How to Invoke California Privacy Laws?
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I’m trying to exercise my rights under the California privacy laws to direct Auttomatic to not sell my Simplenote personal information, and find out what they’ve collected.
Their privacy policy says “You can learn more about this sharing and how to opt out by clicking the “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” link in the footer of our websites, or from the settings page within our apps.” I don’t see that link on automattic.com or simplenote.com, or in Windows Simplenote under Settings.
There is a Contact Us form that says “you can contact our general mailbox below, and should hear back within a few weeks.”
Does anyone know where to find a better or faster way to make these requests of Auttomatic under the California privacy laws?
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(The page footers do have a link “Privacy Notice for California Users,” but it points to a broken link within the general privacy policy page, so just goes to the top of that page.)
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Hi @toolworker1! Good catch on that broken link. It looks like that section was expanded to cover states other than California, and should point to here: https://automattic.com/privacy/#us-privacy-laws
I will get that updated. At any rate, the information there should apply broadly.
The footer banner should be displayed, but it will remember if you have ever clicked to dismiss it, and may not be displayed in all locations. I’ve also seen it be blocked by various browser extensions and settings, such as ad-blockers. So paradoxically you might need to disable some privacy settings in order to access the cookie settings (which do use cookies to track opt-out status).
You might be interested in the information on the cookie-specific page, which includes links to manage and opt-out of information gathered in this manner: https://automattic.com/cookies/
As far as Simplenote specifically is concerned, we don’t track much about you (aside from typical HTTP server logs, which include metadata like IP addresses and browser agent, and are deleted after 90 days) and we never sell or share the contents of your notes. You can export all of your note data from within the app’s settings. You can also go to the settings within the app to opt-out of analytics tracking, which we use to help us find bugs and see how frequently certain features are used.
Definitely go ahead and contact us via the form if this doesn’t answer your question!
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