privacy terms-of-service
Conflicting published policies
<p>In researching another question, I came across conflicting information in the published policies of a company. Their <a href="https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6613520-why-do-i-need-to-provide-my-phone-number-to-sign-up" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Policy FAQ</a> article indicates the need for a phone number is strictly for verifying your account and not for any other purposes.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you sign up for our platform, we do require a phone number. However, we only ask for this information to help us verify your account and ensure our platform remains secure.</p>
<p>We don't use your phone number for any other purposes, and we take your privacy very seriously. Thank you for your understanding!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Lower in the search rankings I found their <a href="https://openai.com/privacy/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Privacy Policy</a> which, buried in a wall of text, indicates they <em>will</em> &quot;share&quot; your personal information with marketers. [emphasis added]</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Vendors and Service Providers: To assist us in meeting business operations needs and to perform certain services and functions, we may share Personal Information with vendors and service providers, including providers of hosting services, cloud services, and other information technology services providers, event management services, email communication software and <strong>email newsletter services, advertising and marketing services,</strong> and web analytics services. Pursuant to our instructions, these parties will access, process, or store Personal Information in the course of performing their duties to us.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Could their more concise and plainly worded article claiming to not use your phone number for any purposes beyond account verification be legally enforceable over their disclaimer in their privacy policy allowing them to share personal information (which would normally include phone number) with <em>&quot;advertising and marketing services&quot;</em>?</p>

<p>There's no conflict here.</p>
<p>The company collects your phone number for a specific purpose: to help them verify your account and ensure their platform remains secure.</p>
<p>The second paragraph says that they <strong>may</strong> share your Personal Information with others and lists some examples. It doesn't say they <strong>will</strong> do that.</p>
<p>However, if they share your phone number with someone in order to help verify your account, or to make sure their platform is not compromised, that's permitted. It's to be expected that the supplier company will follow instructions and use the data only for that purpose.</p>
<p>The primary purpose of verification and security doesn't appear to allow your phone number to be used for advertising and marketing purposes, so it won't be shared with those service providers. <strong>Other</strong> personal information might be, though, but because the word <em>may</em> is used, it's quite possible that no data will be shared at all.</p>
