Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and what this policy covers

Boondoggle Studio, LLC, doing business as Hemingway Editor App (“Hemingway,” “we,” or “us”), provides writing tools. This policy covers our web app, including its free version and Editor Plus, our Microsoft Word add-in, the related website, and communications about those services. It covers the Word add-in whether installed through a supported marketplace or organization-managed channel; the installation channel does not change these protections. The legacy standalone desktop product remains outside this policy's scope and has its own applicable notice. Personal information means information that identifies, relates to, or can reasonably be linked to a person.

Contact us at support@hemingwayapp.com for privacy requests. You may also contact legal@hemingwayapp.com. Our mailing address is PO Box 72, Durham, NC 27702, United States.

For some activities, we decide why and how information is used. Privacy laws call us a “controller” for those activities. When we handle personal information in writing or other material on a business customer's instructions, we generally act as its “processor”—a company handling information on its behalf. Our Data Processing Addendum applies to covered processing under the applicable terms, including qualifying self-service business use. A separate signature is available on request. If an organization uses Hemingway to process your personal information, contact that organization with questions about its use of that information.

Additional notices may explain a particular feature or collection. They supplement this policy.

2. Your writing and AI features

Your working document normally stays in your browser or, when you use the Word add-in, wherever you save your Word files. Hemingway does not provide a cloud document library.

During an Editor Plus trial or paid plan, some AI features work automatically as you write; others run when you choose them. These features send the necessary text to Hemingway and the AI providers identified in our Service Providers and Subprocessors. This may include your instructions, a selected passage, surrounding context, or the full document text needed for the feature. Our providers return suggestions and other results.

We treat your writing, prompts, instructions, and AI output as confidential. We use them to provide the service, protect it against security threats and abuse, help with support requests, meet legal requirements, and handle permitted retention and deletion.

We and our AI providers do not use this content to train, fine-tune, or improve AI models. We do not enable voluntary provider sharing for model improvement. We do not sell your content, use it for advertising, or collect your writing to improve the product generally. These commitments describe our practices from this policy's effective date, not our historical practices.

People do not routinely read your AI requests for Hemingway. Limited human access may be needed for requested support, specific security or abuse investigations, or legal requirements. AI providers may also allow limited human review for security, abuse monitoring, or legal requirements.

3. Information we collect and why

Information	Where it comes from	What we use it for
Name, email, account ID, organization name, team membership, role, and account preferences	You, your organization administrator, and the sign-in service you choose	Create and operate accounts, manage team access, authenticate users, and provide support
Linked-login identity and authorization records, including OAuth tokens	Your chosen sign-in service and our authentication systems	Recognize the linked account and maintain or revoke authorized access
Authentication and session records, sign-in outcomes, organization SSO connection details, and identity attributes supplied for sign-in	WorkOS, your chosen identity provider, your organization, and our systems	Sign users in, enforce the organization's access rules, maintain or revoke sessions, and secure access, including sign-in to the Word add-in
Writing, prompts, instructions, and AI results	You or someone using the service for your organization	The limited editing, security, support, and legal purposes in section 2
Custom style guide or prompt instructions you choose to save	You or someone using the service for your organization	Store your instructions so we can apply them when editing; the protections in section 2 also apply
Plan, seats, AI-credit usage, subscription status, invoices, billing contact and payment-related information	You, your organization, Stripe, and invoice or wire-payment records	Provide purchased access; calculate usage; process payments, refunds, and disputes; maintain required financial records
Account-linked feature events, event sequence, duration, token counts, success or failure status, and similar measurements	Product use and our systems	Help users, diagnose problems, measure reliability and conversion, and evaluate features
IP address, browser and device information, page and request information, approximate location derived from technical information, cookie identifiers, and security signals	Your browser or device, our systems, and service providers	Deliver pages, maintain sessions, prevent abuse, investigate failures, and measure permitted website activity
Messages, attachments, contact details, support history, and feedback	You and people communicating with us for you	Answer questions, resolve problems, manage the relationship, and address disputes
Marketing preferences, email delivery/failure information, referral and campaign information	You, email delivery systems, and referral or website tools	Send permitted communications, honor preferences, troubleshoot delivery, and credit referrals; email open and click tracking are disabled

We may link usage and error records to your account to provide support, understand feature use, and maintain the service. These records do not contain your writing, prompts, saved instructions, or AI output. We may also combine these measurements into summary statistics.

Google sign-in provides basic identity and profile information, including your email address. It does not give us access to your Gmail, Drive documents, Calendar, or contacts. If you use organization SSO, we and our sign-in provider receive the identity and access information needed to sign you in.

We need certain account and payment information to create your account and provide paid services. You do not have to provide optional feedback or agree to marketing to use your purchased service.

4. Cookies, website measurement, and email

We use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember settings, and protect the service. We also measure website visits, understand how people use features, and track referrals. Our basic website measurement does not use analytics cookies or persistent visitor identifiers. Product analytics and referral tracking are optional.

Our email provider records whether messages were delivered or bounced, along with spam complaints and unsubscribe requests. We do not track email opens or clicks.

Where the law requires permission for optional technologies, we ask before using them and let you change your choice. Use Privacy choices in the user menu to allow or reject optional uses, or choose separately whether to allow product analytics and affiliate attribution. We honor legally required opt-out preference signals. Global Privacy Control (GPC) disables both optional purposes. Older “Do Not Track” signals are different and do not themselves change our practices. You can also control cookies in your browser. Blocking necessary cookies can prevent sign-in or other features from working.

We do not use advertising pixels or cross-site advertising trackers on the services covered by this policy. We do not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, meaning advertising based on activity across different companies' services.

5. Who receives information

We share information with the types of recipients below, limited to what they need for the stated purposes. Our Service Providers and Subprocessors directory names providers we use or may use and identifies their covered work under the DPA. Not every provider receives your information.

Type of recipient	Purpose and information
Hosting and databases	Run Hemingway and store service records. Process account information, service requests including text sent for AI processing, and technical logs.
AI processing	Process your text and instructions to provide AI features and return results. Also process request and usage information needed to provide and secure the AI service.
Authentication	Handle sign-in and sessions. Process identity and contact details, organization membership, sign-in records, and credentials or tokens needed to authenticate you.
Error reporting	Help detect and investigate errors. Reports may include your Hemingway account ID, but not your email address or writing.
Optional product analytics	Help us understand feature use and the steps people take before subscribing. Receive account-linked usage information when you allow product analytics, without your writing, prompts, saved instructions, or AI output.
Email delivery	Send login messages, invitations, service emails, and permitted marketing. Process email addresses, message contents, delivery results, and email preferences. Email open and click tracking are disabled.
Support and business communications	Store and manage support and billing correspondence, business email, appointments, and related contact or meeting information. May also serve embedded legal documents where used. Text and attachments you send us remain subject to our content protections.
Payments and billing	Process subscriptions, payments, invoices, and related information, including fraud checks. A payment provider's own privacy notice covers its independent uses of that information.
Abuse prevention	Use browser and security information on relevant pages to detect automated abuse.
Website measurement	Measure visits and traffic sources without analytics cookies or persistent visitor identifiers. Our basic website measurement provider processes this information in the EU.
Optional referral tracking	Track referrals when you allow affiliate attribution and manage related commission records. Process referral identifiers and relevant customer or affiliate information.

If you choose Google sign-in, Google verifies your identity and supplies basic account information under its own account-service terms. If you use organization SSO, your organization's chosen provider verifies your identity and supplies the information needed to give you access. These providers operate under your or your organization's arrangements with them.

When the DPA applies, it explains how we notify you about changes to subprocessors and how you can object.

If you belong to a team, administrators can manage membership and see each member's total AI-credit usage. We limit administrative access to information needed for authorized account and team-management functions. Your organization may have separate access through its own devices or systems, including Microsoft services.

We may share information with professional advisers who need it for their work and are bound by appropriate confidentiality duties, subject to the limits in your agreement. We may also disclose information as required by law or as necessary for security or abuse investigations permitted by your agreement. Where legally allowed, we redirect demands for customer material to the customer and notify them before disclosure. We disclose only what is required.

Information may be transferred as part of a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of our business or assets, subject to applicable law. Any successor must honor the applicable contractual protections for your information.

We may also share information when you ask us to. External sites and services you choose to use have their own privacy notices.

6. Where information is processed

Hemingway's application and database hosting are in the United States. Our main Render services are in Ohio and our analytics gateway is in Oregon. Providers and their staff or subprocessors may process information in other countries, including information in support and Workspace services. U.S. application hosting does not mean every copy or support interaction stays in the United States.

Where transfer law requires protection for information sent from the EEA or UK, we use the applicable transfer safeguards, including the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK transfer addendum where needed. These are contractual rules intended to protect information after it crosses borders. Ask support for information about the safeguards or a copy, with permitted redactions. We do not promise European storage, U.S.-only AI processing, or a Hemingway certification under the Data Privacy Framework.

7. How long we keep information

We keep information for the purposes described in this policy. Our Retention Schedule explains the periods and deletion rules for each type of record.

Canceling your paid subscription normally leaves your free account available. It does not close your account or delete the information needed to provide that service.

We delete eligible account records and saved instructions within 30 calendar days after a valid deletion instruction or the end of the relevant processing on a customer's behalf, unless an earlier deadline applies. The DPA and Retention Schedule explain which records this covers and how to request a copy before deletion.

Some records remain after account closure. We retain business correspondence indefinitely for support, billing, and relationship history, subject to applicable privacy requirements and the DPA where it applies. This includes text or attachments you send us for support, but not automatic retention of writing entered into the editor. We also retain financial and referral records, email preferences, and limited records of contract acceptance and privacy requests for their permitted purposes.

AI providers may retain requests for security, abuse prevention, or legal requirements. Analytics, error reports, email delivery records, and backups follow the separate rules in the Retention Schedule. We review whether personal information is still needed and delete or deidentify it when its permitted purpose ends, unless the law requires retention.

Closing your Hemingway account does not delete documents stored in your browser, Word, or storage controlled by you or your organization. Signing out does not clear your browser's working document; clear it yourself when appropriate, especially on a shared device.

8. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards appropriate to the information and service, including access restrictions and encryption for data in transit and stored service records. Access to protected content is limited to authorized people and providers who need it for a permitted purpose. No system can guarantee absolute security. This does not limit our contractual or legal security duties.

Please secure your account, device, and browser profile. Avoid sending unnecessary confidential material in a support request. Our terms identify restricted types of information the service does not support.

9. Your choices and rights

Email support@hemingwayapp.com to request access, a copy, correction, deletion, or information about our practices. Depending on the law that applies, you may also object to certain uses, ask us to restrict processing, withdraw consent, request portability, or appeal a refusal. We will not unlawfully discriminate against you for exercising a right.

We may ask for information reasonably needed to verify your identity or an authorized agent's authority. We use that information to handle the request and prevent unauthorized disclosure. We respond within the period required by applicable law and explain a permitted extension or refusal. To appeal where that right applies, reply to our response or email support with “Privacy appeal” in the subject. Our response will explain any further complaint route required by law.

If your request concerns information a business customer asked us to process, we will help direct it to that customer and assist the customer as required. This does not prevent you from contacting us about records for which we are responsible. We can return appropriate stored service records; we cannot export a cloud document archive we do not hold.

Unsubscribe from marketing using the link in the message, updating Email preferences in your account settings, or contacting support. We may still send necessary account, payment, security, or service messages. Where a product offers device notifications, you can manage them in device settings. Disconnecting Google sign-in or revoking Google's permission does not by itself delete the Hemingway account or information already received.

EEA and UK

Where the relevant law applies and Hemingway is controller, we rely on the following bases:

Activity	Basis
Provide an account and purchased service to you as an individual contracting party	Perform our contract with you
Manage business-customer contacts and access, answer requests, protect the service, and handle permitted content-free reliability and product measurement	Our legitimate interests in running and securing the service, subject to your rights and the required balancing assessment; consent where required for the technology or use
Accounting, legally required disclosures, and applicable rights requests	Comply with legal obligations
Optional cookies and communications where permission is required	Your consent, which you may withdraw without affecting earlier lawful processing
Other permitted marketing	Consent or a legally available basis for that communication, subject to opt-out rights

For customer-directed processing, the customer determines its lawful basis; our DPA governs our instructions. We do not use customer content to make automated decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about people. Writing suggestions can be inaccurate and should be reviewed.

You may complain to your local data-protection authority, including the UK Information Commissioner's Office.

California and other U.S. states

Where applicable, your rights include knowing the categories and specific information collected, the sources, purposes and recipients; correction; deletion; and opting out of sale, sharing, or covered targeted advertising. Applicable law may also let you limit certain uses of sensitive personal information. We use sensitive information, such as account credentials or information in a requested document, for the requested service and other legally permitted limited purposes; we do not use it to infer sensitive characteristics for unrelated purposes.

Sections 3 and 5 describe categories, sources, purposes, and recipients.

California residents may also request information available under California's Shine the Light law about disclosures for other companies' direct marketing during the preceding calendar year. Email support or legal with “CA Privacy Rights Request.” Where the law applies, the request is available once a year without charge.

10. Children

Our service is not directed to children under 13. If we learn that we have collected information from a child under 13 in violation of applicable law, we take appropriate steps to delete it. Parents and guardians can contact support. The Terms of Use may impose additional age and permission requirements.

11. Changes

We will post the current version and effective date here. We will give additional notice of material changes when required, through the service or email, and obtain consent when law requires it. The notice and effective-date protections in your agreement also apply. Covered subprocessor changes follow the DPA's separate rules. Posting a Privacy Policy update does not bypass those protections, authorize a new use that requires consent, or override an applicable agreement. Earlier processing remains subject to applicable law and the obligations governing it.