Privacy Policy

Your drawings

Structures you draw and files you open stay on your own computer. The browser version reads files in the page using your browser's own file reader; there is no server here that could receive them. The desktop app reads and writes files on your disk. Neither version uploads a drawing, and neither sends usage data, crash reports or telemetry of any kind. The one exception is a lookup you ask for, described under "PubChem lookups".

The desktop app keeps a list of recently opened file paths in your user application data folder so File ▸ Open Recent works. That list never leaves your machine, and deleting the folder removes it.

PubChem lookups

Structure ▸ Structure from CAS Number, Structure ▸ Find CAS Number and the Ask PubChem button of Structure ▸ Structure to Name (Beta) look a compound up on PubChem, the public chemistry database run by the US National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI). They are the only parts of MolQuill that use the internet for your drawings, and only when you click Look Up or Ask PubChem: the dialog says what will be sent first. Structure to Name works out names on your computer and offers PubChem only for a structure it cannot name.

Structure from CAS Number sends the CAS number you typed. Find CAS Number and Ask PubChem send the one structure you are looking up, written as a line of SMILES text; nothing else in the drawing goes with it, and nothing identifies you or your file. The request goes straight from your computer to PubChem, not through molquill.com, so PubChem receives your IP address as part of it, under the NCBI's own privacy policy. If you never use these lookups, nothing is sent.

Update checks

The desktop app can check molquill.com for a newer version. It asks you the first time it starts whether to do this automatically (when it starts and twice a day while it runs); if you say no, it checks only when you choose Help ▸ Check for Updates, and you can change your answer in the Help menu at any time.

A check is an ordinary download of a small file from this website, followed by the new version if there is one. It carries no identifier, drawing, file name or usage information. Like any web request it reaches Cloudflare with your IP address and a browser-style description of the software making it, as described under "This website". Your answer and any downloaded update are kept in your user application data folder.

This website

The site is a set of static files, plus the two pages that handle a purchase (the step to Stripe's checkout and the download page that follows it). There are no accounts, no cookies set by us, no analytics and no advertising or tracking scripts.

Two things do involve someone else. The site is served through Cloudflare, which processes request data such as IP addresses in order to deliver pages and protect against attacks. Page fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests them from Google and Google receives your IP address as part of that request.

Buying the desktop app

The desktop app is sold through Link, Stripe's checkout service, using Stripe Managed Payments, which also takes care of sales tax, VAT and GST on the purchase. Stripe and Link collect what they need to take payment and meet tax law: your name, email address, billing address and payment details, under Link's privacy policy, which you agree to at checkout. If you choose to save your details with Link for faster checkout elsewhere, that is between you and Link. Payment card details go to Stripe, never to us.

We receive from Stripe the information needed to deliver your purchase and support it, which is your email address and the details of your order. Your download page is reached through the link Stripe returns you to; it checks your order with Stripe each time and stores nothing about you. Your email address is used only to answer you if you write in. It is not sold, rented or shared with anyone, and you will not be added to a mailing list.

Email

If you email purchase@molquill.com or bugreport@molquill.com, that mail and anything attached to it is kept so the conversation can be continued and the problem fixed. A structure file you send as a bug report is used to fix the reader and is not published or passed on.

Your rights

You can ask what is held about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted, by emailing purchase@molquill.com. Requests about payment records may need to go to Stripe, which holds them; we will tell you if that is the case.

Records connected with a purchase are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires. Email correspondence is kept while it is useful and deleted when it is not.