| Security and Privacy |
| Practices designed to protect your Security and Privacy |
There are good reasons to be careful when signing up for online services. Below are some of the key risks associated with many online activities, as well as Sofishare's practices concerning these risks. A more detailed list of some of our account management tools can be found here.
Can people find me on Sofishare? There is no function on Sofishare which enables visitors or members to search for specific members, or to browse through lists of them. Members (but not visitors) can browse through vehicle profiles, but a vehicle profile does not reveal who you are. In your vehicle profile, beyond saying the city, state and country where your listed vehicle is located, any address detail you provide for your vehicle can be as specific or as general as you like, such as, "Near Brooklyn Botanical Garden".
Will people be able to see my name and address? Although your first and last name are required for your application, there are only two ways in which you name can appear anywhere on the Sofishare website. The first way is if you yourself include this information in one of the additional comments areas of your member profile or your vehicle profile. That's up to you. The other possibility is that someone with whom you make a Sofishare rental could include such information in their feedback comments about the rental. To indicate any specific address in feedback or more than another member's first name is prohibited by Sofishare's terms of use, and Sofishare will remove any such feedback after being notified of it by you.
Can people see my phone number? Including a phone number is optional, and even if you include one, you can always decide to hide it using the account settings on the My Account page.
What about my email address? Although we do require an email address, you can keep your email address invisible or make it visible, whichever you prefer. If you prefer to keep it invisible, you can contact other Sofishare using our secure messaging service which will only show your Sofishare username, not your email address.
Will I get spammed? If you use our messaging service, all inter-member messages can only be sent after passing a reCAPTCHA™ test. If you decide you don't want to receive messages from certain other Sofishare members, you can block them from the My Account page, and then they will no longer be able to send you messages through our messaging page. Of course, if you've given them your email address, that becomes more complicated and is beyond Sofishare's control.
How secure is my data? Our website and database are hosted by a leading hosting company that hosts sites for some of the world's most successful companies. Given events in recent years, however, it's clear that there's no such thing as an invulnerable website. That's why we only ask for information that's important to our mission of person-to-person vehicle sharing, so that there is little for anyone to gain by trying to hack into our databases.
Sofishare uses a combination of secure and unsecured web pages in its website, depending on the nature of the page. All login data, application data and inter-member messages sent through our messaging service are handled through secure, encrypted pages. Any updating you do to your account or vehicle profile is also handled via secure pages. Most other pages in the site are standard, unsecured pages.
What about the security of my financial information? Sofishare does not ask for any credit card or bank information, so there's no risk of losing this by becoming a Sofishare member.
Are there hidden fees? There are no fees at all associated with the use of Sofishare. If at any point in the future fees are introduced, we won't let you incur any charges on Sofishare until you've signed off on the new policy. (Hopefully we'll get enough support from satisfied members that fees won't be necessary.)