Privacy Policy
Overview
This Privacy Policy describes how Pinger treats information that it collects and receives related to your use of Pinger’s products, services, and websites. Our primary goal in collecting information is to provide and improve our products and services.
Children’s Personal Information
All Pinger products, services and websites are not intended for children under the age of 13, so children under the age of 13 should not use them at any time.
Pinger does not knowingly collect any information from children under the age of 13. In the event that Pinger discovers that it has received personal information from a child under the age of 13, Pinger will promptly delete such personal information in a secure manner.
Information Pinger Collects and Uses
Pinger collects information when you use and access Pinger’s products, services and website. We categorize the information we collect into three categories (collectively referred to as “Customer Information”): Personal Information, App Data and Share Data.
“Personal Information” is information about you that is personally identifiable, including your full name, business or residential address, email address, land-line or existing mobile phone number, or billing information.
“App Data” is information about the nature of your usage of Pinger’s website and products and services and non-personal information. App Data can include: IP addresses, domain servers, referring/exit pages, operating system
information, unique device identifiers, such as UDID and/or Ethernet MAC address, date/time stamp, clickstream data and information about actions taken by you through interaction with Pinger’s products and/or advertising displayed within Pinger products, messages sent and received using Pinger services, information about those messages (date, duration, recipients, size, attachments), type of device, location information, age, gender, type of web browser, one or more cookies that identify your browser, and telecommunications carrier information.
“Share Data” is data and information you provide for use with Pinger’s products or services, such as text, audio, video and photos you make available through the Apps or contacts you add or import for use with Pinger products, and which may be made available to third parties by your actions when using Pinger products or services.
Information Sharing and Disclosure
Pinger uses Customer Information to enhance your use of the Pinger services by processing such information for various purposes, including improving and providing Pinger’s products and services, product notifications, delivering advertisements and related links, for sending, sharing and storing your Share Data as you direct through use of Pinger products and services, and other purposes relating to offering you Pinger products and services.
If you provide your phone number as part of a request for information about Pinger products or services or in setting up an account, we may use that phone number and share that phone number with third parties to contact you about Pinger products and services and to provide advertisements to you about Pinger Products and services.
Pinger does not rent, sell, or share any Customer Information except as provided above and unless: you initiate the sharing through the Pinger products, services or website; you have provided your express consent; and in the following circumstances:
(i) Pinger may engage a trusted third party to perform limited functions on our behalf, such as fulfilling newsletter subscriptions, sending requested postal mail and e-mail, SMS, MMS, and voice communications, analyzing and processing data (such as billing information), and providing customer service. We require that these parties agree to use such information in a confidential manner. These third parties may have access to Personal Information needed to perform their functions, but we do not permit them to use it for other purposes.
(ii) Pinger may share App Data and certain aggregated, non-personal information with third parties, but such information does not include your name, email address or any other Personal Information.
(iii) Pinger may share Customer Information to respond to legal requirements, when legally required to do so, or at the request of governmental authorities.
(iv) Pinger may share Customer Information to verify or enforce compliance with user agreements and applicable laws, to protect against fraud, to detect and prevent security or technical issues, to protect against misuse or unauthorized use of the Pinger products, services, computing systems, or website, or to protect against imminent harm to the rights, property or safety of Pinger, its subscribers or the public. The foregoing includes, but is not limited to, the right for Pinger to disclose information about your account and your wireless device, if available, to your wireless carrier and its service providers, for the duration of your relationship with Pinger, solely to help them identify you or your wireless device and to prevent fraud.
(v) Pinger may share Customer Information with a successor entity or in connection with a corporate merger, consolidation, sale of assets or other corporate reorganization provided that use of Customer Information is in compliance with this Privacy Policy.
(vi) Pinger may share your Customer Information with a third party if you have consented to receive information from that third party through Pinger products or services. Such third parties will handle, store, retain and access such user information in accordance with the terms and conditions of their agreements with you, if any, as well as their own privacy policies and as authorized and agreed upon by you as part of agreements for use of our products and services. It is your responsibility to carefully review such agreements and privacy policies. You acknowledge that Pinger shall have no liability to you for sharing of such information to such third parties as authorized by you and Pinger disclaims any and all liability relating thereto. If Pinger desires to use Personal Information for any purposes other than those described in this Privacy Policy, we will offer you the opportunity to opt out of such use for those other purposes.
Cookies and Tracking
When you visit Pinger or use Pinger applications, we may send cookies to your computer that uniquely identify your browser or use tracking pixels, agents or other visitor identification technology (collectively, “Tags”) that collect App Data. We may also include Tags in promotional materials in order to determine whether messages have been opened and acted upon.
We use and share App Data as provided above.
Most browsers allow you to disable cookies or set your browser to alert you when cookies are being sent to your computer. If you disable cookies, you may not be able to utilize certain Pinger products and services.
We use analytics tools provided by Google, Facebook, Flurry, adjust, braze and Crashlytics (“Analytics Tools”) which also use Tags to collect and analyze information about your use of our desktop and mobile applications. We use Analytics Tools to collect App Data, which we use as provided above. That information is also used by the Analytics Tools providers according to their privacy policies.
In some Apps we use Google Signals, which is an extension to Google Analytics. If you have enabled personalized ads in your Google account, then Google Signals allows us access to data linked to your Google account for advertising reports, remarketing, cross-device reporting, and interest and demographic reports, and to use that data for cross-device remarketing.
You can find more details about how Google uses data it collects here: http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/. Some applications may use Google Contacts API to allow access to your contacts using https://www.googleapis.com/auth/contacts. That information is stored on your device and not uploaded to our servers, and is used solely to allow you to communicate with contacts using the features of those applications. For more, see https://console.cloud.google.com and https://console.cloud.google.com/tos?id=universal. To learn how Flurry collects, uses, and stores such information, see the Flurry privacy policy at https://policies.yahoo.com/us/en/yahoo/privacy/index.htm. You may choose to opt out of the Flurry services via the Flurry Opt-Out Page, available at https://dev.flurry.com/secure/optOut.do. To learn more about data collection with Facebook Analytics, see https://developers.facebook.com/docs/analytics/overview. To learn more about how braze uses data it collects, see https://www.braze.com/terms/. Crashlytics privacy policy can be found at http://try.crashlytics.com/terms/privacy-policy.pdf. To opt out of Google Analytics and Google Signals, see https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout/.
You hereby expressly consent that we are entitled to: (i) place Tags for the above-mentioned uses on your computer or device and to use the information gathered from Tags as provided in this Privacy Policy; and (ii) utilize information first party information and information provided by third parties for personalization and cross-device remarketing.
Currently, we do not respond to “Do Not Track” browser features.
Security and Data Integrity
We have physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the Customer Information under our control. Customer Information we collect is stored in a secure manner that is accessible only by authorized Pinger personnel, contractors, and agents bound by confidentiality obligations and is only disclosed under the provisions of this Privacy Policy. Our processing of Personal Information is only for the purposes for which it was collected and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. Periodically, Pinger undertakes a review of its privacy practices to ensure that that the information we collect is needed to provide or improve the services we provide.
Links to Third Party Sites
As a convenience to you, we may provide links and/or connections to third-party web sites or services from within our website or our products or services. Pinger is not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these third-party sites.
Access/Removal of Your Personal Information
If you want us to remove your Personal Information from our database, or would like to access the Personal Information we have that was collected from you, you can contact us using the contact information provided below. Certain of our products and services require the use of App Data and such data is retained by Pinger and used as described in this Privacy Policy.
Modifications of Privacy Policy
Pinger reserves the right, at our discretion, to change, update or modify this Privacy Policy at any time by posting such change, update or modification on the Pinger website and in the app stores from which Apps are made available. Any such change, update or modification will be effective immediately upon notice, which Pinger may provide by any means, including, without limitation, posting on the Pinger website, notifications within Pinger applications, or electronic mail. Your continued use of the Pinger website and/or any Pinger products and services following the posting of changes will mean you accept those changes. Use of information that we gather is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time of use.
Contact Us
If you have any questions or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy, please send us an email at [email protected] or write to us at Pinger, Inc. PO Box 730, San Jose, CA 95113. If we receive formal privacy-related complaints, it is our policy to use reasonable efforts to communicate with the complaining party about its concerns to resolve privacy complaints.
Interest-Based Advertiser Opt Outs
Pinger is not a member of any self-regulatory bodies for interest-based advertising like the DAA and NAI, but some of our advertisers and advertising services providers are members of self-regulatory bodies and require that we provide you with the following out links to the NAI and DAA opt out programs: for the NAI, see http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices, and for the DAA, see http://www.aboutads.info.
Last updated April 30, 2026
Privacy Notice
Privacy Notice for California Residents
SOME USEFUL DATA PRIVACY FACTS FROM YOUR FRIENDS AT PINGER
We’ve provided this Privacy Notice to help you understand how Pinger, Inc. (“Pinger,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects and uses personal information and, for California residents, to inform them of the categories of personal information we collect and the purposes for which the categories of personal information will be used, as required under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as augmented by the California Privacy Rights Act (collectively, “CCPA”) and other relevant privacy laws (together with the CCPA, “Privacy Laws”).
The technologies we use process data for our products and services are complicated, but this Privacy Notice is meant to provide you with an easy-to-understand overview of the categories of personal information we collect, why we collect them, and how we use them. While this Privacy Notice provides a general overview, for a complete understanding about what personal information we gather and how we use it, please review our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. Also, please review our “Notice of Financial Incentive” included below.
What does Pinger do?
Pinger offers software applications for iOS and Android mobile devices (and limited versions of those applications for internet-connected desktop computers), that enable end users to send SMS and MMS communications as well as to place or receive calls. Pinger licenses its applications to U.S.-based end users for use in the U.S. Pinger’s Canadian subsidiary, Dinopilot, offers the some of the same applications and functionality in limited markets outside of the U.S. If you’re an end user licensed by Dinopilot, references to “Pinger,” “we,” “us,” or “our” in this Privacy Notice mean Dinopilot.
Pinger’s mobile applications are: “Pinger,” “TextFree,” “TextFree Voice,” “Sideline”, and “Index” (collectively, the “Apps”). The Apps are available in iOS and/or Android versions for tablets and smartphones and are distributed through Apple’s “App Store” and the “Google Play” store (collectively, “App Stores”). Pinger, TextFree and TextFree Voice (collectively, “TextFree Apps”) are supported by advertising revenue and are free to use, with certain additional features, including an advertising-free feature, available for purchase as part of our TextFree Plus subscription. Sideline and Index require a paid subscription but may include promotional placements.
TextFree Apps provide end users with access to a Pinger-supplied phone number that becomes associated with an end user’s account. Receiving and sending SMS and MMS messages through the TextFree Apps are free to users as are inbound calls.
Sideline is a subscription-based, communications software platform intended for individuals. Specifically, Sideline provides phone numbers, voicemail, voicemail to text, inbound call routing functionality, multi-device call notification, text messaging, and telephone number management. Sideline provides its subscribers with communications tools to leverage their own devices and wireless plans.
Index is a subscription-based software platform intended for small businesses. Specifically, Index provides text-based tools such as booking appointments, sending invoices, collecting payments, and getting reviews. In addition, Index also provides phone numbers, voicemail, voicemail to text, inbound call routing functionality, multi-device call notification, text messaging, and telephone number management.
Sideline and Index may include promotional offers which may require that you allow use of your personal information. That information is only shared if you decide to pursue the offer, but you can opt out of receiving those offers by changing your “Content Preferences” through the “Settings” of the applicable App.
What personal information does Pinger need to use?
In order for inbound or outbound calls and messages to work for our Sideline, Index, and TextFree Apps, we need basic information about the sender and the recipient, namely their phone numbers. We also need to know how to associate all those calls and messages with a specific account for those Apps, so we require you to provide some basic information during signup. That’s how we can make sure that calls and messages are connected correctly. That information is required in order for us to provide our services, so please keep that in mind when deciding whether to use our Apps.
Since our TextFree Apps are supported by advertising, we -like other ad-supported companies (e.g. Facebook) – gather information about you, your mobile device from the TextFree Apps, and your use of TextFree Apps. That information is shared with Advertising Companies who process it and match it with other data and use algorithms to serve ads that are more relevant to you. That’s basically how we, and others, make money to support and offer TextFree Apps for free. Please keep in mind that some of that information, such as specific geo-location information, passes to Advertising Companies and may not be retained by us.
Can I opt out of the sale of my personal information?
Under Privacy Laws, provision of personal information to our advertising service providers may constitute a “sale” of that information, so we consider that we “sell” your personal information to deliver ads in our TextFree Apps. If you don’t like that personal information is used to deliver ads to you in our TextFree Apps, then you can opt out by purchasing a TextFree Plus subscription from the applicable Apps Stores. For Sideline and Index, you can always opt out of receiving promotional offers and other content by going to your app settings and turning off content notifications.
NOTICE OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVE: If you’re a California resident, you should know that the TextFree Plus subscription is offered in compliance with Section 1798.125(a)(2) of the CCPA which allows us to charge a fee if we can’t generate any advertising revenue from your use of the TextFree Apps. That fee is a good faith estimate of the value of the advertising revenue for a typical user of the TextFree Apps as determined by an industry standard calculation of lifetime value of a user who views our ads as compared to the lifetime value of a typical user who purchases TextFree Plus.
When you purchase a TextFree Plus subscription, we don’t provide your personal information to Advertising Companies, but you have to maintain that subscription in order to continue using TextFree Plus because other versions of TextFree use your personal information for advertising purposes. If you wish to cancel your TextFree Plus subscription as a financial incentive to not have your personal information used for advertising, you will have to do so from the Apple or Google Play store. If you cancel or let the TextFree Plus subscription lapse, then your personal information will be used for advertising in the TextFree Apps and, by allowing the subscription to lapse, you are expressly consenting to our use of your personal information for advertising within the TextFree Apps.
What categories of third parties does Pinger engage?
While Pinger maintains its own data servers for the core data management for the Apps, we engage third parties to provide other services, as follows: (i) .”Backend Providers” provide the backend transmission systems necessary for the Apps to function and include local exchange carriers connected to the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network) who connect communications for us, data backhaul providers who transfer data across the continent, and hosting providers; (ii) “Service Providers” who provide analytics, calendar, user notification, and related business services and customer support platforms; and (iii) “Advertising Companies” who provide advertising services for our TextFree Apps. We have contractual agreements with those third parties that limit the use of personal information we control for the specific purpose identified in those agreements.
What categories of personal information does Pinger collect?
Some data we collect from our Apps and our websites at textfree.us, Pinger.com, Sideline.com, and Getindex.com (collectively, the “Site”) is “personal information” under Privacy Laws because it 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. Currently, we collect this information from you and your device. Since paid features of our Apps are purchased through App Stores, we don’t collect any financial information from you, but we do collect other categories of personal information.
Please note that as a company in the communications space, we receive regular requests from law enforcement and governmental authorities investigating wrongdoing or illegal activity and, accordingly, we retain specific information for longer periods, in part to honor the needs of law enforcement and governmental authorities.
Below is a summary of the categories of personal information we may have collected from consumers within the last twelve (12) months and the main purpose for its collection. Please note that we only collect personal information from you when you use our Apps, the Site or interact with our customer support personnel. Also, not all the information identified below is collected from every end user and not all information is personal to the user or is associated with a specific user.
| Category | Examples |
General Business Purpose | Duration of Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Registration Information |
| To provide our services, to provide advertising for our Apps that support advertising, and to comply with legal requests | Indefinitely |
| Identifiers |
| To provide our services, to provide advertising for our Apps that support advertising, and to comply with legal requests | Indefinitely |
| Location information |
| To provide our services and for advertisers to provide advertising for our Apps that support advertising | Not retained |
| Network information |
| To provide our services and to provide advertising for our TextFree Apps, and to comply with legal requests |
2 years account activity Local Wi-Fi (90 days) |
| Survey information |
| To learn more about our customers and contact them, and to improve our Apps and services | Indefinitely, but not maintained in a manner that allows for easily searchable and identifiable personal data |
| Message Content |
| To provide our services and to comply with legal requests | Indefinitely for active account and 6 months for inactive accounts, with automated implementation of this process to be completed in Q1 of 2024 |
| Account Attributes |
| To provide advertising and promotional placements | Indefinitely for active account and 6 months for inactive accounts, with automated implementation of this process to be completed in Q2 of 2024 |
| App Usage Information |
| App usage information is retained to improve our services | 2 years for App feature usage and 45 days for purchasing activity data |
| Call Detail Records |
| To provide our Services and for legal compliance | 2 years |
| Contacts |
| To provide our Services | As long as the account is open |
| Privacy Scan Data |
| To conduct privacy scans that you authorize and to update you on those scans | Not retained |
We disclose your personal information to Back End Providers to enable communications transmissions for our Apps. We disclose your personal information to Services Providers to provide customer support, to analyze the usage of our Apps and the Site, to initiate App alerts, and to provide additional services you request. And we disclose your personal information to Advertising Companies to serve ads to our TextFree Apps.
We will not collect additional categories of personal information from you or use it differently than as described unless we provide you with advance notice and obtain your consent.
What about personal information from users under the age of 16?
Where users of our TextFree Apps have indicated that they are under the age of 16, we don’t sell their personal information and their account is terminated.
What are other uses of personal information?
As noted above, we use personal information to provide our services. In addition, we may use or disclose the personal information we collect for one or more of the following business purposes:
To fulfill or meet the reason for which the information is provided. For example, if you contact our customer support, we may use your email address to communicate with you about your support issue:
- To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us.
- To provide you with alerts and other notices concerning our products or services.
- To carry out our obligations and enforce our rights under the Apps’ Terms of Service.
- For testing, research, analysis and product development to improve our Apps and Site.
- To protect the rights, property or safety of us, our subscribers or others and to respond to legal requests.
- As described to you when collecting your personal information or as otherwise set forth in Privacy Laws.
- For the other purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy.
Where is the data held?
Pinger utilizes data centers in the United States, where all of our necessary systems are located. Some of our support programs leverage affiliated companies in the European Union (EU) to provide customer support, and those European-based customer support teams may have remote access to account information, but they do not store that information. Transfers of personal data to and among our affiliates are subject to terms of intercompany agreements governing the transfer of data to the United States and protection of that data under applicable law. Also, we require that you acknowledge and agree to allow us to transfer data to the United States, so if you’re not willing to provide that consent, you shouldn’t use our products and services.
What safeguards does Pinger utilize to protect data?
We take appropriate technical and organizational measures for our systems to comply with data privacy to ensure a level of data protection appropriate to the risk resulting from the processing of personal data, taking into account the state of the art, the costs of implementation and the nature, scope, context and purposes of processing, as well as the severity and likelihood of realization of risks for the rights and freedoms of folks who’ve provided the data.
Is Pinger a “controller” or a “processor”?
Lots of companies are making distinctions between who is a “controller,” and who is a “processor,” when it comes to using personal data. That’s because the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) distinguishes a “controller,” (the party primarily responsible for protecting “personal data”) from a “processor” (which is essentially a subcontractor that has secondary, but important responsibilities to protect “personal data”). In the context of providing services to you, Pinger would be considered a “controller” if GDPR were to apply. However, currently you are not allowed to use our applications in the EU.
What are my rights as a California resident?
The CCPA provides California residents with specific rights regarding their personal information, as described below.
Opt Out of the Sale of Personal Information
The CCPA requires that we notify you of your right to opt out of the sale of your personal information. As noted above, for our Sideline and Index mobile applications, we don’t sell your personal information as contemplated under the CCPA, so there’s no need for you to opt out of the sale of your personal information for those Apps.
For our TextFree Apps, as noted above you can opt out of the sale of personal information by purchasing a TextFree Plus subscription, subject to the conditions noted above.
Access to Specific Information and Data Portability Rights
You have the right to request that we disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of your personal information over the past 12 months. Note that you may only make a verifiable consumer request for access or data portability twice within a 12-month period. Once we receive and confirm your verifiable consumer request, we will disclose to you:
- The categories of personal information we collected about you.
- The categories of sources for the personal information we collected about you.
- Our business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling that personal information.
- The specific pieces of personal information we collected about you (also called a data portability request).
- If we sold or disclosed your personal information for a business purpose:
- The categories of personal information that we’ve sold about you and the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold.
- The categories of personal information that we disclosed for a business purpose.
For TextFree, TextFree Voice, and Pinger users looking for more information about how to contact us to provide you with an information request, click on this link: Send Me Specifics About My Personal Information.
You can also request this information via [email protected].
For Sideline users looking for more information about how to contact us to provide you with an information request, click on this link: Send Me Specifics About My Personal Information.
For Sideline or Index users looking for more information about how to contact us to provide you with an information request, click on this link for Sideline: Send Me Specifics About My Personal Information and this link for Index: Send Me Specifics About My Personal Information
You can also request this information via [email protected] or [email protected].
Deletion Request Rights
You have the right to request that we delete any of your personal information that we collected from you and retained, subject to certain exceptions.
As discussed above, we can’t provide any services to you without your personal information, so if you ask us to delete your personal information, we will have to terminate your account and you will no longer be able to use the Apps for their intended purpose.
If you still want us to delete your personal information, you have to send us a verified request for us to do so. As with information requests, the only way for us to verify who you are is for you to log in and contact us using our Apps. TextFree, TextFree Voice, and Pinger users click on this link for how to contact us for deletion requests: Delete My Data. Sideline users click on this link for how to contact us for deletion requests: Delete My Data. Index users click on this link for how to contact us for deletion requests: Delete My Data.
Please note that the CCPA includes a number of exceptions that allow us to retain your personal data despite your deletion request, so we may retain your personal data under those exceptions.
Why do I have to log in and contact you to make CCPA requests?
As noted above, since we don’t require a lot of information for you to use our Apps, and since we may not verify the accuracy of the personal information you provide, we may not have sufficient data to verify who you are unless you log in and contact us using our Apps or provide us with the requested information. If you log in and contact us using our Apps, we can associate your request with a specific account and then take action on your request.
What do I do if I have concerns about the use of my data?
If you have concerns about the use of your data, contact us at [email protected]. Please review our Privacy Policy for specific details about what is required of you when you contact us. And please remember that the choice to use our products is entirely yours: if you’re not comfortable with letting us use personal information as described in this Privacy Notice, in our Privacy Policy, and in our Terms of Service, then please don’t download our Apps.
Last Updated: June 16, 2026
Privacy
