The Tie Inc. (“The Tie,” "Company," "we," "us," or "our") operates https://www.thetie.io, The Tie Terminal, The Tie Instant Messenger (“TIM”), and our application programming interfaces. We respect your privacy and are committed to protecting it through our compliance with this Privacy Policy.
This Privacy Policy describes the types of information we may collect from you or that you may provide when you visit https://www.thetie.io and its subdomains, use The Tie Terminal, use TIM enterprise messaging service, including its desktop and iOS/Android apps, access our application programming interfaces (“APIs”), or subscribe to any of our newsletters or digital subscriptions (collectively, our "Site"), and our practices for collecting, using, maintaining, protecting, and disclosing that information.
This Privacy Policy applies to all services comprising our Site. Section 7 sets out additional provisions specific to TIM and AI features in The Tie Terminal.
This Privacy Policy applies to information we collect:
This Privacy Policy does not apply to information collected by:
Please read this Privacy Policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. By accessing or using our Site, you acknowledge this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may change from time to time (see Changes to Our Privacy Policy). We will provide notice of material changes and obtain your consent where required by applicable law.
At all times, your use of our Site is subject to the applicable Terms of Use, which incorporate or refer to this Privacy Policy.
We collect several types of information from and about users of our Site, including information:
We may collect this information:
Information You Provide to Us
The information we collect on or through our Site may include:
User Contributions
If you use TIM, information you disclose through its messaging features, including text, images, audio and voice messages, GIFs, links, and files (“User Contributions”), may be available to other users with whom you share such information or who participate in the applicable chat. For additional information regarding messaging, chat visibility, and organizational archiving in TIM, see Section 7.
We use User Contributions as necessary to provide, maintain, support, and improve our Site and services and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy. We cannot control the actions of other users of our Site, including those with whom you may choose to share your User Contributions, and no security measures are perfect or impenetrable. Therefore, we cannot and do not guarantee that your User Contributions will not be viewed by unauthorized persons, and our liability in connection with the use of any interactive services is subject to the limitations set out in the applicable Terms of Use. Please see the applicable Terms of Use, including https://www.thetie.io/terms-of-use/, for additional information.
We use information that we collect about you or that you provide to us, including any personal information, for carefully-considered purposes and for the benefit of our customers as follows:
We may disclose aggregated or de-identified information, including Usage Data, that does not identify your organization or any individual, without restriction, provided that we maintain reasonable measures to prevent re-identification as required by applicable law.
We may disclose personal information that we collect or you provide as described in this Privacy Policy:
We may also disclose your personal information:
As you navigate through and interact with our Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns, including:
The information we collect automatically includes data regarding the performance, operation, and use of our Site (“Usage Data”). We maintain Usage Data or associate it with personal information we collect in other ways or receive from third parties. It helps us to operate, maintain, improve, and develop our Site and to deliver a better and more personalized service, including by enabling us to:
Where required by applicable law, we obtain your consent before using non-essential cookies or similar tracking technologies. You may manage your preferences through the cookie consent tool available on the applicable public website (www.thetie.io). Essential technologies necessary to provide requested functionality may operate without separate consent where permitted by law.
The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include:
Cookies (or browser cookies). A cookie is a small text file stored on your device when you visit our Site. We use cookies that are necessary to authenticate your session and keep your account secure, and, on our public website (www.thetie.io), to remember your preferences and analyze website traffic. Disabling certain cookies may impact the functionality and user experience of our Site.
Local Storage. Certain features of our Site may use local storage technologies (such as HTML5 local storage) or, in our mobile applications, app storage, to store information needed to keep you signed in and to remember your settings.
Web Beacons. Pages of our Site and our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit the Company, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and to collect other related Site statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Site content and verifying system and server integrity).
Product Analytics. To improve The Tie Terminal and TIM, third-party analytics service providers process Usage Data on our behalf, including information about features used and actions taken. This information may be linked to your account and organization and, in TIM, your IP address and city-level location (and, in The Tie Terminal, your name and email address). We may aggregate and de-identify Usage Data to analyze usage patterns, evaluate product performance, and improve our products and services. Such aggregated and anonymized data does not identify individual users or customer organizations, and we maintain reasonable measures to prevent re-identification. Analytics identifiers are held only in memory and are not stored on your device.
Data Retention
The Tie retains personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, for our legitimate business purposes, and in accordance with applicable retention requirements. Reasons for retaining your data (such as User Contributions, account records, and records of reports and enforcement actions), including after an account or subscription ends, may include, but are not limited to, increased user accessibility of the Site, compliance with applicable law, regulation, audits, and legal inquiries, resolution of disputes, investigation of reports and enforcement of our Terms of Use, meeting internal compliance requirements, and helping law enforcement with ongoing investigations. Following suspension, termination, or closure of an account, we may retain or delete User Contributions as described in this Privacy Policy. Data may persist in our periodic backups for a period after deletion from our active systems.
Data Security
We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information, including User Contributions, from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction, but no method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. The safety and security of your information also depends on you. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials, including any passwords used to access our Site. We ask you not to share your password credentials with anyone. If you suspect unauthorized access to your account, please notify us at security@thetie.io.
Messages, Attachments, and Chat Visibility
If you use TIM, your User Contributions, including voice messages, images, and files, are stored on our systems and available to participants in the applicable chat, who may include users outside your organization and whose organizations may archive them (see Organizational Controls and Integrations below). Except as described below, we do not verify chat participants’ identities, so use appropriate judgment before sharing information. GIFs in TIM are provided by Giphy, which receives your GIF searches.
Authorized administrators of your organization may view or reassign chats associated with members of their organization, including messages, attachments, and other content in those chats. A member to whom a chat is reassigned may access the full history of that chat, including messages and attachments exchanged before the reassignment. Such chats may include communications with users outside your organization. Accordingly, communications with a member of another organization may be accessible to authorized administrators of that organization and to members to whom those chats are reassigned.
Location Information
If you enable location sharing in the TIM mobile application, we collect precise location information from your device (such as GPS data), which may constitute “sensitive personal information” under the CCPA and similar laws. We use it only to provide the Discover feature in TIM and do not sell or share it. Where required by applicable law, including the GDPR, we collect it only with your consent, which you may withdraw at any time by disabling location sharing in your device or application settings. We also derive approximate location from your IP address to display your account’s active sessions so you can review and manage them.
Business Email Connectivity and Verification
TIM may display an “Email Verified” or “KYB Verified” badge, as applicable, in connection with a user profile or organization. These badges are visible to other TIM users and disclose only the applicable verification status, not underlying verification documents, review findings, provider comments, or other KYB details. Email verification indicates verification of access to an email address; KYB verification indicates completion of the applicable organization’s business verification process. Neither badge constitutes an endorsement or guarantee by The Tie of any user or organization.
Your organization may connect its business email domains or accounts to TIM. In that case, or as part of basic account verification, we or our third-party authentication provider may verify your access to your email address (for example, by a confirmation link or code) or verify your organization’s control of its email domain and use that address or domain to determine whether you are eligible to join, or be associated with, your organization’s account.
If your organization elects Know-Your-Business (“KYB”) verification, an independent third-party provider conducts the verification and collects the submitted documentation, including identity documents, under its own terms and privacy practices, not this Privacy Policy. We do not store those documents; we store only the verification outcome and status, including any review result, rejection type and labels, the provider’s comments to your organization, and timestamps.
Organizational Controls and Integrations
If an organization enables our integration with a third-party message archiving and compliance service, we will transmit to its designated archive a copy of the messages, edits, deletions, reactions, attachments, and related metadata in every chat in which any of its users participates, including content sent by users outside that organization. This applies to your organization and to the organizations of other chat participants.
Your organization is responsible for providing you with any legally-required notices and obtaining any required consents. Its handling of your information, and the archiving services, is governed by their own privacy policies and terms, not this Privacy Policy.
If a participant's organization has enabled an applicable archiving integration, messages and related content in chats involving that participant may be archived by that organization, including messages sent by participants outside that organization.
Messages involving participants from more than one organization may be archived by each participating organization that has enabled an applicable archiving integration, even where a sender is not a member of the archiving organization.
Reporting, Blocking, and Safety Tools
TIM allows authorized users to report users for suspected violations of the applicable Terms of Use, block users, and mute conversations. If you submit a report, in-app or by emailing support@thetie.io, we collect the information you provide (such as your account information, the reported user’s identity, the reason, any identified content, and the date and time) and may review relevant User Contributions, account information, and activity of the reported user or chat. We use this information to investigate reports, take enforcement action under the Terms of Use (including restricting, suspending, or terminating access), and protect our users and our Site. We store block and mute settings to apply them to your account; blocking or muting does not delete previously-exchanged content, remove it from other participants’ view, or affect any organization’s archiving.
Company Data and Search
We compile and make available to users of our Site information about companies, funds, investors, and tokens, including information about people such as founders, investors, and fund staff (“Company Data”), drawn from our own research, public sources, and third-party data providers. Company Data may be searchable by and visible to users outside your organization. If you believe Company Data about you is inaccurate, contact us as described in Your Privacy Rights at Section 12 below.
AI Features in The Tie Terminal
If you use AI features in The Tie Terminal, your prompts and related content are transmitted to third-party AI service providers to generate responses and operate those features. The information transmitted may include personal information contained in your prompts or related content. The providers’ retention and permitted uses of this information depend on the applicable service configurations and contractual arrangements.
Our Site is used by customers throughout the world. Some of these countries have different levels of privacy protection than those in the U.S. We store core application data, including User Contributions and account information, and our periodic backups with third-party hosting providers in the United States. If you are located outside the United States, your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States and other jurisdictions where we or our service providers operate, whose data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction. For transfers of personal data from the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as Standard Contractual Clauses, where required by applicable law. Additional information about the transfer of personal information in accordance with the GDPR to the US is available here: https://thetie.io/gdpr.
Our Site is not directed at individuals under eighteen (18) years of age or the age of majority in their jurisdiction, whichever is greater, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under that age. If you believe we have collected such information, please contact us at legal@thetie.io, and we will delete it.
It is our policy to post any changes we make to our Privacy Policy on this page. If we make material changes to how we treat our users' personal information, we will notify you through a notice on the Site home page, through our services, or by email to the address associated with your account or your organization’s account administrator. You consent to receive such notices and other communications electronically. The date this Privacy Policy was last revised is identified at the top of the page. You are responsible for ensuring we have an up-to-date, active and deliverable email address for you, and for periodically visiting our Site and this Privacy Policy to check for any changes.
To ask questions or comment on this Privacy Policy and our privacy practices, contact us at: The Tie Inc., 555 Madison Avenue, 16th Floor, New York, NY 10022 or by email to legal@thetie.io.
To register a complaint or concern, please email legal@thetie.io. Note that we may reject requests that risk the privacy of others, would require a disproportionate technical effort, or would otherwise be impractical, in each case to the extent permitted by applicable law.
Accessing and Correcting Your Information
You may send us an email at legal@thetie.io to request access to, make corrections to, or request deletion of any personal information that you have provided to us. We will respond to verifiable requests within the timeframes required by applicable law. We may not accommodate a request to change information if we believe the change would violate any law or legal requirement or cause the information to be incorrect. Please note that deleting certain personal information may affect your experience of the Site.
Your State Privacy Rights
If you are a resident of a U.S. state that has enacted comprehensive consumer privacy legislation, including, but not limited to, California, Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Iowa, Indiana, Tennessee, Texas, Florida, Montana, Oregon, Delaware, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Nebraska, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, and Rhode Island, your state may provide you with additional privacy rights.
To learn about your California privacy rights, see California Privacy Rights.
To learn more about your privacy rights under the laws of any other State listed above or any other jurisdiction and how to exercise them, please make a written request to legal@thetie.io. While we will make reasonable efforts to accommodate any request, we also reserve the right to place limitations on any request, subject to applicable laws.
California Privacy Rights
The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA), provides California residents with additional rights as they relate to the protection of personal data.
“Personal information” has the meaning given in Section 2. Under the CCPA, California consumers have the following rights with respect to their personal information:
Some examples of “personal information” as defined by the CCPA include:
Personal information, as defined by the CCPA, does not include information lawfully made available from federal, state or local government records, or information that a business has a reasonable basis to believe is lawfully made available to the general public, in each case as further defined by the CCPA.
The Tie collects the following types of information which may constitute “sensitive personal information” as defined under the CCPA: account log-in credentials in combination with any required security or access code, password, or credentials allowing access to an account; and, if you enable location sharing in the TIM mobile application, precise geolocation. The Tie only uses such information to provide our services and products or as otherwise permitted by the CCPA. The Tie does not sell your personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.
For more information regarding The Tie’s use of your data, contact The Tie’s Legal Department at the email or the mailing address listed in Section 11.
California residents can exercise their rights directly or through an authorized agent by contacting The Tie’s Legal Department. Please include “California Privacy Rights” in the subject line of your email.
EUROPEAN PRIVACY RIGHTS (GDPR)
The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the equivalent data protection laws of the United Kingdom and Switzerland provide individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, and Switzerland with additional rights as they relate to the protection of personal data.
References to “personal information” in this Privacy Policy, as defined in Section 2, are equivalent to “personal data” as defined under GDPR. Under the GDPR, a company may be a “data controller,” “data processor” or both.
DATA CONTROLLER
Under Article 4 of the GDPR, a company is a “data controller” when it determines the purposes and means of processing personal data. In The Tie’s role as “data controller,” we process your personal data on the following legal bases: (a) performance of a contract (to provide our products and services); (b) legitimate interests (to operate, improve, and secure our Site; for fraud prevention and enforcement; and to compile Company Data and market our products and services to business contacts); (c) compliance with legal obligations; and (d) your consent, where applicable.
When acting as data controller, The Tie commits to:
Data Processor
Under Article 4 of the GDPR, a company is a “data processor” when it processes personal data on behalf of a “data controller.” While the majority of The Tie’s business operates as a “data controller,” circumstances may arise where we process data on behalf of our customers. To the extent we process personal data on behalf of your organization as a data processor, we do so in accordance with Article 28 of the GDPR and the data processing agreement entered into with your organization, and your organization’s privacy practices govern that processing.
Under applicable law, The Tie may disclose personal data to competent authorities upon lawful request for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offenses, to the extent required or permitted by applicable law.
In accordance with this Privacy Policy and the GDPR, personal data shall be:
In the event of a personal data breach involving data protected by the GDPR, that is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of natural persons, The Tie will notify the relevant supervisory authority without undue delay and, where feasible, within seventy-two (72) hours of becoming aware of the breach, or, if delayed, will give a reason for such delay. If a data breach occurs and is likely to result in a high risk to affected individuals, The Tie will inform those individuals without undue delay.
For information about how long we retain personal data, see Data Retention and Security above.
You shall have the right to:
Individuals in the EEA, United Kingdom, and Switzerland can exercise their rights directly or through an authorized agent by contacting The Tie’s Legal Department. Please include “European Privacy Rights” in the Subject line of your email. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.
For more information regarding The Tie’s use of your data, contact The Tie’s Legal Department at the email or mailing address listed in Section 11.
Staking Rewards (www.stakingrewards.com), Liquidity.Land (liquidity.land), and Stakin (stakin.com) have their own privacy policies, available on those websites.
