Intercom Platform Guidelines

Introduction

We want developers to have a great experience building on the Intercom Platform. We believe that building a vibrant developer ecosystem around Intercom benefits everyone involved, and helps our mission to make internet business personal. :heart-eyes:

We've written these guidelines for anyone using Intercom's products and services, to show you how to use Intercom and our APIs, and to share best practices as we, and you, continue to build new and exciting products and services.

But, like everything in life, there have to be some rules of engagement which is why we've drawn up these developer guidelines. Yes, they're written in legal terms, to protect us and you, but we've tried to ensure they are as simple as possible. We want to point you towards opportunities rather than focusing on what can't be done.

Now, over to our lawyers for the legal bits…

Before starting work, we'll ask you to confirm that you're happy to comply with the spirit and the letter of these guidelines.

Please use Intercom's products and services responsibly

Our products, services and our brand are really important to us, and we ask that you do not do anything that might damage them:

• We expect data produced with Intercom's products to be represented transparently and honestly. Don't misrepresent data or metrics created by our products.
• We expect you to use our products and services to help serve your customers. Don't re-sell, re-purpose or license, any data obtained from Intercom. Don't use our products to create a service that competes with Intercom or infringes our copyright.
• We've spent years building and refining our products to best serve you. Don't reverse engineer the platform, and don't re-sell, transfer or sublicense our code, APIs, or products.
• Keeping our customers' data secure is the most important thing that Intercom does. Don't use spiders, robots crawlers, data mining or similar tools to scrape the Intercom Website or APIs.
• Intercom needs access to monitor your access to our API so don't block us from doing so.
• Respect our rate-limits. Don't overuse our APIs or resources - we expect you to comply with any fair usage guidelines we publish from time to time.
• If you have an idea as to how our products can be improved or you would like to try something experimental then please let us know and we'd be happy to discuss with you.
• You can use our logo and branding where you have the right to do so, but please don't do anything that could damage our brand integrity or be misleading or confusing to customers - that includes using our logo in any part of your logo, using the Intercom name in your app name or anything else that could be considered an abuse of our branding, logos or copyrighted materials.

Treat your customers and their data responsibly

Keeping our customers' data secure is the most important thing that Intercom does. We go to considerable lengths to ensure that all data sent to Intercom is handled securely.

We expect others with access to our customers' data to treat it with the same level of trust and responsibility. Our terms for developers include:

• You must have appropriate measures in place to protect any information you receive from Intercom against unauthorized access, use, or disclosure.
• You must only use the data you need to build your product or service.
• You must have an end user agreement and a privacy policy in place with respect to each of your customers - and it must be compatible with Intercom's terms.
• You must ensure you're meeting all your legal obligations in terms of applicable data protection and consumer protection; don't use Intercom's products in connection with data you don't have permission to process.
• You must be able to meet the requirements of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for any data you process which falls within the scope of the legislation and fulfil subject access requests as required.
• In addition to breach notifications required under GDPR, you'll notify Intercom of any personal data breaches within 72 hours of becoming aware of a breach.
• You must grant Intercom permission to audit your data processing activities. This can include independently produced audit reports.

Further Information

These guidelines sit alongside, and are in addition to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy so please do make sure you've read and understand these documents. If we feel you are misusing our products or services, we reserve the right to withdraw access to our products and services entirely.

As our developer platform and business evolves, so too will these guidelines. We'd love for you to get in touch if you've any feedback or suggestions for how we can make them better.

We know that occasionally things can go wrong and mistakes can be made. If at any time you are concerned that these guidelines may have been breached, please do notify us as soon as you become aware. These guidelines may change over time, so do come back and check periodically.

Thanks for reading this far - we're excited to see what you'll build! :rocket: