Privacy Policy

(Updated July 1, 2024)

This Privacy Policy sets forth the privacy practices and policies for TDS Broadband Service LLC (“TDS”), a subsidiary of Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. It includes an explanation of what personally identifiable information and other information is collected; how the information is used; with whom the information may be shared; options that you have relating to such collection, use, and distribution of the information; and how you can correct any inaccuracies in our records.

You authorize TDS to collect your information when you interact with us. When you apply for, access, purchase, or use our products, services, applications, and websites (collectively or individually the "Services"), you agree to our collection, use and sharing of your information as described in this Privacy Policy, which may be amended from time to time. When we update this Privacy Policy, we will post an updated version on our homepage. Please read this Privacy Policy and stay informed about TDS’ privacy practices.

Some products and Services which are branded TDS or co-branded with a third party may have a stand-alone privacy policy. When a different privacy policy applies, TDS will provide you with an opportunity to review the applicable terms of service and privacy policy. When you purchase or use products or services not provided by TDS, you are subject to the privacy policy provided by an independent third party. TDS is not responsible for the data practices of any independent third parties.

Our Services are intended for general audiences. We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of thirteen (13). If you allow a child to use our services, any information we collect associated with their usage will be treated as your account information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

When you purchase or use products or services not provided by TDS, you are subject to the privacy policy provided by an independent third party. For example, while using your TDS Internet service, you may:

• Download, purchase, or use applications not provided by TDS.
• Post on social media or use other third-party sites.
• Purchase from an online retailer.

TDS is not responsible for the data practices of any independent third parties.

A. What Types of Information Do We Collect? Some of the information we collect is “Personal Information” which is information that identifies, relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with you. Personal Information does not include anonymous or de-identified information that cannot personally identify you, your accounts or devices or public information lawfully available from governmental records. TDS uses anonymous, aggregated, and de-identified information to manage, protect and improve our network and Services; develop network work plans; conduct traffic flow analyses; investigate service issues; develop credit and fraud risk models; train our associates; and research new products, services and applications. We also may develop analytical tools and methods to measure the effectiveness of marketing and advertising campaigns; develop promotions and offers; and analyze customers' usage patterns. We also may measure the performance of our Services within a specific geographic area.

The following table provides a summary of:

• The categories of and representative examples of types of Personal Information we collect,
• The categories of sources from which Personal Information was collected,
• The business or commercial purpose for which Personal Information was collected, and
• The categories of Third Parties with whom TDS shares Personal Information.

"Affiliate" refers to any of the Telephone and Data Systems, Inc. owned family of companies.

When capitalized herein, “Third Party” or "Third Parties" refers to entities such as agents, vendors, service providers, suppliers, subcontractors, or independent contractors that we have a business relationship with and who we may share information with.

Some Third Parties have access to Personal Information necessary to support TDS business purposes and act on our behalf such as assisting with billing and collecting for our Services; assisting in operating our network; managing our platforms and websites; and fulfilling and distributing orders. These Third Parties are “Service Providers” and “Contractors” and are prohibited from using the information for any purpose other than those for which they are permitted by law or they have contractually agreed to; and if they are processing your information, they have agreed to appropriate privacy and security provisions for the type of information shared.

B. How Do We Use Personal Information? As explained above, we may use, or disclose, the Personal Information we collect for the business reasons identified in Section A. We may also use Personal Information if we have a good faith belief it is necessary to:

• Comply with the law.
• Protect our rights or property or those of others.
• Protect against fraud or data security vulnerabilities.
• Respond to fraud, abuse, or other unauthorized activity.
• Enforce our policies, including those contained in our Terms of Service, Internet Network Management Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy
• Evaluate internal controls and audits for compliance, including those conducted by internal and external auditors.
• As a part of a sale or transfer of business operations to another company.

C. When Do We Disclose Personal Information to Others? We will not disclose your Personal Information outside of TDS, its Affiliates, or Third Parties other than as described in this Privacy Policy unless we have your express or implied consent.

We may, however, disclose Personal Information and other information to Affiliates or Third Parties (i) to provide the Services you have requested; and (ii) for administrative, analytical, and marketing purposes as described in this Privacy Policy. We may also disclose Personal Information if we have a good faith belief it is necessary to:

• Comply with the law.
• Protect our rights or property or those of others.
• Protect against fraud or data security vulnerabilities.
• Respond to fraud, abuse, or other unauthorized activity.
• Enforce our policies, including those contained in our Terms of Service, Internet Network Management Policy, and Acceptable Use Policy.
• As necessary to external auditors.
• Transfer your information as a part of a sale or transfer of business operations to another company.

When you, as an account owner (parties who are financially responsible for an account), authorize others (“Authorized Parties”) to have access to your account including make inquiries regarding the account, receive information about the account, pay the bill, change the service plan and make other changes to the account, we honor your request and provide access to account information to Authorized Parties which may include Personal Information.

D. Special Service Specific Information.

Cable Television Services

If you are a Cable Television service subscriber, we may also collect information when you use our systems such as by ordering or viewing on-demand programming or engaging in other interactive programming features. This information is used to carry out the requests you make using your remote control, set-top box, or other equipment, and to analyze viewing habits. We may also collect other information such as the time you actually use our services, the use of other features of our services, and which menus and menu screens are used most often, and the time spent using them.

Information collected from the use of these services is maintained on an anonymous or de-identified basis, except in connection with billing for usage of video on demand or pay-per-view services or as necessary to fulfill any other request or order you make via the transactional and interactive services. Some of our advertisements may invite interactive or transactional follow-up from you. If you request products, services, features, or information via such interactive advertisements, we collect and use the information generated by the request, including Personally Information, when necessary, in order to carry out your request.

We may also collect viewing data to determine which programs are most popular, how many people watch a program to its conclusion and whether people are watching commercials, as well as other audience measurement-focused information. This information is de-identified. TDS, or our contractors or agents, may from time to time share this anonymous information with our advertisers, content providers, or other third parties working on our behalf such as audience measurement or market research firms.

Our audience measurement helps us and the program networks we carry decide on which programs and channels to carry and to improve our Cable Television services. We also use this information to provide you with a more personalized experience by directing advertisers to the channels that produce more sales as they consider, design, and evaluate advertising campaigns.

In addition to this Privacy Policy, we may provide additional notices to you regarding specific advertising or other initiatives. These notices will describe the initiatives in greater detail and may, as appropriate, contain information you can use to choose to participate, or not participate, in these initiatives.

For TDS TV+, if you integrate applications, websites, and services from entities other than TDS (“other-party services”) these may have their own terms and conditions of use and privacy policies, and such terms and conditions and policies shall apply to your use of these other-party services. If you integrate these other-party services to allow functionality such as including other-party services in searches or accessing other-party services via TDS TV+, you will be prompted to allow the other-party services to connect with your TDS TV+ service. If integrated, TDS will collect, process, and share data with the other-party services that you authorized. If you wish to stop the collection or sharing of information with other-party services, you need to disable the integration with such other-party services. TDS does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for the behavior, features, or content of any other-party service or for any transaction you may enter into with the provider of any such other-party service.

For TDS TV+, we collect information on how you use, watch, record, rate and interact with content and, if you use the voice activated remote control, audio data. If you download or use our mobile applications, we may collect, either through your mobile device or the application itself, your mobile device identifier, hardware model, operating system version or mobile network information (as well as any registration data you provide to us). We may also collect geolocation information, which may be used for operational and product- or service-related purposes, such as customizing information based on your location. If you do not want any data shared by our mobile applications, then please delete the mobile applications from your device.

You have the right to inspect our records containing customer information about you, and to correct any errors in such information. In most cases, the personally identifiable information contained in these records consists solely of billing and account information. If you wish to inspect our records at our local business office, please notify us in writing 30 days in advance and an appointment will be arranged promptly during our regular business hours.

We may provide your name and address to marketing organizations, programmers, and other businesses. Section 631 of the federal Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, as amended, (the “Cable Act”) allows us to disclose this “mailing list” information unless you tell us otherwise. We may also use or disclose customer information, including Personally Information, without your consent, to protect the safety and security of our customers, employees, or property (including in emergency situations), to protect or defend the legal rights or property of TDS or its Affiliates or their employees, agents and contractors (including enforcement of our rights under our Terms of Service and policies), to protect against fraud or for risk management purposes, if your account is referred to a collection agency or attorney, in court or elsewhere, to comply with the law or legal process, such as a subpoena, and as otherwise permitted by law.

We must disclose customer information, including Personal Information, when required by the terms of a valid legal process such as a subpoena, court order, or search warrant. If a court order requires us to disclose Personal Information to a third party, we are required to notify you. If you subscribe to our Cable Television service, under federal law, you must be afforded the opportunity to appear and contest the order in court. In addition, in accordance with the United States of America Patriot Act of 2001, we may be required to disclose Personal Information to law enforcement officials in accordance with both court orders and subpoenas; however, we may not disclose records revealing your selection of video programming. You may not be entitled by law to prior notice or the opportunity to contest these disclosures.

If you believe your rights have been compromised by TDS, in violation of the Cable Act, please notify TDS immediately so that we can resolve your question or concern. Additional actions may be taken by you, including a civil lawsuit seeking damages, attorney fees, and litigation costs, should you decide to enforce the limitations imposed on us by the Cable Act as applicable with respect to the personally identifiable information we collect. Other rights may be available to you under federal or other applicable laws.

Telephone Service:

 We may disclose customer information, including Personal Information, in connection with our Telephone service, for purposes such as providing directory service, Caller ID, and 911/E911. In using our Telephone services, your name and telephone number may be transmitted and displayed on a Caller ID device unless you have elected to block such information (Caller ID blocking may not prevent the display of your name and telephone number if you dial certain business numbers, 911 or toll-free 800, 888, 877, or 866 numbers.)

Our Telephone service customers can designate their listings as published, non-published or non-listed for published directories or for directory assistance services. To carry out your decision to have a published number, we share information with directory listing vendors. TDS cannot remove customer information from, or correct errors in customer names, addresses, or telephone numbers appearing in, or omitted from, directory lists until the next available publication of those directory lists. Further, we may have no control over information appearing in the directory lists or directory assistance services of directory publishers or directory assistance providers which are not owned by us. Because of the complexity of this process and the involvement of others, errors sometimes occur. If you elected to have your information published in directories, that information becomes public and may be used by others for their own marketing or to create marketing lists.

Internet Service:

When you purchase or use products or services not provided by TDS, you are subject to the privacy policy provided by an independent third party. For example, while using your TDS Internet service, you may download, purchase, or use applications not provided by TDS; post on social media or use other third-party sites; or purchase from an online retailer. TDS is not responsible for the data practices of any independent third parties.

We encourage you to secure the device through which you access the Internet, as well as the devices which provide connectivity, particularly wireless (Wi-Fi) routers. Doing so can help keep the information you transmit through your broadband connection from being monitored while in transit on the Internet or on your network. Security measures may include password-protected wireless devices, installation of firewalls, antivirus protection with regular updates, regularly checking for and applying security patches for software and operating systems. Despite our best efforts, TDS cannot guarantee the security of our network, nor can we guarantee that information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to TDS over the Internet.

E. Can I Prohibit TDS’s Use and Disclosure of My Customer Information? You have some choices in how we use or disclose your Personal Information. In addition to the rights present in some states (described in this section below), if you do not want us to disclose your name and address to third parties for mailing lists in connection with the promotion of TDS’ products and services and for other legitimate business activities related to our services, as explained in this Privacy Policy, you may contact us as follows:

Any mailing list disclosures that we may make are limited by law to disclosures of subscriber names and addresses where the disclosures do not reveal, directly or indirectly, (i) the extent of any use by the subscriber of our services; or (ii) the nature of any transaction made by the subscriber over our services.

TDS may use email and/or in-browser messages to send transactional or relationship messages related to your service, including information on changes in terms or features, updates and upgrades, new features to which you are entitled, and information on system outages. Unless you opt out, we may send you emails or other electronic messages marketing our services to the extent permitted by applicable law.

You may contact TDS at any time at the contact numbers set forth in this Privacy Policy to ask us to put your name on our “do not call” list so that you do not receive marketing or promotional telephone calls from us or made at our request.

We do not discriminate against you for exercising any of your privacy rights or choices set forth above or below. If you exercise your rights, we will not:

• Deny you goods or services;
• Charge you different prices or rates for goods or services, including through granting discounts or other benefits, or imposing penalties;
• Provide you a different level or quality of goods or services;
• Suggest that you may receive a different price or rate for goods or services or a different level or quality of goods or services; or
• Discriminate on employment related decisions.

Nevada Privacy Rights: In 2019 Nevada lawmakers passed a law to allow Nevada consumers to limit the sale of their “Covered Information”. Covered Information is information like your first and last name; home or other physical address which includes the name of a street and the name of a city or town; electronic mail address; and telephone number. If you are a Nevada consumer and wish to contact TDS regarding this Nevada law, please write to us via email to privacy@tdstelecom.com.

Oregon Privacy Rights: The Oregon Consumer Privacy Act (“OCPA”) provides Oregon residents with specific rights regarding their personal information as defined by state law (“OR PI”). Residents have the right to be informed about the categories of OR PI that TDS collects and processes; the purpose of collecting and using OR PI; what OR PI we have shared; and the categories of third parties with whom OR PI has been shared. This information is shared above in Section A. We also respect the rights of Oregon residents to exercise other rights, including:

To confirm that TDS is processing your OR PI and request to receive your OR PI in a portable, usable, and transmissible format (Right to Access);

• To request the erasure of your OR PI held by TDS (Right to Delete);
• To request to correct inaccurate OR PI maintained by TDS (Right to Correct);
• To opt-out of the use of your OR PI for Targeted Advertising or Profiling (Right to Limit Use);
• To opt-out of the sale of OR PI by TDS to Third Parties. (Right to Opt-out of Sale); and
• Appeal the outcome of your above requests (Right to Appeal).

Please visit our Oregon Residents Privacy rights page for more information on your rights, links to an easy to fill out form that you may use to exercise your rights, how we will verify your identity, and when to expect a response. Oregon residents may also direct OCPA-specific questions via email to TDS at: privacy@tdstelecom.com

As mentioned below in Section H, we may allow third parties to place and read Cookies on your devices when you access our websites, applications or advertisements and collect the preferences you demonstrate when interacting with them. We may also share information with digital advertising vendors to facilitate displaying advertisements on unaffiliated websites. These third parties may use the collected information to provide targeted advertising, which is advertising that may be of interest to you when you are on other websites or applications, generate advertising leads, or conduct marketing surveys.

Further, the OCPA defines a “sale” as the exchange of personal data with a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. TDS does not disclose OR PI in exchange for money. However, some Cookies used on website disclose your personal information to website analytics providers for the purpose of improving the functionality of our website, which could be considered a “sale” given the broad wording of the definition.

If you would like to opt-out of the use of the Cookies, please refer to our policy on website monitoring below in Section H. If you would like to opt-out of information sharing with digital advertising vendors, please visit our Oregon Residents Privacy rights page to exercise you right to limit our use of your OR-PI.

The OCPA defines “profiling” as the automated processing of personal data for the purpose of evaluating, analyzing, or predicting a consumer’s economic circumstances, health, personal preferences, interests, reliability, behavior, location, or movements and allows residents to opt-out of profiling when used to produce legal or similarly significant effects. TDS does not engage in profiling for these purposes.

F. How Do We Protect Customer Information Including Personal Information? TDS takes reasonable security safeguards to protect against such risks as loss, unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure of information. TDS uses a variety of commercially reasonable and appropriate safeguards to protect information residing on its systems including, without limitation, server firewalls and physical facility security. We restrict access to information to those who need to know that information to provide, operate, develop, or improve our services. We also have appropriate practices and procedures designed to protect your information. We train our employees on the proper handling and securing of information which includes reporting potential privacy concerns.

We cannot prevent every unauthorized attempt to access information. If you suspect an issue with access to your information, please contact us by calling 1-888-225-5837.

G. How Long Do We Keep Personal Information?

We retain Personal Information for as long as necessary to provide the products and fulfill the services and transactions you have requested or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing our agreements. The criteria used to determine retention periods include: (i) how long Personal Information is needed to provide our products or operate our business; (ii) whether the Personal Information has been recognized as sensitive under applicable legal frameworks in a manner that requires particular treatment; and (iii) whether we are subject to a legal, contractual or similar obligation to retain the Personal Information.

H. Additional Information

Questions and comments about this Privacy Policy or for any additional information that may not be covered within this Privacy Policy, please contact TDS at:

TDS Telecom
Attn: Legal Dept.
525 Junction Road
Madison, WI 53717

Customer Verification Policies. If you call to discuss your TDS account, you will be asked to provide several personally identifiable pieces of information which may consist of but may not be limited to the following: a TDS account number, street address, telephone number, driver’s license number, account password or PIN number.

Telemarketing Calls. To help reduce unwanted telemarketing calls not affiliated with TDS, the FCC offers telephone subscribers the opportunity to register their residential telephone numbers in its national Do Not Call registry. You may register for the list without charge by calling the FCC at 1-888-382-1222 or TYY 1-866-290-4236 from the telephone number you are registering or online at www.donotcall.gov.

Website Monitoring: TDS’ websites use browser features such as web beacons, pixels, and other tracking technology including third-party cookies (collectively "Cookies") to help monitor user activity on our websites. Cookies are generally short strings of unique random text or numbers that your browser records on your computer and that our website, and potentially other websites, can later access. A first party Cookie is set up by the website being visited by the user. A third-party Cookie is set up by a domain that is not the entity hosting the website. Cookies are widely used to make websites work, work in a more efficient way, and identify and track users.

TDS and our Third Parties may use Cookies on our Online Services to improve our Services and provide you with the best possible web experience. We may use Cookies in order to identify you; provide relevant, interest-based advertising; remember your preferences; secure your access; know when content has been shown to you; provide aggregated auditing, research, and reporting for advertisers; understand and improve our Online Services; and detect and defend against fraud and other risks. When we send you an email, we may use Cookies to understand if you have accessed the information provided in the email. We may combine information collected through the Cookies with your Personal Information in order to provide you a personalized experience including advertising about products and services you may find of interest. The information we collect from Cookies also may allow us to identify you across devices, such as smartphones, tablets, computers or related browsers.

TDS may allow Third Parties to place their Cookies on our websites or within our advertisements. And, your web browser may request advertisements directly from independent third party advertising network servers which do not have a business relationship with us. These advertisements may place Cookies that can view, edit, or set third party tag technology, just as if you had requested a web page from the third-party site. TDS is not responsible for the practices including the use of Cookies, employed by third party websites, mobile applications or online services linked to or from TDS Services, or for the content contained therein.

Third party websites, mobile applications, and online services that you are able to access on the Internet are outside the control or limits of this Privacy Policy.

To provide you with the best possible experience with our Online Services, we use different types of Cookies. We categorize these Cookies into the following types:

• Strictly Necessary Cookies: These Cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off. They may be set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms.
• Performance/Functional Cookies: These Cookies allow for enhanced functionality and personalization, such as video and live chat. They also allow us collect and analyze information that helps us measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us understand which pages are popular and how visitors move around the site. If you do not allow these Cookies, then some website functions may not work properly.
• Targeting/Advertising Cookies: We use Cookies to enhance our marketing and advertising campaigns, as well as to deliver content that we believe will be most relevant to you based on your use of our websites. These Cookies may be set by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other sites. Targeting and advertising Cookies track user behavior and store user attributes to provide more personalized content (in some cases, including ad content) to visitors both on our websites and once you leave our website. These Cookies are not essential for the website to function, but if you do not allow these cookies, you may experience less targeted advertising.

You may choose not to accept Cookies, but this may interfere with your enjoyment of personalized site features. If you wish to opt-out of Cookies, please see the banner that appears on TDS pages to opt-out. If this banner is not appearing for you, please clear your cache. To do so, please follow the instructions provided by your browser which are usually located within the “Help,” “Tools,” or “Edit” menus. Choices made in the banner take effect immediately and without confirmation or correspondence from TDS. Please note that our sites do not respond to browser “Do-Not-Track” signals.

The TDS web servers also automatically collect limited information about your computer’s connection to the Internet, including your IP address when you visit the TDS website. TDS uses your IP address information to deliver TDS web pages to you, that you request, that tailor the content of our site to the interests of users, and to measure traffic within the site. We may ask third parties to place advertisements about our products and services on sites that are not operated by TDS. These third parties may use technologies such as Cookies to collect, store and read information on your computer or mobile browser when you visit one of their websites. TDS may track user clickstream information when you view our advertising on these websites. When you visit a TDS website, we record your interaction (e.g., movement of cursor) to help us gauge the effectiveness of our websites, improve our online operations, and enhance your online experience to better meet your needs as our customer.

International Residents: Our services are intended for residents of the United States. Should we collect personal information from you it will be transferred to the United States where our websites are hosted. You hereby consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to the United States as described in this Privacy Policy. Please do not use our websites if you do not agree to the transfer and processing of your Personal Information in the United States, which may not provide the same level of protection for your data as your home country.