Privacy Policy

Last updated August 17, 2023

The Utilities Connection website (“the Service”) is operated by Utilities Connection, LLC (“Utilities Connection,” “we” or “us”).  This Privacy Policy describes our practices concerning the information we collect from you when you visit or use the Service. By visiting or using the Service, you consent to our collection and use of your information as described in this Privacy Policy.

Questions or concerns? Reading this privacy notice will help you understand your privacy rights and choices. If you still have any questions or concerns, please contact us at contact@utilitiesconnection.com.

The information that we collect from you depends upon what sections of the Service you visit and what actions you take during your visit.  In general, we collect the following kinds of information:

(a) Personally identifiable information (PII): PII is information that personally identifies one individual from another.  You voluntarily provide us with this information when you register on or use the Service. We may also collect PII about you from third-parties that provide us with such information at your request.  We may collect information about you, from you or from third-parties, when third-parties, such as the Retail Electric Providers (“REPs”), contact us to request or verify information about you.  The types of PII we may collect include:

• Your name, Social Security number, email address, telephone number and/or IP address;
• Your financial institution payment information, credit history and score, and employment status;
• Your account ID, energy usage history, and meter number;
• Account and credit details from the REP you select;
• Information about your home or business (e.g. area, heating system type);
• Your energy service plan preferences; and
• Other PII that you submit via the Service or which third-parties provide us with your consent.

(b) General Information:  General Information is information that is anonymous in nature and does not identify you as an individual.  We collect General Information by using “cookies”, “web beacons” and similar tools, and it may include your computer IP address, unique mobile device identifier, browser type, ISP or carrier name, the URL of the last webpage you visited before visiting the Service, and actions you undertake on the Service when you visit. This information gives us insights on how people use the Service and may result in us tailoring advertisements on the Service to you based on your online activities or preferences.

You are welcome to opt out of our use of cookies, web beacons and other tools, and you can learn more about how do to so at the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Webchoices page, European Advertising Standards Alliance (EASA)’s Framework and the Network Advertising Initiative’s Consumer Opt Out page.

(c) Social Media-Related Content

The Service may include features that let you share information from it to social media services. Your use of these sharing features may result in the collection or sharing of information about you by these sites and other third-parties according to the social media services’ own privacy policies. If you log in to your Get Electricity account through social media platforms, we may access and store information through interfaces provided by the platforms in accordance with the platforms’ policies.

We use your PII to provide you with the Service and to provide you with offers from third-parties such as REPs.  We may also use your PII to:

• facilitate your application for energy services from various REPs;
• obtain your credit history and score;
• verify documents;
• create and manage your online accounts and profile;
• contact you (by telephone, email or U.S. postal mail) to discuss your account and/or other matters that we believe may be of interest to you, including offers for third-party products and services;
• conduct market research, website analysis, and other internal business purposes;
• comply with the law, protect our legal rights, and enforce our Terms of Service.
  
  

We use the information we collect through cookies and other tools to improve the Service, customize your visits, determine which of our website’s pages you access, and customize the advertising materials the Service shows you.

We may anonymize certain elements of your PII so that it can no longer be attributed to you.  We will use this anonymized PII in the same manner as we use General Information.

We may share the information that we collect from and about you with REPs, with our affiliates, with third-party service providers, and with other third-parties with whom we partner (including cloud storage and web hosting providers, marketers, and software maintenance service providers). We will not share any of your financial institution payment information with any third-party other than your selected REP.

REPs handle their own customer service and billing and may use your information in accordance with their own privacy policies, which we encourage you to review before using our Service. Some of the third-parties described above, including Google, may use location information and other personal information to serve advertisements to you on other websites.

Should you decide to customize your results or account using your actual usage data, or if you request rate quotes for a business, we may access your usage data, meter number, and premise identification number through an automated interface maintained by your utility or other third-party and we may share this information with REPs.

We may also disclose PII or other information about you (a) to law enforcement authorities, courts, or regulators; (b) to exercise or protect our legal rights; or (c) in the course of a business transaction in which we buy or sell assets. If we enter into an agreement to sell substantially all of our business assets, or if we become insolvent or enter into bankruptcy, your PII may be transferred to a third-party. In any of these cases, your PII could continue to be used by a successor or purchaser entity in the ways set forth in this policy.

We take the security of your information seriously and use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect PII against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage.  Our Service and the server(s) upon which it is hosted use Secure Socket Layering (SSL) to encrypt information including user login and password, user account content, credit card numbers, and other information.

However, because no security system can be 100% effective, we do not guarantee the security of any information we may have collected from or about you.  In addition, we have no control over the security of other web sites on the Internet that you might visit even when a link may appear to those websites.  If there is a breach of security, then we may either post a notice through the service or attempt to notify you via email so that you can take reasonable protective steps.

We may retain the information you provide to us for as long as we deem necessary to fulfill a business purpose or comply with a legal request.  If you would like to object to our keeping your information, please follow the instructions in Section 6.

You may at any time (i) configure your browser to opt-out of the Service’s placement of cookies on your computer; (ii) withdraw any consent you previously gave us, or object to the processing of your PII by following the contact instructions in Section 12 (this may prevent you from using certain elements of the Service); (iii) stop receiving commercial emails from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of the email (this will not prevent or interfere with us sending you non-marketing transactional communications); (iv) edit or delete some or all of your PII (apart from your name and contact information). Notwithstanding these options, we may keep some of the information you give us in an anonymized form that does not reveal identifying information about you. You may exercise these rights by contacting us as provided in Section 12 or in other written communications we may send you.

The Service may include links to our business partners’ websites or other sites. If you choose to provide any information to any of these entities, they will collect and use your information pursuant to their own privacy policies, over which we have no control.

We and some service providers we work with may employ technology that tracks your online activities on the Service and on third-party websites. We currently offer no response to Do-Not-Track requests transmitted by web browsers. In addition, we have no control over the activities of third-party, advertiser, or service provider practices and they may employ technology that tracks your activity on the Service.

Our Service is not for users under the age of 14, and we do not knowingly collect any information from children under 14, except any third-party information you provide to us.

In addition to the rights set forth in this Privacy Policy, Residents of California (“California Residents”) may request information about the types of PII we share with third-parties for direct marketing purposes and the identities of the third-parties with whom we have shared such information during the immediately preceding calendar year. California Residents may request further information about our compliance with this law by sending us a request to the email address provided in Section 12. We will respond to one such request per customer each year, and we cannot and will not reply to requests made by means other than those described in Section 12.

There is no identity verification requirement to access the Service, and all users can visit it anonymously, but you must provide us with PII in order to effectively access and use it.

We may change this Privacy Policy in the future. If we make any changes regarding the disclosure of Personal Information to third-parties, we will inform you via email or by posting a notice on our website.  By continuing to use the Service following any such change, you agree to the amended Privacy Policy.

With any questions about this policy, please email contact@utilitiesconnection.com