Skip to Main Content
Last Updated: January 1, 2020
This Privacy Policy ("Policy") describes how Art.sy, Inc. d/b/a Artsy (“Artsy” or “we” or “our” or “us”) collects, stores, shares, and uses information, and your choices about privacy when you use our website, products, and services (collectively, “Services”). Your privacy is important to us, and we ask that you read this Policy carefully to be informed about our practices.
This Policy is part of our Terms of Use, which can be viewed at: https://artsy.net/terms. Any capitalized terms that are used but not defined in this Policy have the same meaning given to them in our Terms of Use. By accessing or using our Services in any way, you agree that your information may be collected, stored, shared, and used as described in this Policy and our Terms of Use.
By using our Services, you consent to the collection, use and sharing of your Personal Information as outlined in this Policy. You may withdraw consent at any time in writing, however such withdrawal does not negate our right to process your data prior to your withdrawal.
This Policy applies to all of our Services, regardless of how you use them, and whether or not you register for an Artsy account. This Policy applies to how we collect, store, share, and use information. This Policy does not apply to any entity that we do not own or control, or to any person that we do not employ or manage. If, at any time during the course of using our Services, you are directed to a third-party site, you understand and agree that the policies of the third-party site govern.
Information You Provide: We may collect the information that you provide (such as name, email address, home address, phone number) or otherwise make available to us when you access or use our Services, including when you:
Information Collected Automatically: We may automatically collect certain information about how you access or use our Services, and by using our Services you consent to the collection of that information. Examples include but are not limited to: internet browser, operating system, device and application identifiers, IP address and geo-location information, access times and dates, referring and exit pages and URLs, clickstream data, search terms, pages viewed, time spent on pages, bounce rate and login frequency.
Information from Cookies, Web Beacons and Similar Technologies: We may collect information through the use of cookies, web beacons and similar technologies. These technologies help us to operate, improve and customize our Services, Content and marketing, for example, by helping us to better understand how Users access and engage with our Services, Content, emails and ads. We may also use third-party service providers (such as analytics or ad providers) that may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to help operate their services. Your browser may have settings that allow you to decline cookies, but please note that some of our Services may not be available if you do so, as some of our Services require cookies to operate. For more information about cookies, web beacons, similar technologies, and how they are used, please see our Cookie Policy below.
Information from Other Users: If you use our Services to communicate with another User or perform a transaction with another User, we may obtain information or feedback from them about their interaction with you (for example, whether you were responsive to their communications or completed a transaction with them). Also, when Users share User Content through our Services, if it contains information about you, we will receive that information as well. More information about User Content is provided below.
Information from Other Sources: We may obtain information about you from third-party partners (such as other companies with which we may jointly offer services or conduct promotional events), third-party service providers, credit bureaus or other sources, including but not limited to demographic information, contact information, open data, publicly available data and credit check information. We may use this information for legitimate business purposes, including the performance of a contract, customer support, fraud prevention, and credit-related decisions in connection with our Services, along with other purposes described in this Policy.
Information from Mobile Use: When you access our Services on a mobile device, for example, when you download or use an Artsy mobile application or visit our website from a mobile browser, we may obtain information about your location and mobile device, including a unique identifier for your device which information may be used for legitimate business purposes. Along with the other purposes described in this Policy, we may use this information in order to customize our Services, Content and marketing for your location. Most mobile devices let you disable location services, and your choices for location services may vary depending on your mobile device.
The information we collect helps us to operate, improve, protect, and customize our Services, as well as develop new Services. The information we collect also helps us provide customer support and make our Services more efficient for you and other Users.
For the sake of transparency, it is our responsibility to outline for you the legitimate business purposes for the collection of information and the reasons why we do so, in order for you to make an informed decision regarding the use of our Services.
In addition to the other uses of information described in this Policy, we may use all of the information that we obtain from or about you for the following purposes and reasons:
We provide registered Users with settings on our Services to control whether they receive certain communications from us. If you do not want to receive marketing email from us, you can unsubscribe by following the unsubscribe link in the email you received, changing your preferences in your profile and account settings (if you have registered for an Artsy account), or emailing us at [email protected]. You may not be able to opt out of receiving some communications from us, such as email about your account, your relationship with us, or your transactions with us or other Users. For further information, please don’t hesitate to contact us at [email protected]. Please note that unsubscribing from receiving emails from us may result in a less robust experience of our Services.
Registration, Access and Records: To register for an Artsy account, you will need to do so by providing your full name and a valid email address. If you have received our permission to use our Services as a business, you may need to complete an additional registration process and provide additional information. If you have an Artsy account, you may access, add, remove or update certain information about you in your profile and account settings, as indicated on our Services. It is your responsibility to update all such information as necessary to keep it accurate and current. When you update your account or profile information, we may keep a record of the unrevised information for purposes consistent with this Policy. If you wish to cancel your account, you may do so by using the tools provided in your profile and account settings, subject to any other agreements between you and us and any transactions which have not yet been completed. If you terminate your account, we may keep a record of any or all information associated with you or your account, as required or permitted by law, for purposes consistent with this Policy, and any such data shall be attached to a unique identifier which cannot be used to identify you; specific account data that includes Personal Information including your name, e-mail, contact information, and certain other records such as settings and collector profiles will be removed at such termination. For further information, please contact us at [email protected].
Profile and Account Information: To make our Services more interactive, certain information about Users’ profiles or accounts may be made accessible to other Users on or through our Services, as indicated in Users’ profile and account settings on our Services, or as otherwise indicated by us when you use certain Services. Our Services may include settings to control how certain profile or account information is shared with other Users on or through our Services, and you should check your profile and account settings regularly to be informed of your current choices. For further information, please contact us at [email protected].
Data Retention: We will keep and use your data as described in this Policy for (i) as long as your account is in use, is open, or is active; (ii) as long as is necessary to comply with any tax, legal, and/or other regulatory requirements; and (iii) to protect and defend against potential legal claims. If you would like to request the deletion of your personally identifiable information or request that it be returned to you, please contact us at [email protected]. By deleting your data from our Site, you understand that you will no longer be able to use our Services. We will retain your anonymized, aggregated, depersonalized data after it has been deleted from our Site.
Our Services may include features that enable you to designate your “favorite” artists, designers or other creators, artwork or other items, or categories of artwork or other items. Our Services may also include features that enable you to “follow” galleries, institutions or other Users, artists, designers or other creators, or categories of artwork or other items.
If you enable such designations, we may include you in email communications regarding those designations. If you would like to opt out of receiving those emails, please follow the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the relevant email or visit your account profile to update your email settings. For further information, please contact us at [email protected].
As described in our Terms of Use, some Services may enable you to provide User Content on or through our Services. When you post or publish User Content on our Services, any information contained in the User Content (including information in images or videos) becomes publicly accessible on our Services (and may also be indexed by and accessible through third-party search engines), and we and other Users may access and use the User Content as described in our Terms of Use. This applies even if you or someone else also provides such information to us by other means, and our use of such information might have been more limited under this Policy if such information was only provided to us by such other means. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have the right to share any information about others that you may share with us or with others through our Services.
Connecting with Other Users: We aim to provide a platform and marketplace where Users can discover and engage with a wide range of artwork, design and other items from around the world, including items from the various galleries, institutions and others that use our Services as exhibitors or sellers. To help make this happen, our Services may include features, such as messaging tools and email addresses hosted on our Services, that enable you to contact and communicate with other Users. For example, when an auction house, gallery, or other seller lists an artwork or other item on our Services, our Services may enable you to contact them about that item or about other items they may have available.
Sharing Information with Other Users: When you use our Services to contact another User or perform a transaction with another User, such as an auction house, gallery, or institution, they may obtain your name, email address and (as applicable) other contact information from us to facilitate communications, transactions, or for their marketing purposes. Sometimes such Users may be able to obtain additional information about you when you use our Services to contact them or perform a transaction with them. For example, they may be able to obtain information about your location, interests and other information, as indicated by us in connection with these Services, or as otherwise indicated in your profile and account settings. Our Services may include settings that enable you to choose how certain information is shared with other Users when you contact them or perform a transaction with them, as indicated when you use these Services or in your profile and account settings.
Personal Information. Under this Policy, "Personal Information" means information that by itself can be used to identify or contact a specific person (for example, a person’s name, email address, postal address or phone number), and Personal Information does not include information that has been aggregated or made anonymous so that by itself it no longer identifies and can no longer reasonably be used to contact a specific person. In certain circumstances, Personal Information may also include information you voluntarily provide to us such as artists and galleries you choose to follow. We will only share your Personal Information with others in the ways described in this Policy, or otherwise with your prior consent. In addition to the other sharing of Personal Information described in this Policy, we may share your Personal Information with others in the following contexts.
We may aggregate and/or make anonymous any Personal Information that we have obtained in any way from or about you or others so that such information no longer contains any Personal Information. We may use and share any aggregated, anonymous or other non-personally identifying information for any legitimate business purposes, including research and development, marketing, and to inform others about how our Services or Content are engaged with or used.
If you use our marketplace or register for certain Services, you may need to provide payment information, such as a credit card number, type and expiration date. We do not intentionally store credit card information entered on our Services. This information is stored by a third-party payment processor, and the use and storage of this information will be subject to the payment processor’s own terms of service and privacy policy. We do receive certain information from the payment processor, including a unique token that we associate with you to authorize your purchases, and in certain cases, the last four digits of the credit card number associated with that token, in order to help prevent fraud and identity theft. If you do not wish to provide payment information, you will not be able to use certain Services on our Site.
Our Services may include links to other websites or services that we do not own or control, and other websites or services that we do not own or control may include links to our Services. Our Services may also include features that enable you to link your Artsy account to your account on other social media services. For example, you may be able to sign up for (or sign in to) our Services through another social media service. Our Services may also include features that enable you to share Content on other websites and social media services. However, these links and features are not an endorsement by us of any other websites or services, or any of their privacy policies or practices. When you visit or use other websites or services, they may collect information from you, including through the use of cookies, web beacons or similar technologies. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of other websites and services that you visit or use to be informed of their practices.
Artsy is headquartered in the United States. Our Users (including the galleries and other organizations that use our Services as exhibitors or sellers), service providers, and other third parties you may interact with in connection with our Services, may be located in the United States and other countries around the world, including countries that may not offer the same level of protection for Personal Information as that offered in the United States. By accessing or using our Services in the United States or any other country or jurisdiction, you agree that your information may be transferred and processed in the United States and any other country or jurisdiction.
In cases of onward transfer to third parties of Personal Information of EU individuals received pursuant to the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield, Artsy remains accountable for the onward transfer of such Personal Information.
Our Services are not directed to children under the age of 16, and we do not knowingly collect Personal Information from people in this age group. If you believe we may have collected Personal Information from anyone under the age of 16, please contact us.
Every Artsy account is protected by a password to help maintain privacy and security on our Services. If you register for an account, we urge you to use a strong password containing unique numbers, letters and special characters, and to protect the confidentiality of your password at all times. If you suspect or become aware of any unauthorized access to or use of your account or password, you agree to immediately notify us and change your password. Please note that while we seek to protect your information and maintain the security of our Services, due to the possibility of hardware or software failure, unauthorized entry or use and other factors, we cannot guarantee the security of any information, whether online or offline. Any transmission of information is at your own risk. Please also note that any information you provide to us via email is unencrypted.
Some jurisdictions have laws that give people the right to access or correct their Personal Information which a company has about them. We will honor any statutory right you may have to access or correct your Personal Information that we have in our records, and you can email such requests to [email protected]. Once we receive your request, we will let you know if an administrative fee will apply to fulfill your request, as permitted by applicable law. However, please note that even if you have a legal right to request access to information or to correct information, as permitted by applicable law, we may reject requests that are unreasonably repetitive, would require disproportionate technical effort (for example, developing a new system or materially changing an existing practice), would jeopardize the privacy of others, or would be extremely impractical to fulfill (for example, requests to access information located on backup systems).
If you are a resident of California as defined in Section 17014 of Title 18 of the California Code of Regulations, you may have additional rights regarding our use of your personal information. For more information regarding the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018, please visit their website here.
Artsy is a participant in the U.S. Department of Commerce’s EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (“Privacy Shield”). Artsy complies with the Privacy Shield regarding the collection, use, and retention of personal information transferred from the EU and the United Kingdom to the United States in reliance on such framework. Artsy has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles with respect to such information. If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the Privacy Shield Principles, the Privacy Shield Principles shall govern. We are subject to the investigatory and enforcement powers of the Federal Trade Commission.
For more information about the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework, visit the U.S. Department of Commerce's Privacy Shield website here.
As this Policy is part of our Terms of Use, any disputes involving you and us that relate to privacy or the use of your information, and that arise out of or are related to this Policy or our Services, will be subject to our Terms of Use, including any provisions regarding the limitation of damages and liability, choice of law, and dispute resolution.
If you do not receive timely acknowledgement of your complaint, or if your complaint is not satisfactorily addressed, you can also submit your complaint to PrivacyTrust, an independent third-party. Visit PrivacyTrust’s website here to file a complaint. In limited situations, EU individuals may seek redress from the Privacy Shield Panel, a binding arbitration mechanism, and please note that you have the right to register a complaint with your data protection regulator in your country, a list of which can be found here.
.
Our business changes with time, and our Privacy Policy will change also. We reserve the right to change this Policy, including our Cookie Policy, without prior notice, at any time at our sole discretion. For example, and without limitation, we may change this Policy to reflect changes to the law or changes to our Services. All changes to this Policy will be effective when posted on our Services, or at such later date as may be specified in the updated Policy. We will notify you of any changes to this Policy by posting the updated Policy on our Services, and you agree to review this Policy regularly and inform yourself of all applicable changes. By continuing to use our Services after any changes to this Policy become effective, you agree to such changes and the updated Policy. Unless we notify you otherwise, the current version of this Policy will apply to all information that we have about you or your account.
Cookies, Web Beacons, and Similar Technologies: We may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies, such as tracking URLs, to collect information about how you or others access or engage with our Services, Content, emails, and ads displayed on or off our Services, and to operate, develop, improve, and customize our Services, Content, and marketing, including ads displayed on or off our Services. Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but your browser may have settings that enable you to decline or delete cookies on your device. Please note that if you decline cookies, you may not be able to sign in, customize, or use some of the interactive features of our Services, as some of our Services require cookies to operate.
What these Technologies Are: “Cookies” are small data files placed on your computer or other device which record information. For example, a cookie could enable our Services to recognize your browser, while another cookie could store your account preferences and other information to help make our Services more customized. We may use two kinds of cookies, “session cookies” and “persistent cookies.” Session cookies normally expire when you close your browser, while persistent cookies remain on your device until they expire or are deleted. “Web beacons” (also known as “pixel tags” or “clear GIFS”) are pieces of code or pixels embedded in a web page or email to track engagement with and responses to emails, web pages or ads, or to access or communicate with cookies. “Tracking URLs” are special URLs that can be used to track engagement with and responses to emails or web pages.
Third-Party Analytics, Service, and Ad Providers: We may use third-party analytics and services providers who help us to better understand how our Services and Content are accessed and used, including for web analytics, audience measurement, personalization and segmentation, and relationship management purposes. In turn, this information helps us to develop and improve our Services and Content. Our third-party analytics and service providers include but are not limited to Google Analytics. These providers may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to collect information about how Users access or engage with our Services, Content, emails, and ads on or off our Services. For more information about how Google may collect and process information in connection with Google Analytics, click here.
We may also use third-party advertising providers, including ad networks or exchanges, to help display ads on our Services or on other websites, including customized ads based on past online activity. These third parties may use cookies, web beacons and similar technologies to help provide their services to us, and to collect information about your and others’ online activity across different websites. These providers may also collect your IP address, device identifier, or identifier for advertising (IDFA). The third-party advertising providers we use include but are not limited to Google Analytics, and we use its Remarketing and Demographics and Interest Reporting features, which enables Google Analytics to collect data about traffic on our Services through Google advertising cookies and anonymous identifiers. We and third-party providers, including Google Analytics, may use first-party cookies (i.e. cookies set by the website you are visiting) and third-party cookies (i.e. cookies set by a third-party website other than the website you are visiting) to inform, optimize, and serve ads based on past visits to our Services. We do not control the practices of any third-party providers, and this Cookie Policy (and our Privacy Policy in general) does not cover the use of cookies, web beacons or similar technologies by any third parties.
Opting-Out: Third-party providers may offer you a way to opt-out of receiving cookies from them by visiting their own websites or the websites of industry groups such as the Network Advertising Initiative and the Digital Advertising Alliance. For example, you may opt-out of receiving ad-related cookies from Google through its Ad Settings. If you opt-out of receiving cookies from one of these providers, it may place a cookie on your device to remember your preference. For more information about AdChoice, please visit their website. Accordingly, if you delete cookies, install a new browser, or start using a new device, you may need to repeat the opt-out process. To opt out of receiving any marketing materials, please email us at [email protected].
Changes to this Cookie Policy: As this Cookie Policy is part of our Privacy Policy, we may update it at any time as described in our Privacy Policy. Please review this Cookie Policy regularly to be informed of any updates.
If you have questions or comments about our Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, would like to know what Personal Information we hold about you, or would like to update, delete, or request access to such Personal Information, you may contact us by email sent to [email protected], or by postal mail sent to Art.sy, Inc., 401 Broadway, 26th Floor, New York, NY 10013, U.S, Attn: Privacy.
If you need to be in touch with our EU representative, please contact us in either London or Berlin:
Artsy UK Ltd
14 Gower's Walk
Suite 2.5, The Loom
Whitechapel, London E1 8PY, UK
Email: [email protected]
Art.sy Inc GmbH
Weserstraße 175
3 OG Rechts (3rd floor, right side)
12045 Berlin, Germany
Email: [email protected]