Privacy Notice for Residents of California

How to Contact Us About Your Privacy

1. Fill out form
2. Call us: 1-800-635-4772(MELISSA) ext. 4

Updated November 2023

1. CCPA Notice – Personal Information of California Residents

The California Consumer Protection Act of 2018 (“CCPA”) was enacted to enhance privacy rights for residents of the state of California. In November 2020, California voters passed Proposition 24, also known as the California Privacy Rights Act (“CPRA”), which amends and expands the CCPA. The new CCPA provisions, with the CPRA amendments, became effective on January 1, 2023. For ease of reference, these California consumer privacy laws collectively will be referred to herein as “CCPA.”

Under CCPA, a resident of California (“Consumer”) has certain rights related to their personal information. “Personal information” means information that identifies, relates to, describes, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular consumer or household. Personal information does not include publicly available information or lawfully obtained, truthful information that is a matter of public concern. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140(v)(2).)

This Privacy Notice for California residents supplements the information in Melissa’s Privacy Policy and describes how Melissa processes personal data we collect about individuals who resides in the state of California.

2. Your Consumer Rights Under CCPA

As a California resident, you may exercise the following rights in relation to the personal information about you that we have collected, subject to certain limitations and exceptions:

1. The right to know what personal information has been collected, disclosed, shared, or sold. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.110, 1798.115.)
   ⟩ You have the right to request the following information from the past 12 months, upon verification of your identity:
2. The categories of personal information we have collected about you;
3. The sources of that personal information, identified by category;
4. Our business or commercial purposes for collecting or, if applicable, sharing or selling your personal information;
5. The categories of third parties to whom the personal information was disclosed; and
6. The specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
7. The right to request deletion of personal information. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.105.)
   ⟩ You have the right to request the deletion of personal information we have collected from you, subject to certain exceptions.
8. The right to opt out of the sale or sharing of personal information. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.120.)
   ⟩ You have the right to direct us not to sell or share the personal information we have collected about you to third parties.
9. The right to correct inaccurate personal information. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.106.)
   ⟩ If we maintain inaccurate personal information about you, you have the right to request that we correct that inaccurate personal information, taking into account the nature of the personal information and the purposes of the processing of the personal information.
10. The right to limit use and disclosure of sensitive personal information. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.121.)
    ⟩ You have the right to request that we limit our use of your sensitive personal information to the use which is necessary to provide the services, and for certain business purposes
11. The right to non-discrimination and non-retaliation for exercising rights conferred by CCPA. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.125.)
    ⟩ By exercising your rights under CCPA, you have the right to not receive discriminatory treatment – for example, we cannot deny goods or services to you, nor can we charge you different prices for goods or services.

3. Personal Information We Collect

The table below summarizes:

1. Categories of Personal Information as defined per Ca. Civ. Code § 1798.140 (v)(1) & § 1798.80(e);
2. The kinds of Personal Information that we have collected within the last twelve (12) months from or about consumers within each category;
3. The sources of that Personal Information (organized by category); and
4. The business or commercial purposes for which we collect the Personal Information.

Please note that “Personal Information,” as defined by CCPA, does not include publicly available information that is 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 by the consumer or from widely distributed media, or information made available by a person to whom the consumer has disclosed the information if the consumer has not restricted the information to a specific audience. (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140(v)(2).) We are including “publicly available information” in the chart below where it is a source of personal information just for clarity.

The data we collect directly from you as a website user, application user, or business customer is used specifically for business-related purposes and is never integrated into or used for unrelated purposes such as our products or services.

4. Personal Information We Sell, Share, or Disclose to Third Parties

The CCPA distinguishes between personal information that is disclosed for a business purpose (i.e., for our internal operating purposes: maintaining or servicing accounts, verifying customer information, processing payments) and personal information that is sold or shared for a commercial purpose (i.e., inducing a business or individual to buy or subscribe to our products and services). Melissa’s practices relating to the sale, sharing, or disclosure of personal information, for both business and commercial purposes, are described below.

Note: Our website and all products and services are intended for use by individuals over 18 years of age. We do not collect, sell, share, or disclose any information about anyone under 18 years of age.

Selling or Sharing to Third Parties

Melissa does not sell or share personal information to third parties that you provide to us when using this website or in relation to your use of the Services.

Separate from your use of our website and Services, we do share and sell personal information that we have collected through third-party licenses, data brokers, government entities, or publicly available sources. We do this to provide useful products to our customers that are typically used for address validation, identity verification, or for marketing and CRM (customer relationship management) purposes. Within the past twelve (12) months, we have sold or shared the following categories of information:

Disclosing to Third Parties

Within the past twelve (12) months, the only circumstances under which we have disclosed your personal information for business purposes are for the following reasons:

• For payment processing;
• For data analytics purposes; or
• If required by applicable law, regulation or legal process, including in connection with lawful requests by law enforcement, national security, or other public authorities.

5. Consumer Requests Under CCPA

A resident of California may submit a verifiable consumer request to exercise their consumer rights. If you are a resident of California and would like to submit a CCPA verifiable consumer request to Melissa, go to our Consumer Privacy webform and select the Consumer Request option(s) you would like to exercise. You can also call us at 1-800-635-4772(MELISSA) ext. 4.

In order to prevent improper or potentially fraudulent requests under CCPA, consumers are required to submit “verifiable consumer requests.” A “verifiable consumer request” means a request that is made by:

• a consumer,
• by a consumer on behalf of the consumer’s minor child,
• by a natural person or a person registered with the Secretary of State, authorized by the consumer to act on the consumer’s behalf, or
• by a person who has power of attorney or is acting as a conservator for the consumer, and
• that the business can verify, using commercially reasonable methods.

Accordingly, in order to respond to your CCPA consumer request, we must verify your identity. This will require that you provide certain personal information for validation, such as an image of your driver’s license. If we are unable to satisfactorily verify your identity, we will be unable to fulfill your consumer request in accordance with the provisions of CCPA. However, any individual, regardless of state of residence, may request to have their personal information deleted from our Melissa Lookups and other database products. If you would simply like to request deletion of your information, select “Right to Delete” Consumer Privacy webform.