Privacy policy

Writer is a full-stack generative artificial intelligence platform – we want to give you the ability to build generative AI into any business process securely and safely. We’re also committed to protecting your personal data and honoring your privacy rights.

Overview

This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and protect data from or about you when we are acting as a data controller (or similar role under data protection laws), such as when you access our websites (like https://writer.com), when you create an account with a personal email address (e.g. gmail), or are otherwise using our services as an individual (collectively, our “Services”). This Privacy Policy does not apply when we are acting as a data processor (or similar role under data protection laws) and process personal information on behalf of commercial customers. For example, if you’re accessing our platform as part of a customer organization, our Platform Services Agreement or similar master agreement between us and that customer governs our processing of information about you. To the extent of any conflict between that agreement and this Privacy Policy, that agreement controls.

Please make sure to read this Privacy Policy carefully so you understand both your privacy rights and the choices available to you with respect to personal information you share with us.

Information We Collect About You

Information you provide directly to us

We collect information about you that you voluntarily provide to us when you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us. This can include:

• Account Information: we collect identifying information, such as your name, email address, and account credentials when you sign up for a Writer account.

• Profile Information: we may also collect profile information, such as your profile photo, phone number, and your role at a company, should you choose to provide this information.

• Payment Information: if you choose to purchase a paid subscription, we collect payment information, which is collected and processed by our third-party payment processors on our behalf.

• Communication Information: If you choose to communicate with us, for example by completing a form, participating in our surveys, focus groups, sweepstakes, or contests, subscribing to our mailing lists or other forms of marketing communications, downloading a document, asking for support, attending and/or interacting with us at our conferences or events, or by otherwise reaching out, we may collect your name, contact information, mailing address, and the contents of any messages you send.

• Inputs and Outputs: When you use our Services, we give you the opportunity to create prompts in a variety of formats, including but not limited to free text, files and documents, and images, which generate responses based on your inputs. If you include personal information in your inputs or otherwise as part of the data you share with us as you use the Services, we will collect that information and this information may be reproduced in your outputs. We also give you the ability to provide feedback by flagging outputs, which we will collect if you choose to provide this feedback.

• Other information you may provide to us: we may also collect recordings or transcripts of sales and customer service calls you have with us (with your consent in accordance with applicable law) and any other information you choose to directly provide to us in connection with your use of the Services.

Information we collect automatically

We collect information about you automatically when you access or use our Services or otherwise interact with us. This can include:

• Metadata: When you use our Services, we automatically collect metadata, including without limitation, usage data, trends, statistical data and performance information, analytics, or similar information rrelated to your use of Services, our websites, and third-party integrations to better understand how you use and interact with Writer.
• Device Information and log data: When you use our Services, we automatically collect certain information about your device, operating system, device identifiers, and the type of browser you use, consistent with your device and browser permissions. This includes your IP address, browser type, browser language, operating system, the state or country from which you accessed the Services, software and hardware attributes (including device IDs), referring and exit pages and URLs, platform type, the number of clicks, search terms, files you download, domain names, landing pages, pages and features viewed and the order of those pages, the amount of time spent on particular pages, the date and time you used the Services, error logs, and other similar information. From your IP address, we may be able to infer your general location.
• Cookies and similar tracking technologies: We and our service providers use cookies for a variety of purposes, including for analytics and advertising purposes, to recognize you when you return to the Services, to deliver certain features of the Services, to help us understand how users engage with the Services, and to improve your experience. You may set your web browser to notify you when you receive a cookie and to accept or refuse certain cookies. If you elect not to accept cookies, some functionality and areas of the Services may be restricted. To learn how to manage your cookies, please follow the instructions from your specific browser. Please also visit our Cookie Notice for more information about the types of information we collect via cookies, how we use that information, and how to opt-out and/or otherwise manage your cookie settings.

Information we collect from other sources

We may collect information about you from other sources, including marketing vendors, survey providers, other websites and services, data enhancement services, social media, conferences, and other industry events, or for other purposes that we explain to you at the time of collection, to the extent permitted by applicable law. We use this information to supplement the information that we collect directly or automatically from you. We combine and use this information for the purposes explained in the next section of this Privacy Policy, including to derive your possible interests and provide more relevant experiences for you and improve our Services, analytics, and advertising.

Information we receive indirectly to train our models

Our models are trained on a mix of publicly available data from the Internet and data licensed from third parties, each of which could include personal data. As a result, we take measures to safeguard individual privacy rights, including by obscuring, anonymizing, or removing personal identifiers during the training process.

How We Use Your Information

We may use your information for various purposes, including to:

• Provide you with the Services and operate, maintain, and administer the Services; 
• Respond to your requests, communicate with you about the Services, and provide you with customer service; 
• Contact you by email, postal mail, or phone with statements, news, alerts, updates, information, promotions, surveys or contests relating to the Services or other services that may be of interest to you, in accordance with applicable law; 
• Customize the content you see on the Services; 
• Engage in analysis and research about use of the Services, improve the Services (but in no event will we use any data you provide to us when you access or use our Services to train our models, including any inputs or outputs), and develop new services;
• Deliver relevant advertising to you, including to let us and our advertising partners personalize the content and advertising you see; 
• Measure the effectiveness of our advertising; 
• Secure the Services and resolve technical issues being reported; 
• Comply with any procedures, laws, and regulations which apply to us;
• Establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights; and
• With your consent or at your direction, for any other purpose.

Aggregate/De-Identified Information: We may aggregate and/or de-identify any information we collect through our Services so this information can no longer be linked to you or your device (“De-Identified Information”). We may use De-Identified Information for any purpose, including without limitation for research and marketing purposes, and may also disclose such data to any third parties, including advertisers, partners, and sponsors.

Combined Information: We may combine the information we collect through the Services with information that we receive from other sources, both online and offline. We may use this combined information subject to this Privacy Policy.

Legal Bases for Information Use: In applicable jurisdictions, like for example under EU data protection laws, we rely on the following grounds to use your information:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you for the Services;
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests;
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation; or
• Where we have your consent to process your information in a certain way.

How We Disclose Your Information

We may disclose the information we collect to the following categories of recipients:

• Affiliates and subsidiaries: We may disclose your information within the Writer family of companies.
• Service providers and advisors: We may disclose your information to third parties that perform services on our behalf, which may include mailing or email distribution, payment processing, data enhancement, data storage, security, fraud prevention, web hosting, analytics, legal, or consulting services.
• Advertising partners: We may allow third-party advertising technologies (e.g., ad networks and ad servers) to use cookies and similar technologies on the Services. These technologies deliver tailored content and advertising to you on other websites and applications you use, as explained further in “Online Analytics and Advertising” below.
• Joint marketing partners: We may disclose your information to another entity that jointly offers a service or product to you with us. These entities may collect information from you directly, as well.
• Third parties in connection with a business transaction: We may disclose your information to third parties in connection with a transaction, such as a merger, sale of assets or shares, reorganization, financing, change of control or acquisition of all or a portion of our business, including for the purpose of determining whether to proceed with a transaction or business relationship.
• Third party services and websites: Our Services may contain links to or integrate with third party websites, features, and other services. These third parties or integrations may also disclose information to us about your activities on their services. If you follow a link to any of these third parties or use any third party integration (such as via an API), please note that they have their own privacy policies. Before you submit any information to any third party, please make sure to read their privacy policy.
• Law enforcement, regulators, and other parties for legal reasons: We may disclose your information to third parties as required by law or if we believe in good faith that we need to disclose the information to (a) comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement; (b) enforce our agreements, including terms applicable to the Services; (c) protect the security or integrity of our Services; and/or (d) exercise or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Writer, our agents and affiliates, our customers, or others.
• Otherwise with your consent or at your direction: We may also disclose your information whenever you consent to or direct such disclosures.

Marketing and Advertising Practices

Marketing: We may send you marketing communications regarding our Services or the services of third parties that we believe will be of interest to you, as legally permitted. If you receive email from us, we may use analytics tools, such as clear GIFs, to capture data such as when you open the email or click on any links or banners in the email. This data allows us to gauge the effectiveness of our communications and marketing campaigns. You can ask us to stop sending any promotional communications at any time using the opt-out instructions located at the bottom of such emails or by contacting us using the information in the “Contact Information” section below.

Please note that, regardless of your request, we may still use and disclose certain information as permitted by this Privacy Policy or as required by applicable law. For example, you may not opt out of certain transactional, operational, or service-related emails, including those reflecting our relationship or transactions with you.

Online Analytics: We may use third-party web analytics services, such as Google Analytics and HubSpot, on our Services. These analytics services help us collect and analyze usage information through cookies and similar tools; engage in auditing, research, or reporting; take measures to prevent fraud; and provide certain features to you. To prevent Google Analytics from using your information for analytics, you may install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on by clicking here.

Tailored Online Advertising: In using the Services, we work with certain third-party advertising technology partners such as ad networks and ad servers such as Google. We allow these third parties to place cookies or other similar technologies on the browser of your device to collect information about you (see “Automatically Collected Information” above). These third parties may use this information to serve relevant content and advertising to you as you browse the Internet and may access their own cookies or other tracking technologies on your browser to assist in this activity. The following websites provide more information about these online advertising activities, and how you can generally control cookies from being put on your computer to deliver tailored advertising: the Network Advertising Initiative’s Consumer Opt-Out link, the Digital Advertising Alliance’s Consumer Opt-Out link, or Your Online Choices.

Security, Retention, and Transferring Your Information

Security: We implement various technical and organizational measures to protect your information from being accidentally or unlawfully accessed, destroyed, lost, misused, changed or damaged. However, no Internet or email transmission is ever fully secure or error-free. Please keep this in mind when providing any information to us.

Retention. We will only retain your information for as long as we need it to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it. This includes the purposes of our legitimate business interests and satisfying our legal, contractual, or reporting requirements.

International transfers of your information. The information we collect may be transferred to and stored in countries where we and our third-party service providers have operations, including the United States. The applicable data protection laws in these countries may differ from those in your country of residence. By using the Services, you acknowledge that these transfers will occur.

Data Privacy Framework Certification. Writer complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (“EU-U.S. DPF”) and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (“Swiss-U.S. DPF”) (collectively, the “DPF”), as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of “personal data” (as defined under the laws of the European Economic Area (“EEA”), UK, and Switzerland, as applicable) that Writer receives from the EEA, UK, and Switzerland. We have certified to the Department of Commerce that we adhere to the DPF Principles and Supplemental Principles with respect to personal data transferred to us in reliance on the DPF. Writer is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission in the case of any failure to comply with the DPF.

If you are an EEA, UK, or Swiss citizen you may be able to exercise certain choices under the DPF regarding how some of your personal data is used and disclosed, and may access, correct, or delete certain personal data by following the instructions in the “Your Rights and Choices” section of this Privacy Policy.

When we receive personal data under the DPF and then transfer it to a third-party service provider acting as our agent on our behalf, we may have certain responsibility under the DPF if both (a) the agent processes the information in a manner inconsistent with the DPF and (b) we are responsible for the event giving rise to the damage.

In compliance with the DPF Principles, Writer commits to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal data (without charge to you). EEA, UK, and Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding this Privacy Policy should first contact us at privacy@writer.com. We will respond to any complaints as soon as possible and within 45 days. If you have an unresolved privacy or data use complaints that we have not addressed satisfactorily, please contact, free of charge, our dispute resolution provider, JAMS, at https://www.jamsadr.com/eu-us-data-privacy-framework. In certain conditions, if your DPF complaint has not been resolved after raising it with us following the JAMS procedure above and taking certain other steps, you may be able to invoke binding arbitration through a DPF panel, in accordance with the DPF at https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/How-to-Submit-a-Complaint-Relating-to-a-Participating-Organization-s-Compliance-with-the-DPF-Principles-dpf.

If there is any conflict between this Privacy Policy and the DPF Principles, the DPF Principles shall govern. To learn more about the DPF program, and to view our certifications, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/participant-search. We may also protect personal data through other legally valid methods, including standard contractual clauses.

Your Rights and Choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to make requests related to your “personal information” or “personal data”, as these terms are defined in applicable law (collectively referred to in this section as “personal information”).

Information about your rights

Upon request and subject to applicable legal exceptions, we will:

• Inform you about the types of personal information we collect or disclose about you; the types of sources of this information; the business or commercial purpose for collecting this information; and the categories of third parties to which we disclose this information;
• Provide you access to and/or a copy of certain personal information we hold about you;
• Correct or update personal information we hold about you;
• Delete certain personal information we have about you;
• Restrict or object to certain uses of your personal information; or
• Opt you out of the processing of your personal information for purposes of profiling that furthers decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects, if applicable.

To exercise these rights, you can email us at privacy@writer.com. After we receive your request, we may verify it by requesting information sufficient to confirm your identity. You may also be able to designate an authorized agent to make requests on your behalf. For us to verify an authorized agent, you must provide the authorized agent with signed, written permission to make such requests or a power of attorney. We may verify your identity directly with you before processing the authorized agent’s request, as permitted by applicable law. You may also have the right to appeal requests that we deny by emailing privacy@writer.com. Please note that certain information may be exempt from these requests under applicable law.

If you’re accessing our platform as part of a customer organization and you have questions about how your information is processed in connection with the services we provide to the customer or want to exercise any of your rights regarding this information, please contact your account administrator.

We will never discriminate against you for exercising your privacy rights.

Right to manage cookies preferences and opt out of targeted advertising

As we mention in our Cookie Notice, we provide information about your device and online browsing activities to third-party advertising providers for targeted online advertising purposes, so that we can provide you with more relevant and tailored ads regarding our services.

If you would like to opt out of our online disclosure of your information through cookie and pixel technology (which, if you are a U.S. resident, is an opt out right provided under various state laws, please click here: manage settings or enable Global Privacy Control within your browser.

Notice to California Residents

If you are a California resident, you have certain rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), and we want to provide you with the following additional information about the purpose for which we use each category of personal information we collect (as defined by CCPA) along with the categories of third parties to which we disclose personal information for a business purpose or for cross-context behavioral advertising, which includes our use of third-party analytics services and online advertising services. These are described in detail in our Cookie Notice and may result in the disclosure of online identifiers (e.g., cookie data, IP addresses, device identifiers, and usage information).

Specifically, your contact information (including email) or internet network and device information (including cookie data and IP address) may be disclosed to online advertising and analytics partners.

For more information about each category of personal information, purpose of use, and third parties to which we disclose personal information, please see the Information We Collect About You, How We Use Your Information, and How We Disclose Your Information sections of our Privacy Policy above.

Your choices regarding online advertising and related activities

Under the CCPA, you have the right to opt out of the disclosure of your personal information for purposes of online cross-context behavioral advertising and related activities and can do so by clicking on Cookie Settings or enabling Global Privacy Control within your browser.

Additional California privacy rights

California residents may make certain requests about their personal information under the CCPA as set forth in “Your Rights and Choices” section above. We do not offer any financial incentives in exchange for your personal information.  If we ever do, we will provide you with additional disclosures regarding those incentives at the time they are offered. In the limited circumstances that we process sensitive personal information as defined in the CCPA (e.g., log-in information), we only use or disclose it for disclosed and permitted business purposes. Under the CCPA, there is not a right to limit these uses and disclosures.

Shine the light

California Law allows customers who are California residents to request certain information once per year regarding our disclosure of “personal information” (as that term is defined under applicable California law) to third parties for such third parties’ direct marketing purposes. We do not disclose personal information to third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.

Do Not Track

Do Not Track is a privacy preference that users can set in certain web browsers. We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information collected on our websites for third party purposes, and that is why we provide the ability to opt out, if needed, and adjust your cookies preferences. We do not currently recognize or respond to browser-initiated DNT signals. Please note that Do Not Track is a different functionality from the browser-based Global Privacy Control signal, which Writer does honor.

Children’s Privacy

Our Services are not directed to persons under 16. We do not knowingly collect or process personally identifiable information from children under 16. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that their child has provided us with personally identifiable information without their consent, they should contact us at privacy@writer.com. If we become aware that a child under 16 has provided us with such information, we will take steps to delete this information from our files.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We may update our Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will post an updated version on this page, unless another type of notice is required by applicable law. By continuing to use our Services, you are confirming that you have read and understood the latest version of our Privacy Policy.

Contact Information

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or if you are seeking to exercise any of your statutory rights. You may contact us at privacy@writer.com or at our mailing address: Attn Writer Legal, 140 Geary St #800, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA.