Privacy Policy

Thrive Life GmbH, the legal entity behind Sparcs, is a software company. Our products and services that link to this Privacy Policy provide fast and fun ways to develop and motivate, live in the moment, learn about the world, and get better together!

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When you use these services, you will share some information with us. We want to be upfront about the information we collect, how we use it, whom we share it with, and the controls we give you to access, update, and delete your information.

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That’s why we’ve written this Privacy Policy. And it’s why we’ve tried to write it in a way that’s blissfully free of the legalese that often clouds these documents. Of course, if you still have questions about anything in our Privacy Policy, just contact us.

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Information We Collect

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There are two basic categories of information we collect:

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• Information you provide.

• Information we get when you use our services.

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Here’s a little more detail on each of these categories.

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Information You Provide

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When you interact with our services, we collect information that you provide to us. For example, most of our services require you to set up a Sparcs account, so we need to collect a few important details about you, such as your name, nickname, password, email address, phone number, and date of birth. We may also ask you to provide us with some additional information that will be publicly visible on our services, such as a profile picture or avatar. Other services, such as commerce products, may require you to provide us with a debit or credit card number and its associated account information.

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Of course, you’ll also provide us whatever information you send through our services, such as Activities, associated Pictures and Chats. Keep in mind that the users who view your Pictures, Chats, and any other content can always save that content or copy it outside the app. So, the same common sense that applies to the internet at large applies to Sparcs as well: Don’t send messages or share content that you wouldn’t want someone to save or share.

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When you contact customer support or communicate with us in any other way, we’ll collect whatever information you volunteer or that we need to resolve your question.

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Information We Get When You Use Our Services

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When you use our services, we collect information about which of those services you’ve used and how you’ve used them. We might know, for instance, that you watched a particular User Story, saw a specific ad for a certain period of time, and sent a few Chats. Here’s a fuller explanation of the types of information we collect when you use our services:

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• Usage Information. We collect information about your activity through our services. For example, we may collect information about:

  • how you interact with our services, such as which Activities you choose, Goals you set, or which Routines you accomplish.

  • how you communicate with other people on Sparcs, such as their names, the time and date of your communications, the number of messages you exchange with your friends, which friends you exchange messages with the most, and your interactions with messages (such as when you open a message or capture a screenshot).

• Content Information. We collect content you create on our services, such as custom pictures, and information about the content you create or provide, such as if the recipient has viewed the content and the metadata that is provided with the content.

• Device Information. We collect information from and about the devices you use. For example, we collect:

  • information about your hardware and software, such as the hardware model, operating system version, device memory, advertising identifiers, unique application identifiers, apps installed, unique device identifiers, browser type, language, battery level, and time zone;

  • information from device sensors, such as accelerometers, gyroscopes, compasses, microphones, and whether you have headphones connected; and

  • information about your wireless and mobile network connections, such as mobile phone number, service provider, IP address, and signal strength.

• Device Phonebook. Because Sparcs is all about communicating with friends, we may—with your permission—collect information from your device’s phonebook.

• Camera and Photos. Many of our services require us to collect images and other information from your device’s camera and photos. For example, you won’t be able to send Pictures or upload photos from your camera roll unless we can access your camera or photos.

• Location Information. When you use our services we may collect information about your location. With your permission, we may also collect information about your precise location using methods that include GPS, wireless networks, cell towers, Wi-Fi access points, and other sensors, such as gyroscopes, accelerometers, and compasses.

• Information Collected by Cookies and Other Technologies. Like most online services and mobile applications, we may use cookies and other technologies, such as web beacons, web storage, and unique advertising identifiers, to collect information about your activity, browser, and device. We may also use these technologies to collect information when you interact with services we offer through one of our partners, such as advertising and commerce features.

• Log Information. We also collect log information when you use our website, such as:

  • details about how you’ve used our services;

  • device information, such as your web browser type and language;

  • access times;

  • pages viewed;

  • IP address;

  • identifiers associated with cookies or other technologies that may uniquely identify your device or browser; and

  • pages you visited before or after navigating to our website.

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How We Use Information

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What do we do with the information we collect? The short answer is: Provide you with an amazing set of products and services that we relentlessly improve. Here are the ways we do that:

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• develop, operate, improve, deliver, maintain, and protect our products and services.

• send you communications, including by email and phone text message. For example, we may use email or short message to respond to support inquiries or to share information about notifications such as event invitations or monthly review, updates, products, services, and promotional offers that we think may interest you.

• monitor and analyze trends and usage.

• personalize our services by, among other things, suggesting friends, profile information, or customizing the content we show you, including ads.

• provide and improve our advertising services, ad targeting, and ad measurement, including through the use of your precise location information (again, if you’ve given us permission to collect that information), both on and off our services.

• enhance the safety and security of our products and services.

• verify your identity and prevent fraud or other unauthorized or illegal activity.

• use information we’ve collected from cookies and other technology to enhance our services and your experience with them.

• enforce our Terms of Service and other usage policies and comply with legal requirements.

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How We Share Information

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We may share information about you in the following ways:

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• With other Sparcs User. We may share the following information with other Sparcs Users:

  • information about you, such as your username, name, and Avatar.

  • information about how you have interacted with our services, such as your activity “scores,” the names of Users you are friends with, and other information that will help Users understand your connections with others using our services. For example, because it may not be clear whether a new friend request comes from someone you actually know, we may share whether you and the requestor have Sparcs friends in common.

  • any additional information you have directed us to share. For example, Sparcs will share your information when you connect your Sparcs account to a third-party app, and if you share information or content from Sparcs to the third-party app.

  • content you post or send. How widely your content is shared depends on your personal settings and the type of service you are using. For example, a Chat may be sent to just a single friend you select, but your Story content may be seen by any User whom you allow to see your Story.

• With all Sparcs Users, our business partners, and the general public. We may share the following information with all Users as well as with our business partners and the general public:

  • public information like your name, username, and profile pictures.

  • Story submissions that are set to be viewable by Everyone and any content that you submit to an inherently public service, like Story and other crowd-sourced services. This content may be viewed and shared by the public at large both on and off our services, including through search results, on websites, in apps, and in online and offline broadcasts.

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How Long We Keep Your Information

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For a better user experience, we store most information for longer periods of time. For example:

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• We store your basic account information—like your name, phone number, and email address—and list of friends until you ask us to delete them.

• We store location information for different lengths of time based on how precise it is and which services you use.

• We’re constantly collecting and updating information about the things you might like and dislike, so we can provide you with more relevant content and advertisements.

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If you ever decide to stop using Sparcs, you can just ask us to delete your account. We’ll also delete most of the information we’ve collected about you after you’ve been inactive for a while—but don’t worry, we’ll try to contact you first!

Keep in mind that, while our systems are designed to carry out our deletion practices automatically, we cannot promise that deletion will occur within a specific timeframe. There may be legal requirements to store your data and we may need to suspend those deletion practices if we receive valid legal process asking us to preserve content, if we receive reports of abuse or other Terms of Service violations, or if your account or content created by you is flagged by our automated systems for abuse or other Terms of Service violations. Finally, we may also retain certain information in backup for a limited period of time or as required by law.

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Control Over Your Information

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We want you to be in control of your information, so we provide you with the following tools.

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• Access, Correction, and Portability. You can access and edit most of your basic account information right in our apps. We may also reject your request to access or update your personal information for a number of reasons, including, for example, if the request risks the privacy of other users or is unlawful.

• Revoking permissions. In most cases, if you let us use your information, you can simply revoke your permission by changing the settings in the app or on your device if your device offers those options. Of course, if you do that, certain services may lose full functionality.

• Deletion. While we hope you’ll remain a lifelong Sparcs User, if for some reason you ever want to delete your account, you can just do that.

• Advertising Preferences. We try to show you ads that we think will be relevant to your interests. If you would like to modify the information we and our advertising partners use to select these ads, you can do so in the app and through your device preferences.

• Communicating with other Users. It’s important to us that you stay in control over whom you communicate with. That’s why we’ve built a number of tools in Settings that let you indicate, among other things, who you want to see your Stories, whether you’d like to receive Messages from just your friends or all Users, and whether you’d like to block another User from contacting you again.

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Children

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Our services are not intended for—and we don’t direct them to—anyone under 13. And that’s why we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. In addition, we may limit how we collect, use, and store some of the information of EU users between 13 and 16. In some cases, this means we will be unable to provide certain functionality to these users. If we need to rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your information and your country requires consent from a parent, we may require your parent’s consent before we collect and use that information.

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Revisions to the Privacy Policy

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We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. But when we do, we’ll let you know one way or another. Sometimes, we’ll let you know by revising the date at the top of the Privacy Policy that’s available on our website and mobile application. Other times, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our websites’ homepages or providing you with an in-app notification).