1.0 Introduction

Your privacy is important to us. Dine Brands Global, Inc. understands your concerns regarding how information about you may be used and shared, and we appreciate that you trust us to use and share information about you carefully and sensibly.

This Privacy Policy describes what Personal Information (defined below) Dine Brands Global, Inc. and its subsidiaries, including International House of Pancakes, LLC (“IHOP”), Applebee’s International, Inc. (“Applebee’s”), and Fuzzy’s Taco Opportunities, LLC (“Fuzzy’s”) (collectively, “Dine”, “us”, “our”, and “we”), may collect about you, how we may collect it, how we may use it, with whom we may share it, and what choices you may have regarding it.

This Privacy Policy applies to your use of our websites including, without limitation, https://www.dinebrands.com/en, https://www.ihop.com/en, https://www.applebees.com/en, https://fuzzystacoshop.com/,
 https://franchise.ihop.com, https://franchise.applebees.com/en, https://franchise.ihop.com/en/applebees-co-branded-franchising, our mobile websites, our mobile apps, any other platforms that link to this Privacy Policy (each, a “Site” and collectively, the “Sites”), and any other means by which we may collect information about you, including information you may provide to us on-site at our Restaurant Support Center (“RSC”) or restaurants (collectively, the “Facilities”), as well as in connection with applying to become a franchisee.

This Privacy Policy does not apply to any websites or facilities operated by third parties. We are not responsible for, and this Privacy Policy does not apply to, the privacy practices of other companies or other websites. We encourage you to seek out and read the privacy policy of each website that you visit.

2.0 How We May Collect Your Personal Information

“Personal Information” means information that uniquely identifies, relates to, describes, or is reasonably capable of being associated with or linked to you. Dine may collect Personal Information relating to you and your use of the Sites or Facilities to provide services and features that are responsive to your needs. Dine may collect Personal Information in the following ways:

  • From you. We may collect information from you when you register an account with us, request information, send us email, send us postal mail, apply for a job with us, speak with us on the telephone, visit our Facilities, or otherwise interact with us. If you are interested in becoming a franchisee, we may collect information from you when you provide us with information through our Request for Consideration form or otherwise apply to become a franchisee.
  • From our franchisees. We may receive information about you from our Applebee’s, Fuzzy’s, and IHOP franchisees, including information that you provide on-site at our restaurants.
  • From our apps. We may collect information from your mobile device when our apps are installed on your mobile device, or you provide your information to us via the apps.
  • From other third-party sources. We may receive information about you from our third-party service providers who help us to provide services to you, including our Sites and social media providers. If you apply to become a franchisee, we may also collect Personal Information from third party sources such as background check providers.
  • Automatically as you navigate the Sites. Information collected automatically may include usage details, email address, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies.

3.0 Personal Information We May Collect

3.1 Personal Information You Provide to Us

We may collect the following information about you including, but not limited to:

  • First and last name
  • Postal address and/or zip code
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • Date of birth
  • Gender
  • Military or veteran status
  • External social network credentials
  • Credit card or other payment information
  • Mobile app and/or website log-in credentials
  • Location data
  • Surveillance data
  • Demographic information
  • Dining preferences
  • Who you typically dine with (e.g.,family and friends)
  • When you normally visit our restaurant locations (e.g.,breakfast, lunch, and dinner)
  • How often you visit our restaurant locations
  • Feedback and/or guest relations data
    If you apply to become a franchisee, we may also collect information related to your business entity, including background information regarding your partner and business entity finances, requested region for franchise information, and operations management experience.

3.2 Personal Information We May Collect from Third Party Sources

If you apply to become a franchisee, we will obtain your consent to collect Personal Information about you from third parties including individuals you provide as references, financial and other institutions, schools, credit reporting agencies, professional and academic certification organizations, law enforcement agencies, former employers, and the military for purposes of evaluating your application to become a franchisee. Such Personal Information may include information about your financial, educational, and criminal histories, as well as information concerning your character and reputation. Dine does not share this information with any third parties except its service providers and retains it for as long as necessary to evaluate your application. You may withdraw your consent at any time. To exercise any privacy rights that may be afforded to you under applicable data protection laws, including withdrawing your consent, please see the section below titled “Your Privacy Rights and How to Exercise Them.” For more information about Dine’s practices with respect to retention of your Personal Information, please see the section below titled “How Long We Retain Your Personal Information.”

3.3 Information We and Our Third-Party Service Providers May Collect

When you use our Sites, we and our third-party service providers may automatically collect information about how you access and use the Sites and information about the device you use to access the Sites. We typically collect this information through a variety of tools including cookies, web beacons, pixels, social media widgets, other tools to enable data recording and indexing, and similar technology (collectively, “tracking technologies”). We and our third-party partners may automatically collect information such as:

  • IP or MAC address 
  • Device type 
  • Unique device identifier (UDID)/other device identifier (IMEI)
  • Browser type 
  • Operating system or platform
  • Name of Internet Service Provider (ISP)
  • Referring website
  • Exiting website 
  • Clickstream data 
  • Search terms entered on the websites(s)
  • Pages visited on the website(s) 
  • Time, date, and duration of visit to the website(s)
  • Whether you open emails from us
  • Links you click on in our emails and on our Sites including ads
  • Whether you access our Sites from multiple devices
  • Other interactions you may have on our Sites
  • Location/geo-location (e.g., latitude/longitude, Wi-Fi/cell tower location, etc.) 

4.0 How We May Use Personal Information

We may process Personal Information to provide services to you and additional services you request, as well as to respond to communications from you. The precise purposes for which your Personal Information may be processed will be determined by the request and by applicable laws, regulatory guidance, and professional standards.

We may use information we collect from you and information that we may collect automatically to manage and improve our Sites and our business. We take steps to ensure that your rights are safeguarded. For example, we may use information to:

  • To provide services to you.
  • To provide our Sites and their functionalities to you.
  • To provide you with location-specific services. If you elect to share your location information with us, we may use that information to tailor options, functionalities, or offers related to your location. 
  • To market our own services to you. If you join our rewards programs and other special marketing campaigns, we may use your Personal Information including demographic information, birthday, personal preferences, purchase history, franchise locations you visit, and information about you from third-party sources—including your location information and online browsing across time and third-party sites—to send you real time, geographically relevant, and personalized offers, services, and promotions for our brands, affiliates, or third-party partners.
  • To conduct data analytics to support our Sites and business.
  • To manage our business needs, such as monitoring, analyzing, and improving the services and the Sites’ performance and functionality. For example, we analyze website user behavior and conduct research and analysis about the way you and other users use our Sites.
  • To manage risk and protect the Sites and Facilities. We use data to better protect our services, our Sites, our Facilities, and you by helping to detect and prevent fraud and abuse.
  • Tailor our offerings to your apparent interests. 
  • To operate and improve our business.
  • To maintain our records.
  • Conduct internal monitoring and training.
  • Develop new services and products.
  • Conduct processing necessary to fulfill other contractual obligations for you.
  • To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. We may use your information as necessary to enforce the terms of our Sites and services to comply with all applicable laws and regulations.
  • For other purposes for which you provide your consent. For other purposes which are disclosed to you at the time your information is collected or for purposes which can be inferred from or are obvious given the circumstances of collection.

 

If you apply to become a franchisee, we may also use your Personal Information to evaluate and communicate with you regarding the prospects of becoming a franchisee, including conducting interviews and performing background and reference checks.

5.0 Disclosure of Personal Information

We may disclose your Personal Information in the circumstances described below.

  • Employees and other personnel. We may share Personal Information with our employees and personnel (such as contractors) who have a need to know the information for our business purposes.
  • Our affiliates. We may disclose your Personal Information with our affiliates and between all Dine brands (including Applebee’s, IHOP, and Fuzzy’s) to serve you, including for the activities listed above.
  • Our franchisees. We may disclose your Personal Information with Applebee’s, IHOP, and Fuzzy’s franchisees.
  • Service providers. We may disclose your Personal Information to our vendors and other service providers, such as credit card processors and website hosts, that help us provide services, support features on our Sites or in restaurants, or otherwise market our brands.
  • Ad tech companies and other providers. We may share or make available limited Personal Information (such as mobile device identifiers) with ad tech companies and other online service providers. When we share your Personal Information in this context, we follow applicable legal requirements, which may require that we provide opt-out rights or other individual rights.
  • Legal requirements and business transfers. We may disclose Personal Information: (i) if we are required to do so by law, legal process, statute, rule, regulation, or professional standard, or to respond to a subpoena, search warrant, or other government official requests; (ii) when we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to prevent physical harm or financial loss; (iii) in connection with an investigation of a complaint, security threat, or suspected or actual illegal activity; (iv) in connection with an internal audit; or (v) in the event that Dine is subject to mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, sales of assets, reorganizations, divestitures, dissolutions, bankruptcies, liquidations, or other types of business transactions. In these types of transactions, Personal Information may be shared, sold, or transferred, and it may be used subsequently by a third party.
  • Other. We may disclose Personal Information to third parties when explicitly requested by or consented to by you, or for the purposes for which you disclosed the Personal Information to us as indicated at the time and point of the disclosure (or as was obvious at the time and point of disclosure).

6.0 Your Choices

We offer certain choices about how we communicate with you and what Personal Information we may obtain about you and share with others. 

  • Profile. If you have created a profile or account on our Sites, you can update your contact information after you log into your account.
  • Email. If you no longer wish to receive promotional or informational emails from us, you may opt out from receiving future emails from us by following the instructions for unsubscribing in the promotional or informational emails we send you or by contacting us at the email address or phone number below.
  • Rewards programs and marketing campaigns. Your participation in our special rewards programs and other marketing campaigns is completely up to you, and if at any point you no longer wish to be a member or participate in these programs, you may opt out according to the instructions provided in the communication or by contacting us at privacydesk@dinebrands.com.
  • Cookies and other tracking technologies. Our Sites use cookies and other tracking technologies, and you can change your preferences with respect to these technologies as further discussed in the “Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies” section below.
  • Do Not Track. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring Do Not Track (“DNT”) signals, we do not respond to them at this time.
  • Location data. You may opt out of having your location data collected by Dine at any time by editing the appropriate setting on your mobile device (which is usually located in the settings of your device) or by emailing privacydesk@dinebrands.com, if applicable.

7.0 De-Identified/Aggregate Information

Dine may collect, use, share, transfer, and otherwise process de-identified and aggregated information that it receives or creates for any purpose at its sole discretion, in compliance with applicable laws. Dine is the sole and exclusive owner of such de-identified and aggregated information, including if Dine de-identifies Personal Information so that it is no longer considered Personal Information under applicable laws.

8.0 Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies

We and our service providers may use cookies and similar technologies to collect usage and browser information about how you use our Sites. The technologies we use for this automatic data collection may include cookies and web beacons that permit us to verify system and server integrity and generate statistics around the popularity of certain content. We process the information collected through such technologies, which may include or be combined with Personal Information, to help operate certain features of our Sites, to enhance your experience through personalization, and to help us better understand the features of our Sites that you and other users are most interested in.

Website Delivery and Appearance – We may use third-party providers to enable certain customer interaction opportunities, content delivery (like audio or video), or other service capabilities. Examples include, but are not limited to, the following functionality:

  • Content Delivery: We partner with service providers to host our Sites and deliver specific content in support of our Services. For example, we use Adobe Fonts to serve fonts on our Sites, which is governed by the Adobe Privacy Policy.
  • Customer Interaction: We enhance our customer interactions by offering features like Google Maps to locate our Facilities, which are governed by the terms, conditions, and policies of the underlying service provider. For example, please see Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service and Google’s Privacy Policy for more information on how that feature operates.

Website Analytics and Session Replay – We use analytics and session replay services, that use cookies and other technologies that collect your Personal Information, to assist us with analyzing our Site traffic and usage to optimize, maintain, and secure our Sites and inform subsequent business decisions (e.g., advertising). These include, but are not limited to, the following third-party services:

  • Microsoft Clarity: We partner with Microsoft Clarity and Microsoft Advertising to capture how you use and interact with our Sites through behavioral metrics, heatmaps, and session replay to improve and market our services. Site usage data is captured using first and third-party cookies and other tracking technologies to determine the popularity of products/services and online activity. Additionally, we use this information for site optimization, fraud/security purposes, and advertising. For more information about how Microsoft collects and uses your data, visit the Microsoft Privacy Statement.
  • Google Analytics: To learn more about how Google uses data, visit Google’s Privacy Policy and Google’s page on “How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.” You may download the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on for each web browser you use, but this does not prevent the use of other analytics tools. To learn more about Google Analytics cookies, visit Google Analytics Cookie Usage on Websites.
  • Pixels: We use Meta, TikTok, Reddit, Pinterest, X, LinkedIn, and other pixels to track user activity on our Sites and improve downstream offerings, including interest-based advertising for our services and those of our partners and service providers.

Interest-Based Advertising – We may also allow or enable third parties to collect Personal Information to provide their interest-based advertising on behalf of our products and services, or their own. Interest-based advertising occurs when advertisements are shown to you based on information collected from your online interactions over time and across multiple websites, devices, or online services that you visit or use. Some companies may engage in cross-context behavioral advertising to predict your preferences and show you advertisements that are most likely to be of interest or relevant to you.

We do not control these third parties’ collection or use of your information for these purposes, or the opt-out options they may individually offer you via their terms, conditions, and privacy policies. If you have any questions about an advertisement or other targeted content, you should contact the applicable provider directly. Examples of the third-party service providers we engage to serve interest-based advertisements include, but are not limited to, Google Ads (including Google Dynamic Remarketing, Google Signals, and DoubleClick), X advertising solutions (including X Analytics and X Advertising), Meta Ads (including Meta Pixels and Facebook advertising services), LinkedIn marketing solutions (including LinkedIn Ads and Analytics), and Microsoft advertising. It is in this context that we may provide advertising networks, data analytics providers, social networks, and video sharing platforms with Personal Information such as your IP address, device information, Internet and other electronic network activity information, and geolocation information in the last twelve months.

Selling Personal Information – We disclose Personal Information for monetary consideration and other benefits that could be deemed a “sale” under various data protection laws, because it is sometimes broadly defined to include activities such as the delivery of interest-based advertising on websites or allowing third parties to receive certain information such as cookies, IP address, and/or browsing behavior.

Cookie Choices – To manage your preferences with respect to these technologies, you can:

  • Change your cookie preferences by clicking on the “Your Privacy Choices” link at the bottom of our Sites or by customizing your browser settings to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable certain cookies, please note that some parts of our Sites may not function properly. These settings may be lost and require reconfiguration if you delete your cookies.
  • Block the collection and use of your information by online platforms and ad tech companies for the purpose of serving interest-based advertising by visiting the opt out pages of the self-regulatory programs of which those companies are members: National Advertising Initiative and Digital Advertising Alliance (or the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance if you are located in the European Economic Area). Please note that even if you opt out of interest-based advertising, you may still see “contextual” ads which are based on the context of what you are looking at on the websites and pages you visit.
  • Review and execute any provider-specific instructions to customize your preferences or opt-out of certain processing, including interest-based advertising, by third-party service providers. For example, to opt-out of this type of advertising by Google, customize your ad preferences, or limit Google’s collection or use of your data, visit Google’s Safety Center and Google’s Ad Settings and follow Google’s personalized ad opt-out instructions. Meta also offers an Ad Preferences center to customize your settings, as well as a Privacy Policy with additional information on how you can exercise your rights.

9.0 Social Media

We are active on social media including, but not limited to, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn (“Social Media”). Anything you post on Social Media is public information and will not be treated confidentially. We may post (or re-post) on the Sites and our Social Media pages any comments or content that you post on our Social Media pages.

Our Sites allow you to connect and share data with Social Media platforms. These features may require us to use cookies, plug-ins, and APIs provided by such Social Media platforms to facilitate those communications and features. Our Sites may use advertising networks and services offered by Social Media platforms to deliver advertising content. Use of these services requires Social Media platforms to implement cookies or pixel tags to deliver ads to you while you access the Sites.

10.0 International Use and Cross-Border Data Transfers

If you are visiting our Sites from outside of the United States, please note that our Sites are hosted in the United States. Where permitted by applicable law, we may transfer the Personal Information we collect about you to the United States and other jurisdictions that may not be deemed to provide the same level of data protection as your home country, as necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

For individuals in the European Union, European Economic Area, Switzerland, and United Kingdom: Dine will only transfer Personal Information to third parties located outside of this region when it has ensured appropriate safeguards for such Personal Information through use of the standard contractual clauses or other lawful and approved methods. To request a copy of applicable cross-border data transfer agreements, please reach out using the information in the “Contacting Us” section.

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