PRIVACY POLICY

Houzz is the leading platform for home renovation and design, providing an all-in-one software solution for industry professionals and tools for homeowners to update their homes from start to finish. Using Houzz, people can find ideas and inspiration, ask advice and hire professionals. As part of the Houzz platform, Houzz Pro provides home industry professionals with a business management and marketing SaaS solution that helps them to win projects, collaborate with clients and teams, and run their business efficiently and profitably.

This Privacy Policy describes what personal information we collect through the Platform (defined below), how we use this information, how this information may be shared, and what choices and rights you have with respect to this information. Access and use of our Platform is subject to this Privacy Policy. The collection of personal data of job applicants is governed by the Job Applicant Privacy Notice.

Our “Platform” is made up of www.houzz.com, www.ivy.co, and all of the websites, mobile apps, products, software, services, programs, and networks offered by Houzz or on which this Privacy Policy is posted, including our plug-ins and browser extensions.

The terms “we,” “us,” “our,” or “Houzz” refer to the "Houzz Group," including Houzz Inc., Houzz Shop LLC, and their corporate affiliates. By “you,” we are referring to visitors and users of any part of our Platform.

The term “merchant” includes sellers and vendors of products available on the e-commerce marketplace on the Platform.

1. Collection of Information

We collect personal information that you provide us, from third parties, and automatically when you use our Platform. We collect information associated with your device using cookies and similar technologies. We may also receive information about your location.

Information You Provide Us

We collect information that you provide us, including your account and profile information, content you submit or post to our Platform, your purchase information, your communications, and information you provide to us as part of surveys and contests.

Account and Profile Information. When you create an account on our Platform, we collect information you provide us, like your name, email address, interests, gender, age, and profile information. If you are a professional, you may also provide us information related to your business, including a business description and areas served.

Content You Submit. We collect information and content that you submit, share, or create across our Platform and on other websites that link to this Privacy Policy. This includes information and content submitted, shared, or created including but not limited to your company information, profile picture, reviews, messages, comments, searches, photos, style preferences, ideabooks, discussion, project details, project costs, project timelines, change orders, and invoices.

Purchases. If you purchase or sell products or services or make or receive payments within our Platform, we collect certain information in order to complete your purchases, sales, and payments, such as your phone number, address, and payment method (for example, credit card or bank account information). If you participate in our Trade Program or Business Program, you may be asked to provide proof that you are eligible for the program or for a tax exemption.

Communications. When you communicate with us (via email, phone, through our Platform, through our chatbots, or otherwise) and when you use our Platform to communicate with others, we may record, monitor, collect, and use details about you and your communications (including call time and call duration). Certain professionals on our Platform may choose to use our call tracking feature in order to better manage their business. You are using our Platform when you make calls to these professionals using their phone number displayed on our Platform. We will provide you notice or obtain your consent in accordance with applicable law before recording or monitoring any of these calls. Otherwise, to the extent you communicate with professionals, sellers, and other users outside our Platform, those communications are not subject to this Privacy Policy.

Surveys and Contests. If you participate in our surveys, contests, or promotions, we will collect the information you provide to us.

Information from Others

We collect information that others make available to us, including information from other platforms, publicly available information, information from other users of our Platform, information from our partners, service providers, and corporate affiliates, and information from third-party sites.

Other Platforms. We may receive information about you from third-party platforms when you allow the third-party platform to share this information with us or allow Houzz to obtain this information from the third party. For example, we may receive information such as your name, email address, and profile photo when you sign-up for our Platform through Facebook, Google, or Apple. We may also receive information about you when you upload your contacts from your third-party email service; use our Platform (or a third-party integration on our Platform) to manage your calendar on another platform or to manage and send communications (e.g., email or text messages).

Publicly Available Information. If you are a professional, or merchant we may collect information about you from publicly available sources and where permitted by applicable law or, with your permission, make it available as part of our Platform. For example, we may receive your name and contact information from industry associations and dealer networks in which you participate and display your affiliation with these organisations. We also may collect and display the details of any licence you have using publicly available records.

Other Users and Customers. Others may post content on our Platform that includes information about you (for example, as part of photos, stories, and reviews) or provide us your information in connection with using our Platform (e.g., to manage their business, organise photoshoots of their projects, participate in referral programs, and to advertise through our Platform). In order to enhance the quality of our Platform, professionals and sellers on our Platform may provide us information about your engagement with them, including whether you have contacted them or responded to them, whether your project has been completed, and whether you have received a product you have ordered. If you are a professional or merchant, Platform users and visitors may provide us with feedback and public reviews about you.

Our Partners and Service Providers. We may receive information about you from our partners and service providers. For example, our payment processors may update your payment information, advertising partners may help us send communications to your address, and third parties may help us prevent fraud by verifying your contact information. In addition, our banking partner that issues the Houzz credit card(s) may provide us with information regarding whether you have such a card, related to any card reward or loyalty program, or resulting from prescreening you for card offers.

Houzz Group. In accordance with applicable laws and subject to this and additional privacy policies, Houzz Group entities may receive information about you from other Houzz Group entities.

Third-Party Sites. Certain third-party sites embed a Houzz plug-in, widget, or content, including through Houzz-branded buttons, badges, and slideshows and Houzz co-branded content partnerships. Our plug-ins, widgets, embedded content, and pixels may collect information pursuant to our Cookie Policy. You may also choose to use our browser extensions, which collect the information described in this Privacy Policy like the rest of our Platform.

Website Services. Website Services means any website displaying pro content and other content included by or on behalf of you into standard Houzz web templates with hosting managed by Houzz. As with the rest of our Platform, we collect the information described in this Privacy Policy when providing Website Services, including your messages to professionals sent through those sites. Professionals collect usage information for their websites and receive your messages sent through those sites.

Automatically Collected Information

Each time you access the Platform, information is sent to our server by your Internet browser or app and stored in our log files. We collect information about your use of our Platform, including your search activity, the pages you view, the date and time of your visit, and if you use our browser extensions, the content you interact with on third-party sites (for example, if you save an image from a third-party site to your Houzz account), and how you navigate and interact with a page or screen. We also collect information that your device provides to us in connection with your use of our Platform, such as your browser type, type of device, browser language, IP address, mobile carrier, unique device identifier, and requested and referring URLs.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies in connection with your use of our Platform to collect information related to what you see and interact with on our Platform and other Platform access and use. Please see our Cookie Policy for more information on our use of cookies and how to accept or opt-out of cookies, but please note that unless required by law, we do not change system behaviour within our Platform in response to browser requests not to be tracked.

Location Information

We will receive your device's location if you enable this through your browser or mobile device. We may infer your general location from your IP address. You may also choose to provide us your location information by inputting this information in our Platform, including in your Houzz settings, Ivy settings, or when you checkout as a shipping or billing address.

2. Use of Information

We use the personal information we collect to provide, support, and personalise our Platform and to communicate with you about our Platform (on and off our Platform). The ways we do this include the following:

  • to provide and improve our Platform and its features and functionality, including to display content you post publicly, fulfill your purchases through our Platform, process, store, and deliver your communications; to provide customer service and support; to respond to your enquiries or requests; to back-up our systems; and to improve the security of our Platform;
  • to evaluate use of our Platform for our business purposes and to provide and improve our products and services, including new and co-branded products and services and our Platform's functionality;
  • to personalise your experience, such as tailoring the content and information made available to you and our support services;
  • to display relevant or targeted advertising (on our Platform and third-party sites) for us and other businesses and to evaluate the success of such advertising;
  • to provide feedback to professionals and merchants on our Platform;
  • to communicate with you as described in our agreements with you (for example, the Houzz Terms of Use) or this Privacy Policy;
  • to prevent fraud and to maintain a quality experience for our business purposes or legal reasons, including to filter for spam and communications that violate our agreements with you (for example, the Houzz Terms of Use);
  • to enforce compliance with our agreements with you (for example, the Houzz Terms of Use) and applicable law; to comply with our legal obligations; to prosecute or defend a lawsuit, arbitration, or similar legal proceeding; to respond to lawful requests by public authorities (including national security or law enforcement requirements);
  • to perform research and analysis for our business purposes and to conduct journalist research; and
  • to award badges and similar designations and if you decide to participate, to administer surveys, contests, and promotions.

If you provide us information about your contacts (for example, when you sign up for our Platform through Facebook), in order to facilitate a more connected experience, we may inform your contacts who have accounts on our Platform that you also have joined our Platform and follow them on your behalf so that you may view their public activities on our Platform.

We may use your communications generally for quality assurance purposes and training and to improve our products and services. We may use your communications to understand and help manage the quality of requests received, and responses sent, by professionals and sellers on our Platform and to provide them with feedback. We may use automated technology to review your communications and improve user experience. Learn more.

We may use your log-in information, cookie information, device information, IP addresses, and other information to identify you and log your use across devices, our Platform, and third-party sites. We may use this information to personalise your experience on our Platform.

For your convenience, we and our payment processors will store information about the payment method you use in connection with the Platform. Note that while our payment processors may store your complete credit card number, Houzz does not. You may remove or change your payment method on Houzz through your settings. If you would like to change your payment method on Ivy and you use a credit card, please go to your Ivy settings. For your security, however, if you use ACH to make payments on Ivy, we may need you to contact support@ivy.co.

If you make purchases on Houzz as a visitor and subsequently create an account, for your reference, we will make information available to you about any prior purchases completed using the email address for your account.

If you are a client on Ivy, we use your information to show you all of your payments, as well as invoices, proposals, retainers, and similar documents on a per-project basis.

3. Sharing Your Information

We do not rent or sell your personal contact information (such as your email address associated with your account registration) to third parties to use for their direct marketing purposes. We share personal information in the following ways:

Platform Visitors and Users

One of the main purposes of having a Houzz account is to share home renovation and design ideas with others. Through Houzz, others have the ability to find, contact, view, and follow your profile and public activity on Houzz (for example, if you "like'' content on our Platform or if you create an ideabook and do not mark it private) and link it to your username. You can customise your Houzz profile and whether users may follow you through your Houzz settings. Your Houzz content (for example, ideabooks, photos, notes on others' photos, projects, discussions, and social media profiles), followers, and others you follow are publicly viewable on the Platform and open to comments by other Houzz users. If you would like to make certain parts of your content private, please click here for more information. If you are a professional, or merchant on Houzz, we may also display the following information in order to help visitors and users evaluate you: aggregated information on our Platform about your Platform activity (e.g. response rate), and information that is publicly available from third parties.

Professionals, Merchants, and Other Businesses on our Platform

If you request us to find professionals for you, your project information (including the contact information) that you provide will be made available to a limited number of professionals that we believe may be suitable for your project. Such professionals are independent from Houzz and their use of your data is not covered by this Privacy Policy. Professionals and merchants that participate on the Houzz Platform may view your public activities on our Platform and receive feedback you provide to us about your engagement with them. For example, if you requested us to find professionals for you and provide us feedback about your level of interest in these professionals, we may convey such feedback to them. In addition, a professional or merchant can view your public activities on our Platform that are interactions with their content (for example, that you added one of their photos to your non-private ideabook on a particular date, as identified by the username for your profile and any photo or public identifiers you provide for your profile). When you receive messages from professionals through the Platform, Houzz and the professionals can track your interaction with these messages, including whether you opened the messages or documents shared with these messages. A professional or merchant cannot see your non-public account information or see private activity (for example, if your ideabook is private).

Service Providers and Partners

We may share your information with service providers and partners as reasonably needed for our uses described in this Privacy Policy, including entities that help us sell and deliver products to you, such as merchants, payment service providers, logistics professionals, delivery and freight companies, and entities that host data for us or help us understand user behaviour on our Platform. You can find more information here about our service providers and partners with which we may share your information. Only if you specifically agree to share your contact information with a third-party partner, for example, as part of a contest or promotion we sponsor with such a third party, will we share your contact information with that third-party partner for their direct marketing purposes.

In addition, we may share information about you with third-party platforms when you allow the third-party platform to receive this information from us or allow Houzz to share this information with the third party. Our Platform may include third-party social media features and other third-party plug-ins and widgets. When these features are displayed on our Platform, they are operated or hosted by third parties. We are not responsible for these third parties and third-party platforms, so please carefully review their privacy policies and your permissions granted to these third parties and platforms. For example, you may sign-up for our Platform through Facebook, Google, or Apple.

Advertisers and Ad Networks

We use advertising networks and partners to serve advertisements for us and other businesses, including interest-based advertising, on third-party sites and to assist us in evaluating the effectiveness of our advertising. We may also work with advertising networks and partners to serve ads on our Platform and to communicate with you at the addresses they have for you. We may provide advertising networks, advertising partners, and businesses advertising on our platform with aggregate information but other than hashed information or device identifiers, we do not disclose your name, contact information, or other personal information. For example, we may provide a hashed version of your email address or other information to advertising networks (e.g., Facebook and Google) to serve advertisements to you or others. To opt-out of the use of your information for this purpose, please send a request as provided under the Contact Us section.

We and the businesses advertising on our Platform, advertising networks, and advertising partners may also use cookies or similar technologies to track your activities on our Platform and other online properties in order to provide you with tailored ads across websites, apps, and devices and to understand how those ads perform. To learn how to opt-out of receiving this type of advertising, please see our Cookie Policy.

Corporate Affiliates and Business Transfers

We may share information from or about you with (a) joint ventures or other companies in the Houzz group, or (b) a potential or actual acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of any reorganisation, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In these cases, their use will be subject to this Privacy Policy.

Legal Obligations

We may disclose information from or about you, as required or permitted by applicable law, if we believe that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with legal process and law enforcement instructions and orders, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, judicial proceeding, or other legal process served on us, a service provider, or a partner (which may include disclosure to law enforcement, courts, or governmental authorities); (b) prevent, investigate, or identify possible wrongdoing in connection with our Platform; (c) protect our rights, reputation, property, or that of our visitors, users, corporate affiliates, or the public; or (d) enforce compliance with our agreements with you (for example, the Houzz Terms of Use).

4. Communications

An essential part of our services that you sign up for when you create an account on our Platform is to receive communications from us or our professional partners through email, phone call, and text message, or through our Platform. If you use our mobile app, these communications also include push notifications. We communicate with you about your account, privacy, use of the Platform, including interactions with your content (for example, if others "like" your ideabook, respond to your comment, or if you earn a badge on our Platform), news relating to the Platform, its features and industry developments, and communications concerning promotions run by us or third parties. We also ask for your feedback about your experience in connection with our Platform or about your home renovation and design plans. In accordance with applicable law, we or our professional partners may send you marketing communications (e.g., with tips, offers, and similar services). These communications may feature us, our Platform, co-branded products and services, professionals, merchants, and other businesses on our Platform.

If you provide us your phone number, we and our professional partners may call you or send you text messages to help you with using the Platform (e.g., to discuss your home renovation or design project, to find professionals, or to assist with your order or if you are a professional, to find products or to provide you tips about your professional profile). If you are a professional or other business, we may use your contact information (whether publicly available or provided to Houzz) to call and otherwise contact you about our Platform, including to market and sell our products or services or those available on our Platform.

You may change your communication preferences at any time through your Houzz settings if you have a Houzz account and your Ivy settings if you have an Ivy account, and you may also opt-out of similar types of marketing emails from us directly through the email. To opt-out of our text messages at any time, you can follow the instructions provided in the text message, which typically is to reply “STOP.” You may opt-out of sales and marketing phone calls from us by letting us know during the call or by contacting us as described in the Contact Us section. Please be aware that you cannot opt-out of receiving necessary account- and privacy-related messages from us. If you wish to stop receiving push notifications from us, you can turn off push notifications for the mobile application in the settings of your mobile device.

Our Platform also allows you and others to send messages and make calls in our Platform, share content with others outside our Platform, and if you make your contact information available, for others to contact you outside of our Platform.

5. Your Choices and Rights

We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws. We may ask you to verify your identity in order to help us respond to your request securely and efficiently.

Even where not legally required, we will use reasonable efforts to complete requests to access or delete your personal information. You may request to receive a copy of your Houzz information through your Houzz settings and clicking on Download a Copy of your Data. You may also access both your Houzz and Ivy information by contacting us as provided in the Contact Us section. To request permanent deletion of your personal information, please contact us as described in the Contact Us section or go to your Houzz settings and click on Delete my Houzz Account as further outlined here.

To edit your personal information, you can manage your profile in your Houzz settings and Ivy settings. You may also contact us about correcting or updating your personal information (including your marketing preferences) using the methods provided in the Contact Us section. We will consider your request in accordance with applicable laws.

6. Account Termination and Data Retention

You can request to deactivate your Houzz account at any time by going to your Houzz settings or contacting us as described in the Contact Us section of this Privacy Policy. To deactivate your account as a professional or seller on Houzz, please contact us as described in the Contact Us section of this Privacy Policy. To deactivate your account on the Ivy Platform, please follow the instructions here or contact us as described in the Contact Us section of this Privacy Policy. When you deactivate your account, you will cease to provide ongoing or future data to us that is associated with your account. Your Houzz profile will no longer be accessible on the Platform but in accordance with applicable law and the Houzz Terms of Use, your photos, reviews, and other content may still be available through our Platform. In order to request permanent deletion of the personal information associated with your account, please contact us as described in the Contact Us section.

We will keep your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which we are processing your personal information unless the law permits or requires us to retain your personal information for a longer period. For example, we may need to keep your personal data to provide services on our Platform or to defend future legal claims. We also will retain de-identified information after your account has been deleted. Information you have shared with others will remain visible after your account has been deactivated or deleted and after the information has been deleted from your own profile or account. We do not control information or content that others have copied out of our Platform. Please note that copies of information that you have updated, modified, or deleted may continue to reside in our systems for a period of time, and we may maintain copies of this information as part of our business records.

7. Children

Our Platform is intended for general audiences and is not directed to children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. In the event that we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under age 18, we will take reasonable steps to delete that information. If you become aware or believe that a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us as provided in the Contact Us section.

8. Data Security

We use reasonable measures to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, and destruction, taking into account the risks involved in the processing and the nature of the personal information.

9. Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may revise this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version of our Privacy Policy will govern our use of information about you. If we make material changes to our Privacy Policy, we will notify you by email or by posting a notice on our Platform or by other means, to offer you an opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. By continuing to access or use our Platform after those changes become effective, you are subject to the revised Privacy Policy.

10. Contact Us

Within the Houzz group, Houzz Inc. is responsible for the use of your personal information. If you have questions or comments about this Privacy Policy (including about the manner in which we or our service providers treat your personal information), you may contact us in the following ways:

  • If you are an Ivy user, please email us at support@ivy.co;
  • if you are a Houzz user and a resident of the European Economic Area, please email us at EUprivacy@houzz.com;
  • all other Houzz users, please email us at privacy@houzz.com.

You may also reach our Privacy team by mailing us at our address at Houzz Inc., 285 Hamilton Avenue, 4th Floor, Palo Alto, California 94301, USA, Attn: Privacy.

11. International Transfers of Personal Information

Houzz may process your personal data among affiliates of the Houzz Group outside your local jurisdiction. Many of Houzz's third-party processors also are based in different jurisdictions.

Effective 1st January, 2023

Click here for the prior revision (modified 30th August, 2021)