Privacy policy

Your privacy is important to us. At KnowledgeOwl, we have a few fundamental principles:

We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on your website is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.

Below is KnowledgeOwl's privacy policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.

Who We Are

We are the folks behind KnowledgeOwl, an online knowledge base software tool. For the purposes of the GDPR, we are both a data controller and a data processor.

What This Policy Covers

This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:

Our websites (including https://www.knowledgeowl.com and https://support.knowledgeowl.com);
Our application (https://app.knowledgeowl.com); and
Other products and services that are available on or through our websites and application (including our widget, API, and various integrations like the Zendesk app).

Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our websites, application, and other products and services collectively as “Services.” Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.

Information We Collect

We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better. We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our services, and from outside sources.

Information You Provide to Us

It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:

Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a KnowledgeOwl account to provide a first name, a last name, and email address. You may provide us with more information–like your company name and billing address–but we don’t require that information to create your account.
Transaction and Billing Information: If you purchase something from us–a subscription to a KnowledgeOwl plan or a custom domain, for example–you will provide additional personal and payment information that is required to process the transaction and your payment, such as your name, credit card information, and contact information.
Content Information: When using KnowledgeOwl, you may also provide us with information about you in the content for your knowledge base. For example, if you write an article that includes biographic information about you, we will have that information, and so will anyone with access to your knowledge base.
Credentials: Depending on the Services you use, you may provide us with credentials for third-party services which you want to integrate with KnowledgeOwl For example, you might provide us with your Zendesk username, domain, and API key to set up a contact form integration.
Communications with Us: You may also provide us information when you respond to emails, communicate with our support team, or post a comment on our knowledge base.

Information We Collect Automatically

We also collect some information automatically:

Log Information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Services–for example, when you create or make changes to your knowledge base.
Usage Information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on a site–in other words, who did what, when and to what thing on a site. We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, support document searches, button clicks) along with information about your device (e.g., screen size, operating system, browser). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, as well as get insights on how people use our Services, so we can make our Services better.
Location Information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions.
Information from Cookies & Other Technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and e-mails. KnowledgeOwl uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand marketing campaign effectiveness.

Information We Collect from Other Sources

We may also get information about you from other sources. For example, if you log into your KnowledgeOwl account using SSO from a third-party identity provider, we will receive information from that service (such as your username/email, first name, and email) via the authorization procedures used by that service. The information we receive depends on which services you authorize and integrate with your KnowledgeOwl account.

How We Use Information

We use information about you as mentioned above and as follows:

To provide our Services–for example, to set up and maintain your account or charge you for any of our paid Services;
To further develop our Services–for example by adding new features that we think our users will enjoy or will help them to create and manage their knowledge bases more efficiently;
To monitor and analyze trends and better understand how users interact with our Services, which helps us improve our Services and make them easier to use;
To monitor and protect the security of our Services, detect and prevent fraudulent transactions and other illegal activities, fight spam, and protect the rights and property of KnowledgeOwl and others;
To communicate with you about KnowledgeOwl services and others we think will be of interest to you, solicit your feedback, or keep you up to date on KnowledgeOwl and our products; and
To personalize your experience using our Services and provide recommendations.

Sharing Information

How We Share Information

We do not sell our users’ private personal information. We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:

Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries, our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
Third Party Vendors: We may share information about you with third party vendors who need to know information about you in order to provide their services to us. This group includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like payment providers that process your credit and debit card information) and those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers). We require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
As Required by Law: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
To Protect Rights and Property: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of KnowledgeOwl, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that KnowledgeOwl goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, we may share your information with third parties with which you authorize us to do so, such as setting up integrations with ticketing systems or analytics tools.
Aggregated and De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services.
Knowledge Base Users: If you leave a comment or use the contact form on a website that uses our Services (like a knowledge base created in KnowledgeOwl), the information you provide - like your email address and name - may be shared with the users of the site where you left the comment.
Published Support Requests: And if you send us a request (for example, via a support email or one of our feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to help us clarify or respond to your request or to help us support other users. Your personal information, such as you name or email, will not be shared to protect your privacy.

Information Shared Publicly

Information that you choose to make public is–you guessed it–disclosed publicly. That means that information like your comments or articles that you make public on your knowledge base are all available to others. Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share.

Choices

You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:

Limit the Information that You Provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services may not be accessible.
Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: You can usually choose to set your browser to, or use a tool that will, remove or reject browser cookies before using KnowledgeOwl services, with the drawback that certain features of KnowledgeOwl services may not function properly without the aid of cookies.

Other Things You Should Know

Questions

If you have question about this Privacy Policy, please contact us at support@knowledgeowl.com.

Security

While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. To enhance the security of your account, we encourage you to enable our advanced security settings, like Force SSL Links and Single Sign-On.

EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework

KnowledgeOwl complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the European Union, United Kingdom, and Switzerland to the United States. KnowledgeOwl has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and from the United Kingdom in reliance on the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. KnowledgeOwl has also certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of personal data received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF. If there is any conflict between the terms in this Data Privacy Framework Policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern.

KnowledgeOwl is subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). We may be required to disclose personal information that we handle under the Data Privacy Framework in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov.

Silly Moose, LLC dba KnowledgeOwl
4845 Pearl East Cir Ste 118
PMB 30558
Boulder, CO 80301
compliance@knowledgeowl.com

In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, KnowledgeOwl commits to cooperate and comply respectively with the advice of the panel established by the EU data protection authorities (DPAs) and the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) and the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) with regard to unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and the Swiss-U.S. DPF.

Under certain conditions, more fully described on the Data Privacy Framework website, you may invoke binding arbitration when other dispute resolution procedures have been exhausted.

We previously complied with the requirements of the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework in relation to our processing of personal data.

Onward Transfer of Information

KnowledgeOwl is a service available worldwide. By accessing or using the Services or otherwise providing information to us, you consent to the processing, transfer, and storage of information in and to the United States of America. KnowledgeOwl also relies on certain sub-processors in order to support the services we provide. An up-to-date list of our sub-processors can be found here:

https://support.knowledgeowl.com/help/list-of-sub-processors

KnowledgeOwl reviews any sub-processors that we use to ensure that they provide the same level (or greater) of privacy protections that we do. We further ensure that any information processed by these sub-processors is done in a manner that is consistent with our own standards, and the standards we comply with as part of the EU-U.S. DPF. KnowledgeOwl only transfers data to sub-processors that is strictly necessary for the specified purpose of the sub-processor.

In the event that we become aware that a sub-processor no longer provides the same privacy standards that we are obligated to uphold or that they are processing data in a manner inconsistent with our privacy agreements, we will take measures to cease any current or planned data transfers, and will work to remediate any unauthorized processing that may have occurred.

Third Party Software

If you’d like to use third party software like plugins with our Services, please keep in mind that when you interact with them you may provide information about yourself to those third parties. We don’t own or control these third parties and they have their own rules about collection, use and sharing of information. You should review their rules and policies when installing and using third party software.

Our Users’ Knowledge Bases

If you are a visitor to one of our customers’ knowledge bases, please note that this privacy policy doesn't apply to you in regard to that specific site. We process information that visitors provide to our users’ websites on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information.

Reuse

This document is based upon the Automattic Privacy Policy, which can be found on Github, and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This means you can use it verbatim or edited, but you must release new versions under the same license and you have to credit Automattic and KnowledgeOwl somewhere. Automattic is not connected with nor sponsors or endorses KnowledgeOwl or its use of the work.

Privacy Policy Changes

Although most changes are likely to be minor, KnowledgeOwl may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the change log below, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice (such as adding a statement to our homepage or sending you a notification through e-mail or your dashboard). Your continued use of the Services after any change in this Privacy Policy will constitute your consent to such change.

July 29, 2024: Updated DPF language to reflect our commitment to cooperate with EU, UK, and Swiss data authorities as part of our DPF certification. Included additional language to ensure compliance with DPF principles around accountability of onward transfer of data.

March 27, 2024: Updated contact information to reflect our new compliance email and added language about the UK extension.

October 20, 2023: Updated EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework to comply with updates to the program.

March 29, 2023: Updated our contact information in the EU-US / Swiss-US Privacy Shield section to reflect our current mailing address.

May 23, 2018: Updated the policy to be GDPR-compliant by cutting out legalese and using clear language. Informed individuals about KnowledgeOwl being subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC); the possibility, under certain conditions, for the individual to invoke binding arbitration; and our liability in cases of onward transfers to third parties.