Privacy Policy

Message Owl, ensures to sustain a strong privacy protection policy for our users. Protecting the privacy of your information is an important responsibility and we value the trust you place in us. We care about your privacy as much as we care about our own.

How we use information to enhance your experience with us and how we ensure the safety of your data is described below.

What our privacy policy covers

This policy will inform you of the information that we use, collect and your rights and options to use these information, including but not limited to, the information collected when you sign in, access and/or register on our website. In addition, Message Owl may disclose user information set forth in this Privacy Policy

The information we collect and how it is used

Information is collected when you communicate with us and use our site. This includes, including, but not limited to, Name, personal identification data, contact information, images, voice recordings, prints, reason for contacting us, information received from third parties social networking handle or username, browser information, IP address, geographic location, internet service provider, connection speed, time of visit, referring site/ application/service, registration time and mobile device information.

When you register on Message Owl, you acknowledge and agree that all information provided is accurate, true, up-to-date and complete.

If you choose to register via a third party website or service that is integrated with Message Owl, for instance, we may offer the ability to use certain third party websites to facilitate your registration on Message Owl, we may collect information, including but not limited to as stated above.

When accessing Message Owl, your choice to use or share with a third party website is completely voluntary and Message Owl is not liable for compliance with the policies of any third party website. It is you responsibility to review your privacy settings and preferences of those services provided by third party websites as to ensure what is made available by them to Message Owl is within your consent.

Please note that any information received by Third party websites will be governed by this Privacy Policy.

All information collected are used, including, but not limited to improve our services and products, fulfil your requests, personalize and tailor to your experience, operate our business, understand how users engage with our website, facilitate the delivery of our content and advertisements, communicate with you about new or existing products and services or special offers. For instance, we may send promotional notifications or materials to your email address if you subscribed.

Use of Cookies on our site

Message Owl may place cookies on your device. Cookies are small files that a service provider or site transfers typically to your computer’s hard disk to recognize users. It contains information that can later be read by a web serve in the domain.

The information recorded is used so that we can provide a more personalized experience for you, including but not limited to, asses user pattern, identify visitors, preferences, control display of Ads, diagnose errors in our system/servers, conduct research, deliver editorial content and record user information.

If you do not wish us to place a cookie on your device, browser preference must be changed to block cookies before accessing Message Owl. We are not responsible if you or your browser fails to implement the preference settings and for the use of cookies by its third party affiliates. If you choose to decline cookies, you may be unable to sign in or use certain interactive features available in Message Owl.

Disclosing information to outside parties

Message Owl would not sell, transfer or trade to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assists in operating the website, conducting our business and servicing to you as long as these parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may however disclose this information, to comply with the law, our policies, protect our user’s rights and safety.

Protection and Security of personally Identifying Information

To protect the confidentiality of your Personally Identifying Information, we have instigated reasonable security measures and practices. However, please note that no security system is impassable and it is possible for third parties to access or intercept information that you provide us. We cannot guarantee the security of the information you provide, thus it is crucial that you log off when using shared computers and protect against unauthorized access to your password(s) or the devices you use.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Please note that we reserve the right to bring about changes to these policies at any given time, and by virtue of continued use of our website, you agree to be bound by these changes.

Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”)

Updated: February 11, 2019

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) governs your use of the Message Owl Services. Capitalized terms used and not otherwise defined herein shall have the corresponding meaning set forth in the Terms of Use, or other similar written services agreement between you and Message Owl.

You agree that you, your End Users and your Affiliates will not, and will not authorize, assist or enable any third party to, engage in any of the following:

1. Violating any applicable law or regulation, whether local, state, federal, or foreign.
2. Violating standards, policies or applicable guidelines published by the Communications Authority of Maldives (CAM) (including the Maldives Telecommunication Policy 2006 - 2010 and Maldives Telecommunication Law) or other generally-recognized industry associations; or other telecommunications or service provider requirements as communicated to you in writing by Message Owl.
3. Damaging, interfering with, overburdening, or otherwise adversely impacting the availability, reliability, or stability of the Services or third-party systems or networks relating to the Services.
4. Attempting to circumvent or break any security mechanism on any of the Services, or using the Services in any manner that poses a security or other risk to Message Owl, Message Owl’s vendors, any user of the Services, or any customer of any of the foregoing.
5. Benchmarking, tampering with, unauthorized testing, reverse-engineering, decompiling, or otherwise using the Services in order to discover limitations or vulnerabilities, or evade filtering capabilities.
6. Engaging in fraudulent, deceptive, inaccurate, or misleading activity with respect to third parties (including impersonation of identity or identifiers such as phone numbers or email addresses) or otherwise bypassing legitimate identification systems.
7. Using the Services to harvest or otherwise collect information about individuals, including email addresses or phone numbers, without their explicit consent or under false pretenses.
8. Engaging in spamming, or other unsolicited, unwanted, or harassing advertising, marketing or other activities, including any activities that violate anti-spamming, data protection, or privacy laws and regulations.
9. Offering or purporting to offer any services that allow a user to connect with emergency services personnel or public safety answering points such as 119, or equivalents.
10. Using long virtual numbers to receive messages for the purposes of identity verification, bulk messaging, automated messaging, messages using automated dialing, and the like.
11. Reselling, sublicensing, renting or timesharing the Services or any portion of the Services (including, without limitation, data received through the Number Insight or Verify Services) without Message Owl’s express, specific prior written consent. Any permitted resale is conditioned upon your obtaining, maintaining, and providing to Message Owl upon request, reasonable Know Your Customer information in compliance with applicable law for each of your direct and indirect customers using the Services, and may not be extended to anonymous users. Without limiting the foregoing, you must maintain the following information for each of your users using the Services: name, verified telephone number, verified e-mail address, method of payment, payment information, and IP address.
12. Forwarding from a virtual number to a dead endpoint (i.e., if you forward from a virtual number, you must make a reasonable attempt to receive the message, as applicable).
13. Bundling, aggregating or otherwise combining in any way any messages originating from any other telephone number, or engaging in group messaging; each number shall only be used for messages originating and terminating to such single, unique telephone number.
14. Using the Services in hazardous environments requiring fail-safe performance, such as in the operation of aircraft navigation or communication systems, air traffic control, or other devices or systems in which malfunction of the Services would result in foreseeable risk of injury or death of the operator of the device or system, or to others.
15. Failing to obtain any legally required consent from those third parties (or, where required, their parents, representatives, or guardians) for the collection, use, and disclosure of the third parties’ personal data as described in the Privacy Policy.
16. Engaging in activities or, uploading, downloading, submitting, transmitting, distributing or facilitating the distribution of, any information that contains “inappropriate content” in connection with the Services. Inappropriate content includes, but is not limited to, content that:
    • May be considered libelous, slanderous, defamatory, threatening, sexually explicit, vulgar, profane, obscene, offensive, abusive, malicious or otherwise harmful to any person or entity, constitutes or promotes “hate speech” or is otherwise discriminatory based on race, sex, creed, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, language, or age.
    • Contains or transmits viruses, Trojan horses, worms or any other malicious, harmful, or deleterious programs or similar destructive programming routines.
    • Promotes, markets or otherwise relates to illegal activities or terrorism.
    • Infringes on, misappropriates, or violates any intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties, including but not limited to trademark, copyright, patent, trade secrets, rights of publicity, and rights of privacy.
    • Constitutes or relates to “adult services” or content of an adult nature, including, without limitation, content that contains or depicts nudity, contains or depicts sexual activity, or is otherwise inappropriate as determined by Message Owl in its sole discretion.
    • Comprises or promotes alcohol, firearms, or tobacco content, except where appropriate age-gating functionality has been implemented and such content is otherwise legal in the applicable jurisdiction.
    • Contains sensitive financial or identification information or documents.

Service Level Agreement for Services (“SLA”)

Updated: January 1, 2020

The Service Level Agreement (“SLA”) of Message Owl represent the utilization of the Message Owl Services under the terms of the Message Owl Terms and Conditions (the “T&C”) between Message Owl, (“Message Owl”, “us” or “we”) and users of the Message Owl Services (“you” or “Customer”). This SLA applies independently to each account using the Message Owl Services. Unless generally provided herein, this SLA is liable to the terms of the T&C and indicated terms will have the meaning specified in the T&C. Message Owl reserves the authority to change the terms of this SLA in accordance with the T&C.

1. Definitions

The following defined terms apply to this SLA. Capitalized terms not defined below have the meanings ascribed to them in the Terms & Conditions, or other similar written agreement between the parties, as applicable (“Agreement”).

1. “Message Owl Services” is the combination of all single products and services (as defined in 2.2) Message Owl possibly offers to the Customer.
2. “Message Owl Single Service” means:
   • Message Owl API (Application Programming Interface)
   • Message Owl Console
   • Message Owl Mail to SMS service
   • Message Owl SMPP Console (Short Message Peer-to-Peer)
3. “Unavailable Time” means one or more of the Message Owl Services are not available for use according to third party performance and monitoring services contracted by Message Owl at its sole discretion (the “Monitoring Service”). The Monitoring Service reports of availability is currently available at status.MsgOwl.com; provided that service issues or outages relating to any Exclusions (defined below) shall not be deemed as Unavailable Time. Unavailable Time is calculated per Single Service as defined in 2.2 and not a combined total or average.
4. “Monthly Uptime Percentage” is calculated by subtracting from 100% the percentage of continuous 5 minute periods during the Service Month in which a Message Owl Single Service was in a state of “Unavailable Time” as identified by Monitoring Service.
5. “Service Credit” is a credit that Message Owl, at its sole discretion and after confirming the nature and accuracy of the Unavailable Time, may credit back to an eligible Customer account, calculated as set forth below:
   • For a calendar month where the Monthly Uptime Percentage of an Message Owl Single Service does not meet the Monthly Uptime Percentage, Message Owl will credit Customer’s account a percentage of that month’s billings specific to Service not meeting the Monthly Uptime Percentage, as defined by this table:

     Monthly uptime percentage	Service Credit
     < 99.95%	10%

   • Service Credit shall be issued to Customer’s Message Owl balance for future use of the Single Service only. No refunds or cash value will be provided. Service Credits may not be transferred or applied to any other account or Single Service.

2. Service Commitment

Message Owl will utilize commercially reasonable endeavors to ensure Message Owl’s Services are available 99.95% of the time. In the event Customer experiences that Message Owl will not meet the 99.95% Services accessibility in a given calendar month (“Monthly Uptime Percentage”), you will be eligible to receive a Service Credit as described above.

3. Credit request and payment procedures

To apply for a Service Credit, the Customer must submit a ticket via the form found here within 30 days of the month in which the Unavailable Time occurred. The ticket must include (i) “SLA Claim” as the subject of the ticket; (ii) the dates and times of the Unavailable Time for which you are requesting credit; and (iii) any applicable information that documents the claimed outage. Failure to comply with this requirement will forfeit Customer’s right to receive a Service Credit. Service Credits will be applied within 60 days after the Service Credit was requested.

4. Exclusions

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, no Unavailable Time shall be deemed to have occurred with respect to any unavailability, suspension or termination of the Message Owl Services, or any other Message Owl Services performance issues, that:

1. are caused by factors outside of Message Owl’s sensible control, including, without limitation, any natural or unavoidable catastrophes, carrier related problems or issues, or problems related to Internet access or problems beyond the demarcation point of Message Owl or its direct hosting subcontractors (i.e beyond the point in the network where Message Owl maintains access and control over the Message Owl Services);
2. result from any activities or inactions of Customer or any third party (other than Message Owl’s immediate facilitating subcontractor);
3. result from Applications, equipment, software or other technology and/or third party equipment, software or other technology (other than third party equipment within Message Owl’s immediate control); or
4. Emerge from Message Owl’s suspension and termination of Customer’s entitlement to use the Message Owl’s Services as per the T&C, (v) scheduled maintenance; or (vi) problems or issues related to alpha, beta or not otherwise generally available Message Owl’s features or products (collectively, the “Exclusions”).

5. Exclusive solution

Service Credits might be your exclusive and selective solution for any unavailability or non-performance of our Services or other failure to provide the adequate services promised by Message Owl.

Messaging Policy

Updated: 5 June, 2020

We all expect that the messages we want to receive will reach us, unhindered by filtering or other blockers. An important step Message Owl and our customers can take to make that expectation reality is to prevent and eliminate unwanted messages. Towards that end, we strive to work with our customers so that messages--whether SMS, MMS, or chat--are sent with the consent of the message recipient, and that those messages comply with local laws and measures of fairness and decency.

This principle is central to Message Owl's Acceptable Use Policy

Navigating the path to proper consent for message sending can be complex. We developed the Messaging Policy to help Message Owl customers partner with us to map out that path.

What Is Proper Consent?

Consent can't be bought, sold, or exchanged. For example, you can't obtain the consent of message recipients by purchasing a phone list from another party.

Aside from two exceptions noted later in this section, we need to meet each of the consent requirements listed below. If you are a software or Console provider using Message Owl for messaging within your application or service, you need to require that your customers adhere to these same requirements when dealing with their users and customers.

Consent Requirements

• Prior to sending the first message, you must obtain agreement from the message recipient to communicate with them - this is referred to as "consent", You must make clear to the individual they are agreeing to receive messages of the type you're going to send. You need to keep a record of the consent, such as a copy of the document or form that the message recipient signed, or a timestamp of when the customer completed a sign-up flow.
• If you do not send an initial message to that individual within 30 days of receiving consent, then you will need to reconfirm consent (see “Double Opt-in” below).
• The consent applies only to you, and to the specific use or campaign that the recipient has consented to. You can't treat it as blanket consent allowing you to send messages from other brands or companies you may have, or additional messages about other uses or campaigns.

Alternative Consent Requirements: The Two Exceptions

While consent is always required and the consent requirements noted above are generally the safest path, there are two scenarios where consent can be received differently.

Contact initiated by an individual

If an individual sends a message to you, you are free to respond in an exchange with that individual. For example, if an individual texts your phone number asking for your hours of operation, you can respond directly to that individual, relaying your open hours. In such a case, the individual’s inbound message to you constitutes both consent and proof of consent.

Remember that the consent is limited only to that particular conversation. Unless you obtain additional consent, don't send messages that are outside that conversation.

Contact initiated by you to send informational content to an individual based on having a prior relationship

You may send an outbound message that provides information requested by the individual, or that can be reasonably expected by the individual based on your relationship. An example of such a relationship and message is a dentist reminding a patient of an appointment.

In addition to appointment reminders, other examples include receipts, one-time passwords, order/shipping/reservation confirmations, drivers coordinating pick up locations with riders, and repair persons confirming service call times.

The message can't attempt to promote a product, convince someone to buy something, or advocate for a social cause.

The individual must have knowingly provided their phone number to you, and have taken some action to trigger the potential for communication. Actions can include a button press, setting up an alert, making an appointment, or placing an order.

Double Opt-in Consent

We require double opt-in consent in some limited use cases. Many of these use cases listed below generate the majority of complaints about unwanted messages which is why the burden of consent is higher.

• Affiliate marketing including multi-level marketing - this is typically a marketing arrangement which an online retailer pays commission to an external website for traffic or sales generated from its referrals.
• Lead generation services
• Sweepstakes
• inancial products, unless you are the financial institution directly offering the product. These include debt refinancing, short-term credit offers, and payday loans
• Job alerts
• Work-from-home offers

Double opt-in is a two step process:

• First, the message recipient must knowingly provide consent to you or your customer prior to receiving any text message. That consent must be provided through an electronic signature or some other online sign-up form that makes clear to the individual they are agreeing to receive messages of this type.
• Second, in your first text message to that individual, you must identify yourself and prompt the individual to confirm their consent.

For example, your first outbound message would be compliant if it included text similar to, “This is Company X. You recently signed up to receive text messages from us. Please reply YES to confirm or STOP to unsubscribe.” Only after you receive the confirmation “YES” may you send a follow-up message with information related to a topic listed above.

Identifying Yourself as the Sender

Every message you send must clearly identify you as the sender, except in follow-up messages of an ongoing conversation.

Message Recipient Opt-out

The initial message that you send to an individual needs to include the following language: “Reply STOP to unsubscribe,” or the equivalent using another standard opt-out keyword, such as STOPALL, UNSUBSCRIBE, CANCEL, END, and QUIT.

Individuals must also have the ability to revoke consent at any time by replying with a standard opt-out keyword. When an individual opts out, you may deliver one final message to confirm that the opt-out has been processed, but any subsequent messages are not allowed. An individual must once again provide consent before you can send any additional messages.

Periodic Messages and Ongoing Consent

In some cases, you may want to periodically send messages to an individual who earlier provided proper consent. This practice is allowed, provided that your message includes a reminder to the individual about how to unsubscribe. If you send more than one message in a given month, you need to include the reminder in just one of those messages--not in all of the messages that you send in that month.

You must respect the message recipient’s preferences in terms of frequency of contact. You also need to proactively ask individuals to reconfirm their consent no less often than once every 18 months.

Age and Geographic Gating

If you are sending messages in any way related to alcohol, firearms, gambling, tobacco, or other adult content, then more restrictions apply. In addition to obtaining consent from every message recipient, you must ensure that no message recipient is younger than the legal age of consent based on where the recipient is located. You also must ensure that the message content complies with all applicable laws of the jurisdiction in which the message recipient is located. Additionally, Message Owl’s Acceptable Use Policy bans sending any content that is offensive, inappropriate, pornographic, obscene, illegal, or otherwise objectionable, even if the content is permissible by law and appropriate age restrictions are in place.

You need to be able to provide proof that you have in place measures to ensure compliance with these restrictions.

Content We Do Not Allow

The key to ensuring that messaging remains a great channel for communication and innovation is preventing abusive use of messaging Consoles. That means we never allow some types of content on our Console, even if our customers get consent from recipients for that content. Those content types include:

• Anything that’s illegal in the jurisdiction where the message recipient lives. For example, we do not allow messages related to the sale of recreational or medicinal cannabis in the Maldives, because Maldives laws prohibit its sale.
• Hate speech or harassment, or any communications from groups whose primary purpose is deemed to be spreading hate. You can find a fuller description of hate and other prohibited types of speech in Message Owl’s Acceptable Use Policy.
• Fraudulent messages.
• Malicious content, such as malware or viruses.
• Any content that is designed to intentionally evade filters.

How We Handle Violations

When we identify a violation of these principles, we work with customers in good faith to get them back into compliance. To protect the continued ability of all our customers to freely use messaging for legitimate purposes, we reserve the right to remove access to the Message Owl Console for customers that we determine are not complying with the Messaging Policy, or who are not following the law in any applicable area.