Last Updated January 1st, 2021
This policy applies to this website and all products built and maintained by MellowHelp.
Our guiding principle is to collect only what we need. Here’s what that means in practice:
When you visit and comment on MellowHelp, we may ask for identifying information such as your name and email address. We’ll never sell your personal info to third parties, and we won’t use your name in marketing statements without your permission either.
We log all access to all accounts by full IP address so that we can always verify no unauthorized access has happened. We keep this login data for as long as your product account is active.
We also log full IP addresses used to sign up a product account. We keep this record forever because they are used to mitigate spammy signups.
Web analytics data — described further in the Website Interactions section — are also tied temporarily to IP addresses to assist with troubleshooting cases. We blind all web analytics data after 30 days.
When you browse our pages or applications, your browser automatically shares certain information such as which operating system and browser version you are using. We track that information, along with the pages you are visiting, page load timing, and which website referred you for statistical purposes like conversion rates and to test new designs. We sometimes track specific link clicks to help inform some design decisions. These web analytics data are tied to your IP address. We also have used third-party web analytics software, which tracks similar analytics data tied to IP addresses. This includes but is not limited to Google AdSense and Google Analytics.
We use CAPTCHA services across our applications to mitigate brute force logins and as a means of spam protection. We have a legitimate interest in protecting our apps and the broader Internet community from credential stuffing attacks and spam. When you fill specific forms, the CAPTCHA service evaluates various information (e.g IP address, how long the visitor has been on the app, mouse movements) to check whether the data is possibly filled out by an automated program instead of a human. We may retain these data via our subprocessor forever because they are used for anti-spam mitigation.
We do use persistent first-party cookies to store certain preferences, make it easier for you to use our applications, and support some in-house analytics. A cookie is a piece of text stored by your browser to help it remember your login information, site preferences, and more. You can adjust cookie retention settings in your own browser. To learn more about cookies, including how to view which cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, please visit: www.allaboutcookies.org.
At this time, our sites and applications do not respond to Do Not Track beacons sent by browser plugins.
When you write MellowHelp with a question or to ask for help, we keep that correspondence, including the email address, so that we have a history of past correspondences to reference if you reach out in the future. We also store any information you volunteer like surveys.
We don’t collect any characteristics of protected classifications including age, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or physical and mental abilities or disabilities. You may provide these data voluntarily, such as if you include a pronoun preference in your email signature when writing into our Support team. We also do not collect any biometric data.
Our default practice is to not access your information. The only times we’ll ever access or share your info are:
To provide products or services you’ve requested. We do use some third-party services to run our applications and only to the extent necessary process some or all of your personal information via these third parties. Having subprocessors means we are using technology to access your data. No MellowHelp human looks at your data for these purposes unless an error occurs that stops an automated process from working and requires manual intervention to fix. These are rare cases and when they happen, we look for root cause solutions as much as possible to avoid them from reoccurring.
To help you troubleshoot or squash a software bug, with your permission. If at any point we need to access more of your information to help you with a Support case, we will ask for your consent before proceeding.
To investigate, prevent, or take action regarding restricted uses. Accessing a visitor’s information when investigating potential abuse is a measure of last resort. We have an obligation to protect the privacy and safety of both our visitors and the people reporting issues to us. We do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process. If we do discover you are using our products for a restricted purpose, we will report the incident to the appropriate authorities.
When required under applicable law.
Finally, if MellowHelp is acquired by or merged with another company — we don’t plan on that, but if it happens — we’ll notify you well before any info about you is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
At MellowHelp, we apply the same data rights to all visitors, regardless of their location. Currently some of the most privacy-forward regulations in place are the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) and California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) in the US. MellowHelp recognizes all of the rights granted in these regulations, except as limited by applicable law. These rights include:
If you have questions about exercising these rights or need assistance, please contact us at privacy@mellowhelp.com.
If you are in the EU, you can identify your specific authority to file a complaint or find out more about GDPR, at https://edpb.europa.eu/about-edpb/board/members_en.
All data is encrypted via SSL/TLS when transmitted from our servers to your browser. The database backups are also encrypted.
Our products and other web properties are operated in the United States. If you are located in the European Union or elsewhere outside of the United States, please be aware that any information you provide to us will be transferred to and stored in the United States. By using our Site, participating in any of our services and/or providing us with your information, you consent to this transfer.
The GDPR requires that any data transferred out of the EU must be treated with the same level of protection that the EU privacy laws grant. The privacy laws of the United States generally do not meet that requirement. There are a few ad-hoc cases where EU personal data may be transferred to the US related to MellowHelp. For instance, if someone in the US comments on our blog or participates in one of our infrequent surveys. Such transfers are only occasional and transferred under the Article 49(1)(b) derogation under GDPR.
The EU-US Privacy Shield is an agreement between certain European jurisdictions and the United States that up until July 16, 2020, allowed for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. Participation in the Privacy Shield program is voluntary. The Swiss-US Privacy Shield is a similar program for data transferred to the US from Switzerland that was in effect until September 8, 2020.
MellowHelp complies with 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 information transferred from the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland to the United States, respectively. To learn more about the Privacy Shield program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.privacyshield.gov/.
The Privacy Shield Frameworks uphold specific principles, many of which are already outlined in the section on Your Rights. For clarity, pursuant to the Privacy Shield Frameworks, the following principles apply to all EU, UK, and Swiss data that has been transferred into the United States:
In compliance with the EU-US Privacy Shield Principles and the Swiss-US Privacy Shield Principles, we commit to resolve complaints about your privacy and our collection or use of your personal information. European Union, United Kingdom, or Swiss individuals with inquiries or complaints regarding this privacy policy should first contact us at privacy@mellowhelp.com.
We may update this policy as needed to comply with relevant regulations and reflect any new practices. Whenever we make a significant change to our policies, we will add it to a change log featured below.
Have any questions, comments, or concerns about this privacy policy, your data, or your rights with respect to your information? Please get in touch by emailing us at privacy@mellowhelp.com and we’ll be happy to answer them!
Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0