Privacy Policy

Effective Date: 2 April 2025

ASCo (Investments) Pty Ltd T/A The Energy ACN 665 471 456 (“The Energy”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is committed to providing quality services to you and this policy (Privacy Policy) outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect of how we manage your Personal Information.

The Energy provides dynamic and expert-led content, in-depth reports, data, and market intelligence across a growing and diverse audience. Our business models rely on user interaction with our content, personalised digital communications, and robust subscription services. This Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information across various touchpoints, from content curation to marketing and engagement.

We have adopted the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs) contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure and dispose of your Personal Information.

A copy of the APPs may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner at https://www.oaic.gov.au/.

Personal information we collect

We collect the following types of information to personalise your experience and improve our products and services:

• Personal information:
  • Contact details: including names, addresses, job title, company, social accounts, email addresses, phone numbers and other details when you engage with us by signing up for content, reports or subscribe to services; and
  • Financial information: (such as your credit card details which may also be collected directly by payment platforms we utilise) to process transactions securely.
• Usage data
  • Behavioural data: We collect data on how you interact with our content, reports, and platform. This includes your browsing behaviour, content preferences, and how you navigate our website. This information is gathered via cookies, web analytics, and similar tracking technologies.
  • Marketing engagement data: Data from email campaigns, targeted communications, and how users engage with our tailored content. This helps us measure engagement and satisfaction levels and improve our marketing strategies.
• Demographic data
  • Audience segmentation: We may collect demographic information such as industry, geography, business size, and other traits to personalize our content and marketing strategies.
• User-generated content
  • Content interactions: Feedback, comments, and other user-generated content may be collected.

How we use your information

We collect your Personal Information for the primary purposes of:

• Content curation & personalisation:
  • To provide curated content based on your information needs and observed behaviour. This ensures that the content we deliver is relevant to you, whether you are a business decision-maker or seeking specialised market intelligence.
• Marketing & engagement:
  • To create tailored digital communications, including targeted emails, reports, or content updates, based on your interactions and preferences. We focus on acquisition, engagement, and satisfaction, continually optimising our marketing efforts through data insights.
  • To measure and track the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and communications. We may also use this data for A/B testing, improving content relevance, and enhancing user experiences.
• Subscription & revenue models:
  • For managing subscriptions and ensuring that we are providing value through ongoing, evolving content and product offerings. We may use your data to offer customized subscription plans, premium services or updates on new services.
• Audience growth & market intelligence:
  • To expand our audience into new geographies and verticals, we analyse market trends, user behaviour, and demographic data to target the right markets and customize content accordingly.
• Processing payments:
  • For payment facilitation purposes.
• Communications:
  • To communicate with you in answering any queries.
• Record keeping:
  • To update our records and keep your records up to date.
• Legal compliance:
  • To comply with any law, rule, regulation, lawful and binding determination, decision or direction of a regulator or in cooperation with any governmental authority of any country.
• Services
  • To provide our services to you.

We may also use your Personal Information for secondary purposes closely related to the primary purpose, in circumstances where you would reasonably expect such use or disclosure.

When we collect Personal Information we will, where appropriate and where possible, explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.

Sensitive Information

We do not collect Sensitive information. Sensitive information is defined in the Privacy Act to include information or opinion about such things as an individual's racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, membership of a political association, religious or philosophical beliefs, membership of a trade union or other professional body, criminal record or health information.

If Sensitive information is collected by us at any time, it will be used by us only:

• For the primary purpose for which it was obtained
• For a secondary purpose that is directly related to the primary purpose
• With your consent; or where required or authorised by law.

No Privacy for User Generated Content

If you elect to create user generated content (comments, blogs, participate in online discussions or forums) then the information you include is not private and will not be afforded the protections set out in our Privacy Policy. Our strong recommendation is that you do not enter personal or sensitive data when blogging or otherwise utilising the site generally.

How do we collect and hold your personal information

We ordinarily will collect personal information directly from you unless it is unreasonable or impracticable to do so. We can also collect personal information in a variety of ways, including:

• directly from you if via the telephone, interviews or if you send us personal correspondence, such as emails, letters;
• when you sign up for content, newsletters, reports or subscribe to our services;
• through media and publications;
• when you provide information through our website (theenergy.co);
• from publicly available sources of information; and
• from third party data bases but only in circumstances where that third party has warranted to us they have complied with the APP’s and Privacy Act and you have consented to your data being used and disclosed to organisations such as ours.

Third Parties

The Site may contain links to third party websites as a service to our users. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party website. We encourage you to review and understand the privacy policies of the relevant third parties before providing any information to them.

Disclosure of Personal Information

Your Personal Information may be disclosed in a number of circumstances including, in the context of providing our services to you, the following:

• Marketing partners: We may share data with marketing platforms and CRM tools to enhance communication strategies and better target specific business segments.
• Content & analytics providers: We may share behavioural data with analytics platforms to improve our content curation and understand how our reports and content are consumed.
• Technology providers: To support our evolving platform, we may share data with technology partners for hosting, software development, and IT services to ensure secure, high-quality performance.
• Service providers: we may share your information with administrators and other third parties who we engage to assist us is the provision of our services to you.
• third parties where you consent to the use or disclosure; and
• where required or authorised by law.

We will ensure that any third parties we work with have warranted to us that they are compliant with relevant data protection regulations and have adequate measures in place to safeguard your data.

Security of Personal Information

Your Personal Information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We cannot, however, warrant or guarantee that we will not be subject to any malicious attack but we are committed to protecting your personal information and will use a range of security measures, including encryption, secure servers, and regular security audits, to prevent unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure of your data.

We continuously monitor our systems and invest in technologies that support the secure collection and transmission of data. All payments are processed using a secure PCI compliant payment gateway. Payments are processed only by our authorised staff.

When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years.

We may retain anonymised data for business analytics or reporting purposes, but this data will not be linked to any personally identifiable information.

Access to your Personal Information

You may access the Personal Information we hold about you and to update, correct it, and/or delete it subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing at [email protected].

The Energy will not charge any fee for your access request, but may charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your Personal Information.

In order to protect your Personal Information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

Maintaining the Quality of your Personal Information

It is an important to us that your Personal Information is up to date. We will take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.

Direct Marketing Materials

We may send you communications, newsletters and information as part of The Energy’s service offering and also undertaking other marketing based activities about our services that we consider might be of interest to you. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS, fax and email in accordance with applicable marketing laws, such as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method wherever practicable to do so. You consent to receiving direct communications and information from us about our services.

However, at any time you may opt out of receiving marketing communications for us by contacting us (see details below) or by using opt out facilities provided in the marketing communications and then we will ensure that your name is removed from our mailing list.

We do not provide your personal information to other organisations for the purposes of direct marketing without your prior consent.

Do we Disclose your Personal Information to anyone outside of Australia?

We may disclose personal information to third party service providers and suppliers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above. If we disclose your personal information to persons located overseas we will take reasonable steps to ensure that those organisations agree to comply with, at a minimum, the APPs.

If you are located outside of Australia, we will use reasonable endeavours to ensure the organisation that we disclose your personal information to (whether situated outside or within Australia) will comply with the relevant privacy laws and regulations of the relevant jurisdiction and at a minimum, the APPs.

Cookies

Our website uses “cookies” to identify you and your interests and to track usage of the website in order to help personalise your browsing experience. Cookies are small pieces of text stored on your computer that help us know which browser you are using and where you have been on the website. Cookies also let us know whether you have registered with us and otherwise enable us to relate your current usage of the website to your prior usage. If you do not wish to receive cookies, you can set your browser to refuse them. However, a user who does not accept the cookie from the website may not be able to access certain areas and may limit your use of the website and some of our services. In administering our website and diagnosing potential system problems, we also log all IP addresses which access our website.

Data Breach

We are aware of and will comply with the mandatory data breach reporting obligations as set out in the Privacy Act.

Privacy Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, legal obligations, or technological advancements. When changes are made, we will post the updated policy on our website and indicate the "Effective Date" at the top of the policy.

Privacy Policy Complaints and Enquiries

If you have any queries or complaints about our Privacy Policy please contact us at:

Address:

ASCo (Investments) Pty Ltd T/A The Energy
Level 1 60 Martin Place
Sydney NSW 2000

Email:

[email protected]

Phone:

0429 821 011