Squarespace Privacy Policy
20200801_rev01 · COMPARED WITH 20200310_rev01 · ARCHIVE SNAPSHOT, DATE APPROXIMATE
Full text changes — 20200310_rev01 to 20200801_rev01
| 1 | **Effective Date: February 24, 2020** | |
| 1 | **Effective Date: July 7, 2020** | |
| 2 | 2 | |
| 3 | 3 | Thanks for visiting Squarespace! Squarespace ("Squarespace", "we", "us" or "our") respects your privacy. When it comes to your personal information, we believe in transparency, not surprises. That's why we've set out here what personal information we collect, what we do with it and your choices and rights. |
| 4 | 4 | |
| 5 | 5 | By using any of Squarespace's Services, you confirm you have agreed to the [Terms of Service](https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service) and read and understood this Privacy Policy and our [Cookie Policy](https://www.squarespace.com/cookie-policy). |
| 6 | 6 | |
| 7 | If you are in California, the "[California Residents]()" section below provides additional information in accordance with the CCPA. | |
| 8 | ||
| 7 | 9 | **1\. Some key terms** |
| 8 | 10 | |
| 9 | 11 | In our Privacy Policy, when we refer to "Users", we mean our customers who use our Services, including visitors to our sites. We explain who we are in the "Who is Squarespace?" section below. The users, visitors and customers of, our Users' sites are "End Users". Any other capitalized terms not defined in this Privacy Policy have the meanings in our [Terms of Service](https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service). |
| 10 | 12 | |
| 11 | 13 | **2\. How does this Privacy Policy apply?** |
| 12 | 14 | |
| 47 | 49 | We've described this in more detail below. |
| 48 | 50 | |
| 49 | 51 | **a. Personal information you provide** |
| 50 | 52 | |
| 51 | 53 | When you use our Services, we collect information from you in a number of ways. For instance, we ask you to provide your name and email address to register and manage your Account. We also maintain your marketing preferences and the emails and other communications that you send us or otherwise contribute, such as customer support inquiries or posts to our customer message boards or forums. You might also provide us with information in other ways, including by responding to surveys, submitting a form or participating in contests or similar promotions. |
| 52 | 54 | |
| 53 | Sometimes we require you to provide us with information for contractual or legal reasons. For example, we may ask you to select your jurisdiction when you sign up for Paid Services to determine if, and how much, tax we need to collect from you. We'll normally let you know when information is required, and the consequences of failing to provide it. If you do not provide personal information when requested, you may not be able to use our Services if that information is necessary to provide you with the service or if we are legally required to collect it. | |
| 55 | Sometimes we require you to provide us with information for contractual or legal reasons. For example: (i) when you register or transfer a domain name through the Services, in order to comply with ICANN, registry, ccTLD or registrar policies, we collect your domain registration information; or (ii) we may ask you to select your jurisdiction when you sign up for Paid Services to determine if, and how much, tax we need to collect from you. We'll normally let you know when information is required, and the consequences of failing to provide it. If you do not provide personal information when requested, you may not be able to use our Services if that information is necessary to provide you with the service or if we are legally required to collect it. | |
| 54 | 56 | |
| 55 | 57 | **b. Personal information obtained from your use of our Services** |
| 56 | 58 | |
| 57 | 59 | When you use our Services, we collect information about your activity on and interaction with the Services, such as your IP address(es), your device and browser type, the web page you visited before coming to our sites, what pages on our sites you visit and for how long and identifiers associated with your devices. If you've given us permission through your device settings, we may collect your location information in our mobile apps. |
| 58 | 60 | |
| 59 | 61 | If you are an End User of our Users' sites, we also get information about your interactions with their sites, though we use this in anonymous, aggregated or pseudonymized form which does not focus on you individually. We use this data to evaluate, provide, protect or improve our Services (including by developing new products and services). |
| 61 | 63 | Some of this information is collected automatically using cookies and similar technologies when you use our Services and our Users' sites. We let our Users control what cookies and similar technologies are used through their sites (except those we need to use to properly provide the Services, such as for performance or security related reasons). You can read more about our use of cookies in our [Cookie Policy](https://www.squarespace.com/cookie-policy). Some of this information is similarly collected automatically through your browser or from your device. |
| 62 | 64 | |
| 63 | 65 | **c. Personal information obtained from other sources** |
| 64 | 66 | |
| 65 | 67 | If you use a Third Party Service (such as Google) to register for an Account, the Third Party Service may provide us with your Third Party Service account information on your behalf, such as your name and email address (we don't collect or store passwords you use to access Third Party Services). Your privacy settings on the Third Party Service normally control what they share with us. Make sure you are comfortable with what they share by reviewing their privacy policies and, if necessary, modifying your privacy settings directly on the Third Party Service. |
| 66 | 68 | |
| 67 | If you sign up for Paid Services directly with us, we obtain limited information about your payment card from our payment processor, such as the last four digits, the country of issuance and the expiration date. Currently, our payment processor is Stripe. Stripe uses and processes your complete payment information in accordance with [Stripe's privacy policy](https://stripe.com/privacy/). This paragraph is not applicable if you sign up for Paid Services as an in-app purchase via a mobile app store. Please see Google's privacy policy and Apple's privacy policy for information about how they use and process your payment information. | |
| 69 | If you sign up for Paid Services directly with us, we obtain limited information about your payment card from our payment processor, such as the last four digits, the country of issuance and the expiration date. Currently, our payment processor is Stripe. Stripe uses and processes your complete payment information in accordance with [Stripe's privacy policy](https://stripe.com/privacy/). This paragraph is not applicable if you sign up for Paid Services as an in-app purchase via a mobile app store. Please see [Google's privacy policy](https://policies.google.com/privacy) and [Apple's privacy policy](https://www.apple.com/legal/privacy/en-ww/) for information about how they use and process your payment information. | |
| 68 | 70 | |
| 69 | 71 | **5\. How we use your personal information** |
| 70 | 72 | |
| 71 | 73 | We use the personal information we obtain about you for the following purposes: |
| 72 | 74 | |
| 73 | - **Provision of the Services.** Create and manage your Account, provide and personalize our Services, process payments and respond to your inquiries. | |
| 75 | - **Provision of the Services.** Create and manage your Account, provide and personalize our Services, register or transfer your domain names, process payments and respond to your inquiries. | |
| 74 | 76 | |
| 75 | 77 | - **Communicating with you.** Communicate with you, including by sending you emails about your transactions and Service-related announcements. |
| 76 | 78 | |
| 77 | 79 | - **Surveys and contests.** Administer surveys, contests and other promotions. |
| 78 | 80 | |
| 79 | 81 | - **Promotion.** Promote our Services and send you tailored marketing communications about products, services, offers, programs and promotions of Squarespace and our partners and measure the success of those campaigns. For example, we may send different marketing communications to you based on your subscription plan or what we think may interest you based on other information we hold about you. |
| 85 | 87 | - **Improving our Services.** Analyze and learn about how the Services are accessed and used, evaluate and improve our Services (including by developing new products and services and managing our communications) and monitor and measure the effectiveness of our advertising. We usually do this based on anonymous, pseudonymized or aggregated information which does not focus on you individually. For example, if we learn that most Users of Paid Services use a particular integration or feature, we might wish to expand on that integration or feature. |
| 86 | 88 | |
| 87 | 89 | - **Security.** Ensure the security and integrity of our Services. |
| 88 | 90 | |
| 89 | 91 | - **Third party relationships.** Manage our vendor and partner relationships. |
| 90 | 92 | |
| 91 | - **Enforcement.** Enforce our Terms of Service and other legal terms and policies. | |
| 93 | - **Enforcement.** Enforce our [Terms of Service](https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service) and other legal terms and policies. | |
| 92 | 94 | |
| 93 | 95 | - **Protection.** Protect our and others' interests, rights and property (e.g., to protect our Users from abuse). |
| 94 | 96 | |
| 95 | 97 | - **Complying with law.** Comply with applicable legal requirements, such as tax and other government regulations and industry standards, contracts and law enforcement requests. |
| 96 | 98 | |
| 97 | 99 | We process your personal information for the above purposes when: |
| 123 | 125 | We share personal information in the following ways: |
| 124 | 126 | |
| 125 | 127 | - **Affiliates.** We share personal information with our affiliates when it is reasonably necessary or desirable, such as to help provide services to you or analyze and improve the services we or they provide. |
| 126 | 128 | |
| 127 | 129 | - **Users.** We share with our Users data regarding usage by End Users of their sites. For example, we provide a User with information about what web page the End User visited before coming to their site and how their End Users interacted with their site. This is so Users can analyze the usage of their sites and improve their services. |
| 128 | 130 | |
| 131 | - **Domain registration partners.** If required to comply with ICANN, registry, ccTLD or registrar policies, we share your domain registration information with such domain registration partners. | |
| 132 | ||
| 129 | 133 | - **Business partners.** We may share personal information with business partners. For example, we may share your personal information when our Services are integrated with their Third Party Services, but only when you have been informed or would otherwise expect such sharing. |
| 130 | 134 | |
| 135 | - **Third Party Plugins and Social Networks.** We may share personal information with website plugins, social media platforms or similar Third Party Services to improve your experience, at your direction, or when you intentionally interact with the plug-in. For example, when you use a Third Party Service to create or log in to your Account, we may share your personal information with that Third Party Service. | |
| 136 | ||
| 131 | 137 | - **Service providers.** We share personal information with our service providers that perform services on our behalf. For example, we may use third parties to help us provide customer support, manage our advertisements on other sites, send marketing and other communications on our behalf or assist with data storage. |
| 132 | 138 | |
| 133 | 139 | - **Process payments.** We transmit your personal information via an encrypted connection to our payment processor. |
| 134 | 140 | |
| 135 | 141 | - **Following the law or protecting rights and interests.** We disclose your personal information if we determine that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, protect our or others' rights, property or interests (such as enforcing our [Terms of Service](https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service)) or prevent fraud or abuse of Squarespace or our Users or End Users. In particular, we may disclose your personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, such as to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. |
| 136 | 142 | |
| 139 | 145 | - **Business transfers.** If we're involved in a reorganization, merger, acquisition or sale of some or all of our assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that deal or the negotiation of contemplated deals. |
| 140 | 146 | |
| 141 | 147 | **7\. Your rights and choices** |
| 142 | 148 | |
| 143 | 149 | Where applicable law requires (and subject to any relevant exceptions under law), you may have the right to access, update, change or delete personal information. |
| 144 | 150 | |
| 145 | You can access, update, change or delete personal information (or that of your End Users) either directly in your Account or by contacting us at [privacy@squarespace.com](mailto:privacy@squarespace.com) to request the required changes. You can exercise your other rights (including deleting your Account) by contacting us via your Account at the same email address. Please note that we may need to verify your identity in connection with your requests, and such verification process may, if you do not have access to your Account, require you to provide us with additional information (e.g. government identification). Even if you have access to your Account, we may request additional information if we believe it's necessary to verify your identity. If we are unable to verify your identity or request, we may not, in accordance with applicable law, be able to fulfill your request. | |
| 151 | You can access, update, change or delete personal information (or that of your End Users) either directly in your Account or by contacting us at [privacy@squarespace.com](mailto:privacy@squarespace.com) to request the required changes. You can exercise your other rights (including deleting your Account) by contacting us via your Account or at the same email address. Please note that we may need to verify your identity in connection with your requests, and such verification process may, if you do not have access to your Account, require you to provide us with additional information (e.g., government identification). Even if you have access to your Account, we may request additional information if we believe it's necessary to verify your identity. If we are unable to verify your identity or request, we may not, in accordance with applicable law, be able to fulfill your request. | |
| 146 | 152 | |
| 147 | 153 | You can also elect not to receive marketing communications by changing your preferences in your Account or by following the unsubscribe instructions in such communications. |
| 148 | 154 | |
| 149 | 155 | Please note that, for technical reasons, there is likely to be a delay in deleting your personal information from our systems when you ask us to delete it. We also will retain personal information in order to comply with the law, protect our and others' rights, resolve disputes or enforce our legal terms or policies, to the extent permitted under applicable law. |
| 150 | 156 | |
| 151 | 157 | You may have the right to restrict or object to the processing of your personal information or to exercise a right to data portability under applicable law. You also may have the right to lodge a complaint with a competent supervisory authority, subject to applicable law. If you are subject to EU data protection laws, we suggest you lodge any such complaints with our lead supervisory authority: |
| 226 | 232 | **b. End User payment information** |
| 227 | 233 | |
| 228 | 234 | Your End Users' payment information may be processed via third party eCommerce Payment Processors with which you integrate your Account, in accordance with such eCommerce Payment Processors' terms and policies. We transmit your End Users' complete payment information when they initially provide or update it only so that we can pass it along to the eCommerce Payment Processors you agree to use. We don't collect or store your End Users' payment information. |
| 229 | 235 | |
| 230 | 236 | **13\. California Residents** |
| 231 | 237 | |
| 232 | This Section 13 is only applicable to you if you are a resident of the state of California in the US ("California Residents") and only applies to personal information for which Squarespace is a "Business" (as defined in the CCPA), but does not apply to personal information we collect from you in the course of our provision of services to you where you are an employee, owner, director, officer or contractor of a company, partnership, sole proprietorship, non-profit or government agency. It applies to personal information we collect from California Residents on or through our Services and through other means (such as information collected offline or in person). With respect to personal information for which you are a "Business" and Squarespace is a "Service Provider," please see Section 3.7 of our [Terms of Service](https://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service). | |
| 238 | This Section 13 is only applicable to you if you are a resident of the state of California in the US ("California Residents") and only applies to personal information for which Squarespace is a "Business" (as defined in the CCPA), but does not apply to personal information we collect from you in the course of our provision of services to you where you are an employee, owner, director, officer or contractor of a company, partnership, sole proprietorship, non-profit or government agency. It applies to personal information we collect from California Residents on or through our Services and through other means (such as information collected offline or in person). With respect to personal information for which you are a "Business" and Squarespace is a "Service Provider," please see Section 3.7 of our [Terms of Service](http://www.squarespace.com/terms-of-service). | |
| 233 | 239 | |
| 234 | 240 | **a. Categories, business and commercial purposes, sources and third parties** |
| 235 | 241 | |
| 236 | California law requires us to disclose certain information regarding the categories of personal information we collect. The following is a list of all categories of personal information which Squarespace collects, or has collected, from California Residents, in the twelve (12) months prior to the effective date of this Privacy Policy (each, a "Category"), together with, for each Category: (1) the categories of sources from which such Category is collected; and (2) the categories of third parties with whom we share such Category. | |
| 242 | California law requires us to disclose certain information regarding the personal information we collect. The following is a list of all categories of personal information which Squarespace collects, or has collected, from California Residents, in the twelve (12) months prior to the effective date of this Privacy Policy: | |
| 237 | 243 | |
| 238 | - Identifiers: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), collected by the Services, business partners, service providers and payment processors; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 244 | - Identifiers, such as your name and email address. | |
| 239 | 245 | |
| 240 | - Commercial information: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), collected by the Services, business partners and service providers; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 246 | - Commercial information, such as transaction data. | |
| 241 | 247 | |
| 242 | - Financial data: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), business partners and payment processors; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 248 | - Financial data, such as partial payment information we receive from our payment processor. | |
| 243 | 249 | |
| 244 | - Internet or other network or device activity: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), collected by the Services, business partners, service providers and payment processors; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 250 | - Internet or other network or device activity, such as browsing history. | |
| 245 | 251 | |
| 246 | - Location information: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), collected by the Services, business partners and service providers; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 252 | - Location information, such as general information inferred from an IP address. | |
| 247 | 253 | |
| 248 | - Sensory information: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service) and service providers; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 254 | - Sensory information, such as recordings of support calls. | |
| 249 | 255 | |
| 250 | - Other information that identifies or can be reasonably associated with you: (1) sources: you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), collected by the Services, business partners, service providers and payment processors; and (2) third parties: business partners, service providers and payment processors. | |
| 256 | - Other information that identifies or can be reasonably associated with you. | |
| 251 | 257 | |
| 252 | Each Category is collected for the following business purposes: (i) providing the Services (including without limitation maintaining your Account, processing and fulfilling orders, and administering surveys and contests); (ii) providing customer support for the Services; (iii) operating the Services (including without limitation managing third party relationships and enabling usage of our service providers); (iv) communicating with you; (v) customizing the Services; (vi) securing and protecting the Services (including without limitation auditing the Services, bug and fraud detection, debugging and repair of errors and the detection, protection and prosecution of security incidents or illegal activity); (vii) enforcing our terms and policies; (viii) complying with law; (ix) verifying your identity; and (x) other business purposes about which we may notify you from time to time. | |
| 258 | We collect personal information directly from you (either directly or through a Third Party Service), automatically through your use of the services, and from third parties such as business partners, service providers, and payment processors. | |
| 253 | 259 | |
| 254 | Each Category is collected for uses that advance our commercial or economic interests such as: (i) promoting surveys and contests; (ii) promoting and advertising the Services; (iii) customizing the Services; (iv) improving our Services; (v) communicating with you about relevant offers from third parties; and (vi) other commercial purposes about which we may notify you from time to time. | |
| 260 | We collect personal information for the following business purposes: (i) providing the Services (including without limitation maintaining your Account, processing and fulfilling orders, and administering surveys and contests); (ii) providing customer support for the Services; (iii) operating the Services (including without limitation managing third party relationships and enabling usage of our service providers); (iv) communicating with you; (v) customizing the Services; (vi) securing and protecting the Services (including without limitation auditing the Services, bug and fraud detection, debugging and repair of errors and the detection, protection and prosecution of security incidents or illegal activity); (vii) enforcing our terms and policies; (viii) complying with law; (ix) verifying your identity; and (x) other business purposes about which we may notify you from time to time. | |
| 255 | 261 | |
| 262 | We collect personal information for uses that advance our commercial or economic interests such as: (i) promoting surveys and contests; (ii) promoting and advertising the Services; (iii) customizing the Services; (iv) improving our Services; (v) communicating with you about relevant offers from third parties; and (vi) other commercial purposes about which we may notify you from time to time. | |
| 263 | ||
| 256 | 264 | **b. Your requests** |
| 257 | 265 | |
| 258 | 266 | Subject to certain exceptions and restrictions, the CCPA provides California Residents the right to submit requests to a business which has collected their personal information: (i) to provide them with access to the specific pieces and categories of personal information collected by the business about such California Resident, the categories of sources for such information, the business or commercial purposes for collecting such information, and the categories of third parties with which such information was shared; and (ii) to delete such personal information (each, a "California Request"). We need certain types of information so that we can provide our Services to you. If you ask us to delete some or all of your information, you may no longer be able to access or use the Services. |
| 259 | 267 | |
| 260 | If you are a California Resident, please follow the instructions in the "Your rights and choices" section above to submit California Requests and please make sure you note that you are a California Resident when you do so. California Residents may designate an authorized agent to make California Requests on their behalf. In order to designate an authorized agent to make a California Request on your behalf, you must provide a valid power of attorney, the requester's valid government issued identification and the authorized agent's valid government issued identification. | |
| 268 | If you are a California Resident, please follow the instructions in the "Your rights and choices" section above to submit California Requests and please make sure you note that you are a California Resident when you do so. California Residents may designate an authorized agent to make California Requests on their behalf. In order to designate an authorized agent to make a California Request on your behalf, you or your agent must provide proof that the agent has been authorized by you to act on your behalf, such as written authorization signed by you authorizing that agent to act on your behalf. We reserve the right to request additional information from you and/or individuals purporting to be authorized agents, such as when we suspect fraud. | |
| 261 | 269 | |
| 262 | **c. We do not sell your personal information** | |
| 270 | **c. Do not sell my personal information** | |
| 263 | 271 | |
| 264 | We do not sell your personal information, as that term is defined based on our understanding of the CCPA and its implementing regulations. We have not sold any personal information to third parties for a business or commercial purpose in the 12 months prior to the effective date of this Privacy Policy. We do share personal information with third parties for the business and commercial purposes described in this Section 13, including without limitation advertising and marketing based on Users' online activities over time and across different sites, services and devices. | |
| 272 | California residents may opt out of the "sale" of their personal information. The CCPA broadly defines "sale" in a way that may include allowing third parties to receive certain information such as cookie identifiers, IP addresses and/or browsing behavior to add to a profile about your device, browser or you. Such profiles may enable delivery of interest-based advertising by such third parties within their platform or on other sites. | |
| 265 | 273 | |
| 274 | Depending on how you use the Services, we may share the following categories of information for such interest-based advertising which may be considered a sale (as defined by the CCPA): identification and demographics; device information and identifiers, such as IP address and unique advertising identifiers and cookies; connection and usage information, such as browsing history or app usage; and inference data. | |
| 275 | ||
| 276 | If you would like to opt out of Squarespace's use of your information for such purposes (to the extent this is considered a sale), you may do so within the Services. | |
| 277 | ||
| 266 | 278 | **d. We do not discriminate against you** |
| 267 | 279 | |
| 268 | 280 | You also have the right to not be discriminated against (as provided for in applicable law) for exercising certain of your rights. Squarespace does not discriminate against California Residents for exercising their rights. |
| 269 | 281 | |
| 270 | 282 | **14\. Updates to this Privacy Policy** |
| 271 | 283 |