line type “I wish to delete my account”;
Send us your user mail or account information;
We will get back to you with confirmation;

Please remember that deleting your account is a permanent process.

How do I contact you?

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, our Website, or your interaction with HiChee, please contact us at help@hichee.com, or write to us at:

Privacy c/o Friends and Guests LLC 141 Makahiki Street Paia, Hawaii 96779