Privacy policy
Here at Scribehound, we understand the importance of your privacy. The 2018 General Data Protection Regulation means we’re publishing this privacy notice to make it easier for you to find out how we use and protect your information.
Scribehound will not sell your personal information, nor pass it to a third party to market to you. The only circumstance in which your subscription information may move to another organisation is where the ownership of a publication or collective changes and that organisation takes it on to continue delivering your subscription — see 'Business transfers and change of ownership' below. We will always tell you if that happens.
1. Our use of cookies
Our website uses cookies to provide you with the best experience while using our site and to help keep our site free to members.
Our use of cookies is kept to a minimum, and mostly to those that keep our business functioning. These include internal/first party cookies to keep a user logged in to the website, for example, or cookies to establish website performance and usage from third parties such as Google Analytics or Hotjar. Other cookies may be used from the likes of Stripe to take payments on our website. We also use cookies to provide advertising which funds the business and may also use cookies to provide a more targeted advertising experience both on and off our website. We must stress that any of this information gathered is non-personally identifiable information.
The information gathered, based on your browsing, allows Scribehound to earn revenue in the form of advertising. We sometimes use a third-party service to carry out this advertising but again, no personally identifiable information is used in this practice.
2. What personal information do we collect?
You can browse without sharing information with us, unless you choose to subscribe to our newsletter. A newsletter subscription requires a full name and email address.
Subscribers to Scribehound are required to give card details and the required information for a payment to be accepted, on top of a full name and email address.
For the content creators on Scribehound, we require personal information in order to publish articles. This will also include a public-facing biography and a profile picture. We will need contact details for you to discuss your content at any time too.
Where a writer uploads their own mailing list, we will also process the email addresses (and, where provided, names) of those contacts.
3. How do we use the personal information we collect?
We keep a secure database of all of our user's information. Your contact information is used to send emails to you, if you have opted in, and other information is used for Scribehound to contact you.
For imported lists, personal information is used solely to deliver the writer's content to those contacts.
4. Will this personal information ever be used for any other purpose?
The only time we would ever use your personal information for any other reason is to aid the proper authorities in finding anything fraudulent or illegal. Your information is stored in our database and is not shared with any third parties. We will not use the information to make any automated decisions that might affect you.
For imported lists, personal information will never be used for other purposes, including Scribehound's own marketing, unless the contact separately opts in.
5. How long do we keep your information for?
Your information is kept for as long as you continue to consent.
For imported lists, we keep the data until the writer deletes it, the contact unsubscribes, or the writer ceases to use Scribehound, whichever occurs first.
6. What does Scribehound do with my email address?
Users who have opted in to receive emails from Scribehound will receive our new content notifications. The frequency of these can be personalised in your account section. If you wish not to receive these messages, you can unsubscribe at any time.
7. Does Scribehound sell my personal information to a third party?
No. We do not sell your personal information. The only time your subscription information moves to another organisation is on a change of ownership of a publication or collective, purely so your subscription continues — see 'Business transfers and change of ownership'.
If you have questions about our usage of your personal information, please contact us.
8. When writers import contact lists
Where writers upload their own mailing lists, this activity is also governed by the Writer Terms & Conditions and the Data Processing Appendix. Writers should review those documents for their obligations as controllers. This Privacy Policy explains how Scribehound processes that data as a processor.
Some writers may upload their own mailing lists to Scribehound so that their existing readers can continue to receive their content through our platform. In those cases:
'Writer as controller': the writer remains the data controller for their imported contacts. They are responsible for ensuring they have a lawful basis (such as consent) to use those email addresses.
'Scribehound as processor': Scribehound can act as a data processor, meaning we only process those contacts on the writer's instructions and solely for the purpose of sending the writer's content.
No wider use: we do not use imported contact lists for our own marketing or share them with other writers. Imported contacts will only receive the content of the writer who uploaded them, unless they separately choose to subscribe to Scribehound directly.
Unsubscribes: all emails sent to imported contacts will contain a clear unsubscribe link. If a recipient unsubscribes, we will immediately suppress their email address to ensure they receive no further messages.
Security: we apply the same technical and organisational safeguards to imported lists as we do to all user data, including encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, and monitoring for misuse.
Transparency: writers must confirm that their contacts have been informed that their data will be processed by Scribehound for the purpose of sending them the writer's content.
9. Your rights over your information
By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate.
You can also ask for it to be erased and you can ask for us to give you a copy of the information.
You can also ask us to stop using your information – the simplest way to do this is to withdraw your consent, which you can do at any time, through your profile.
10. Business transfers and change of ownership
Our promise not to sell or share your information has always been about protecting you from having your data monetised — we do not sell your personal information to advertisers or other businesses, and we never market to you on someone else's behalf. That does not change.
Separately from that, there may be times when the ownership of a publication, collective or part of our business changes – for example, if a collective is taken on by a new owner who will continue running it. In that situation, so that you keep receiving the product you subscribed to without interruption, your subscription and the information needed to deliver it (such as your name, email address and subscription status) may transfer to the new owner along with the publication.
Where this happens:
We will tell you, by email to the address you have given us, before or at the point the transfer takes effect.
The new owner will become the data controller for your information from that point and will be required to handle it in line with data protection law.
The new owner takes on the obligation to continue delivering your subscription on terms no less favourable to you.
This is a transfer for continuity of service — not a sale of your data for marketing or profit. Your information continues to be used only to provide you with the product and to run your subscription.
You will always be able to object, unsubscribe or ask for your data to be erased, exactly as set out in "Your rights over your information" above.
11. Your right to complain
If you have a complaint about our use of your information, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office via their website at ICO.org/concerns or write to:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire SK9 5AF