Substack - Terms of Use & Privacy Policy

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Terms of Use

Effective date: September 15, 2020

Welcome to Substack!

These Terms of Use are a binding contract between you and Substack Inc. (“we”, “us”, “our”). It contains the rules and restrictions that govern your use of Substack’s products and services (referred to below simply as “Substack”). If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding these Terms or our products and services, please contact us at tos@substackinc.com.

Using Substack in any way means that you agree to all of these Terms, and these Terms will remain in effect while you use Substack. These Terms include everything in this document, as well as those in the Privacy Policy, Publisher Agreement, Content Guidelines, and Copyright Dispute Policy. If you don’t agree to all of the following, you may not use or access Substack in any manner.

You represent and warrant that you are of legal age to form a binding contract (or if not, that you’ve received your parent’s or guardian’s permission to use Substack and that your parent or guardian agrees to these Terms on your behalf).

If you’re agreeing to these Terms on behalf of an organization or entity, you represent and warrant that you are authorized to agree to these Terms on that organization or entity’s behalf and bind them to these Terms (in which case, the references to “you” and “your” throughout this document refer to that organization or entity).

Creating an Account on Substack

You may be required to sign up for an account and select a password. You promise to provide us with accurate, complete, and up-to-date registration information about yourself.

You agree that you will only use Substack for your own personal or organizational use, and not on behalf of or for the benefit of any third party. You may not transfer your account to anyone else without our prior written permission.

You may not select as your Substack account name a name that you don’t have the right to use, or another person’s name with the intent to impersonate that person. Substack reserves the right to refuse registration of or cancel a Substack account name at its discretion.

Posting Content on Substack

First and foremost, you own what you create. Any original content you post, upload, share, store, or otherwise provide to Substack remains yours and is protected by copyright and any other applicable intellectual property laws.

That includes newsletters, subscriber lists, any other text or photos you upload to your subdomain on Substack, and any information that you provide to obtain a Substack username and account. It also includes any comments posted on any current or future discussion board features on Substack.

Anything posted, uploaded, shared, stored, or otherwise provided through Substack is referred to as a “Post” in these Terms. There are a few rules that apply to all Posts:

Don’t Infringe: Your Posts should not violate someone else’s (including Substack’s) rights. Don’t copy, reproduce, modify, translate, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, upload, display, license, sell, commercialize or otherwise exploit for any purpose any content not owned by you unless you have prior consent from the owner of that content.

Limited License to Us: In order to display your Posts on Substack, and to allow other users to enjoy them, you grant us certain rights in your Posts:

Operating Substack: You hereby grant Substack a license to translate, modify, reproduce, and otherwise act with respect to your Posts to enable us to provide, improve, and notify you about new features within Substack. You understand and agree that we may need to make changes to your Posts to conform and adapt those Posts to the technical requirements of networks, devices, services, or media, and this license includes the rights to do so. For example, we may need to modify your newsletter to make sure it is viewable on an iPhone as well as a computer.

Public Posts: If you share a Post with other users on Substack, then you grant us the license above, as well as a license to display, perform, and distribute your Post. Also, you grant all other users of Substack a license to access the Post, and to use and exercise all rights in it, as permitted by the functionality of Substack.

Term of License: You agree that the licenses you grant are royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and worldwide. This is a license only – your ownership in Posts is not affected.

We reserve the right to remove any content from Substack at any time, for any reason (including, but not limited to, if someone alleges you contributed that content in violation of these Terms), in our sole discretion, and without notice.

Intellectual Property and Reporting Infringement

We respect others’ intellectual property rights, and we reserve the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing, and to terminate the accounts of repeat alleged infringers. You promise to abide by copyright notices, trademark rules, information, and other restrictions you may receive from us or that are posted on Substack.

To review our complete Copyright Dispute Policy and learn how to report potentially infringing content, click here. To learn more about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which governs how we handle these reports, click here.

You understand that we own Substack. These Terms don’t grant you any right, title or interest in Substack, or our trademarks, logos, and other intellectual property.

Acceptable Use Policy

You are responsible for all your activity in connection with Substack! Make sure that you use Substack in a manner that complies with the law. If your use of Substack is prohibited by applicable laws, then you aren’t authorized to use Substack. We can’t and won’t be responsible for you using Substack in a way that breaks the law.

You also agree that you will not contribute any Post or otherwise use Substack in a manner that:

Is fraudulent or threatening, or in any way violates Substack’s Content Guidelines;

Jeopardizes the security of your Substack account or anyone else’s (such as allowing someone else to log into Substack as you, or sharing your account or password with someone);

Attempts, in any manner, to obtain the password, account, or other security information of any other user;

Violates the security of any computer network, or cracks any passwords or security encryption codes;

Runs Maillist, Listserv, any form of auto-responder or “spam” on Substack, or any processes that run or are activated while you are not logged into Substack, or that otherwise interferes with the proper working of Substack (including placing an unreasonable load on Substack’s infrastructure);

“Crawls,” “scrapes,” or “spiders” any page, data, or portion of Substack (through use of manual or automated means);

Copies or stores any significant portion of the content on Substack;

Decompiles, reverse engineers, or otherwise attempts to obtain the source code or underlying ideas or information of or relating to Substack.

Other Users and Third-Parties

Posts: Posts posted to Substack – including Publisher newsletters – are the sole responsibility of the person or organization from whom such content originated. You access all such content at your own risk. We aren’t liable for any errors or omissions in any Post and you hereby release us from any damages or loss you might suffer in connection with a Post.
Other Users on Substack: Your interactions with organizations and individuals found on or through Substack, including payment for Publisher newsletters, and any other terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such dealings, are solely between you and such organizations and individuals. You agree that Substack shall not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred as the result of any such dealings. We can’t guarantee the identity of any users with access to Substack and are not responsible for which users gain access to our products and services.

Third-Party Content: Substack may contain links or connections to third party websites or services that are not owned or controlled by us. Substack has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, accuracy, privacy policies, or practices of or opinions expressed in any third-party websites. You release and hold us harmless from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website or service.

In the event that you have a dispute with one or more other users of Substack or with a third party, you release us, our officers, employees, agents, and successors from claims, demands, and damages of every kind or nature, known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and/or Substack.

Paid Subscriptions on Substack

If you publish newsletters through Substack, you are a Publisher. If you subscribe to Publisher newsletters, you are a Reader. Readers subscribe to newsletters directly through the Publisher’s subdomain on Substack.

A Publisher may offer their newsletters for free or for a subscription fee, to be determined in the Publisher’s discretion. Readers may choose to subscribe to Publisher newsletters on Substack and agree to incur any applicable subscription fees.

Publishers will set prices for their newsletters, and may change the prices at their sole discretion through their Publisher account, though no price changes shall apply retroactively.

In the event that a Reader has a dispute with a Publisher, you agree that Substack is under no obligation to become involved other than to direct any inquiries regarding a Publisher’s newsletter to the appropriate Publisher pursuant to the Publisher Agreement. To learn more about how Substack manages its relationships with Publishers, you should check out the Publisher Agreement.

Terminating Your Account

Substack is free to terminate (or suspend access to) your use of Substack, or your account, for any reason at our discretion. We will try to provide advance notice to you prior to our terminating your account so that you are able to retrieve any important Posts you may have uploaded to your account, but we may not do so if we determine it would be impractical, illegal, not in the interest of someone’s safety or security, or otherwise harmful to the rights or property of Substack.

Substack also allows you to delete your account at any time. When you delete your account, any Posts associated with that account will also be deleted. However, any Post that you have made public may remain available.

You understand and agree that it may not be possible to completely delete your content from Substack’s records or backups, and that your Posts may remain viewable elsewhere to the extent that they were copied or stored by other users. Please refer to our Privacy Policy to understand how we treat information you provide to us after you have stopped using Substack.

You agree that some of the obligations in these Terms will be in force even after you terminate your account. All of the following terms will survive termination: any obligation you have to pay us or indemnify us, any limitations on our liability, any terms regarding ownership or intellectual property rights, terms regarding disputes between us, and any other terms that, by their nature, should survive termination of these Terms.

If you have deleted your account by mistake, contact us immediately at tos@substackinc.com – we will try to help, but unfortunately, we can’t promise that we can recover or restore anything.

Privacy on Substack

Substack takes your privacy very seriously. For the current Substack Privacy Policy, please click here.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) requires that online service providers obtain parental consent before they knowingly collect personally identifiable information online from children who are under 13. We do not knowingly collect or solicit personally identifiable information from children under 13; if you are a child under 13, please do not attempt to register for Substack or send any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child under 13 may have provided us personal information, please contact us at tos@substackinc.com.

Changes to Substack

We’re always trying to improve Substack, so our products and services may change over time. We may suspend or discontinue any part of Substack, or we may introduce new features or impose limits on certain features or restrict access to parts or all of Substack. We’ll try to give you notice when we make a material change to Substack that would adversely affect you, but this isn’t always possible or practical.

Changes to the Terms

We are constantly trying to improve our products and services, so these Terms may need to change along with Substack. We reserve the right to change the Terms at any time, but if we do, we will bring it to your attention by placing a notice on the website, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means.

If you don’t agree with the new Terms, you are free to reject them; unfortunately, that means you will no longer be able to use Substack. If you use Substack in any way after a change to the Terms is effective and notice has been provided, that means you agree to all of the changes.

Except for changes by us as described here, no other amendment or modification of these Terms will be effective unless in writing and signed by both you and us.

Violations of the Terms

Failure to follow any of these Terms shall constitute a breach of these Terms, which may result in immediate termination of your account. Substack has the sole right to decide whether you are in violation of any of the restrictions set forth in these Terms.

Miscellaneous Terms

The above covers most of the questions that we typically receive about Substack. We have grouped provisions that come up less frequently below:

No Warranties: Substack is provided to you on an “as-is” basis. This means we provide it to you without any express or implied warranties of any kind. That includes any implied warranties of merchantability, warranties of fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or any warranty that the use of Substack will be uninterrupted or error-free. Accordingly, we do not:

Make any representations or warranties about any content contained in or accessed through Substack, and we will not be responsible for the accuracy, copyright compliance, legality, or decency of material contained on our products and services.

Make any representations or warranties regarding suggestions or recommendations of products or services (including Publisher newsletters) offered or purchased through Substack. Products and services purchased or offered through Substack, including newsletters, are provided “as-is” and without any warranty of any kind from Substack.

Limitation of Liability: To the fullest extent allowed by applicable law, under no circumstances and under no legal theory shall Substack, its licensors, or its suppliers be liable to you or to any other person for:

Any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind, or

Any amount, in the aggregate, in excess of the greater of (1) $100 or (2) the amounts paid and/or payable by you to us in connection with Substack in the twelve-month period preceding the applicable claim.

Indemnification: To the fullest extent allowed by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold Substack, its affiliates, officers, agents, employees, and partners harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages (actual and consequential), losses and expenses (including attorneys’ fees) arising from or in any way related to any third party claims relating to (a) your use of Substack (including any actions taken by a third party using your account), and (b) your violation of these Terms. In the event of such a claim, suit, or action, we will attempt to provide notice to the contact information we have for your account (provided that failure to deliver such notice shall not eliminate or reduce your indemnification obligations hereunder).

Assignment: You may not assign, delegate or transfer these Terms or your rights or obligations hereunder, or your Substack account, in any way (by operation of law or otherwise) without our prior written consent. We may transfer, assign, or delegate these Terms and our rights and obligations without consent.

Choice of Law: These Terms are governed by and will be construed under applicable federal law and the laws of the State of California, without regard to the conflicts of laws provisions thereof.

Arbitration and Class Action Waiver: Any dispute arising from or relating to the subject matter of these Terms shall be finally settled by arbitration in San Francisco County, California, in accordance with the Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures of Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services, Inc. (“JAMS”) then in effect, by one commercial arbitrator with substantial experience in resolving intellectual property and commercial contract disputes, who shall be selected from the appropriate list of JAMS arbitrators in accordance with the Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures of JAMS. Judgment upon the award so rendered may be entered in a court having jurisdiction, or application may be made to such court for judicial acceptance of any award and an order of enforcement, as the case may be. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you and Substack shall have the right to institute an action in a court of proper jurisdiction for injunctive or other equitable relief pending a final decision by the arbitrator. For all purposes of these Terms, you consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in the state or federal courts located in, respectively, San Francisco County, California, or the Northern District of California. The prevailing party in any action or proceeding arising out of these Terms will be entitled to an award of costs and attorneys’ fees. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and Substack Inc agree that all claims against the other can only be brought in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, consolidated, or other representative proceeding. We agree that arbitrators may not conduct any class, consolidated, or representative proceeding, and are limited to providing relief warranted by an individual party's claim.

No Third-Party Beneficiaries: We agree there are no third-party beneficiaries intended under these Terms.

No Joint Venture: You hereby acknowledge and agree that you are not an employee, agent, partner, or joint venture of Substack Inc., and you do not have any authority of any kind to bind us in any respect whatsoever.

Waiver: The failure of either you or us to exercise, in any way, any right herein shall not be deemed a waiver of any further rights hereunder.

Severability: If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated, to the minimum extent necessary, so that these Terms shall otherwise remain in full force and effect and enforceable.

Entire Agreement: You agree that these Terms are the complete and exclusive statement of the mutual understanding between you and us, and that it supersedes and cancels all previous written and oral agreements, communications and other understandings relating to the subject matter of these Terms.

Source: https://substack.com/tos

Privacy Policy

Last Updated: September 17, 2020

We at Substack Inc. (“Substack”, “we”, or “us”) know you care about how your personal information is used and shared, and we take your privacy seriously.This Privacy Policy outlines how we collect, use, and share personal information. Please read it carefully, because by using or accessing the Services in any manner, you accept and consent to the practices and policies described below.

Remember that your use of Substack’s Services is at all times subject to the Terms of Use, which incorporates this Privacy Policy. Any terms we use in this Privacy Policy without defining them have the definitions given to them in the Terms of Use. This Privacy Policy includes additional notices that may apply to you if you are a California consumer. Please see the section further below titled "Additional Notices for California Residents" for more details.

What does this Privacy Policy cover?

This Privacy Policy covers our treatment of personally identifiable information ("Personal Information") that we gather when you are accessing or using our Services, but not to the practices of companies we don’t own or control, or people that we don’t manage. As described further below, a Publisher’s EULA governs its use of Personal Information it collects from an End User on the Publisher’s subdomain on the Services. We gather various types of Personal Information from our users, as explained in more detail below, and we use this Personal Information internally in connection with our Services, including to personalize, provide, and improve our Services, to allow you to set up a user account and profile, to contact you and allow other users to contact you, to fulfill your requests for certain Publisher Newsletters, and to analyze how you use the Services. In certain cases, we may also share some Personal Information with third parties, but only as described below.

Will Substack ever change this Privacy Policy?

We’re constantly trying to improve our Services, so we may need to change this Privacy Policy from time to time as well, but we will alert you to changes by placing a notice on the Services, by sending you an email, and/or by some other means. Please note that if you’ve opted not to receive legal notice emails from us (or you haven’t provided us with your email address), those legal notices will still govern your use of the Services, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them. If you use the Services after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted, that means you agree to all of the changes.

What Information does Substack Collect?

Information You Provide to Us

We receive and store any information you knowingly provide to us. For example, through the registration process and/or through your account settings, we may collect, without limitation, Personal Information such as your name, email address, and phone number. Certain information may be required to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features.

We may communicate with you if you’ve provided us the means to do so. For example, if you’ve given us your email address, we may email you about your use of the Services. Also, we may receive a confirmation when you open an email from us. This confirmation helps us make our communications with you more interesting and improve our Services. If you do not want to receive communications from us, please indicate your preference by emailing us at privacy@substackinc.com or by following the opt-out instructions contained in such emails.

Information Substack Writers Provide to Us

We offer Publishers the ability to bring their existing mailing lists to Substack, meaning Publishers may share your email address with us. Publishers represent to us that they have your permission to use your email address on our platform. If you believe your information was provided to Substack wrongfully, please email us at privacy@substackinc.com or, if applicable, use our CCPA processes to request removal of that information. Note also that Publishers may have their own privacy policies and practices around their use of your information, which we encourage you to review and understand.

Information Collected Automatically

Whenever you interact with our Services, we automatically receive and record information on our server logs from your browser or device, which may include your IP address, geolocation data, device identification, “cookie” information, the type of browser and/or device you’re using to access our Services, and the page or feature you requested. “Cookies” are identifiers we transfer to your browser or device that allow us to recognize your browser or device and tell us how and when pages and features in our Services are visited and by how many people. You may be able to change the preferences on your browser or device to prevent or limit your device’s acceptance of cookies, but this may prevent you from taking advantage of some of our features. Also, if you click on a link to a third party website or service, such third party may also transmit cookies to you. Again, this Privacy Policy does not cover the use of cookies by any third parties, and we aren’t responsible for their privacy policies and practices. Please be aware that cookies placed by third parties may continue to track your activities online even after you have left our Services, and those third parties may not honor “Do Not Track” requests you have set using your browser or device.

We may use this data to customize Content for you that we think you might like, based on your usage patterns. We may also use it to improve the Services - for example, this data can tell us how often users use a particular feature of the Services, and we can use that knowledge to make the Services interesting to as many users as possible.

Information Collected From Other Websites and Do Not Track Policy

Through cookies we place on your browser or device, we may collect information about your online activity after you leave our Services. Just like any other usage information we collect, this information allows us to improve the Services and customize your online experience, and otherwise as described in this Privacy Policy. Your browser may offer you a “Do Not Track” option, which allows you to signal to operators of websites and web applications and services (including behavioral advertising services) that you do not wish such operators to track certain of your online activities over time and across different websites. Our Services do not support Do Not Track requests at this time, which means that we collect information about your online activity both while you are using the Services and after you leave our Services.

Will Substack Share Any of the Personal Information it Receives?

We may share your Personal Information with third parties as described below:

Information that’s been de-identified. We may de-identify your Personal Information so that you are not identified as an individual, and provide that information to our partners. We may also provide aggregate usage information to our partners (or allow partners to collect that information from you), who may use such information to understand how often and in what ways people use our Services, so that they, too, can provide you with an optimal online experience. However, we never disclose aggregate usage or de-identified information to a partner (or allow a partner to collect such information) in a manner that would identify you as an individual.

Affiliates: We may disclose your Personal Information to our subsidiaries and/or corporate affiliates for use consistent with this Privacy Policy.

Publishers: Publishers are granted access to certain information about End Users who subscribe to such Publisher’s Newsletters. Substack does prohibit Publishers from collecting or using any information beyond what Substack itself collects and uses pursuant to this Privacy Policy, but this does not mean we are responsible for reviewing or verifying the accuracy of any Publisher’s data collection or use policies. Publishers are solely responsible for complying with any laws and regulations that apply to End Users’ information, including without limitation the posting of any EULA on their subdomain on the Services. Substack is not liable for Publishers’ relationship with End Users. We encourage you to review Publishers’ individual privacy policies for more information regarding their use of and access to your Personal Information. We have no control over the policies and practices of third party websites or businesses (or providers of Publisher Newsletters) as to privacy or anything else, so if you choose to take part in any transaction or service relating to an affiliated website or business, please review all such business’ or websites’ policies.

Our Service Providers: We employ other companies and people to perform tasks on our behalf and need to share your Personal Information with them to provide products or services to you; for example, we may use a Third Party Payment Processor to receive and process your credit card transactions for us, such as Stripe. Any payment card information you use to make a purchase on the Services is collected and processed directly by our payment processor, Stripe, and we never physically receive or store your full payment card information. Stripe commits to complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and using industry standard security. Stripe may use your Payment Information in accordance with its own Privacy Policy here: https://stripe.com/privacy.

User Profiles and Submissions:If your user profile allows it, you may choose to populate certain user profile information, including, without limitation, your name, location, and any image content. Any user profile information uploaded to the Services may be displayed to other users to facilitate user interaction within the Services. Your account privacy settings may allow you to limit the other users who can see the Personal Information in your user profile and/or what information in your user profile is visible to others. Please remember that any Content you upload to your public user profile, along with any Personal Information or Content that you voluntarily disclose online in a manner other users can view (on discussion boards, in chat areas, etc.) becomes publicly available, and can be collected and used by anyone. Your user name may also be displayed to other users if and when you post comments or upload images or videos through the Services and other users can contact you through comments.

Business Transfers: We may choose to buy or sell assets, and may share and/or transfer customer information in connection with the evaluation of and entry into such transactions.Also, if we (or our assets) are acquired, or if we go out of business, enter bankruptcy, or go through some other change of control, Personal Information could be one of the assets transferred to or acquired by a third party.

Protection of Substack and Others: We reserve the right to access, read, preserve, and disclose any information that we believe is necessary to comply with law or court order; enforce or apply our Terms of Use and other agreements; or protect the rights, property, or safety of Substack, our employees, our users, or others.

Is Personal Information about me secure?

Your account is protected by a password for your privacy and security. You must prevent unauthorized access to your account and Personal Information by selecting and protecting your password appropriately and limiting access to your computer or device and browser by signing off after you have finished accessing your account.

We endeavor to protect the privacy of your account and other Personal Information we hold in our records, but unfortunately, we cannot guarantee complete security. Unauthorized entry or use, failure of the Services, or other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time.

What Personal Information can I access?

Through your account settings, you may access, and, in some cases, edit or delete the following information you’ve provided to us:

name and password
email address
user profile information, including images you may have uploaded to the site

The information you can view, update, and delete may change as the Services change. If you have any questions about viewing or updating information we have on file about you, please contact us at privacy@substackinc.com.

What choices do I have?

You can always opt not to disclose information to us, but keep in mind some information may be needed to register with us or to take advantage of some of our features.

You may be able to add, update, or delete information as explained above. When you update information, however, we may maintain a copy of the unrevised information in our records. You may request deletion of your account by emailing us at privacy@substackinc.com. Some information may remain in our records after your deletion of such information from your account. We may use any aggregated data derived from or incorporating your Personal Information after you update or delete it, but not in a manner that would identify you personally.

If you are a California consumer, please see the section further below titled "Additional Notices for California Residents" for more notices regarding your Personal Information.

What if I have questions about this policy?

If you have any questions or concerns regarding our privacy policies, please send us a detailed message to privacy@substackinc.com, and we will try to resolve your concerns.

Additional Notices for California Residents

Substack has prepared additional disclosures and notices consistent with the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). Our CCPA Policy, the terms of which are incorporated by reference into this Privacy Policy, can be found here.

Source: https://substack.com/privacy