Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 13, 2026

Introduction

Authors Ice Creams & Coffee ("Authors," "we," "us," "our") is a local ice cream and coffee shop in Ashburn, Virginia. We also offer wholesale and event catering. We want you to know what happens to the information you share with us online.

This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through our website at https://www.authorsicecreams.com (the "Website"), including the merch checkout on our Merch page. It also explains how we use that information, who we share it with, and the choices you have.

This policy does not cover purchases you make at our shop register, other information you share with us in person at the shop, or websites and services run by other companies, even if you reach them from our Website.

Please also review our Terms of Service and Website Terms of Use.

Information We Collect

We try to collect only what we need to answer you, send you our news, and fill your merch orders.

Information You Give Us Through Our Forms

"Get the Scoop" newsletter signup: your email address.
Events inquiry form: your name, email address, event type, guest count, event location, event date, and any message you include.
Wholesale inquiry form: your name, email address, and your message.

If you contact us by email or phone, we'll receive whatever information you choose to share, such as your name, contact details, and message.

Please don't include sensitive information, like payment card numbers or health details, in a form or email message.

Information From Merch Orders

When you choose "Buy now" on our Merch page, Square's hosted checkout opens in a pop-up window on our Website. Square (Block, Inc.) collects your payment card details, name, email address, phone number, and shipping address, and processes your payment.

Square then makes order details available to us through our Square account, including your name, contact information, shipping address, and the items you ordered. Square does not give us your full payment card number.

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit the Website, some basic technical information is processed automatically by the services that host and protect it, and by the third-party features on our pages. This can include your IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, the pages you request, and the date and time of your visit.

Webflow, which hosts the Website, processes this kind of information to deliver pages to you.
Cloudflare Turnstile, which protects our forms from spam bots, may process this kind of information to check whether a form is being submitted by a person or by an automated program.
Behold, which displays our Instagram posts on the Website, may receive this kind of information when its widget loads in your browser.
Square may receive this kind of information when you open its checkout.

Analytics

We use Fathom Analytics to understand, in general terms, how the Website is used, such as which pages are visited most. Fathom is a privacy-focused analytics service. It doesn't use cookies, and it is designed not to collect personal information or build profiles of individual visitors. We see only aggregate totals, not information about you as an individual.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information described above to:

Reply to your event and wholesale inquiries, and plan events or wholesale orders with you
Send you our newsletter about new flavors, specials, and events, if you signed up
Process, pack, ship, and support your merch orders, including helping with an item that arrives damaged, defective, or is not what you ordered
Communicate with you about an order or inquiry
Respond to a payment dispute or chargeback on a merch order
Keep the Website and our forms working, secure, and free of spam and abuse
Understand, in aggregate, how people use the Website so we can improve it
Keep business, tax, and accounting records, and comply with the law
Protect the rights, safety, and property of Authors, our customers, and others

How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We also do not share your personal information for targeted advertising (sometimes called cross-context behavioral advertising), and we don't give it to other companies for their own marketing.

We share information only in the situations below.

Service Providers

We rely on a small number of companies to run the Website, our forms, and our merch shop. Here is who they are and what they do:

Webflow: builds and hosts the Website, and receives and stores form submissions, which are then emailed to our inbox.
Square (Block, Inc.): runs the merch checkout, processes payments, and makes order details available to us.
Cloudflare: provides Cloudflare Turnstile, which protects our forms from spam bots.
Fathom Analytics: provides privacy-focused, cookieless analytics that show us aggregate visitor totals.
Behold: displays our Instagram posts on the Website.
Email services: the service that hosts our business email inbox, where form submissions arrive, and the email service we use to manage our newsletter list and send newsletter emails.
Shipping carriers: when we ship a merch order, the carrier receives what it needs to deliver your package, such as your name and shipping address.

Some of these companies, such as Square, also handle information under their own privacy policies. See the Third-Party Services and Links section below.

Payment Disputes

If you open a payment dispute or chargeback on a merch order, we may share order, payment, and shipping details with Square and your card issuer so we can respond to it.

With Your Permission

We may share information when you ask us to or agree to it.

Legal Reasons

We may disclose information if we believe in good faith that we need to:

Comply with a law, regulation, subpoena, court order, or other legal process
Enforce our Terms of Service or Website Terms of Use
Detect, prevent, or address fraud, security, or technical problems
Protect the rights, property, or safety of Authors, our customers, or others

We may also share information with our professional advisers, such as accountants and attorneys, when we need their help.

Business Transfers

If Authors is involved in a sale, merger, reorganization, or transfer of all or part of the business, the information we hold may be transferred to the new owner as part of that transaction.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Cookies are small text files a website can store in your browser. Similar technologies, like local storage, work in a comparable way.

We don't use advertising cookies, advertising or social media tracking pixels, or session recording tools. Our analytics service, Fathom, doesn't use cookies.

Some third-party services on the Website may set their own cookies or use similar technologies they need in order to work, such as:

Square's checkout, to process your order
Cloudflare Turnstile, to tell people apart from spam bots
Behold's Instagram widget, to display our posts

These are controlled by those providers and covered by their own privacy policies.

You can set your browser to block or delete cookies. If you do, some parts of the Website, like the merch checkout or our forms, may not work properly.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control

Some browsers offer a "Do Not Track" setting or send a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal. These tell websites you don't want to be tracked, or don't want your information sold or shared.

We don't track visitors across other websites over time, we don't sell personal information, and we don't share it for targeted advertising. So there's nothing on our end for these signals to turn off, and the Website works the same way whether or not your browser sends them. We treat a GPC signal as a request to opt out of any sale or sharing of your personal information, which we don't do anyway.

The third-party services described in this policy, such as Square, Cloudflare, and Behold, may collect technical information when their features load on our Website. We don't control whether those companies collect information about your online activities over time and across other websites, or how they respond to these signals. Their own privacy policies explain their practices.

Emails and Unsubscribing

If you sign up for "Get the Scoop," we'll send you emails from time to time about new flavors, specials, and events.

Every newsletter email will include an unsubscribe link. You can also unsubscribe by contacting us at info@authorsicecreams.com. We'll process unsubscribe requests promptly.

Unsubscribing from the newsletter won't stop messages about a merch order you placed (such as receipts or order confirmations from Square) or our replies to an inquiry you sent us.

Your Choices and Requests

You can review the personal information we have about you and ask us to change it. Specifically, you can ask us to:

Access the personal information we have about you, and get a copy of it
Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete
Delete your personal information
Stop sending you newsletter emails

We honor these requests no matter where you live. To make a request, email us at info@authorsicecreams.com, call us at (703) 891-4999, or write to us at the address in the Contact Us section below. Please tell us what you're asking for and how we can reach you.

Here's what to expect:

We'll respond within a reasonable time.
To protect your information, we may need to verify your identity before we act on a request, for example by asking you to confirm details from your order or inquiry, or to reply from the email address we have on file.
If someone makes a request for you, we may ask for proof that you authorized them.
We may keep some information when we need it to complete an order, keep required business, tax, or accounting records, resolve disputes, prevent fraud, or comply with the law. If we can't fully complete a request, we'll tell you why.
If you disagree with our response, you can reply and ask us to take another look.
We won't treat you differently for making a request.

Order information held by Square is also covered by Square's own privacy policy, and you can contact Square directly about it.

Data Retention

We keep personal information only as long as we reasonably need it for the purposes described in this policy, or longer if the law requires it. In general:

Newsletter: we keep your email address while you're subscribed. After you unsubscribe, we may keep it on a do-not-email list so we don't email you again by mistake.
Event and wholesale inquiries: we keep these as long as we need them to respond, plan, and complete any event or order, and for a reasonable time afterward for our records.
Merch orders: we keep order details as long as we need them to fill the order, help with any problem, and meet tax and accounting record-keeping requirements.

When we no longer need information, we take reasonable steps to delete it or remove details that identify you.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the information we collect. The Website uses an encrypted (HTTPS) connection, and payment card details are collected by Square in its checkout, not by us.

Still, no website, email, or storage system is completely secure, so we can't guarantee the security of your information. Please don't send sensitive information, like payment card numbers, through our forms or by email.

Children's Privacy

The Website is not directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, please contact us and we'll take steps to delete it.

Third-Party Services and Links

The Website includes services from other companies and links to their websites, including:

Square's checkout on our Merch page
Instagram, through the Behold widget and links to our profile
Facebook and TikTok
Google Maps, through our "Get Directions" link

When you use those services or follow those links, that company's own privacy policy and terms apply, not this one. We don't control those companies and aren't responsible for their privacy practices, so we encourage you to read their policies.

Where Information Is Processed

Authors is based in Virginia, in the United States. If you visit the Website from outside the United States, your information may be processed in the United States and in other places where our service providers operate.

Changes to This Policy

This policy is effective as of the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time, for example if we add new features or services to the Website. When we do, we'll change the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.

If we make material changes, we'll also post a notice on the Website, such as a note on our home page or on this page. Changes take effect when they're posted.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or want to make a request, please reach out:

Email: info@authorsicecreams.com
Phone: (703) 891-4999
Mail: Authors Ice Creams & Coffee, 44933 George Washington Blvd., Suite 150, Ashburn, VA 20147

If you need this policy in a different format because of a disability, please contact us and we'll work with you to provide it. You can also read our Accessibility Statement.