PRIVACY POLICY

Effective as of May 28, 2024.

This Privacy Policy describes how Mellis, Inc. ("Mellis," "we", “us” or "our") processes personal information that we collect through our digital or online properties or services that link to this Privacy Policy (including, as applicable, the Pika Labs text-to-video generator platform, our website, social media pages), marketing activities, and other activities described in this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Service”).

1.
Information we collect
    • Information you provide to us or that we generate about you. Some features of the Services may require you to provide certain information. You may elect not to provide this information, but doing so may prevent you from using or accessing these features.  Information you may provide to us directly through the Service or otherwise or that we may generate about you includes:
    • Contact data, such as your first and last name, email address, billing and mailing addresses, and phone number.
    • Demographic data, such as your city, state, country of residence, postal code, and age.
    • Profile data such as the username and password that you may set to establish an online account on the Service, redemption code, biographical details, photograph or picture, links to your profiles on social networks, interests, preferences, information about your participation in our contests, promotions, or surveys, and any other information that you add to your account profile.
    • Communications data based on our exchanges with you, including when you contact us through the Service, communicate with us via social media (including through our Discord channel) or otherwise.
    • Marketing data, such as your preferences for receiving our marketing communications and details about your engagement with them.
    • User-generated content data, such as comments, questions and messages, including any public chats, that you post or transmit through the Service.
    • Your input and output, such as text, images and video inputs and other prompts you provide, and the videos and other output you create. We also collect certain metadata, including information that users can add or can have added to their content, such as keywords, geographical or location information, and other similar data. This content and metadata may constitute or contain personal information, depending on the substance and how it is associated with your account.
    • Payment and subscription data, needed to complete transactions and process your subscription, such as your payment card or bank account information (collected by our payment processors on our behalf) and transaction history.
    • Other data that you provide to us, which we will use as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.
    • Third-party sources. We may collect or receive personal information from other sources, such as:
    • Marketing and event partners, such as joint marketing partners and event co-sponsors.
    • Login integration partners, when you choose to access the Services through your email account, such as through Gmail or Discord. These partners provide data such as your name, username, email address, profile picture, and additional account information that is publicly accessible.
    • Other sources, such as social media services, public records, service providers, and other publicly available sources.
    • Automatic data collection. We, our service providers, and our business partners may automatically collect information about you, your computer or mobile device, and your interaction over time with the Service, our communications and other online services, such as:
    • Device data such as your computer or mobile device’s operating system type and version, manufacturer and model, browser type, screen resolution, RAM and disk size, CPU usage, device type (e.g., phone, tablet), IP address, unique identifiers, language settings, mobile device carrier, radio/network information (e.g., Wi-Fi, LTE, 3G), and approximate location information such as city, state or geographic area.
    • Online activity data, such as pages or screens you viewed, how long you spent on a page or screen, the website you visited before browsing to the Service, navigation paths between pages or screens, information about your activity on a page or screen, access times and duration of access, and whether you have opened our emails or clicked links within them.
    • Communication interaction data such as your interactions with our email, text or other communications (e.g., whether you open and/or forward emails) – we may do this through use of pixel tags (which are also known as clear GIFs), which may be embedded invisibly in our emails.
    • Cookies and similar technologies. Some of the automatic collection described above is facilitated by the following technologies:
    • Cookies, which are small text files that websites store on user devices and that allow web servers to record users’ web browsing activities and remember their submissions, preferences, and login status as they navigate a site. Cookies used on our sites include both “session cookies” that are deleted when a session ends, “persistent cookies” that remain longer, “first party” cookies that we place and “third party” cookies that our third-party business partners and service providers place.
    • Local storage technologies, like HTML5, that provide cookie-equivalent functionality but can store larger amounts of data on your device outside of your browser in connection with specific applications.
    • Web beacons, also known as pixel tags or clear GIFs, which are used to demonstrate that a webpage or email was accessed or opened, or that certain content was viewed or clicked.
    • Data about others. We may offer features that help users invite their contacts to use the Service, and we may collect contact details about these invitees so we can deliver their invitations. Please do not refer someone to us or share their contact details with us unless you have their permission to do so.
    2.
    How we use your personal information
    • We may use your personal information for the following purposes or as otherwise described at the time of collection:
      • Service delivery and operations. We may use your personal information to:
      • provide, operate and improve the Service (including to train our artificial intelligence models) and our business;
      • personalizing our products and the services, including remembering the devices from which you have previously logged in and remembering your selections and preferences as you navigate the Service;
      • establish and maintain your user profile on the Service;
      • facilitate your invitations to contacts who you want to invite to join the Service;
      • enable security features , such as by sending you security codes via email or SMS, and remembering devices from which you have previously logged in;
      • communicate with you about the Service, including by sending Service-related announcements, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages;
      • communicate with you about events or contests in which you participate;
      • understand your needs and interests, and personalize your experience; and
      • provide support for the Service, and respond to your requests, questions and feedback.
      • Research and development. We may use your personal information for research and development purposes, including to analyze and improve the Service and our business and to develop new products and services.
      • Marketing and advertising. We, our service providers, and our third-party advertising partners may collect, receive and use your personal information for marketing and advertising purposes.
      • Direct marketing. We may send you direct marketing communications and may personalize these messages based on your needs and interests. You may opt-out of our marketing communications as described in the Opt-out of marketing below.
      • Interest-based advertising. Our third-party advertising partners may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your interaction (including the data described in the automatic data collection section above) with the Service, our communications and other online services over time, and use that information to serve online ads that they think will interest you. This is called interest-based, or targeted, advertising. We may also share information about our users with these companies to facilitate interest-based advertising to those or similar users on other online platforms.
      • Improvement and analytics. We may use your personal information to analyze your usage of the Service, improve the Service and the rest of our business, help us understand user activity (including which pages are most and least visited and how visitors move around the Service, as well as user interactions with our emails) and to develop new products and services.
        • Compliance and protection. We may use your personal information to:
        • comply with applicable laws, lawful requests, and legal process, such as to respond to subpoenas, investigations or requests from government authorities;
        • protect our, your or others’ rights, privacy, safety or property (including by making and defending legal claims);
        • audit our internal processes for compliance with legal and contractual requirements or our internal policies;
        • enforce the terms and conditions that govern the Service; and
        • prevent, identify, investigate and deter fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity, including cyberattacks and identity theft.
        • With your consent. In some cases, we may collect, use or share your personal information with your consent or at your request or direction.
          • To create aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data. We may create aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data from your personal information and other individuals whose personal information we collect, and use and share this information with third parties for our lawful business purposes, including to analyze and improve the Service, train our proprietary algorithms and other machine learning purposes, and promote our business.
            • Cookies and similar technologies. In addition to the other uses included in this section, we may use the Cookies and similar technologies described above for the following purposes:
            • Technical operation. To allow the technical operation of the Service, such as by remembering your selections and preferences as you navigate the site, and whether you are logged in when you visit password protected areas of the Service.
            • Functionality. To enhance the performance and functionality of our services.
            • Advertising. To help our third-party advertising partners show you ads on other online services they believe will interest you and measure and analyze the performance of ads.
            • Analytics. To help us understand user activity, including which pages are most and least visited and how visitors move around the Service, as well as user interactions with our emails. For example, we may use Google Analytics for this purpose. You can learn more about Google Analytics and how to prevent the use of Google Analytics relating to your use of our sites here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en.
            • Retention.  We generally retain personal information to fulfill the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements, to establish or defend legal claims, or for fraud prevention purposes. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we may consider factors such as the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of your personal information, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

              We may store aggregated, de-identified and/or anonymized data for as long as needed for our lawful business purposes.
            3.
            How we disclose your personal information
              • We may disclose your personal information with the following parties and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy, in other applicable notices, or at the time of collection.  
              • Affiliates. Our corporate parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates.
              • Service providers. Third parties that provide services on our behalf or help us operate the Service or our business (such as artificial intelligence providers, hosting, information technology, customer support, email delivery, marketing, consumer research, cookie providers and website analytics).
              • Payment processors. Any payment card information you use to make a purchase on the Service is collected and processed directly by our payment processors.
              • Advertising partners. Third-party advertising companies for the interest-based advertising purposes described above.
              • Third parties designated by you. Where you have instructed us or provided your consent or authorization to do so, or as otherwise necessary to provide the service. We will disclose personal information that is needed for these third parties to provide the services that you have requested.
              • Business and marketing partners. Third parties with whom we co-sponsor events or promotions, with whom we jointly offer products or services, or whose products or services may be of interest to you.
              • Professional advisors. Professional advisors, such as lawyers, auditors, bankers and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.
              • Authorities and others for legal, compliance and security purposes. Law enforcement, government authorities, and private parties, as we believe in good faith to be necessary or appropriate for the compliance and protection purposes described above. We may also disclose information for fraud detection or prevention, such as to determine whether user-generated content, user input and output violates our terms of use or applicable laws.
              • Business transferees. In the context of actual or prospective business transactions (e.g., investments in or financings of Mellis, public stock offerings, the sale, acquisition, transfer or merger of all or part of our business, assets or shares, or similar transactions) and/or in the event of an insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which personal information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets). For example, we may need to share certain personal information with prospective counterparties and their advisers, an acquirer, successor, or assignee of Mellis.
              • Other users and the public. Your profile, user-generated content data, and user input and output data, may be visible to other users of the Service and the public. For example, other users of the Service or the public may have access to your information if you chose to make your profile or other information available to them through the Service, such as when you provide comments, reviews, survey responses, or share other content.  This information can be seen, collected and used by others, including being cached, copied, screen captured or stored elsewhere by others (e.g., search engines), and we are not responsible for any such use of this information.
            4.
            Other sites and services
            • The product and Service may contain links to websites, mobile applications, and other online services operated by third parties. In addition, our content may be integrated into web pages or other online services that are not associated with us. These links and integrations are not an endorsement of, or representation that we are affiliated with, any third party. We do not control websites, mobile applications or online services operated by third parties, and we are not responsible for their actions. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of the other websites, mobile applications and online services you use.
            5.
            Security
            • We employ a number of technical, organizational and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information we collect. However, security risk is inherent in all Internet and information technologies and we cannot guarantee the security of your personal information.
            6.
            International data transfer
            • Mellis is intended to be used only by individuals in the United States. We are headquartered in the United States and may use service providers that operate in other countries. Your personal information may be transferred to the United States or other locations where privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your state, province, or country.
            7.
            Children
            • The Service is not intended for use by anyone under 16 years of age. If you are a parent or guardian of a child from whom you believe we have collected personal information in a manner prohibited by law, please contact us. If we learn that we have unknowingly collected personal information through the Service from a child, we will comply with applicable legal requirements and make commercially reasonable efforts to delete their personal information.
            8.
            Residents of Certain U.S. States
            • This section applies if you are a resident of California, Colorado or another U.S. state that has passed a privacy law similar to the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) and requires specific privacy notice disclosures. For purposes of this section, references to “personal information” shall also include “sensitive personal information” as those terms are defined under the CCPA.

              We collect, and, in the preceding 12 months we collected, the following categories of personal information and sensitive personal information (denoted by *): (1) identifiers, such as name, email address, IP address, other device identifiers; (2) personal information listed in the California Customer Records statute such as name and billing address; (3) commercial information, such as subscription status and history; (4) Internet and similar network activity information, such as information regarding your interaction with the Service and personal information contained in user input; (5) geolocation information, such as IP address and billing address; (6) visual information such as images that you upload to the Service; and (7) Account access credentials, such as username and password*.

              For details on the purposes for collecting and disclosing your information, and the sources from which we collect it, refer to the “How we use your personal information” and "How we share your personal information” sections. Our personal information retention practices are outlined in the  “Retention” section. We handle sensitive personal information as specified by the CCPA or with your consent.

              ‍We do not “sell” or “share” (as those terms are defined under the CCPA) personal information, nor have we done so in the preceding 12 months. Further, we do not have actual knowledge that we sell or share personal information of residents under 16 years of age.

              California residents under the age of 18 who have registered and posted content to the Service can request its removal by contacting us at support@pika.art. They must verify their authorship of the content and specify where it is posted. We will make reasonable good faith efforts to remove or anonymize the content so the minor is not individually identifiable in relation to the content, but we cannot guarantee complete or comprehensive removal. For instance, third parties may have copied or republished the content (and any user output generated as a result), and it may remain in archives beyond our control.
            9.
            Your choices
            • In this section, we describe the choices available to all users of the Service.
              • Opt-out of communications. You may opt-out of marketing-related emails by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of the email, or by contacting us. Please note that if you choose to opt-out of marketing-related emails, you may continue to receive service-related and other non-marketing emails.
              • Cookies and web beacons.  Most browsers accept cookies by default, but let you remove or reject cookies. To do this, follow the instructions in your browser settings. Please note that if you set your browser to disable cookies, the Service may not work properly. For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your browser and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. You can also configure your device to prevent images from loading to prevent web beacons from functioning. Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. We currently do not respond to “Do Not Track” signals.
              • Advertising choices. You may be able to limit use of your information for interest-based advertising through the following settings/options/tools:
              • Browser settings and privacy browsers/plug-ins. Block third-party cookies via your web browser settings or using privacy-focused browsers or ad-blocking plugins.
              • Platform settings. Opt-out of ad personalization on Google and Facebook at their respective websites. You may be able to exercise this option for Google at  https://adssettings.google.com/ and Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/about/ads.
              • Mobile settings. Adjust your mobile device settings to restrict the use of your advertising ID.
              • Ad industry tools. Opt out of interest-based ads from companies that participate in the following industry opt-out programs:
              • You will need to apply these opt-out settings on each device and browser from which you wish to limit the use of your information for interest-based advertising purposes.We cannot offer any assurances as to whether the companies we work with participate in the opt-out programs described above.
              • Linked third-party platforms. If you choose to connect to the Service through your social media account or other third-party platform, you may be able to use your settings in your account with that platform to limit the information we receive from it. If you revoke our ability to access information from a third-party platform, that choice will not apply to information that we have already received from that third party.
                • Close your account. If you wish to request to close your account, please contact us at support@pika.art.
              10.
              Your rights
              • Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the rights listed below in relation to your personal information. However, these rights are not absolute, and may apply only in certain circumstances.
                • Know/access your personal information. You may have a right to request access to personal information that we hold about you, including details relating to the ways in which we use and share your personal information, or the ways in which your personal information has or may have been used or disclosed by us in the past.
                • Delete your personal information. You may have a right to request that we delete personal information we maintain about you.
                • Correct your personal information. You may have a right to request that we correct inaccurate personal information we maintain about you.
                • Object to targeted advertising. You have a right to opt-out of the processing of your personal information for the purposes of targeted advertising (as defined under applicable law).

                  You may submit a request to exercise any of these rights by emailing us at support@pika.art.

                  We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of these rights. Further information may be needed to verify your identity before exercising these rights, such as email addresses used for account registration on our platform. You may designate, in writing or through a power of attorney document, an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf to exercise your rights. Before accepting such a request from an agent, we will require that the agent provide proof you have authorized them to act on your behalf, and we may need you to verify your identity directly with us. If we deny your request, you may appeal our decision by contacting us at support@pika.art.
                  • Changes to this Privacy Policy. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will notify you by updating the date of this Privacy Policy and posting it on the Service or other appropriate means. Any modifications to this Privacy Policy will be effective upon our posting the modified version (or as otherwise indicated at the time of posting). In all cases, your use of the Service after the effective date of any modified Privacy Policy indicates your acknowledging that the modified Privacy Policy applies to your interactions with the Service and our business.
                  11.
                  How to contact us
                  • Should you have any questions about our practices or this Privacy Policy, please email us at support@pika.art.