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title: "Privacy Policy"
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# Privacy Policy

## 1. Preamble

This Privacy Policy explains the collection, use, processing, transferring and disclosure of personal information by Netdata, Inc (“ND” or “Netdata”), a Delaware Corporation.

This Privacy Policy is incorporated into and made part of the Netdata Master Terms of Use (“Master Terms”) located [here](terms-of-use.md).

Unless otherwise noted on a particular website or service hosted by Netdata, this Privacy Policy applies to your use of all websites that Netdata operates. These include <https://my-netdata.io> and <https://netdata.cloud>, together with all other subdomains thereof, (collectively, the “Websites”). This Privacy Policy also applies to all products, information, and services provided through the Websites, including without limitation the ND agent, the ND registry, the ND hub and the ND cloud website (together with the Websites, the “Services”).

In addition, supplemental Privacy Policy terms (“Supplemental Privacy Policy Terms”) may apply to a particular Service. All such Supplemental Privacy Policy Terms will be accessible for you to read either within, or through your use of, that particular Service.

By accessing or using any of the Services, you are accepting and agreeing to the practices described in this Privacy Policy.

## 2. Our Principles

Netdata has designed this policy to be consistent with the following principles:

Privacy policies should be human readable and easy to find.
Data collection, storage, and processing should be simplified as much as possible to enhance security, ensure consistency, and make the practices easy for users to understand.
Data practices should always meet the reasonable expectations of users.

## 3. Personal Information ND Collects and How it is Used

As used in this policy, “personal information” means information that would allow someone to identify you, including your name, email address, IP address, or other information from which someone could deduce your identity.

ND collects and uses personal information in the following ways:

Website and Analytics: When you visit our Websites and use our Services, ND collects some information about your activities through tools such as Google Analytics. The type of information that we collect focuses on general information such as country or city where you are located, pages visited, time spent on pages, heat-map of visitors’ activity on the site, information about the browser you are using, etc. ND collects and uses this information pursuant to our legitimate interest in enhancing the security and utility of our Services. The information we gather and process is used in the aggregate to spot trends without deliberately identifying individuals.

Note that you can learn about Google’s practices in connection with its analytics services and how to opt out of it by downloading the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, available at <https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout>. 

Information from Cookies: We and our service providers (for example, Google Analytics as described above) may collect information using cookies or similar technologies for the purposes described above and below. Cookies are pieces of information that are stored by your browser on the hard drive or memory of your computer or other Internet access device.  Cookies may enable us to personalize your experience on the Services, maintain a persistent session, passively collect demographic information about your computer, and monitor advertisements and other activities. The Websites may use different kinds of cookies and other types of local storage (such as browser-based or plugin-based local storage).

ND Registry: The global registry, together with certain browser features, allow Netdata to provide unified cross-server dashboards, via the node menu. 
The menu lists the Netdata servers you have visited. For example, when you jump from server to server using the node menu, several session settings 
(like the currently viewed charts, the current zoom and pan operations on the charts, etc.) are propagated to the new server, so that the new dashboard will come with exactly the 
same view. The global registry keeps track of 4 entities:

1.  **machines**: i.e. the Netdata installations (a random GUID generated by each Netdata the first time it starts; we call this **machine_guid**)

  For each Netdata installation (each `machine_guid`) the registry keeps track of the different URLs it is accessed.

2.  **persons**: i.e. the web browsers accessing the Netdata installations (a random GUID generated by the registry the first time it sees a new web browser; we call this **person_guid**)

  For each person, the registry keeps track of the Netdata installations it has accessed and their URLs. 

3.  **URLs** of Netdata installations (as seen by the web browsers)

  For each URL, the registry keeps the URL and nothing more. Each URL is linked to _persons_ and _machines_. The only way to find a URL is to know its **machine_guid** or have a **person_guid** it is linked to it.

4.  **accounts**: i.e. the information used to sign-in via one of the available sign-in methods. Depending on the method, this may include an email, an email and a profile picture.

For _persons/accounts_ and _machines_, the registry keeps links to _URLs_, each link with 2 timestamps (first time seen, last time seen) and a counter (number of times it has been seen).
_machines_, _persons_, and timestamps are stored in the Netdata registry regardless of whether you sign in or not.

If sending this information is against your policies, you can [run your own registry](../registry/#run-your-own-registry). 
Note that ND versions with the 'Sign in' feature of the ND Cloud do not use the global registry. 

ND Cloud: When you sign up to obtain a user account via the 'Sign in' link on the ND agent user interface, ND is granted access to personal information in the user profile of the authentication provider you choose (e.g. GitHub or Google). ND collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in establishing and maintaining your account providing you with the features we provide Registered Users. We may use your email address to contact you regarding changes to this policy or other applicable policies. The login name or email address of your profile may be used to attribute you in connection with any content you submit to any Service. 

Anonymous Usage Statistics: From Netdata v1.12 and above, anonymous usage information is collected by default on certain events of the ND daemon and send to Google Analytics. Every time the daemon is started or stopped and every time a fatal condition is encountered, Netdata collects system information and sends it to GA via an http call. The information collected for all events is:

-   Netdata version
-   OS name, version, id, id_like
-   Kernel name, version, architecture
-   Virtualization technology 
-   Containerization technology 
    Furthermore, the FATAL event sends the Netdata process & thread info, along with the file, function and line of the fatal error.

The statistics calculated from this information are used for:

1.  **Quality assurance**, to help us understand if Netdata behaves as expected and help us identify repeating issues for certain distributions or environment.

2.  **Usage statistics**, to help us focus on the parts of Netdata that are used the most, or help us identify the extend our development decisions influence the community.

To opt-out from sending anonymous statistics, you can create a file called `.opt-out-from-anonymous-statistics` under the user configuration directory (usually `/etc/netdata`).

Emails and Newsletters: When you sign up to receive updates from Netdata or otherwise subscribe to one of our mailing lists, you will be asked to provide some personal information. ND collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in providing news and updates to, and collaborating with, its supporters and volunteers.

Email Analytics: When you receive communications from ND after signing up for the ND newsletter, campaign updates, or other ongoing email communications from ND, we may use analytics to track whether you open the mail, click on the links, and otherwise interact with what we send. You may opt out of this tracking by choosing to get plain-text emails from ND. ND collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in understanding the interests of its community of supporters and volunteers in order to provide more relevant news and updates.

Other Voluntarily Provided Information: When you provide feedback to Netdata, sign a petition distributed by ND, or otherwise submit personal information to Netdata, ND collects and uses this personal information pursuant to its legitimate interest in better understanding our community of supporters and volunteers and in furtherance of the particular program or activity to which you provided feedback or other input.

## 4. Retention of Personal Information

The majority of the personal information collected and used as explained in Section 3 above is aggregated and stored in a central database provided by a third party service provider. ND aggregates this data pursuant to its legitimate interest in having information stored in a single location to minimize complexity, increase consistency in internal practices, better understand its community of supporters and volunteers, and enhance the security of the data.  

## 5. Access to Your Personal Information

You are generally entitled to access personal information that Netdata holds and to have inaccurate data corrected or removed to the extent ND still maintains it. In certain circumstances, you also may have the right to object for legitimate reasons to the processing or transfer of personal information. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please write to legal@netdata.cloud explaining your request.

## 6. Disclosure of Your Personal Information

ND does not disclose personal information to third parties except as specified elsewhere in this policy and in the following instances:

We may disclose your personal information to third parties in a good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) take action regarding suspected illegal activities; (b) enforce or apply our Master Terms and this Privacy Policy; (c) enforce our Charter, including the Code of Conduct and policies contained and incorporated therein, or (d) comply with legal process, such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order.

## 7. Security of Your Personal Information

Netdata has implemented reasonable physical, technical, and organizational security measures for personal information that Netdata processes against accidental or unlawful destruction, or accidental loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure or access, in compliance with applicable law. However, no website can fully eliminate security risks. If any data breach occurs, we will post a reasonably prominent notice to the Websites and comply with all other applicable data privacy requirements including, when required, personal notice to you if you have provided and we have maintained an email address for you.

The ND Cloud Services have security risks in addition to those described above. Among other things, they are vulnerable to DNS attacks, and using any ND Cloud Service may increase the risk of phishing.

## 8. Children

The Services are not directed at children under the age of 13. Consistent with the U.S. federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA), we will never knowingly request personal information from anyone under the age of 13 without requiring parental consent. Our Master Terms specifically prohibit anyone using our Services from submitting any personally identifiable information about persons under 13 years of age. Any person who provides their personal information to ND through the Services represents that they are 13 years of age or older.

## 9. Third Party Service Providers

Netdata uses many third party service providers in connection with the Services, including website hosting services, database management, credit card processing, and many more. Some of these service providers may place session cookies on your computer, and they may collect and store your personal information on our behalf in accordance with the data practices and purposes explained above in Section 3.

## 10. Third Party Sites

The Services may provide links to a wide variety of third party websites. You should consult the respective privacy policies of these third-party websites. This Privacy Policy does not apply to, and we cannot control the activities of, such other websites.

## 11. Transferring Data to Other Countries

If you are accessing or using the Services in regions with laws governing data collection, processing, transfer and use, please note that when we use and share your data as specified in this policy, we may transfer your information to recipients in countries other than the country in which the information was originally collected. Those countries may not have the same data protection laws as the country in which you initially provided the information.

Data transferred from the European Union to the United States or outside the European Union will be made on the grounds of a certification to the E.U./U.S. Privacy Shield regime and/or a data transfer agreement based on the Standard Contractual Clauses approved of by the European Commission respectively, consistent with applicable data privacy requirements.

## 12. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may occasionally update this Privacy Policy. When we do, we will provide you with notice of such update through (at a minimum) a reasonably prominent notice on the Websites and Services, and will revise the Effective Date below. We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about how we are protecting, using, processing and transferring the personal information we collect.

Effective Date: 8 January 2019.

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