Your Privacy Rights

Effective Date: This Privacy Policy is effective and was last updated as of April 19, 2010.   This policy describes our collection, use and storage of data from our customers (and, where applicable, their customers or business associates).  Ellie Mae customers should also refer to their license agreement and other customer agreements, which state additional terms governing their use of our Ellie Mae Network™, products and services.

Our Commitment to Your Privacy

Welcome to the Ellie Mae, Inc. website located at www.elliemae.com (the "Website"). This Privacy Policy describes:

• How and why we collect certain information from you via the Website;
• How we use and with whom we share such information;
• How visitors to the Website and users of our Ellie Mae Network™, products and services can access and update such information; and
• The choices they can make about how we collect, use and share their information.

• Our Encompass360® client, which you must purchase and download to use;
• Our CenterWise® system, which can be integrated with our Encompass360® software;
• Our ePASS® system, hereinafter referred to as the “Ellie Mae Network”, which is integrated with our Encompass360® software; and
• Our Encompass Compliance Service, which is integrated with our Encompass360® software and available as a stand-alone engine, Mavent ACE.

If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or our information collection and use practices, please contact us using the information in the “Contact Us” section below.

The EllieMae.com Website

Information Collected at EllieMae.com

Personal Information Provided in Sales Inquiries. If you have communicated with an Ellie Mae sales representative, on or offline, we collect the name, title and company, address, email and telephone number you provide us in order to offer you Ellie Mae products and services.  Such information may later be associated with information collected on the Website or through the products or services you order so that we can assess the efficacy of our sales efforts.  In addition, if you choose to contact us for support or other information through any of the email addresses or phone numbers available through the “Contact Us” link on the Website, our representatives will record your email address (if the contact was via email) or your telephone number (if the contact was by phone) (“Personal Information”), as well as the ClientID associated with your account, if any.

Non-Personal Information Collected from Site Visitors.  Like most standard website services, we collect certain types of technical non-personal information, including internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser types, internet service providers (ISPs), the number and duration of page visits and the number of clicks, when you use our Website.

In the ordinary course of delivering our web-based services we receive information about our customers’ borrowers or business associates. We are not generally responsible for the collection of this information from these borrowers or associates.  Please see the Privacy Policies applicable to each of our products and services for further information about such borrower information.

How We Collect Information on the Website

When you visit and interact with the Website, independently of your use of any Ellie Mae product or service, our web server uses cookies to improve your interaction with the Website by, for example, expediting load times for individual pages or remembering your preferences and settings.

What are cookies?

Cookies are files that web servers place on an Internet user’s computer. They are designed to store basic information about the user and transmit that information back to servers that recognize them.  They may be used to measure visitor behavior on and in connection with a website. There are two main types of cookies: session and persistent. Session cookies exist only during an Internet user’s online session. They disappear from the user’s computer when he/she closes the browser software. Persistent cookies may remain on the user’s computer after the browser has been closed and resume interaction with the server when the user returns to a website.  Depending on which browser you use to access the internet (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, etc.), you can change your settings to affect whether to accept, store or delete cookies, but doing so may impact you ability to navigate our site and use our products. 

How does Ellie Mae use cookies?

We use both session cookies and persistent cookies. The cookies used on the Website do not identify you personally by default. They merely recognize your browser, unless you choose to identify yourself voluntarily, which you may do by asking the browser to remember your username and password, for example.  They transmit information to us about your browsing choices, such as which hyperlink you followed to arrive at the Website, which we in turn use to optimize your browsing experience.   In some cases, third party software products, such as Google analytics, are used help us optimize our website’s performance, and that third party software may access these cookies and use the information contained in such cookies to help us do so.  If you are logged in to our services or are a returning site visitor  and therefore a potential customer, we use persistent cookies to, among other things, (1) track your use of our software, (2) authenticate your login to our software products and (3) maintain the preferences you have chosen.  We encourage you to reference the Privacy Policy applicable to each of our products in order to understand how they use cookies.

What are Web Beacons and how does Ellie Mae use them?

We may also use web beacons, which are transparent graphic images on a webpage or within the body of one of our marketing emails, to allow us to measure visitor actions and assess the effectiveness of our website or email marketing campaign.  For example, we use web beacons in our email marketing to track instances where a user clicks through a link in the email.

How We Use Information Collected at the EllieMae.com Website

We may use Personal Information you provide during a support contact, independently or in association with cookies we have placed on your machine (in the case of contact directly through the Website), to, among other things, provide you with offers for Ellie Mae products and services which may be of interest to you via direct email marketing or to facilitate the log in process for online services like the Resource Center.  You may opt-out of receiving such offers at any time by following the steps to “unsubscribe” described in the footer of our marketing emails. Your opt-out will become effective in 10 days or less.

We may share Personal Information gathered on our Website through cookies or web beacons independently from your use of any Ellie Mae product or service with third parties to provide services on our behalf, including marketing assistance, e-mail delivery, hosting services, customer service and data analysis.  With the exception of SavingStreet (whose purpose is to facilitate direct communication with vendors as discussed in our Encompass privacy policy), we require third party service providers to maintain the confidentiality of the information disclosed to them.  Third parties who provide services for us are not permitted to use information we share that might identify you for any purpose other than to provide services to Ellie Mae or to you.

We may disclose any information, including Personal Information, we deem necessary to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, or to enforce our rights or protect the safety and security of our Website or other users.

In the event we undergo a business transition, such as a merger, acquisition by another company or a sale of all or a portion of our assets, we may transfer information about you contained in our physical records or on our servers to the intended successor organization in such transaction. If material changes to our privacy practices will occur as a result of the business transition, we will post a notice on the Website alerting you to the business transition.

Information collected at Appraisal Center, Title Center and Loan Center

If you are a service provider who wishes to transact with other Ellie Mae customers you may use segments of our website designed for service providers. When you register or login at one of these service center homepages, such as Appraisal Center at appraisalcenter.elliemae.com, we collect and process some information in addition to what is described above. 

At each homepage, you may login or register to view requests for your services sent by Encompass users.  When you login or register, we collect the login ID and password you use to ascertain your identity and display the proper orders to you.  Either when you register or during your subscription to Ellie Mae services, we will also collect credit card information you input or share for billing purposes.  If you choose to create a marketing page for others to view within Encompass, we will store the information you provide for that page on our servers to enable Encompass users to access and view your page.

This collection, use and storage of data is in addition to that described above for our Website generally.

Our Policies Concerning Children

This Website is intended for the use of adults over the age of 18 with an interest in Ellie Mae’s software services, which relate to the residential real estate market.  As such, it is obviously not intended for children under the age of 13 and we do not knowingly collect any personal information from such persons. Individuals who are under the age of 18 should not use our Website or our online services at any time.  In the event that we learn that we have inadvertently gathered Personal Information from children under the age of 13, we will use reasonable efforts to erase such information from our records.

Privacy Policies of Linked Sites and Advertisers

Our Website may contain links to other sites, as well as advertisements from companies linking to their own sites. These other sites may not have privacy policies, and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of such sites. If you have any questions about how these other sites use your information, you should contact them directly.

Security

Ellie Mae has physical, administrative and technical measures in place to maintain the security, confidentiality and integrity of the data gathered through the Ellie Mae Website, and to help protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of such data. For example, when you access the Website, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology protects information using both server authentication and data encryption to help ensure that the data is safe, secure and available only to us. Our employees may access information stored on our servers with proper credentials during the normal course of our business in order to administer, test and secure the servers hosting such information.

However, while we take reasonable steps to protect your personal information against security breaches and unauthorized access, no data transmission over the Internet can be guaranteed to be totally secure and therefore we cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you send to us. You send any information via the Website at your own risk.

Your California Privacy Rights

This Privacy Policy describes when and how we share information for marketing purposes.  This Privacy Policy applies to all users of the Website, including residents of California.  You can prevent future disclosures of your personal information (as submitted through the Contact Us function) to our affiliates and service providers, at no charge, by exercising your opt-out rights as described in the “How to Access and Update Your Information” section below.

By providing you with the ability to exercise such opt-out rights, we have complied with California Civil Code Section 1798.83, and we therefore are not obligated to provide the names and addresses of third parties that have received personal information from us for their marketing purposes.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

If we decide to make material changes to our Privacy Policy, we will attempt to notify you and other users of the Website by sending a notice to the primary email address provided to us and/or by placing a notice on our Website. You should periodically check the Website for such notices.

How to Access and Update Your Information

You can access and update the information that you have provided to us as follows:

• You may contact us at privacy@elliemae.com and request to review, amend or delete your Personal Information collected by us through email or telephone sales contacts if you have not chosen to obtain services from Ellie Mae.  
• If you have an Encompass account, you can review and make changes to the Personal Information, user identity information, company information and other of your data within the “Settings” menu of Encompass.  We require that you keep your contact information current and accurate.  Please refer to the Privacy Policy applicable to each Product for your access options with respect to that particular product.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, comments or concerns regarding our Privacy Policy and/or practices, please send an email to: privacy@elliemae.com

Ellie Mae, Inc.
4155 Hopyard Road
Suite 200
Pleasanton, CA 94588

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