Privacy Policy

ARCHIVED 2023-06-01, DATE APPROXIMATE · VERSION 20230601_rev01 · COMPARED WITH 20221101_rev01

Full text changes — 20221101_rev01 to 20230601_rev01

COLOUR MARKS THE SEVERITY OF A FLAGGED CLAUSE · + AND − MARK ADDED AND REMOVED

 If you are looking for CCPA-specific information, check out our [CCPA Privacy Notice](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/ccpa-privacy-notice/) as well, which is incorporated into this Privacy Policy.
 We may collect and receive information about users of our Services ("users," "you," or "your") from various sources, including: (i) information you provide through your user account on the Services (your "Account") if you register for the Services; (ii) your use of the Services; and (iii) from third-party websites, services, and partners.
 We recommend that you read this Privacy Policy in full, including the Additional Disclosures referenced at the bottom of this document, to ensure you are fully informed. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or DigitalOcean's data collection, use, and disclosure practices, please contact us at [privacy@digitalocean.com](mailto:privacy@digitalocean.com).
+## 1\. Information We Collect
+## [1\. Information We Collect]()
 . **Information You Provide**
     I. **Account Registration.** When you register for an Account, we may ask for your contact information, including items such as name, company name, address, email address, and telephone number. If you choose to refer a friend to our Services, we may also collect your friend's email address so that we may send them a referral or promotional code to sign up for our Services.\\
     II. **Payment Information.** When you add your financial account information to your Account, that information is directed to our third-party payment processor. We do not store your financial account information on our systems; however, we have access to, and may retain, subscriber information through our third-party payment processor.
     II. **Usage of our Services.** When you use our Services, we may collect information about your engagement with and utilization of our Services, such as processor and memory usage, storage capacity, navigation of our Services, and system-level metrics. We use this data to operate the Services, maintain and improve the performance and utilization of the Services, develop new features, protect the security and safety of our Services and our customers, and provide customer support. We also use this data to develop aggregate analysis and business intelligence that enable us to operate, protect, make informed decisions, and report on the performance of our business.
 . **Information We Receive from Third Parties.**
     I. **Third-Party Accounts.** If you choose to link our Services to a third-party account, we will receive information about that account, such as your authentication token from the third-party account, to authorize linking. If you wish to limit the information available to us, you should visit the privacy settings of your third-party accounts to learn about your options.
+## 2\. How We Use Information
+## [2\. How We Use Information]()
 We use the information we collect in various ways, including to:
 - Provide, operate, and maintain our Services;
 - Improve, personalize, and expand our Services;
 - Understand and analyze how you use our Services;
 . **Information We Share When You Sign Up Through a Referral.** If you sign up for our Services through a referral from a friend, we may share information with your referrer to let them know that you used their referral to sign up for our Services.
 . **Analytics.** We use analytics providers such as Google Analytics. Google Analytics uses cookies to collect non-identifying information. Google provides some additional privacy options regarding its Analytics cookies at [http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/](http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/partners/).
 . **Business Transfers.** Information may be disclosed and otherwise transferred to any potential acquirer, successor, or assignee as part of any proposed merger, acquisition, debt financing, sale of assets, or similar transaction, or in the event of insolvency, bankruptcy, or receivership in which information is transferred to one or more third parties as one of our business assets.
 . **As Required By Law and Similar Disclosures.** We may also share information to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process, or governmental request; (ii) enforce this Privacy Policy and our Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations hereof; (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security, or technical issues; (iv) respond to your requests; or (v) protect our rights, property or safety, our users and the public. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for fraud protection and spam/malware prevention.
 . **With Your Consent.** We may share information with your consent.
+## 4\. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Information
+## [4\. Legal Basis for Processing Personal Information]()
 Our legal basis for collecting and using the personal data described above will depend on the personal data concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.
 However, we will normally collect personal data from you only (i) where we need the personal data to perform a contract with you; (ii) where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your rights; or (iii) where we have your consent to do so. We have a legitimate interest in operating our Services and communicating with you as necessary to provide these Services, for example when responding to your queries, improving our platform, undertaking marketing, or for the purposes of detecting or preventing illegal activities.
 In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal data from you or may otherwise need the personal data to protect your vital interests or those of another person.
 If we ask you to provide personal data to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contract with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal data is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal data).
+## 5\. Third-party Services
+## [5\. Third-party Services]()
 You may access other third-party offerings through the Services, for example by clicking on links to those third-party offerings from within the Services. DigitalOcean is not responsible for the privacy policies and/or practices of these third-party offerings, and we encourage you to carefully review their privacy policies.
+## 6\. Security
+## [6\. Security]()
 DigitalOcean is committed to protecting your information. To do so, we employ a variety of security technologies and measures designed to protect information from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. The measures we use are designed to provide a level of security appropriate to the risk of processing your personal data. Please note that no service is completely secure. While we strive to protect your data, we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, hacking, data loss or a data breach will never occur.
 For more information on DigitalOcean's security controls, please see the following resources:
 - [Data Processing Agreement (DPA)](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/data-processing-agreement/)
 - [Certification Reports](https://www.digitalocean.com/trust/certification-reports/)
 - SOC 2 Type II (upon request to [privacy@digitalocean.com](mailto:privacy@digitalocean.com))
 - [SOC 3 Type II](https://www-static.cdn.prismic.io/www-static/62aae0a4-619c-4b87-9e91-deca34e0c07c_DigitalOcean+-+2021+Type+2+SOC+3+-+Report.pdf)
+## 7\. Data Retention
+## [7\. Data Retention]()
 We retain personal data we collect from you where we have an ongoing legitimate business need to do so (for example, to provide you with a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax, or accounting requirements).
 When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal data, we will either delete or anonymize it or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal data has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal data and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.
+## 8\. Access
+## [8\. Access]()
 If you are a registered user, you may access certain information associated with your Account by logging into our Services or emailing [privacy@digitalocean.com](mailto:privacy@digitalocean.com). If you terminate your Account, any public activity on your Account prior to deletion may remain stored on our servers and may remain accessible to the public.
 To protect your privacy and security, we may also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before updating or removing your information. The information you provide us may be archived or stored periodically by us according to backup processes conducted in the ordinary course of business for disaster recovery purposes. Your ability to access and correct your information may be temporarily limited where access and correction could: inhibit DigitalOcean's ability to comply with a legal obligation; inhibit DigitalOcean's ability to investigate, make or defend legal claims; result in disclosure of personal data about a third party; or result in breach of a contract or disclosure of trade secrets or other proprietary business information belonging to DigitalOcean or a third party.
 If you are a resident of the EEA, you have the following data protection rights:
 - You have the right to **opt-out of marketing communications** we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the "unsubscribe" or "opt-out" link in the marketing emails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing, please contact us by emailing [privacy@digitalocean.com](mailto:privacy@digitalocean.com).
 - Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal data with your consent, then you can **withdraw your consent** at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect the processing of your personal data conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
 - You have the **right to complain to a data protection authority** about our collection and use of your personal data. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.
 We respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
+## 10\. Your Choices
+## [10\. Your Choices]()
 You can use some of the features of the Services without registering, thereby limiting the type of information that we collect.
 You may unsubscribe from receiving certain promotional emails from us. If you wish to do so, simply follow the instructions found at the end of the email. Even if you unsubscribe, we may still contact you for informational, transactional, account-related, or similar purposes.
 Many browsers have an option for disabling cookies, which may prevent your browser from accepting new cookies or enable selective use of cookies. Please note that, if you choose not to accept cookies, some features and the personalization of our Services may no longer work for you. You will continue to receive advertising material but it will not be tailored to your interests.
+## 11\. Children's Privacy
+## [11\. Children's Privacy]()
 DigitalOcean does not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13, and children under 13 are prohibited from using our Services. If you learn that a child has provided us with personal data in violation of this Privacy Policy, you can alert us at [privacy@digitalocean.com](mailto:privacy@digitalocean.com).
+## 12\. Changes to this Privacy Policy
+## [12\. Changes to this Privacy Policy]()
 This Privacy Policy may be modified from time to time, so please review it frequently. Changes to this Privacy Policy will be posted on our websites. If we materially change the ways in which we use or share personal data previously collected from you through our Services, we will notify you through our Services, on this page, by email, or other communication.
+## 13\. International Data Transfers
+## [13\. International Data Transfers]()
 With respect to Personal Data of Data Subjects located in the EEA, Switzerland, or the United Kingdom that Customer transfers to DigitalOcean or permits DigitalOcean to access, the parties agree that by executing the DPA they also execute the Standard Contractual Clauses, which will be incorporated by reference and form an integral part of the DPA. The parties agree that, with respect to the elements of the Standard Contractual Clauses that require the parties' input, Schedules 1-3 contain all the relevant information.
 **EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield.** For personal data we receive from the EEA and Switzerland, DigitalOcean has certified its compliance to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal data from such countries. To access the Privacy Shield List and to find details of our certification, please visit: [https://www.privacyshield.gov/](https://www.privacyshield.gov/).
 DigitalOcean currently utilizes [Standard Contractual Clauses](https://www-static.cdn.prismic.io/www-static/4578633e-ba6b-4c45-845c-1e69848c6e3b_DigitalOcean+SCC+Template.pdf) in connection with transfers of data from the EEA to the US insofar as the EU-US Privacy Shield is deemed invalidated and other means are not yet in place. Please also refer to our [GDPR FAQ](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/gdpr-faq/) and [Data Processing Agreement](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/data-processing-agreement/) for more information about data transfers.
 6th Ave New York, NY 10013
 ATTN: Legal
 The data controller of your personal information is DigitalOcean, LLC.
+## Additional Disclosures
+## [Additional Disclosures]()
 [CCPA Privacy Notice](https://www.digitalocean.com/legal/ccpa-privacy-notice/)
+## **Prior Versions of our Privacy Policy**
+## [**Prior Versions of our Privacy Policy**]()
 - [July 30, 2020](https://digitalocean-legal.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/DigitalOcean_Privacy_Policy_07.31.2020.pdf)