WHO WE ARE
Tau Plugins is operated by Kirill Semenov (“Tau Plugins”, “we”, “us”), who is the controller of the personal data described on this page. For any privacy question, write to hello@tauplugins.com.
SUMMARY
- We collect only what is needed to sell, license, and support our plugins — plus anonymous, cookie-free visitor counts on this website.
- The plugins never send usage data. They contact our licensing server only to activate, to start a free trial, and to re-validate.
- We do not sell or share personal information, track you across other websites, or use your data for advertising.
- Payments are processed by a third-party merchant of record — we never see your card number.
- You can ask for a copy of your data or its deletion, and switch website analytics off, at any time.
DATA WE COLLECT
1. WHEN YOU BUY A LICENSE
Checkout is handled by a third-party merchant of record (Lemon Squeezy). The merchant of record collects your email address, billing address, payment details, and tax information directly. We receive:
- Your email address.
- The product purchased and the order identifier.
- The country of purchase (for tax records only).
The merchant of record’s own privacy notice applies to the data they hold.
2. WHEN YOU ACTIVATE THE PLUGIN
The plugin connects to our licensing server only when you activate a new install, deactivate one, or during infrequent background re-validation. Each request contains:
- Your license key.
- A hashed machine identifier derived from your operating system’s hardware identifier. We cannot reverse this back to your hardware.
- A one-way hash of your computer’s name, your processor model, your operating system, and the maker prefix of your network card (the first half of its address, shared by every card of that make). These help us recognise the same computer, for example when you ask us to free a seat.
- Which plugin you are activating.
We do not record audio, parameter settings, project names, file paths, or any usage data. The plugin runs offline once activated.
3. WHEN YOU START A FREE TRIAL
A trial starts only when you click START TRIAL in the plugin. The plugin then sends our licensing server:
- The hashed machine identifier and the computer details listed above. No license key and no email address.
- One-way hashes of up to four network-card addresses, so a computer whose system was reinstalled gets its existing trial back rather than a new one.
- The plugin version and the name of the host application (for example “Ableton Live 11”).
Our server adds the trial’s start and end dates, your country (worked out by our hosting provider from your network address), and a salted one-way hash of your network address, which limits how many new trials one network can start. That hash is deleted after 30 days; our database never stores the address itself. While a trial runs, the plugin checks its status about once a day, sending only the hashed machine identifier. If you later activate a license on the same computer, we note that the trial led to a purchase.
4. WHEN YOU CONTACT SUPPORT
If you email hello@tauplugins.com, we
retain the contents of your message, your email
address, and any attachments you send. We use these
only to answer you.
5. WHEN YOU VISIT THIS WEBSITE
Server logs. This site is hosted on Cloudflare, which keeps standard request logs (IP address, user agent, requested URL, response status) for security and abuse prevention. We do not analyse them.
ANONYMOUS VISITOR COUNTS
We use PostHog in its cookieless mode to learn how many people visit, roughly where from, and which key buttons get used. For each page you view, PostHog receives:
- The page address and the website that referred you (including any campaign tags in the link).
- Your browser, operating system, device type, screen size and browser language.
- Your timezone (for example “Europe/Berlin”), which we use as a rough indication of country.
- Taps on a few key controls: the buy buttons (which product and which button), the free-trial downloads (which operating system and which button), HEAR IT, starting the audio demo (which track), links to the plugin pages, and links to a featured artist’s page (which artist and which link).
No cookies, and nothing stored on your device. To tell visits apart, PostHog’s servers compute a one-way hash of your IP address, browser identifier and our site, combined with a random value that changes every day and is then deleted. Your IP address is discarded after that; it is not stored and is not used to look up your location. The hash cannot be turned back into your IP, and because it changes daily we cannot follow you from one day to the next. We create no profiles, do not identify you, and do not connect any of this to your purchase or license.
Switching it off. Use ANALYTICS at the bottom of any page to stop your visits being counted. That choice is stored in your browser so we can respect it. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal, the analytics script is never loaded at all.
COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES
This website sets no cookies. The
only thing it may store in your browser is
tau-analytics (local storage), and only
if you switch analytics off — it remembers that
choice. It is never sent to us. We use no advertising,
social-media, or cross-site tracking technologies.
WHY WE USE IT, AND ON WHAT LEGAL BASIS
- Fulfilling your order and licensing. Issuing your license, delivering downloads, sending receipts, running activations. Basis: performance of our contract with you.
- Supporting you. Answering questions, replacing license keys, processing refunds. Basis: contract, and our legitimate interest in helping customers.
- Free trials. Running your trial, making sure each computer gets one, and learning which systems and host applications trial users run, so we know what to support. Basis: our legitimate interest in offering a trial fairly and improving the plugins (UK GDPR / EU GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)).
- Security and fraud prevention. Server logs and activation records. Basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the site and licenses secure.
- Meeting legal obligations. Tax records and accounting. Basis: legal obligation.
- Anonymous visitor counts. Knowing how many people visit, roughly where from, and which key buttons get used, so we can improve the site. Basis: our legitimate interest (UK GDPR / EU GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)). We keep it minimal — no cookies, no device storage, no profiles, daily-changing hashes — and you can object at any time with ANALYTICS.
HOW LONG WE KEEP IT
- License records: for as long as the license is active, plus the period required by accounting law (typically 6 to 10 years depending on jurisdiction).
- Activation records: while the seat is in use; older activation events are pruned after 24 months.
- Trial records: while the plugin is on sale, so a trial can’t be started again on the same computer. The network-address hash is deleted after 30 days. You can ask us to delete your trial record.
- Support emails: 24 months, then deleted.
- Server request logs: 7 days, then deleted automatically by the hosting provider.
- Anonymous visitor counts: up to 12 months, then deleted.
WHO PROCESSES IT, AND WHERE
- Cloudflare — website hosting, trial downloads, licensing server and license database.
- Postmark — transactional email, such as delivering your license key.
- PostHog — anonymous website visitor counts. Data is stored in PostHog’s EU region.
- Lemon Squeezy — merchant of record for purchases, under its own privacy notice.
These providers act on our instructions under data processing terms. Some are based in the United States; where personal data leaves the UK or the EEA, the transfer is protected by the UK or EU Standard Contractual Clauses, or the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, as applicable.
YOUR RIGHTS (UK AND EU)
Under UK GDPR and EU GDPR you have the right to:
- Ask for a copy of the data we hold on you, and receive it in a portable format.
- Ask us to correct it.
- Ask us to delete it (subject to legal retention obligations — e.g. tax records we must keep).
- Object to, or ask us to restrict, processing based on our legitimate interests — for website analytics, simply use ANALYTICS at the bottom of every page.
- Complain to a data-protection authority — in the UK the Information Commissioner’s Office (
ico.org.uk), or the authority in your EU country.
To exercise any of these, write to hello@tauplugins.com from the email address tied to your purchase. We respond within 30 days.
YOUR RIGHTS (UNITED STATES)
We do not sell or share personal information, as those terms are defined in the California Consumer Privacy Act and similar state laws, and we do not use it for targeted advertising. Website analytics is anonymous and cookie-free, you can switch it off at any time, and we honour Global Privacy Control.
In the last 12 months we have collected: identifiers (email address, license key, hashed machine and network-card identifiers, a hashed network address kept for 30 days); commercial information (purchases and free trials); device information (processor model, operating system, host application, country); and anonymous internet activity on this website (pages viewed, taps on key buttons, timezone). The sources are you, your device, and our merchant of record, for the purposes listed above.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to know what we hold, to access, correct, or delete it, and not to be treated differently for exercising these rights. Write to hello@tauplugins.com; we respond within 45 days.
CHILDREN
Tau Plugins is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16 (under 13 in the United States).
CHANGES
We may revise this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on this page with an updated date at the top. If we ever want website analytics to collect more than described here, we will ask for your consent first.
CONTACT
For any privacy question, write to hello@tauplugins.com.