Privacy Policy

Version 1.1 — effective August 23, 2026 · Last updated: August 23, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains what information Shorthand Productions LLC, doing business as Shorthand Audio ("we," "us," "our"), collects when you visit shorthandaudio.com (the "Site") or purchase, activate, and use Verge or other Shorthand Audio products.

1. Information collected at purchase

Checkout is handled entirely by Paddle ("Paddle"), our payment processor and Merchant of Record — specifically Paddle.com Inc. (US), Paddle.com (Canada) Ltd (Canada), or Paddle.com Market Ltd (elsewhere), depending on your location. Paddle collects your name, email address, billing address, and payment details directly — we never see or store your card information. Paddle's own Privacy Policy governs how they handle that data.

After a successful purchase, Paddle notifies us of the order and forwards the email address associated with it, which we use to generate and deliver your license key (see below).

2. License & activation data

We store, in order to issue and support your license:

The email address associated with your purchase
Your generated license key and Paddle transaction ID
A machine identifier for each computer you activate the plugin on, used only to enforce the per-license activation limit and to let you deactivate a seat
The first word of the computer's name, so that you can tell your activated machines apart when managing your seats
The date and time of each activation

About the machine identifier and computer name. The machine identifier is a one-way cryptographic hash of your Mac's hardware platform UUID, computed on your device before it is sent to us — we never receive or store the underlying hardware UUID itself, only the hashed value. It is still a stable value per machine. We use it only to match an activation to a specific computer, so that we can enforce the seat limit and let you free a seat. The computer name we store is only the first word of whatever you have named your Mac in System Settings — the rest is dropped on your device before anything is sent to us — but if that first word is or includes your name (e.g. "James's MacBook Pro" becomes "James's"), we will hold it, and you can ask us to change or remove it at any time (see Section 8). Neither value is used for advertising or tracking, and neither is shared with anyone.

When your plugin contacts our licensing service to activate or deactivate, our server necessarily receives the request's IP address as part of ordinary network operation; we do not retain it in our license database.

We do not scan or collect your files, your projects, or your audio, and the plugin does not transmit anything about the sessions you work on. This data is stored on our infrastructure (Cloudflare D1) and is used solely to deliver, activate, and support your license — not for marketing or analytics.

3. Website usage data

The Site does not use tracking cookies or third-party advertising trackers. Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, may log standard access data (such as IP address and request timestamps) for security and reliability purposes, under Cloudflare's own privacy practices. If we add analytics in the future, this section will be updated to reflect it before it goes live.

4. Support correspondence

If you email us for support, we keep that correspondence to respond to you and for our own records.

5. How we use your information

To deliver the license key and product you purchased
To provide customer support and process refunds
To enforce license terms (activation limits)
To meet our legal, tax, and accounting obligations

We share the minimum data necessary with the infrastructure providers that make the Site and our licensing system work:

Paddle — payment processing, tax/VAT compliance, and Merchant of Record duties
Cloudflare — website hosting, license database, transactional email delivery, and file downloads

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not use your data to train machine-learning models.

7. Data retention

We keep license and order records for as long as your license is active, plus up to 7 years afterward to meet our accounting and tax obligations and to handle any refund or warranty disputes. We keep support correspondence for up to 24 months after our last exchange with you, unless a longer period is needed to resolve an open issue or comply with law.

8. Your rights

Legal basis for processing (EEA/UK). We process license and activation data to perform our contract with you (delivering and supporting your license), to comply with our legal and tax obligations, and, for anti-piracy and security purposes, on the basis of our legitimate interests. Providing this information is necessary to receive and use your license; without it, we can't deliver your purchase.

EEA, UK, and other jurisdictions with similar data protection laws. You have the right to access, correct, erase, or export (port) the personal data we hold about you, and the right to object to or request restriction of our processing of it. To exercise these rights over data we hold directly (license/activation records), contact support@shorthandaudio.com; we will respond within one month, or up to three months for complex requests, and we'll let you know if we need the extra time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority. For payment data held by Paddle, see Paddle's Privacy Policy for how to exercise rights over that data directly with them.

California residents. Under the CCPA/CPRA, California residents have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request deletion or correction of it, to opt out of its sale or sharing, and not to be discriminated against for exercising these rights. We do not sell or share personal information as defined by California law, and we do not use sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about you. To exercise these rights, contact support@shorthandaudio.com; we will acknowledge your request within 10 business days and respond within 45 calendar days, or up to 90 days for more complex requests.

We do not use automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects concerning you.

9. Children's privacy

Our Site and products are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13, and if we learn that we have, we will delete it. Purchases require you to be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live, or to have the consent of a parent or legal guardian — see our Terms of Sale. Where local law sets a higher age of consent for data processing based on consent, we do not rely on consent as our legal basis for processing your license and activation data — we rely on performance of our contract with you, as described in Section 8 above.

10. International data transfers

Our service providers (Paddle, Cloudflare) operate globally, so your information may be processed in countries other than your own, including the United States. Where required by applicable law, we rely on appropriate safeguards for these transfers, such as Standard Contractual Clauses, or on the transfer mechanisms Paddle and Cloudflare themselves have in place.

11. Security

All traffic to the Site and to our licensing service is encrypted in transit using HTTPS. License records are held in a Cloudflare D1 database that is not publicly reachable, and administrative access is limited to the owner of Shorthand Productions LLC. We never hold your payment card details at any point — those go to Paddle directly.

No system is perfectly secure. If we become aware of a breach affecting your personal data, we will notify you and any relevant supervisory authority as required by applicable law, and without undue delay.

12. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by a new "Last updated" date above.

13. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us at support@shorthandaudio.com.