Our Privacy Policy

We process your personal information to run our business and provide our users with the Services. By accepting our  General Terms of Use  (and in some jurisdictions, by acknowledging this policy), you confirm that you have read and understood this policy, including how and why we use your information. If you don’t want us to collect or process your personal information in the ways described in this policy, you shouldn’t use the Services. We are not responsible for the content or the privacy policies or practices of any of our members, websites hosted through Pattern by alnol, or third-party websites and apps.

alnol’s  General Terms of Use  require all account owners to be at least 16 years of age. Minors under 16 years of age and at least 13 years of age are permitted to use alnol’s Services only if they have permission and direct supervision by the account owner. Children under age 13 are not allowed to use the Services. You are responsible for any account activity conducted by a minor on your account. We do not knowingly “sell,” as that term is defined under the applicable law the personal information of minors. More information can be found in alnol’s  Minors Policy .

Using the Services, you acknowledge that alnol will use your information in Egypt and any other country where alnol operates. Please be aware that the privacy laws and standards in certain countries, including the rights of authorities to access your personal information, may differ from those that apply in the country in which you reside. Therefore, we will transfer personal data only to those countries to which we are permitted by law to transfer personal information as more fully described in the "Transfers" section of this policy.

Information Collected or Received

In providing our Services, we collect or receive your personal information in a few different ways. We obtain the categories of personal data listed below from the following sources: directly from you, for example, from forms you complete or during registration; indirectly from you based on your activity and interaction with our Services, or from the device or browser you use to access the Services; from our vendors and suppliers that help provide alnol Services, you may interact with (such as, for example, for payments or customer support), and from our third-party advertising and marketing partners. Often, you choose what information to provide, but sometimes we require specific information to provide you the Services. alnol uses the personal information it receives and collects following the purposes described in this policy.

You can also choose to provide information to a third party via alnol. While users of alnol are required to follow alnol’s  General Terms of Use , including having appropriate privacy and security controls, alnol does not have a direct partner relationship with these third parties, and their processing of information is subject to their privacy policies. Therefore, you should understand any third party’s privacy and security practices before sharing information with them.

Registration, Account Setup, Service Usage: To use the Services, submit a valid email address. If you register, you will need to submit a name associated with your account. You may modify that name through your account settings. You need to provide this information to enable us to provide you with the Services. Additional information, such as a shop name, billing, and payment information (including billing contact name, address, telephone number, credit card information), a telephone number, and/or a physical postal address, may be necessary to provide a particular service. For example, we need a physical postal address if you buy something on the Site for delivery. As an alnol Designer, you will be using our payment service ("alnol Payments"); alnol requires your full name, business registration identification ID and tax ID, date of birth, bank account information, photograph, credit card information, and/or other proof of identification to verify your identity, provide this service to you, and comply with applicable law. For both customers and Designers, alnol requires this information from you to provide you with the Services (including to verify ownership of an account, to mitigate fraud and abuse, to comply with regulatory obligations, or to complete a transaction as a customer or Designer). In addition, we may store credit card information for both billing and payment purposes. For example, members in certain countries can save their credit card information to facilitate checkout for future purchases. alnol may contact individual shop owners confidentially to request more information about their shops or items listed through the Services or request information from customers to ensure compliance with our policies and applicable law. To use certain products or services on alnol, you may be required to complete an application; information that you submit through the application process will not be displayed publicly and will only be used internally by alnol and its service providers unless otherwise specified.

Profile : You may provide your name and other personal information (such as birthday, gender, location) in connection with your account and activity. You can edit or remove this information through your account settings. The name associated with your account (which you may modify in your account settings) is publicly displayed and connected to your alnol activity. Other members may see the date you joined; ratings, reviews, and information relating to items you review, and related photos for items you purchased or sold; your profile information; items you listed for sale; your shop pages and policies; your Favorites, followers, and those you follow; sold item listings and the number of items sold; comments you post in our community spaces; and information you decide to share via social networks.

Automated Information : alnol automatically receives and records information from your browser or your mobile device when you visit the Site, use the Apps, or use certain features of the Services, such as your IP address or unique device identifier, cookies, and data about which pages you visit and how you interact with those pages to allow us to operate and provide the Services. This information is stored in log files and is collected automatically. alnol may also receive similar information (like, for example, IP addresses and actions taken on the device) provided by connected Internet of Things devices such as a voice-activated assistant or Smart TV. In addition, we may combine this information from your browser or your mobile device with other information that our advertising or marketing partners or we collect about you, including across devices. This information is used to prevent fraud and keep the Services secure, analyze and understand how the Services work for members and visitors, and provide advertising, including across your devices, and a more personalized experience for members and visitors.

We also automatically collect device-specific information when you install, access, or use our Services. This information can include the hardware model, operating system information, app version, app usage and debugging information, browser information, IP address, and device identifiers. See our  Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy   and “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” section below for more information about these online tools and how we use them.

Data from alnol Vendors and Suppliers : We also receive information about you from our vendors and suppliers. This information can include customer service interactions, payments, shipping, and information shared in alnol’s forums.

Data from Advertising and Marketing Partners : As described below, alnol receives information about you from our advertising and marketing partners. This information can include attribution information via cookies and UTM tags in URLs to determine where a visit to alnol comes from, responses to marketing emails and advertisements, responses to offers, and audience information from partners to who you have given consent to share that information with us.

Location Information : We collect information about your use of the Services for advertising, for analytics, to serve content, and to protect the Services. This can include your IP address, browser information (including referrers), device information (such as iOS IDFA, IDFV for limited non-advertising purposes, Android AAID, and, when enabled by you, location information provided by your device). When you use the Apps, you can share your geolocation details with alnol to use functions like some local user experience-related functionalities. You can choose to publish your location when you sell on alnol.

We obtain your profile’s location information. We or your IP address. With your consent, we may also determine location by using other information from your devices, such as precise location information from GPS or information about wireless networks or cell towers near your mobile device. We use and store information about your location to provide features and to improve and customize the Services, for example, for alnol’s internal analytics and performance monitoring; localization, regional requirements, and policies for the Services; for local content, search results, and recommendations; for shipping and mapping services; and (using non-precise location information) marketing. Suppose you have consented to share your precise device location details but would no longer like to continue sharing that information with us. In that case, you may revoke your consent to sharing that information through the settings on the Apps or your mobile device. Certain non-precise location services, such as security and localized policies based on your IP address or submitted address, are critical for the Site to function. We will only share your geolocation details with third parties (like our mapping, payments, or, to the extent applicable, advertising providers) to provide you with the Services. You may also choose to enable the Apps to access your mobile device’s camera to upload photographs to alnol.

Analytics Information : We use data analytics software to ensure Site and App functionality and improve the Services. This software records information such as how often you use the Apps, what happens within the Apps, aggregated usage, performance data, app errors and debugging information, and where the Apps were downloaded from. We do not link the information we store within the analytics software to any personally identifiable information you submit within the mobile application. See alnol’s Cookies and Similar Technologies Policy and Disclosures for more details.

Information from Third Parties : Some members or visitors may choose to connect to alnol or register an alnol account using an external third-party application, such as Facebook, Google authentication, or an app developed using alnol Services.
Connecting your alnol account to third-party applications or services is optional. If you choose to connect your account to a third-party application, alnol can receive information from that application. We may also collect public information to connect with you, such as communicating with you over social media. We may use that information as part of providing the Services to you. You can also choose to share some of your activity on alnol on specific social media networks connected to your alnol account. You can revoke your permission anytime in your account settings. Specific third-party applications that you use to create or sign in to your account may provide you with the option to discontinue receiving messages from us or allow you to forward those messages to another email address. If we cannot send you critical messages about your account, we may suspend or terminate your account.

Non-Member Information : alnol receives or obtains information (for example, an email address or IP address) about a person who is not yet a registered alnol member (a “non-member”) in connection with certain alnol features, such as when a non-member chooses to subscribe to an alnol newsletter, a member invites a non-member to visit the Site, a non-member engages in a transaction, a member sends a gift card code to a non-member. Non-member information is used only for the purposes disclosed when it was submitted to alnol, for purposes necessary to the functioning of alnol’s Services or where alnol has a legitimate interest, as revealed in the “Information Uses, Sharing, & Disclosure” section below, or to facilitate action authorized by a member or the non-member.

Messages From alnol

On occasion, alnol will need to contact you. Primarily, these messages are delivered by email, alnol Messages, or push notifications for various reasons, including marketing, transactions, and service update purposes. If you no longer wish to receive push notifications, you can disable them at the device level. You can opt out of receiving marketing communications via email or Messages in your account settings or by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing email you receive. To ensure you properly receive notifications, we will need to collect certain information about your devices, such as operating system and user identification information. Every account is required to keep a valid email address on file to receive messages. alnol may also contact you by telephone to provide member support or transaction-related purposes if you request that we call you. Additionally, and with your consent where required by applicable law, alnol may send you an SMS (or similar) message or reach out to you by telephone to provide you with customer support, for research or feedback, or to provide you with information about products and features that you may find of interest. You can update your contact preferences in your account settings.

Some messages from alnol are service-related and necessary for members and Guest Checkout users. You understand and agree that alnol can send you non-marketing emails, alnol Messages, or messages, such as those related to transactions, your account, security, or product changes. Examples of service-related messages include an email address confirmation/welcome email when you register your account, notification of an order, service availability, modification of key features or functions, relaying Messages with buyers, and correspondence with alnol’s Support team (including by chat interface or the other methods of communication as described above).

When you register for an account, subscribe to a newsletter, or provide us with your email address or phone number, such as for a customer Checkout purchase, you receive notice of and agree to receive marketing emails and messages from us. You can unsubscribe at any time from marketing emails or messages through the opt-out link included in marketing emails or messages. Please note that some changes to your account settings may take a few days to take effect.

A contact-importer feature is available to help you locate and connect with your friends and contacts who may be members of alnol (see the "Findability" section above for more information). If someone in your contact list is not already a member, you may invite them to join alnol, and an email will be sent to them on your behalf. Recipients of email invitations may opt out of receiving future invitations by following instructions in the email invitation message. You may send an invitation only to someone who has given you consent to receive one.

Information Uses, Sharing, & Discolsure

We respect your privacy. alnol will not disclose your name, email address, or other personal information to third parties without your consent, except as specified in this policy.

Our Designers or we may advertise our Services or our Designer’s products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site.

- Legal Bases:
When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share, and otherwise process your personal information for the purposes described in this policy. We rely on several legal bases to use your information in these ways. These legal bases include where:

• Necessary to perform the contractual obligations in our  General Terms of Use  and to provide the Services to you;

• You have consented to the processing, which you can revoke at any time;

• Necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise or defend any impending or asserted legal claims;

• Necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of visitors, members, or partners (described in more detail below);

• You have expressly made the information public;

• Necessary in the public interest, such as to prevent crime; and

• Occasionally necessary to protect your vital interests or those of others (in rare cases where we may need to share information to prevent loss of life or personal injury).

We principally rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at any time) (i) to send marketing messages, (ii) for third-party data sharing related to advertising, and, to the extent applicable, (iii) for the use of location data for advertising purposes.

Our Designers or we may advertise our Services or our Designers’ products through a variety of different mediums and rely on your consent to do so off-site. As part of this, we may work with advertising partners such as Facebook, Instagram, Google, and other partners disclosed in our  Cookies and Similar Technology Policy . These partners have their privacy policies and consent mechanisms for their customers, in addition to alnol’s controls. You may see these partners’ privacy policies and choices and the information you share with them in our  Cookies and Similar Technology Disclosures.

- Our Legitimate Interests:
Where we process your information based on legitimate interests, we do so as follow:

Providing and Improving our Services : We use your information to improve and customize our Services, including sharing your information for such purposes. We do so as it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests of improving our Services for our users. This is also necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in understanding how our Services are being used and explore and unlock ways to develop and grow our business. It is also required to allow us to pursue our legitimate interests in improving our Services, efficiency, interest in Services for users, and obtaining insights into usage patterns of our Services. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases, including using this information to help Designers find the best ways to market and sell their products on alnol.

- Providing Marketing Communications:
We rely on our legitimate interest to send you marketing messages (where permitted independent of the consent) and for alnol’s advertising programs (including alnol’s on-site advertising and marketing).

Keeping our Services Safe and Secure : We use your information for safety and security purposes, which can include sharing your data for such purposes, and we do so because it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests or those of a third party in ensuring the security of our Services, preventing harm to individuals or property, or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage to alnol’s systems, or those of our users or our partners. This includes enhancing the protection of our community against spam, harassment, intellectual property infringement, crime, and security risks of all kinds. In addition, we use your information to provide and improve the Services for billing and payments, identification and authentication, general research, and aggregate reporting. For example, in accordance with our existing case resolution process, we may use the information you provide to resolve disputes with alnol or other members.

Buying and Selling : As part of the buying and selling process, alnol will facilitate sharing information between the two members involved in the transaction, such as the other alnol member's shipping address and payment status. This can also involve us sharing your information with some of our third-party partners, such as our shipping and payment partners, to enable us to provide the Service to you. Such partners will process your personal information in accordance with their privacy policies. In some instances, while they are subject to alnol’s privacy and security requirements for vendors, these partners, not alnol, are responsible for protecting personal information under their control. By making a sale or a purchase on alnol, you are directing us to share your information in this way. Since this is an integral part of the Services we provide, we need to perform our obligations under our  General Terms of Use . We expect you to respect the member’s privacy whose information you have received. As described in alnol’s  General Terms of Use , you have a limited license to use that information only for alnol-related communications or for alnol-facilitated transactions. alnol has not granted permission to you to use the information for unauthorized transactions or sending unsolicited commercial messages in violation of any applicable laws, including any consent requirements of the jurisdiction of the recipient. You should only add a member to your email or physical mailing list or otherwise use or store a member’s personal information in accordance with applicable laws, including any consent requirements that apply in that member's jurisdiction.

Site Customization : We may learn about the types of products that you’re interested in from your browsing and purchasing behavior on (and off) the Site or Apps and use such information to suggest potential purchases as a result. As a core part of our Services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your on-site experience to help you search for and discover relevant items and recommended purchases, including using this information to help Designers find the best ways to market and sell their products on alnol.

Legal and Safety : alnol may also retain, preserve, or release your personal information to a third party in the following limited circumstances: in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet legitimate national security or law enforcement requirements; to protect, establish, or exercise our legal rights or defend against impending or asserted legal claims, including to collect a debt, or a material violation of our policies (including our Intellectual Property Policy); to comply with a subpoena, court order, legal process, or another legal requirement; or when we believe in good faith that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss, or investigate, prevent, or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, threats to our rights or property, or violations of alnol’s  General Terms of Use . In these cases, our use of your information may be necessary for our or a third party’s legitimate interest in keeping our Services secure, preventing harm or crime, enforcing or defending legal rights, or preventing damage. Such use may also be necessary to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or exercise or defend legal claims. It may also be required in the public interest (such as to prevent crime) or to protect vital interests (in rare cases where we may need to share information to avoid the loss of life or personal injury).

Suppose alnol receives a lawful, verified request for a member’s records or information in one of the limited circumstances described in the previous paragraph. In that case, alnol may disclose personal data, which may include, but may not be limited to, a member’s name, address, phone number, email address, and company name. Find out more about how alnol responds to requests for records or information about alnol’s community members in our  Requests for Information Policy .

Affiliated Businesses : alnol is affiliated with various businesses and works closely with them for multiple purposes, including assisting us to perform and improve the services. When an affiliated business assists in facilitating your transaction, we may need to share information related to the transaction with that related business to facilitate your transaction. This forms part of the Services we provide in accordance with our  General Terms of Use . We rely on consent (which can be withdrawn at any time) to send marketing messages and for third-party sharing relating to advertising. We may work with advertising partners such as Facebook or Google as part of this. We may use analytics aggregated from usage information, including, for example, search keywords, favorites, browsing history, and purchase history.

Aggregated Information : alnol may share demographic information with business partners, but it will be aggregated and de-personalized so that personal data is not revealed.

Service Providers : alnol also needs to engage third-party companies and individuals (such as research companies and analytics and security providers) to help us operate, provide, and market the Services. These third parties have only limited access to your information, may use your information only to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are obligated to alnol not to disclose or use your information for other purposes. Our engagement of service providers is often necessary for us to provide the Services to you, mainly where such companies play important roles like helping us keep our Service operating and secure. In some other cases, these service providers aren’t strictly necessary for us to provide the Services, but help us make it better, like by helping us research how we could better serve our users. In these latter cases, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to make our Services better.

Business Reorganization : In some cases, alnol may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interests, particularly our interest in making decisions that enable our business to develop over the long term. In these types of transactions (such as a sale, merger, liquidation, receivership, or transfer of all or substantially all of alnol’s assets), member information is typically one of the business assets that is transferred. For example, suppose alnol intends to share information about you. In that case, alnol will notify you by email or put a prominent notice on the Site and the App. You will be allowed to opt-out before information about you becomes subject to a different privacy policy.

Third Parties : Third-party plug-ins also collect information about your use of the Site. For example, when you load a page on alnol with a social plug-in from a third-party site or service, such as a “Like” or “Send” button, you also load content from that third-party site. That site may request cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the third-party site. In addition, certain cookies and other similar technologies on the Site are used by third parties for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer or mobile device each time you use the Services. Please be aware that when you use third-party sites or services, their terms and privacy policies will govern your use of those sites or services. alnol chooses and manages these third-party technologies placed on its Sites and Apps. However, these are third-party technologies, subject to that third party's privacy policy. For more information, see our  Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy . We rely on your consent to drop and read these cookies when not technically necessary or when not required based on another purpose such as legitimate interest.

This policy does not apply to the practices of third parties (such as other members who sell using the Services, certain third-party providers on whom we rely on providing certain services, or API users) that alnol does not own or control or individuals that alnol does not employ or manage, except as otherwise provided for in the Terms or as required by law. If you provide your information to such third parties in connection with your use of the Services, different practices may apply to the use or disclosure of the information you provide to them. While alnol requires these third parties to follow alnol’s privacy and security requirements, alnol does not control such third parties’ privacy or security policies. To the full extent applicable in your jurisdiction, alnol is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of these Designers, API users, or other websites on the internet, even those linked to or from the Services. We encourage you to read the privacy policies and ask questions of third parties before you disclose your personal information to them.

Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us during transmission and after it is received; for example, encryption is used for specific information (such as credit card numbers) using TLS (transport layer security). Unfortunately, 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.

A password protects your account information. You must guard against unauthorized access to your account and information by carefully choosing your password and keeping your password and computer secure, such as signing out after using the Services. alnol offers advanced security features and settings for members, such as two-factor authentication for signing in and sign-in history and notifications; you can view more information in your account settings.

If you have any questions about the security of your personal information, you can contact us at contact@alnol.com .

Retention

alnol will retain your information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this policy, for as long as your account is active (i.e., for the lifetime of your alnol member account), or as needed, provide the Services to you. If you no longer want to use your information to provide the services, you may close your account. alnol will retain and use your information to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to maintain your information to comply with applicable tax/revenue laws), resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and as otherwise described in this policy. In addition, alnol Designers may also be required to retain and use your information to comply with their legal obligations. Please note that closing your account may not free up your email address, username, or shop name (if any) for reuse on a new account. We also retain log files for internal analysis purposes. These log files are generally retained for a brief period, except in cases where they are used for site safety and security to improve site functionality, or we are legally obligated to keep them for longer periods.

Your Right & Choices

You may change or correct your alnol account information through your account settings. You can also request to close your account and delete your personal information permanently. Depending on your location, you may also benefit from several rights with respect to your information. While some of these rights apply generally, certain rights apply in limited cases.

Right to Access & Portability:  You can access certain personal information associated with your account by visiting your account privacy settings. You can request a copy of your personal information in an easily accessible format and information explaining how that information is used. See this Help Center article for more details.

Right to Correction: You have the right to request that we rectify inaccurate information about you. By visiting your account settings, you can correct and change specific personal data associated with your account.

Right to Restrict Processing:  In some instances where we process your information, you may also have the right to restrict or limit how we use your personal information.

Right to Deletion : In certain circumstances, you have the right to request the deletion of your personal information, except information we are required to retain by law, regulation, or to protect the safety, security, and integrity of alnol. 

Right to Object:  If we process your information based on our legitimate interests, as explained above, or in the public interest, you can object to this processing in certain circumstances. In such cases, we will cease processing your information unless we have compelling legitimate grounds to continue processing or where it is needed for legal reasons. For example, we use your data for direct marketing purposes; you can object using the unsubscribe link in such communications or changing your account email settings.

Right to Withdraw Consent:  Where we rely on consent, you can choose to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information using specific features provided to enable you to withdraw consent, like an email unsubscribe link or your account privacy preferences. For example, suppose you have consented to share your precise device location details but would no longer like to continue sharing that information with us. In that case, you can revoke your consent to share that information through the settings on your mobile device. This is without prejudice to your right to close your account and delete your personal information generally permanently.

If you want to manage, change, limit, or delete your personal information, you can do so via your alnol account settings. Alternatively, you can exercise any of the rights above by contacting us by submitting a message through our contact form available in our Help Center, chat support, or any other channels available via our Help Center. Once you contact us to exercise any of your rights, we will confirm receipt of your request.

Limiting the use of, or deleting, your personal information may impact features and uses that rely on that information. However, we will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your rights, including otherwise denying you goods or services, providing you with a different level or quality of services, or charging you different prices or rates for services. If you need further assistance, you can contact alnol through one of the channels listed below under “Contact.” We will respond to your request within a reasonable timeframe.

Please note that we may verify your identity before processing any of the requests described in this Section. At our discretion, deny your request if we cannot verify your identity. As a part of this process, government or other identification may be required. You may designate an authorized agent to request on your behalf. To select an authorized agent to request on your behalf, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requester’s valid government-issued identification, and the authorized agent’s valid government-issued identification, and we may verify the authenticity of the request directly with you.

- Email & messages:
You may also control the receipt of certain types of communications from alnol in your account settings. alnol may send you messages about the Services or your activity. Some of these messages are required service-related messages for members (such as transactional messages or legal notices). Other messages are not required, such as newsletters. You can control which optional messages you choose to receive by changing your account settings, and you can learn more in the “Messages from alnol” Section of this policy. If you no longer wish to use the Services or receive service-related messages (except for legally required notices), then you may close your account. Click here to learn how to close your account.

- Cookies:
We use both technically necessary (for the functioning and security of the Services) and non-technically necessary cookies and similar technologies. You can find a more detailed explanation of the technologies we use and how to opt-out when applicable in alnol’s  Cookies & Similar Technologies Policy.

Privacy Policy Changes

We may amend or update this policy from time to time. Suppose we believe that the changes are material. In that case, we’ll let you know by doing one (or more) of the following: