Privacy Policy

Horne Heating and Air Conditioning Privacy Policy

Protecting your private information is Our priority. This Statement of Privacy applies to https://hornehvac.com, and Horne Heating and Air Conditioning and governs data collection and usage. For the purposes of this Privacy Policy, unless otherwise noted, all references to Horne Heating and Air Conditioning include, We, Us, Our, https://hornehvac.com (the “Site”) (the “Website(s)”) (the “Service(s)”) (the “System(s)”), and Horne.

https://hornehvac.com is a company owned website operated by Horne Heating and Air Conditioning.  By using the Horne website, you consent to the data practices described in this statement and to the Horne Terms of Use governing Site operations.

Applicability

https://hornehvac.com is operated in the continental United States (US). This Privacy Policy states Horne’s adherence to required policy of both Federal and US State laws.  As such, this Privacy Policy is in accordance with the most stringent of US regulatory State Privacy law as defined by the California Consumer Protection Act as referenced throughout, (CCPA).

Collection of your Personal Information

In order to better provide you with products and services offered, Horne may collect certain personally identifiable information.

If you purchase Horne’s products and/or services, We may collect billing and credit card information. This information is used to complete purchase transactions.

If applying  for employment with Horne Heating and Air Conditioning, We may collect specific and pertinent personal information for the purpose of review and consideration of your application for employment with us.

We do not collect any personal information about you unless you voluntarily provide it to us. However, you may be required to provide certain personal information to Us when you elect to use https://hornehvac.com and/or certain functions, products and/or services. These may include: (a) registering for an account; (b) entering a sweepstakes or contest sponsored by Us or one of Our partners; (c) signing up for special offers from selected third parties; (d) sending Us an email message; (e) submitting your credit card or other payment information when ordering and purchasing products and services; (f) completing Credit Card and/or ACH authorizations; (g) applying for employment with Horne. To wit, We will use your information for, but not limited to, communicating with you in relation to functions, products and/or services you have requested from and/or for applications and/or authorizations which you have provided Us. 

We also may gather additional personal or non-personal information in the future.

Horne may also collect anonymous demographic information, which is not unique to you.

Selling data to third parties

We do not sell data to third parties.

Children Under Thirteen

Horne does not knowingly collect, either online or offline, personally identifiable information from children under the age of thirteen. If you are under the age of thirteen, you must ask your parent or guardian for permission to use this Website.  If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided Us with Personal Data, please contact Us. If We become aware that We have collected Personal Data from anyone under the age of 13 without verification of parental consent, We take steps to remove that information from Our Systems.

Categories of Personal Information Collected

We collect information that identifies, relates to, describes, references, is capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with a particular Consumer or Device. The following is a list of categories of personal information which We may collect or may have been collected within the last twelve (12) months.

Please note that the categories and examples provided in the list below are those defined in the CCPA. This does not mean that all examples of that category of personal information are in fact collected by Horne, but reflects Our good faith belief to the best of Our knowledge that some of that information from the applicable category may be and may have been collected. For example, certain categories of personal information would only be collected if you provided such personal information directly to us.

Category A: Identifiers.

Examples: A real name, alias, postal address, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address, account name, driver’s license number, passport number, or other similar identifiers.

Category B: Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.80(e)).

Examples: A name, signature, Social Security number, physical characteristics or description, address, telephone number, passport number, driver’s license or state identification card number, insurance policy number, education, employment, employment history, bank account number, credit card number, debit card number, or any other financial information, medical information, or health insurance information. Some personal information included in this category may overlap with other categories.

Category C: Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law.

Examples: Age (40 years or older), race, color, ancestry, national origin, citizenship, religion or creed, marital status, medical condition, physical or mental disability, sex (including gender, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy or childbirth and related medical conditions), sexual orientation, veteran or military status, genetic information (including familial genetic information).

Category D: Commercial information.

Examples: Records and history of products or services purchased or considered.

Category E: Biometric information.

Examples: Genetic, physiological, behavioral, and biological characteristics, or activity patterns used to extract a template or other identifier or identifying information, such as, fingerprints, faceprints, and voiceprints, iris or retina scans, keystroke, gait, or other physical patterns, and sleep, health, or exercise data.

Category F: Internet or other similar network activity.

Examples: Interaction with Our Service or advertisement.

Category G: Geolocation data.

Examples: Approximate physical location.

Category H: Sensory data.

Examples: Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information.

Category I: Professional or employment-related information.

Examples: Current or past job history or performance evaluations.

Category J: Non-public education information (per the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (20 U.S.C. Section 1232g, 34 C.F.R. Part 99)).

Examples: Education records directly related to a student maintained by an educational institution or party acting on its behalf, such as grades, transcripts, class lists, student schedules, student identification codes, student financial information, or student disciplinary records.

Category K: Inferences drawn from other personal information.

Examples: Profile reflecting a person’s preferences, characteristics, psychological trends, predispositions, behavior, attitudes, intelligence, abilities, and aptitudes.

Under CCPA, personal information does not include: 

• Publicly available information from government records
• Deidentified or aggregated consumer information
• Information excluded from the CCPA’s scope, such as:
• Health or medical information covered by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) and the California Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) or clinical trial data
• Personal Information covered by certain sector-specific privacy laws, including the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FRCA), the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) or California Financial Information Privacy Act (FIPA), and the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act of 1994.

Sources of Personal Information

We obtain the categories of personal information listed above from the following categories of sources:

• Directly from You. For example, from the forms You complete on Our Service, preferences You express or provide through Our Service, or from Your purchases on Our Service.
• Indirectly from You. For example, from observing Your activity on Our Service.
• Automatically from You. For example, through cookies We or Our service providers set on Your Device as You navigate through Our Service.
• From Service Providers. For example, third-party vendors to monitor and analyze the use of Our Service, third-party vendors for payment processing, or other third-party vendors that We use to provide the Service to You.

Use of your Personal Information

Horne collects and uses your personal information to operate and deliver the Services you have requested.

Horne may also use your personally identifiable information to inform you of other products or services available from Horne and its affiliates.

Tracking User Behavior

Currently, various browsers (including Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari) offer a Do Not Track (DNT) option that relies on a technology known as a DNT header that sends a signal to websites visited by the browser user about the user’s DNT preference. You can usually access your browser’s DNT option in your browser’s preferences to set your preferences to inform websites that you do not want to be tracked.  Our Service does not respond to DNT signals.

Horne may keep track of the Websites and pages Our users visit within https://hornehvac.com, in order to determine what Horne Services are the most popular and/or effective. This data is used to deliver customized content and advertising within Horne to customers whose behavior indicates that they are interested and requesting from Us particular product or services information.

E-mail Communications

From time to time, Horne may contact you via email for the purpose of providing newsletters,  announcements, marketing or promotional materials, alerts, confirmations, surveys, and/or other general communication which may be of interest to you. In order to improve Our Services, We may receive a notification when you open an email from Horne or click on a link therein.

If you would like to stop receiving marketing or promotional communications via email from Horne, you may opt out of such communication emails by “replying STOP” or “clicking on the UNSUBSCRIBE button, or by contacting Us directly.

Payments

We may provide paid products and/or services within the Service. In that case, We may use third-party services for payment processing (e.g. payment processors). 

We will not store or collect Your payment card details. That information is provided directly to Our third-party payment processors whose use of Your personal information is governed by their Privacy Policy. These payment processors adhere to the standards set by PCI-DSS as managed by the PCI Security Standards Council, which is a joint effort of brands like Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover. PCI-DSS requirements help ensure the secure handling of payment information.

Automatically Collected Information

Information about your computer hardware and software may be automatically collected by Horne. This information can include: your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring website addresses. This information is used for the operation of the Service, to maintain quality of the Service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the Horne  Website.

Use of Cookies

The Horne Website may use “cookies” to help you personalize your online experience. A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you.

One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. The purpose of a cookie is to tell the Web server that you have returned to a specific page. For example, if you personalize Horne pages, or register with Horne Site or Services, a cookie helps Horne to recall your specific information on subsequent visits. This simplifies the process of recording your personal information, such as billing addresses, shipping addresses, and so on. When you return to the same Horne Website, the information you previously provided can be retrieved, so you can easily use the Horne features that you customized.

You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most Web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the Horne Services or Websites you visit.

For more detailed information on Our use of cookies, please refer to Our Cookie Policy.

Log Files

We may also log pertinent information about visits to Our site, to include IP addresses, browser types and language, access times, referring website addresses, pages viewed, links clicked upon, and other actions taken during use of the Site. This log information may be discretionarily used, but only for the purposes of systems administration or to report information in aggregate form to Our advertisers, sponsors, and corporate partners.

Links

This Website contains links to other sites. Please be aware that We are not responsible for the content or privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage Our users to be aware when they leave Our Site and to read the privacy statements of any other Site that collects personally identifiable information.

External Data Storage Sites

We may store your data on servers provided by third party hosting vendors with whom We have contracted in locations outside of Our direct control (for instance, on servers or databases co-located with hosting providers). Although We employ the most stringent of reasonable efforts to safeguard the personal privacy of user information on Our systems, Internet transactions cannot be made absolutely secure and are made at the users own risk.

Retention of Your Personal Information

Horne will retain Your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use Your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with Our legal obligations (for example, if We are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce Our legal agreements and policies.

Horne will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of Our Service, or We are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.

Security of your Personal Information

Horne secures your personal information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. Horne uses the following methods for this purpose:

SSL Protocol

When personal information (such as a credit card number) is transmitted to other websites, it is protected through the use of encryption, such as the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol.  

When accessing Our Site your web browser or application will be required to connect via SSL(https://).  Currently, various browsers (including Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari) provide a way (usually in the URL bar) for you to confirm this security level of your connection to Our Site as well as display the status and details of the Certificate provided by the Certificate Authority who has issued the SSL Certification for Our Site.  Please refer to your browser for detailed information on how to view this information.

Firewalls

A Firewall is a network security system that monitors and controls incoming and outgoing network traffic based on predetermined security rules, designed to block unauthorized access while permitting outward communication.  

Horne employs multiple layers of both software and hardware firewalls to detect and prevent unauthorized intrusion to our Systems.

Anti-Malware and Anti-Virus

A computer virus is a type of malicious code or program written to alter the way a computer operates and is designed to spread from one system to another, able to infect and affect system performance, reliability and security.

Malware (short for “malicious software”) is a file or code, typically delivered over a network, that infects, explores, steals or conducts virtually any behavior an attacker wants. And because malware comes in so many variants, there are numerous methods to infect computer systems.

Horne employs several versions of Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware softwares operating simultaneously specifically to help detect, prevent and/or remove viruses and malware.

We strive to take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or alteration of your personal information. Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any wireless network can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while We strive to protect your personal information, you acknowledge that: (a) there are security and privacy limitations inherent to the Internet which are beyond Our control; and (b) security, integrity, and privacy of any and all information and data exchanged between you and Us through this Site cannot be guaranteed.

Sharing Information with Third Parties

Horne does not sell, rent or lease its customer lists to third parties.

Horne may, from time to time, contact you on behalf of external business partners about a particular offering that may be of interest to you. In those cases, your unique personally identifiable information (e-mail, name, address, telephone number) is not transferred to the third party.

Horne may share data with trusted partners to help perform statistical analysis, send you email or postal mail, provide customer support, or arrange for deliveries. All such third parties are prohibited from using your personal information except to provide these Services to Horne, and they are required to maintain the confidentiality of your information.

Horne may disclose your personal information, without notice, if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process served on Horne or the Site; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Horne; and/or (c) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of Horne, or the public.

Additional Privacy Considerations

Be aware that voluntary disclosure of personal information in a public online area may result in the collection and use of this information by others. Likewise, the user assumes all risk for disclosure of personal information in publicly accessible areas on Our systems, understanding that any such disclosed information may be collected and used by others to send unsolicited messages, advertisements, or for other purposes. Removal of information from the Horne Site does not ensure removal of all copies, caches and archives. Once information is made available on the Internet, there is no way to retract it from propagation. Horne therefore strongly encourages Our users to exercise due caution when interacting with areas not governed by the privacy policies applicable to Horne specific Sites, Systems, and Services.

Horne expressly disclaims any warranty that personal information cannot be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any or all of Our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards; and likewise assumes no liability for unauthorized breach of Our safeguards by third parties or disclosure of data due to errors in transmission.

The user is solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any user identification and password information used to register with, and should always be careful and responsible in disclosure of information online.

Right to Deletion

Subject to certain exceptions set out below, on receipt of a verifiable request from you, We will:

• Delete your personal information from Our records; and
• Direct any service providers to delete your personal information from their records.
• Please note that We may not be able to comply with requests to delete your personal information if it is necessary to:
• Complete the transaction for which the personal information was collected, fulfill the terms of a written warranty or product recall conducted in accordance with federal law, provide a good or service requested by you, or reasonably anticipated within the context of Our ongoing business relationship with you, or otherwise perform a contract between you and us;
• Detect security incidents, protect against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; or prosecute those responsible for that activity;
• Debug to identify and repair errors that impair existing intended functionality;
• Exercise free speech, ensure the right of another consumer to exercise his or her right of free speech, or exercise another right provided for by law;
• Comply with the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act;
• Engage in public or peer-reviewed scientific, historical, or statistical research in the public interest that adheres to all other applicable ethics and privacy laws, when Our deletion of the information is likely to render impossible or seriously impair the achievement of such research, provided We have obtained your informed consent;
• Enable solely internal uses that are reasonably aligned with your expectations based on your relationship with us;
• Comply with an existing legal obligation; or
• Otherwise use your personal information, internally, in a lawful manner that is compatible with the context in which you provided the information.

Changes to this Statement

Horne reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you about significant changes in the way We treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address specified in your account, by placing a prominent notice on Our Website, and/or by updating any privacy information. Your continued use of the Website and/or Services available after such modifications will constitute your: (a) acknowledgment of the modified Privacy Policy; and (b) agreement to abide and be bound by that Policy.

Privacy Policy Acceptance

Usage of the Horne Heating and Air Conditioning Site and Services signifies your acceptance, as a(n) Horne user, of this Privacy Statement. If you as a user are uncomfortable and/or in disagreement with any policy described in this Privacy Statement, your only remedy is to discontinue use of the Horne Site and Services. We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Statement at any time. Your continued use of any portion of the Horne Site, Systems, and/or Service following notification or posting of such changes, will constitute your acceptance of those changes. 

Contact Information

Horne welcomes your questions or comments regarding this Statement of Privacy. You may contact Us about this Privacy Policy at:

Horne Heating and Air Conditioning
6805 Craig Street
Charlotte, NC 28214

Email Address
service@hornehvac.com

Telephone Number
(704) 321-4173

Effective as of October 1, 2024