Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 1, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains what information Indie Ink Shield ("we," "us," or "our") collects, how we use it, and the choices you have. It applies to indieinkshield.com and the Indie Ink Shield service (the "Service").

Questions about this policy or your data? Contact hello@indieinkshield.com.

1. Who we are

Indie Ink Shield is a copyright-protection service for independent authors, operated by Indie Ink Shield LLC in the United States. We scan public sources for unauthorized use of your published works, help you document what we find, and help with takedown requests. If we make a material change to this policy, we'll update this page and, where appropriate, ask you to review it.

2. Information we collect

When you run a free scan without an account. We collect the book title and author name you enter, and the results of the scan. We also record a scrambled (one-way hashed) version of your IP address to limit how many free scans can be run from one connection. We don't store your actual IP address for this. See section 6 for how long we keep it.

When you create an account and set up the Service, we collect:

• Your account details (email address and sign-in information, handled by our authentication provider).
• The author name and any pen names you publish under.
• Information about your books: titles, retail prices, identifiers (such as ASIN or ISBN), and links to the stores where you officially sell them.
• The official social profiles and author pages you tell us are yours, so we can tell them apart from impersonators.
• Your legal name and phone number, if you add them, because takedown notices require them.
• Your choices about marketing emails, and the date you made them.
• A record of each version of our Terms you agree to: the version, the date and time, and your browser type.
• Anything you send when contacting us, giving feedback, or asking about the Advocate plan.

Information created by using the Service:

• Findings: listings, pages or accounts our scans surface as possibly relevant to your works.
• Evidence: dated screenshots we try to capture of those findings.
• Records of takedown notices, their status, and each case's history.

Information collected automatically. Our hosting and infrastructure providers collect standard technical information, such as IP addresses and basic request logs, needed to run the Service securely.

We do not intentionally collect sensitive personal information, and we ask that you not submit it.

3. How we use your information

We use it to:

• Provide the Service: run scans, organize findings, capture evidence, and prepare and track takedown requests.
• Tell your own accounts and listings apart from impersonations or unauthorized listings.
• Contact you with account, case and service notifications, and respond to your requests.
• Send marketing emails only if you've agreed to them.
• Run, secure and improve the Service, including preventing abuse and limiting free scans.
• Meet legal obligations, including keeping a record of the Terms you agreed to.

We do not sell your personal data.

4. How your information is shared

We use service providers to run the Service. They process data only for us and only as needed for their job:

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect our rights or others' safety, or in a business transfer such as a merger or sale, in which case we'll tell you.

When a takedown notice is sent, by you or by us under an Advocate authorization, it goes to the site or host involved and includes the information a notice must contain, such as your name and contact details. That disclosure is part of the takedown process.

5. Your choices and rights

Your data is yours. Wherever you live, you can:

• See the books, findings and evidence in your account, and ask us for a copy.
• Correct inaccurate account information.
• Ask us to delete your account and its data.
• Manage notifications and marketing emails in Settings, and unsubscribe from non-essential emails.

To make a request, email hello@indieinkshield.com from the address on your account. Depending on where you live (for example, the EU or UK under the GDPR, or California under the CCPA), you may have more rights, including objecting to some processing or complaining to your local data-protection authority. We honor these requests wherever you are.

6. How long we keep information

7. Security

We use established infrastructure providers and access controls to protect your information, and we scramble IP addresses from free scans before storing them. No online service is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and limit access to what's needed to run the Service.

8. International users

The Service is run from the United States, and your information is processed there and by our service providers. If you use it from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data-protection laws may differ from yours. We apply this policy to everyone.

9. Children

The Service is not for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll remove it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as the Service changes. We'll update the date above, and for material changes we'll take reasonable steps to tell you.

11. Contact

Indie Ink Shield LLC

hello@indieinkshield.com