Privacy Policy

Acorn.io Privacy & Cookie Notice

  1. Introduction
    At Acorn, Inc. (“Acorn”), we are committed to protecting personal information. In this Privacy & Cookie Notice (“Notice”), Acorn and its affiliated entities (“Acorn,” “we,” or “us”) set out how we, as data controller, may collect, create, share and use personal information relating to identifiable individuals (“Personal Data”) and provide you with information regarding your Personal Data rights and choices. This Notice is incorporated into and part of the Acorn, Inc. Terms of Service.
    • Scope of this Notice
    • Personal Data we may collect
    • Use of Personal Data
    • Sharing Personal Data
    • Where we may transfer Personal Data
    • Cookies & similar technologies
    • Protection of Personal Data
    • How long we retain Personal Data
    • Children’s privacy
    • Contact information
  2. Scope of this Notice
    This Notice describes Acorn’s privacy practices for Personal Data collected by Acorn websites (“Sites”) as well as other activities, such as if you visit our offices, attend an Acorn event or otherwise interact with Acorn and provide Personal Data, such as corresponding by email, unless such activities are covered by our other notices outlined below. Please read this Notice in full. By using our Sites or participating in other activities with Acorn described below, you consent to the collection, creation, sharing and use of information as described in this Notice, where consent is required by relevant law.

    Acorn also operates public forums on Acorn websites, including message channels such as Slack (“Forums”). The purpose of these Forums is to discuss our products and services and encourage collaboration between users as well as others. Please note that any Personal Data you choose to post in Acorn Forums or on any Site may be read or used by other visitors (for example, to send to you unsolicited messages). Acorn Forum users should not upload sensitive or confidential content on this public forum. Acorn is not responsible, and will have no liability for, any violation of law resulting from materials you may post or upload to the Acorn website or to the Services.

    For indirect customers (through an Acorn partner), while Acorn’s collection and processing of your Personal Data is explained below in this Notice, any direct Personal Data sharing by you with an Acorn partner will be governed by that Acorn partner’s policies/your agreement with them.

    As a convenience to visitors to our Sites, we may also provide links to other websites that are not governed by this Notice. These linked websites are not under the control of Acorn and we are not responsible for the content on such websites or the protection/privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such websites.

    Please read this policy carefully to understand our policies and practices regarding your information and how we will treat it. If you do not agree with our policies and practices, your choice is not to use our Site. By accessing or using this Site, you agree to this privacy policy. This policy may change from time to time (see Changes to This Notice). Your continued use of this Site after we make changes is deemed to be acceptance of those changes, so please check the policy periodically for updates.
  3. Personal Data we may collect
    The Personal Data Acorn may collect about you will depend on your interaction/relationship with us. It may include:
    • If you browse our Sites, information systems data relating to your interaction with our Sites, such as location (e.g., IP address), cookie-related information (see section 6 below), usage (e.g., mouse clicks, page visits, feature usage, view time, downloads), and other information, such as language preference.
    • If you complete a webform on our Sites (e.g., to attend an Acorn event, etc.), attend an Acorn event (online or in-person) or office, or otherwise send this data to Acorn (e.g., by email, telephone, exchange of business cards), identifying/contact information such as your name, job title, work email, organization/employer name, work telephone, and location information such as work address.
    • If you or your organization purchases Acorn products or services, financial or billing data, such as name, address, credit card number or bank account information (though these will typically be those of your employer organization).
    • If you attend an Acorn event (in-person or online) or our offices, your attendance details (e.g., entry time).
    • If you avail of Acorn services, such as attend a training class or submit a technical support case, your activity with Acorn to interact with and take part in these services.
    • Your image and/or voice, such as for phone/video call recordings (for training, quality assurance and administration purposes), if you attend an Acorn event (event recording) or office (e.g., CCTV), post an image/recording to an Acorn Site (e.g., add a profile photo to Acorn Community) or you otherwise send a recording/image to Acorn.
    • Information from otherwise engaging/interacting with you, such as your feedback to us through our Sites and responses to any promotional or survey communications.
    • Information considered sensitive under local law, namely health information, if you visit our offices or attend an in-person Acorn event and, if due to local COVID-19 related requirements, you are required to provide information regarding your health, vaccination status and recent travel history; and/or if in the course of visiting our offices or attending an Acorn event, if you choose to disclose to us disability-related health information for the purpose of us making an accommodation/adjustment. Acorn will only ever process sensitive information in connection with the purpose for which it was collected, for example to comply with local health & safety laws.
    • We may also collect Personal Data about you from third parties, such as from colleagues of yours at your organization (e.g., when registering multiple participants at an organization/company for Acorn training, or where your details are provided by a colleague as a contact for your organization’s account), public sources (e.g., your organization’s website, LinkedIn), vendors (e.g., web analytics tools, data enrichment providers) and Acorn partners (e.g., where your contact details are provided to enable delivery of Acorn software, for customer success purposes and/or in relation to maintenance/support, including renewal and/or cancellation of same). We also maintain social media pages and may collect Personal Data from you when you interact with these or communicate with us through our social media pages.
  4. Use of Personal Data
    Depending on your relationship with Acorn, we may use your Personal Data for different purposes. Where required by applicable law in relation to the particular use, we will obtain your consent to collect and use your Personal Data. Otherwise, we will rely on another legal basis, such as in connection with a contract or for our legitimate interests, as set out below.
    • Perform a contract: We may process your Personal Data in connection with a contract with you or your organization, such as to process relevant payments, deliver (customer) or receive (vendor) products/services, manage our relationship with you as an Acorn partner under our Acorn partner agreement with you, and manage our relationship with you or your organization generally throughout the contract lifecycle, including managing renewals.
    • Operate our Sites: We may use your Personal Data to provide our Sites, content and offerings (e.g., downloads, registrations for accounts or profiles, such as an Acorn Account), including necessary functionality, content customization (e.g., based on what we think will interest you), and functionality to enhance ease of use (e.g., make the Sites easier for you to use by not making you enter information more than once, etc.). Unless such processing is in connection with a contract or our legitimate interests, it will be on the basis of your consent.
    • Improve our Sites: We process your interactions with our Sites, content and offerings (e.g., Acorn support) to assess and improve these and the user experience, such as by use of cookies (see section 6 below). This data is typically aggregated unless Personal Data is required for the particular processing operation. We process your Personal Data for this purpose for our legitimate interests of maintaining and improving our Sites and providing tailored content, or where required by law, on the basis of your consent.
    • Manage contact requests: We may use your Personal Data to reply to contact initiated by you, such as through a webform, chatbot, survey responses or Acorn support. We process your Personal Data for these purposes for our legitimate interest in replying to/fulfilling your request, collecting survey responses and to carry out our contractual obligations under the applicable terms (e.g., providing Acorn support).
    • Other communications: We may use your Personal Data to otherwise communicate with you to manage our relationship with you/your organization, such as to manage our offerings, for customer success purposes, to contact you regarding updates to our offerings you may be interested in, and to run surveys and contests. Such processing will be to fulfill our contractual obligations, where necessary for our legitimate interests or, where legally required, with your consent.
    • Call recording: We may record phone or video calls (e.g., Zoom) for training, quality assurance and/or administration purposes. We process this Personal Data on the basis of our legitimate interests; however, if required under applicable law, we will obtain your consent or give you the option to object to the call being recorded.
    • Marketing: We may use your Personal Data to contact you for marketing purposes, such as to alert you to product upgrades, special offers, updated information/services from Acorn, and to contact you (e.g., by phone or email) regarding your interest in our offerings and/or invite you to Acorn events. Such contact will be on the basis of legitimate interest or, where legally required, on the basis of your consent. To opt-out of marketing contact, please click the unsubscribe link in any communication from Acorn.
    • Events: We may process your Personal Data to operate Acorn events, including training/education related activities, in-person and online, that you have selected to attend. Such processing will be on the basis of our legitimate interests or to perform a contract with you under the applicable terms of service.
    • Manage premises: Where you attend our offices, we may process your Personal Data to administer our premises and fulfill our legal obligations regarding health and safety, and to manage the security of our premises to ensure there is no unauthorized access. Such processing will be on the basis of our legitimate interests and/or to carry out our legal obligations.
    • Compliance and Security: We process your Personal Data to comply with our legal obligations and to ensure compliant use/security, such as to ensure the use of our Sites, content and offerings in compliance with our terms and/or to ensure their security, to cooperate with courts, regulators or other government authorities to the extent processing/disclosure of Personal Data is required under applicable law, where it is necessary to protect our legal rights or those of others, or for other compliance purposes such as auditing, investigations and responding to legal processes or lawful requests. Where we process health-related data for Covid-19 related reasons or to accommodate a reasonable adjustment for a disability, we will only do so to carry out our legal obligations relating to health and safety, under applicable law.
    • Professional advisers: In individual instances, we may share your Personal Data with professional advisers acting as service providers, processors, or joint controllers - including lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services, and to the extent we are legally obliged to share or have a legitimate interest in sharing your Personal Data.
    • Third parties involved in a corporate transaction: If we are involved in a merger, reorganization, dissolution or other fundamental corporate change, or sell a website or business unit, or if all or a portion of our business, assets or stock are acquired by a third party. In accordance with applicable laws, we will use reasonable efforts to notify you of any transfer of Personal Data to an unaffiliated third party.
    • We may also combine Personal Data we hold about you. For example, we may combine your B2B contact with your usage data relating to our offerings and our Sites for the purposes above, such as to improve our Sites and our offerings, as well as to create more tailored experiences by providing content that may be of interest to you. We may also use your Personal Data to fulfill any other purposes disclosed to you at the time of collection or as otherwise required/permitted by applicable law.
  5. Sharing Personal Data
    Acorn may share Personal Data for various purposes, such as:
    • within the international group of Acorn companies to operate our business and provide our Sites, products and services;
    • with authorized Acorn vendors, advisors and contractors providing services on our behalf (such as technology or professional service providers) to operate our business, Sites, products and services;
    • if you register for or attend an Acorn event, Acorn may share participant information (e.g., your name, organization, work email) with other participants, organizers or hosts of the same event in order to facilitate the event and the subsequent exchange of ideas. Acorn may also share your contact details with event sponsors where you have consented, e.g., through registration, to these sponsors contacting you regarding their own offerings. Your contact details may also be used by other hosts of the same event, such as to send marketing material, according to their privacy notices provided to you;
    • if you use or complete training provided by Acorn, such as through the resources at Acorn.io, through one of our Sites, or at an event, webinar, or other training activity, your training results may be shared with your organization or third-party training organizers of theirs, for example training or subscription administrators;
    • third-party networks/websites so that we can advertise on their platforms;
    • if you use Acorn products and services, we may share with your organization/colleagues certain data, such as your download and usage data of Acorn products and/or your use of Acorn support;
    • with Acorn partners in order to follow up (e.g., by email, post or phone) on your interest in Acorn’s products or Acorn-compatible products, or to provide services (e.g., consulting, technical support, training) where such services are to be carried out by Acorn partners. A list of Acorn’s partners can be found on our partner page;
    • if you are an Acorn partner or potential Acorn partner, Acorn may share your contact data with other Acorn partners with whom we do business so that they may contact you regarding their opportunities.
    Acorn will only share Personal Data to the extent needed to perform the relevant use and will take such steps as are necessary to safeguard Personal Data. For example, our vendors, advisors and contractors are required to keep such Personal Data confidential and not to use it other than for the purposes intended. Acorn partners are obliged to comply with the privacy rules set out in their agreement with Acorn. Acorn does not sell or rent Personal Data to third parties.

    Acorn may also disclose Personal Data to comply with legal requirements, such as in relation to legal proceedings or investigations by governmental or law enforcement agencies, or to meet tax or other reporting requirements, including to (a) protect and defend the rights or property of Acorn, including the defense and management of legal claims and investigations, (b) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of users of our Sites, our Acorn team members, or the public, (c) as part of a merger or change in corporate ownership or control, and/or (d) as otherwise permitted or required by applicable law.
  6. Non-residents of the United States or Canada
    To operate our business your Personal Data may be transferred from your country (e.g., the UK/European Economic Area) to a destination (e.g., USA) which may not be considered by relevant authorities of your country to have an equivalent level of privacy protection. In such instances, in addition to the other measures outlined in this Notice, Acorn will put in place appropriate safeguards for such transfers, for example, UK/EU standard contractual clauses.
  7. Your rights relating to your Personal Data
    You may have certain rights relating to your Personal Data, subject to applicable privacy laws. For example, under the UK/EU GDPR and similar laws, you may have the right to:
    • request access to and/or obtain a copy of your Personal Data;
    • request corrections to your Personal Data if it is inaccurate;
    • request further information about the processing of your Personal Data by Acorn;
    • request deletion of your Personal Data that is no longer necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected, or does not need to be retained by Acorn for other legitimate purposes;
    • where we process your Personal Data on the basis of consent, withdraw this consent at any time. If you withdraw your consent to Acorn to processing your Personal Data, this will not affect any processing which has already taken place;
    • request a restriction or raise an objection to the processing, sharing and/or further use of your Personal Data;
    • if applicable, that your Personal Data be transferred to another company/organization;
    • not be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal effects ("Automated Decision-Making"). Please note that Automated Decision-Making currently does not take place on our Sites or other activities covered in this Notice;
    • if you feel that your request/complaint has not been dealt with satisfactorily, make a complaint to your relevant privacy/data protection authority; and
    • not be discriminated against for exercising the above rights.
    These rights will depend on which privacy/data protection laws are applicable to your Personal Data (typically, where you are resident), the type of Personal Data involved, and the reason it is processed. There may be circumstances when Acorn is unable to accommodate requests, either wholly or in part, for reasons under local law. Depending on applicable law, this may include situations where the information contains Personal Data of other individuals and it is not possible to separate out your Personal Data, if Acorn cannot validate the request, if you ask us to delete Personal Data which we are required by law or have compelling legitimate interests to keep, or where information cannot be disclosed for legal, security, or other reasons based on local law. Acorn will endeavor to advise you of any reason for denying or restricting any Personal Data request. Where legally permitted under relevant law you may designate an authorized agent to submit a privacy request on your behalf.

    For more information regarding your privacy rights, we encourage you to visit the website of your local privacy/data protection authority, such as that of Brazil, California (USA), EU, Singapore, and the UK.
  8. Cookies and similar technologies
    As is true of most websites, when you visit our Sites, cookies will be placed on your device (computer, mobile or tablet). A "cookie" is a small text file that is placed on your device by websites you visit. Some of the cookies we use are strictly necessary to operate our Sites. Others relate to the Site's performance, functionality, and/or to advertising. Information relating to a cookie or similar technology may include identifiers such as IP address, and information like general location, browser type and language, and internet activity such as timestamps. Acorn uses the following types of cookies and similar technologies on our Sites:
    • A. Strictly Necessary: These cookies enable the Sites to function correctly and deliver the services and products you have requested. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing or remembering other websites you have visited on the internet.
    • B. Functional: These cookies do things like remember your preferred language, understand your preferences and associate users to forms submitted to enable pre-completion of subsequent forms as well as improve and customize your experience on our Sites.
    • C. Performance: We use third-party analytics tools to help us analyze how our Sites and other electronic mediums are used, such as allowing us to compile reports on website activity, providing us other services relating to website activity and internet usage, and whether email communications are opened or left unread.
    • D. Advertising: These cookies may be set on our Sites by our advertising partners. They may be used to build a profile of your interests and/or show you relevant adverts on other sites. If you wish to not have your online information used for this purpose you can also visit resources such as https://optout.networkadvertising.org and/or https://www.youronlinechoices.eu (please note these and similar resources do not prevent you from being served ads as you will continue to receive generic ads).
    Cookies can be session-based (which disappear once you close your device or browser) or persistent (which remain on your device afterwards). Acorn may also rely on cookies or similar technology operating on other websites, for example to display our adverts to you. You can generally disable the use of cookies by changing your browser settings. To disable non-essential cookies for Acorn.com sites (for example, to turn off advertising cookies), and to view their retention periods and relevant third-party operators/recipients, you can access our Cookie Preference Center. You may also adjust your browser settings; however, if you choose not to have your browser accept cookies from the Acorn Sites, you will not be able to experience a personalized visit and it may limit your ability to use some features on our Sites. For more information about cookies, visit https://www.aboutcookies.org. We may also use pixels, web beacons, and similar technologies on our Sites and in emails, for example in a marketing email that notifies us if you click on a link in the email.

    Web Beacons: Pages of our Site and/or our emails may contain small electronic files known as web beacons (also referred to as clear gifs, pixel tags, and single-pixel gifs) that permit Acorn, for example, to count users who have visited those pages or opened an email and for other related Site statistics (for example, recording the popularity of certain Site content and verifying system and server integrity).
  9. Protection of Personal Data
    Acorn takes appropriate precautions to protect Personal Data from loss, misuse, unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration or destruction. Such measures may include some of the following: (i) using security controls such as passwords, firewalls, and/or encryption, (ii) restricting Personal Data to those with a legitimate purpose in receiving/accessing it, (iii) deidentifying Personal Data, or assigning codes or pseudonyms when the personal identifiers are not required for the purpose at hand, (iv) using data retention controls to ensure that Personal Data is not kept for longer than is necessary, (v) providing training and internal policies to team members to embed privacy and security across our organization, and (vi) putting in place relevant procedures (such privacy and security vetting) and contracts relating to the use and protection of Personal Data with third parties.
  10. How long we retain Personal Data
    Acorn will retain and process Personal Data for a period of time consistent with the purpose of collection (see section 3 above) and/or as long as necessary to fulfill our legal obligations. We determine the applicable retention period by taking into account the (i) amount, nature and sensitivity of the Personal Data, (ii) relevant use, including whether we can achieve the use through other means (e.g., by instead using deidentified data); (iii) potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of the Personal Data, and (iv) applicable legal requirements (e.g., statutes of limitation).
  11. Children's Privacy
    Acorn does not knowingly or intentionally collect information from anyone under the age of 16, and we request that anyone under the age of 16 does not submit Personal Data to us. If you become aware that a child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us at privacy@Acorn.io. If we become aware that someone under the age of 16 has submitted Personal Data, we will delete this information from our records. If you are under the age of 16 you must exit this Site immediately.
  12. Copyright Policy
    We reserve the right to do the following with any materials you may upload into a publicly visible forum or location on one of our Sites: (i) block access to or remove material that we believe in good faith to be copyrighted material that has been illegally copied and distributed by any of our advertisers, affiliates, content providers, members or users, and (ii) remove and discontinue service to repeat offenders.

    A. Procedure for Reporting Copyright Infringements: If you believe that material or content residing on or accessible through the Services infringes your copyright (or the copyright of someone whom you are authorized to act on behalf of), please send a notice of copyright infringement containing the following information to Acorn with the following information: (i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright that has been allegedly infringed; (ii) Identification of works or materials being infringed; (iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing including information regarding the location of the infringing materials that the copyright owner seeks to have removed, with sufficient detail so that Acorn is capable of finding and verifying its existence; (iv) Contact information about the notifier including address, telephone number and, if available, email address; (v) A statement that the notifier has a good faith belief that the material identified is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (vi) A statement made under penalty of perjury that the information provided is accurate and the notifying party is authorized to make the complaint on behalf of the copyright owner.

    B. Further Action: Upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement, we reserve the right to: (i) Remove or disable access to the infringing material; (ii) Notify the content provider who is accused of infringement that we have removed or disabled access to the applicable material; and (iii) terminate such content provider's access to the Services if he or she is a repeat offender.

    C. Counter-Notice: If the content provider believes that the material that was removed (or to which access was disabled) is not infringing, or the content provider believes that it has the right to post and use such material from the copyright owner, the copyright owner's agent, or, pursuant to the law, the content provider may send us a counter-notice containing the following information: (i) A physical or electronic signature of the content provider; (ii) Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or disabled; (iii) A statement that the content provider has a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material; and (iv) Content provider's name, address, telephone number, and, if available, email address, and a statement that such person or entity consents to the jurisdiction of the Federal Court for the judicial district in which the content provider’s address is located, or, if the content provider's address is located outside the United States, for any judicial district in which Acorn is located, and that such person or entity will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement.

    D. After A Counter-Notice: If Acorn receives a counter-notice, we may, in our discretion, send a copy of the counter-notice to the original complaining party informing that person that we may replace the removed material or cease disabling it in 10 business days. Unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the content provider accused of committing infringement, the removed material may be replaced or access to it restored in 10 to 14 business days or more after receipt of the counter-notice, at Acorn's discretion.
  13. Disclosure Related to Use of Google Data:
    1. Acorn does not use Google user data for developing, improving, or training AI and/or ML models.
    2. Acorn does not use Google Workspace APIs to develop, improve, or train generalized/non-personalized AI and/or ML models.
    3. Acorn does not transfer Google user data to third-party AI tools.
  14. Contact Information
    For privacy inquiries or complaints, or to otherwise contact Acorn, please email privacy@Acorn.io.
  15. Changes to this Notice
    Acorn reserves the right to modify or update this Notice from time to time to reflect changes in technology, our practices, law and other factors impacting the collection/use of Personal Data. You are encouraged to regularly check this Notice for any updates. We may also collect, use, and disclose Personal Data for other purposes otherwise disclosed to you at the time of collection/processing in a supplementary notice.

    Last updated: October 4, 2024.