The Host Co Privacy Notice

LAST UPDATED: SEPTEMBER 15, 2023

A. Introduction

This Privacy Notice (the “Privacy Notice”) describes how The Host Company HC, Inc. (“The Host Co.”, “we”, “our” or “us”) obtains, uses and shares personal information in connection with the operation of our website available at https://www.thehost.co/ and related services as well as other offerings linking to this Privacy Notice (collectively the “Services”).

The Host Co. is a retail solution for short term rental hosts. Our Services are intended to enable rental hosts (each a “Rental Host”) to make in-home goods and amenities readily available to their guests (“Guests”) as well as other services (e.g., pre-stocked groceries, food delivery, curation and sale of local vendor goods) through a digital store curated by the Rental Hosts (each a “Digital Store”).

This Privacy Notice describes the privacy practices of The Host Co. only and does not cover the practices or services of Rental Hosts and other companies, including those that may sell or advertise goods, amenities and services through the Digital Stores and Services.

B. Personal Information We Obtain

The Host Co. obtains different types of personal information about Rental Hosts and Guests who use the Services as described below. Certain features may not be available to individuals who do not provide the requested information.

  1. Personal Information We Obtain Directly from Rental Hosts

When Rental Hosts use the Services including to create a Digital Store or to sign up to be on the waitlist, we may collect the following personal information:

  • Contact information (e.g., name, email address or phone number)

  • Account information (e.g., username and password)

  • Physical address (e.g., rental property location, zip code, state)

  • Payment or banking information (e.g., PayPal)

  • Transaction and product information (e.g., types of products sold), and/or

  • Other information a Rental Host chooses to provide through the Services

2. Personal Information We Obtain Directly from Guests

When a Guest uses our Service including by making a purchase using our Services or through a Digital Store, we may collect the following personal information:

  • Contact information (e.g., name, email address)

  • Home address (for delivery of purchases that the Guest orders to be shipped to his/her home)

  • Payment information (e.g., payment card number, expiration date, authorization or security code, and billing information), and/or

  • Transactional and activity information (e.g., requests, searches or orders)

Please note that certain products or services featured through our Services or a Digital Store may be directly sold by third parties and a Guest will be re-directed to a third-party website, app or service to complete the transaction. In those cases, The Host Co. does not obtain or control the collection of Guests’ personal information, including payment information and the third parties operating the website, app or service are responsible for the handling of Guests’ personal information.

We use a third party to process payments made through the Digital Store. Our third-party payment processor, Stripe, directly obtains from Guests their payment information, including payment card number, expiration date, and authorization number or security code. Stripe’s use of your personal information is governed by their privacy policy, which is available at https://stripe.com/us/privacy and may be modified by Stripe from time to time.

3. Information Automatically Collected through Our Services

When a Rental Host, Guest or other user engages with the Services, we and our service providers may automatically collect certain technical information from your browser or mobile device, including through cookies, log files and other technologies. A cookie is a small amount of data (often including a unique identifier), that is sent to your browser from a website’s computers and stored on your computer’s hard drive or mobile device. We may use cookies to improve your experience with The Host Co. Services, by, for example, keeping you logged on, saving your preferences and improving the content and offerings on our Service. We may also use cookies to collect aggregate information about Service users. The information collected for these purposes (including your IP address, browser or device information and other information collected by automated means) may be disclosed to or collected directly by our third-party web analytics service providers, such as Google Analytics.

To learn more about opting out of these activities, visit: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. If you don't want cookies, most web browsers include an option that allows you to not accept them. However, if you set your browser to refuse cookies, some portions of our Service may not function efficiently.

C. How We Use Personal Information We Obtain

We use the personal information of Rental Hosts and Guests that we obtain in connection with the operation of the Services as follows:

  • To identify and authenticate Rental Hosts and Guests. We use contact and account information to verify the identity and allow access to the Services

  • To fulfill Rental Hosts’ and Guests’ requests. We process personal information to provide the Services requested by the relevant Rental Host or Guest, including to process purchases and deliver goods or Services requested

  • To communicate about our Services and respond to inquiries, including by providing customer assistance and technical support, and sending informational messages about the Services and Digital Stores

  • For our marketing and advertising purposes and to promote our Rental Hosts and partners’ offerings, including for interest-based advertising

  • To analyze usage and improve or customize the Services, and/or

  • To support our business operations and perform accounting, auditing and other internal functions and to protect our rights or the rights of others including detecting, preventing and responding to fraud, potentially illegal activities or misuse of the Services, intellectual property infringement or other violations of law, this Privacy Notice, applicable terms and other policies

We also may combine or aggregate the personal information we collect through the Services for our internal business purposes, marketing and insights purposes (the “Aggregated Data”). Such Aggregated Data does not specifically identify you or any individual user of The Host Co. Services. For example, we may aggregate information to determine that the majority of our Services (e.g., grocery or delivery) are used or to determine how many Guests buy products from a particular Digital Store.

Interest-Based Advertising

We and third parties may collect information about your interactions with the Services to provide you with advertising about services or products tailored to your interests. You may see certain ads on other websites because we or such third parties participate in advertising networks. Ad networks track your online activities over time by collecting information through automated means, including through the use of cookies, web server logs and web beacons. The information ad networks may collect includes information about your visits to websites that participate in the relevant advertising networks, such as the pages or advertisements you view and the actions you take on the websites. This data collection takes place both on our Services and on third-party websites or apps that participate in the ad networks. This process allows us and third parties to deliver more tailored advertising. In addition, it helps us track the effectiveness of our marketing efforts. To learn how to opt out of ad network interest-based advertising, visit http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

Consumer Privacy & Third-Party Cookies
Notwithstanding anything else in this policy, we and/or our partners may place or read use IP and/or cookies to enable you to receive personalized ads or content. These cookies contain zero personally identifiable information. The cookies may reflect de-identified demographic or other data linked to data you voluntarily have submitted to us on our network, e.g., your email address, which we may share with a data provider solely in hashed, non-human readable form. Users may also express their choices for display advertising, through the following platforms: Digital Advertising Alliance opt-out platform or the Network Advertising Initiative opt-out platform. We and/or our partners use IP and/or cookies and web beacon technology to associate certain Internet-related information about you, such as your Internet Protocol address and certain online behaviors, such as opening emails or browsing websites or interacting with apps. Such information is used to personalize ads or content and may be shared with our network partners.


We and/or our network partners may also use IP and/or cookies for delivering personalized advertising emails. These IPs and/or cookies are used to identify the visitors of our advertisers' websites and for the advertiser to send personalized emails based on the visitors' browsing experience on the advertiser's site/app. To opt out, go to https://www.thehost.co/contact and share that you would like to opt out.

D. How We May Share Personal Information We Obtain

We may share the personal information of Rental Hosts and Guests that we obtain in connection with the operation of the Services as follows:

  • With service providers who work on our behalf, business partners and other third-party partners that provide features or functionalities we integrate into our Services, such as email communication providers. We share personal information we obtain with our service providers and business partners that perform services, send newsletters, marketing messages and support communication. Note that we use payment and/or bank information (such as your payment card or bank account number) as appropriate for limited purposes such as to process your transaction, to provide you with the requested products or service and to protect our rights or rights of others.

  • We share Guests’ information with Rental Hosts only as necessary to deliver the Services and in accordance with the requirements of the relevant rental platform (e.g., certain rental platforms prohibit the sharing of Guests’ contact information with Rental Hosts)

  • We share Guests’ information with certain sellers of goods or services offered through a Digital Store as appropriate in light of the relationship with and/or offerings provided by the seller (e.g., we share your contact information with a seller who will deliver your purchase to your home address)

  • With our affiliates and subsidiaries

  • As required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena or other legal process, or to comply with government reporting obligations

  • When we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary (a) to protect our rights, the integrity of the Services, or your safety or the safety of others, or (b) to detect, prevent, or respond to fraud, intellectual property infringement, violations of applicable terms, violations of law, or other misuse of the Services

  • To proceed with the negotiation or completion of a merger, acquisition, or sale of all or a portion of our assets (including in the event of a reorganization, dissolution or liquidation), and/or

  • With your consent or otherwise at your direction

E. Links to Other Websites, Apps or Other Online Services

Our Services may contain links to other websites, apps or other online services for your convenience or information. These websites, apps and services are operated by companies not affiliated with The Host Co. Linked websites, apps or services may have their own privacy policies or notices, which we strongly encourage you to review. We are not responsible for the content and data handling practices of any third-party websites, apps or services.

F. Children

The Services are not intended to be used by children under the age of 13. The Host Co. does not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If you learn that a child under the age of 13 has created a The Host Co. account or provided us with personal information, please contact us as indicated in the “Contact Us” section below.

G. Do Not Track

The Host Co. does not currently take steps to respond to browsers “Do Not Track” signals as no uniform standard to respond to such signals has been developed at this time.

H. How We Protect Your Personal Information

The Host Co. maintains reasonable administrative, technical and physical safeguards to protect the personal information obtained through the Services. However, no information system can be 100% secure, so we cannot guarantee the absolute security of your personal information. Therefore, while we make reasonable efforts to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

I. Your Rights Over Your Personal Info

Data Deletion

You may request data deletion any time by reaching out to us via our support channels: in-store messaging, support@thehost.co, or through our support number 256-960-8557.

Email Marketing Opt-Out

You can opt out of receiving marketing and promotional communications from us by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the relevant email. Please keep in mind that if you opt out of receiving marketing or promotional emails, we may still send you transactional emails or other communications relating to The Host Co. (e.g., to inform you of changes to the Services).

Direct Mail Opt-Out

You may request that we stop sending you postal mail offers through the US post office by notifying us in writing at support@thehost.co. Please include your full name and postal address in your request.

Interest Based Ads Opt-Out

To learn more about your rights in relation to interest-based advertising on your browser, including your choice to opt-out, you can follow the instructions provided by the Digital Advertising Alliance (“DAA”) at https://youradchoices.com/ (for browsers) and/or the Network Advertising Initiative (“NAI”) at https://optout.networkadvertising.org/?c=1 to place an opt-out cookie on your browser. These opt-out cookies enable you to block participating companies from installing future cookies. In addition, to limit interest-based advertising on your mobile device, you can review and adjust the settings provided by your device manufacturer, such as “Limit Ad Tracking” see https://support.apple.com/en-lamr/HT202074 and for iOS or “Opt-out of interest-based ads ” see https://policies.google.com/technologies/ads?hl=en for Android.

Analytics Opt-Out

The Services use analytics, including third-party analytics provided by Google Analytics. To opt-out of Google Analytics on your device or browser, visit https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

J. International Users and Visitors

The Services are hosted in the United States. If you are an international visitor or user, you are: (i) permitting the transfer of your personal information to the United States which may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you reside; and (ii) understand that your personal information will be used, stored, shared and otherwise processed in accordance with this Privacy Notice.

K. Changes to Privacy Notice

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time to reflect changes in our privacy practices or applicable laws. We may, as permitted by law, make such changes without prior notice. We will publish the updated version at https://www.thehost.co/ and indicate at the top of the Privacy Notice when it was most recently updated.

L. Dispute Resolution

Any dispute concerning our Services (including our use of your personal information) will be resolved per the arbitration provision in the applicable terms, which govern your use of our Services. Please review our applicable terms before using our Services.

M. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice or, in accordance with applicable laws, you would like to review or request changes to the personal information collected in connection with your use of the Services, please contact us at support@thehost.co.