Can I disclose a customer's company name?
Say if I have a SaaS startup and someone with email address "[email protected]" signs up on my platform. On the landing pages of my product, can I advertise that this company is using our product?
Also, what if I mention in the privacy policy that your company name, from the email, might be used for advertisements? Would that be against GDPR?
If nothing works, is it polite to ask the customer (via email) to allow me use his company's name on my landing pages? I doubt most of the large companies will ignore it and it might create bad reputation instead.
Suggestions?
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Hi Jeffrey,
The best practice is to reach out and ask them if you can use their name, logo, role, company name, etc. You can send them a specific scope how it would look like, where you would use it and so on. Not all companies allow to put up their logo anywhere, and their legal team can get in touch with you to take it down or sue.
The brands have their brand manuals on how it should be presented. That should be followed too. And sometimes they might require not to be placed next to some other companies.
Reach out and ask; otherwise, you might lose them if they will suddenly see their logo on your site. If they are a new customer, I would first build some relationship with them.
As for the Privacy Policy, a better place would be to add it to the Service Terms and Conditions. But despite having this in the terms, I would still ask, it is better for your relationship with them.
FYI, many large companies do not want to be affiliated with startups because, in case of copyright/patents breach, your competitors will go after them with a claim that they are using a service that has breached their patents.
At this moment, it is best to reach out and ask.
For the future, it is best to include that in your Terms of Service. When they accept your ToS, they will grant you the right to use their intellectual property for social proof.
I think you should ask for permission
That's the right thing to do regardless of what is "legal" let's say
And you want customers to like you more not less, right?