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Article 2 min read

Zendesk legal terms update 2022

By Shanti Ariker, General Counsel

Last updated March 7, 2023

As a service-first company, we update our terms and policies on an annual basis, driven by customer feedback, evolving legal standards, and product updates.

A summary of the key updates is below. If you would like more information about our legal terms, please visit our Agreements and Terms Website. If you would like more information about our privacy and security practices, please visit our Trust Center Website.

For new subscribers, our updated Master Subscription Agreement (MSA) will become effective on June 1, 2022. For existing subscribers, this is your advance notice that the new MSA will apply to your use of the Services starting on July 1, 2022 and your continued use of the Services after that date constitutes your consent to these changes.

For subscribers who have purchased a subscription to our Services through an authorized reseller partner, we have made the equivalent changes to our Reseller Subscription Services Agreement, which is effective as of June 1, 2022 for new subscribers and July 1, 2022 for existing subscribers.

Master Subscription Agreement (MSA)

In addition to making many of our terms shorter and clearer, we made the following key updates to the Zendesk MSA:

  • We have added an explicit commitment that we will not materially decrease the overall functionality of the Services during a subscription term;
  • We have updated our privacy and security provisions to be even more straightforward, including Zendesk’s use of third parties to provide the Services to subscribers and subscribers’ ability to enter into supplemental privacy terms with Zendesk (e.g. Data Processing Agreement, CCPA Addendum, or LGPD Addendum);
  • We have added language giving subscribers the right to assign the MSA without Zendesk’s consent in the event of an assignment to an affiliate or in connection with a merger or change of control provided that certain conditions are met;
  • We have added detail regarding our export compliance and use restrictions that comply with United States and applicable import and export laws and regulations;
  • We have updated our security measures to add an explicit commitment to notify a subscriber within 48 hours of a service data breach; and
  • We have updated our Trademark Usage Guidelines so subscribers, partners, and other third parties that have a license to use Zendesk’s trademarks have a better understanding of how to properly use Zendesk’s trademarks.

Privacy Notice

We have also updated our Privacy Notice to, among other things, provide more transparency around how we process personal data about your agents that Zendesk stores separate from the Services in order to communicate with them regarding Zendesk’s provision and support of the Services.

Data Processing Agreement (DPA)

We would also like to remind our customers that our Data Processing Agreement, which incorporates our EU Binding Corporate Rules and the June 2021 Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs), is available for all subscribers to sign (see here). Our DPA also provides additional safeguards to Annex II of the new DPA/SCCs and provides details on our system access controls, data access controls, transmission controls, and network architecture and security.

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