Terms and Conditions for Using Slack's Collaboration Platform
Overall Score
Risk by Category
The Slack Main Services Agreement (MSA) is the primary terms of service governing the use of Slack's messaging and collaboration services. It covers user eligibility, account responsibilities, content ownership and licenses, payment obligations, service usage rules, termination rights, warranties, indemnification, liability limitations, dispute resolution (including mandatory arbitration and class action waiver), and references to Slack's Privacy Policy for data handling. The agreement emphasizes user ownership of content while granting Slack a broad license for service operation, improvement, and enforcement. It applies to workspaces and applies California law.
Disputes must be resolved via binding arbitration in California, waiving class actions and jury trials.
Slack receives a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, modify, and distribute user content for service provision and improvement.
Slack may use aggregated data for machine learning and service enhancements.
Governed by California law, potentially unfavorable for international users.
Users retain full ownership and intellectual property rights to their content.
Users can export workspace data before deletion.
Admins can delete workspaces, triggering data removal.
Slack commits to industry-standard security practices.
Spotify collects the following categories of personal data. High Risk categories are used for advertising profiling or involve sensitive personal information.
Email, username, workspace info collected.
All communications and uploaded content.
Behavioral data, device info, logs for analytics.
IP-derived location if enabled.
Your data serves the following purposes. Mandatory purposes cannot be disabled without canceling the service. Opt-out available purposes allow some user control.
Usage data used to improve Slack features and analytics.
Data processed for legal compliance and abuse prevention.
De-identified data may train ML models.
Spotify shares data with several categories of third parties. Sharing with advertising partners is extensive and represents the primary commercial use of your behavioral data.
Shared with vendors for hosting, analytics (e.g., AWS).
Shared within Salesforce family for operations.
Aggregated data to partners like Google Analytics.
Shared only if required by law.
The following rights may be available to you depending on your region. EU/EEA users have the broadest protections under GDPR. Non-EU users have more limited guarantees.
Users can view and export their workspace data.
Full export available before account termination.
Workspace deletion removes user content, subject to retention for legal needs.
Limited; service providers may process data as needed.
Data is retained for different periods depending on category, and security disclosures vary in depth. The policy highlights the following retention and transparency points.
Retention Periods
Data deleted within 30 days post-workspace deletion, except backups.
Retained as required by law, potentially indefinitely.
Retained indefinitely for aggregated insights.
Security & Transparency
Data encrypted in transit (TLS) and at rest.
Notifies users of breaches as required by law.
SOC 2 compliant, regular audits.
Controls for preventing unauthorized data exfiltration.
Source Text
Grants Slack broad rights to host, distribute, modify user content.
Interpretation
User-friendly ownership but expansive license risks derivative uses.
Source Text
Mandatory individual arbitration, no class actions.
Interpretation
Limits user recourse, favors company.
Source Text
Slack not liable for third-party apps accessing data.
Interpretation
Users bear risk of integrations.
Source Text
Data export possible pre-termination.
Interpretation
Gives users control but time-limited.
Source Text
References separate Privacy Policy.
Interpretation
Defers details, requires cross-reading.
You retain ownership of your content; Slack only gets a license to operate the service.