Acceptable Use Policy

Introduction

We developed Hotjar to make it easy to go beyond traditional web analytics and understand what users are really doing on your site.

Our belief has always been that if we can do this at scale, we can play an influential part in improving the experience for millions of people online. This belief has driven us to reduce the friction of signing up for our service and also fuels our desire to make it easy to get value from our product.

So far our approach has worked: Hotjar is running on hundreds of thousands of websites and we continuously hear from customers that we are helping them improve the experience for their users, benefitting both our customers and their users.

However, not everything is perfect. Given the rate of change online, its tremendous growth, and the ease of publishing, it’s not practical for Hotjar to know all of its users nor the exact nature of their websites. While we believe the majority of people on this planet are good-natured, our product might be used in ways we never intended. It’s also conceivable that some websites running the Hotjar script might not be in alignment with Hotjar’s Core Values.

The intent of this Policy is to make it clear to anyone who uses Hotjar (free or paid) what behavior or content is not acceptable for sites using our service. We will take action against sites that are discovered to be in violation of this Policy.

This Policy is a living document and will be updated as necessary. Continued use of Hotjar requires compliance with this Acceptable Use Policy as well as our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

NON-acceptable uses of Hotjar

If the content on your website contains information that is conducting or promoting any of the below, or if you intend to leverage Hotjar to do any of the below, please don’t sign up for Hotjar. If you already have an account—whether free or paid—you must stop using Hotjar on the offending site or cancel your account.

The following constitutes behavior and content that are NOT acceptable uses of Hotjar:

• Sites performing, promoting, suggesting, or soliciting illegal activities.

• Harassment, bullying, defamation, stalking, and threats.

• Hateful content. A website using Hotjar must not contain content that meets the following criteria nor can a Hotjar account be used to do any of the following:

• Promote or condone hate, violence, or discrimination against people based on race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, medical condition, veteran status, or other forms of discriminatory intolerance.

• Promote or support organizations, platforms or people that: (i) promote or condone such hate; or (ii) threaten or condone violence to further a cause.

• Child exploitation, sexualization, or abuse. We don’t tolerate any activities that create, disseminate, or otherwise cause child abuse.

• Sites selling counterfeit goods; or sites allowing, performing or facilitating any infringement of third party intellectual property rights.

• Malware or spyware. This includes using Hotjar to inject, infect, spread, etc. malware or spyware.

• Phishing or otherwise attempting fraud. It is not okay to lie about who you are or who you affiliate with to steal from, extort, or otherwise harm others.

• Spamming. No one wants unsolicited emails, text, or other communication.

• Violence, or threats thereof. This includes activities on your site that qualify as a violent crime where you live, or in Malta where Hotjar is based, or if you are leveraging Hotjar to plan, conduct, assist, commit, or threaten this kind of activity.

• Any actions that do not support the privacy rights of an individual. This includes capturing, selling, or sharing personal data without their consent. For the purposes of clarity, other prohibited examples include doing any of the following without an end user’s consent:

• Monitoring personally identifiable information that would allow you to gain insight into individual visitor behavior.

• Generating leads or recovering people who have dropped off from your funnel.

• Aiding sales teams in understanding actions taken by individuals who can be identified.

• Capturing individuals’ data to proactively reach out to them.

It’s foreseeable that a website’s content or their use of Hotjar may extend to new areas not currently documented in this Policy. When and if this occurs we will take the same action of investigation and enforcement to determine if a site/account is acting against the spirit of this Policy. We reserve the right to do this as needed. When a situation like this occurs we will use our Core Values to guide our final decision and update this Policy if appropriate.

Reporting a concern

Do you know of a site that is violating this Policy? Or do you suspect a site might be violating the Policy? If so, please contact us so we can investigate. Simply email us at concern@hotjar.com.

Please share as much as you are comfortable with about the site, the content or behavior you are reporting, and how you found it. In addition to the URL, sending us screenshots is helpful since content can quickly be removed or changed.

Someone on our team will respond within two business days to let you know we’ve begun investigating. We will also contact you with the outcome of our investigation (unless you ask us not to, or we are not allowed to under law).