This Privacy Policy explains how GC-CAD, LLC ("GC-CAD," "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, and shares information in connection with the GC-CAD website and the GCnester software (collectively, the "Service").
1. Information We Collect
Account information. Email address, name (if provided), whether the account is an administrator, and your Stripe customer ID.
Support tickets. The text of tickets you submit, any files you attach (stored via Cloudflare R2), and our replies.
License information. Your license key, plan, seat count, status, and an audit history of actions taken on the license and by whom.
Activation information. For each computer running GCnester: a hashed machine identifier (not your computer's raw serial number), the computer name reported by Windows, the app version, and first/last check-in times. The hashed machine ID is a persistent identifier tied to your license — it is not anonymous, even though it does not contain your raw hardware serial number.
Download records. Which software releases you've downloaded and when.
Email records. We keep a record of license and login emails sent to you.
Cookies. We use two cookies, both set by us — no third-party or advertising cookies:
- A login session cookie, set when you use an email sign-in link, to keep you signed in.
- A preview cookie, set only if a special switch is added to a URL to view a preview or support-facing view of the site. Ordinary visitors never receive this cookie.
Analytics. We do not currently use analytics or tracking scripts on the website. If we add a tool such as Google Analytics in the future, we will update this policy and, where required, ask for your consent before its cookies are set.
2. Information the Software Sends
The GCnester application is designed to minimize what it transmits. It does not send drawing files, job data, or usage statistics, and crash reports are written to a local log file on your computer rather than uploaded to us.
Two things the software does send, and these are not optional:
- Update check. At every startup, the app contacts our update server and sends the app version, package name, operating system, and processor architecture. It does not send your name, email, license key, or machine identifier.
- Licensing check-in. The app sends your license key, hashed machine ID, Windows computer name (at activation), app version, and an activation token on subsequent check-ins. It does not send information about your drawings or jobs.
3. Local Data We Don't Collect
The application stores settings, recent-file history and thumbnails, shop data (company details, inventory, quotes), and diagnostic logs in local or user-selected storage. We found no automatic upload of these files to GC-CAD. Log files can contain file paths and job details. If you choose to keep files, settings or shop data on a network or synchronized location, or print to a network printer, those destinations are your choice and outside our control. Files you attach to a support ticket are received and stored by us as support content, as described in section 1. The application also keeps a protected local record of your license state on your computer, tied to the check-ins described in section 2.
4. Third-Party Components
Certain third-party components used within GCnester (a CAD engine, user-interface libraries, and the update mechanism) have been reviewed to the extent their code allows. We have not completed verification of whether these redistributed third-party components make their own licensing or diagnostic connections; some are closed-source and have not been fully audited by us.
5. Server Logs and IP Addresses
Like virtually all websites and hosted services, our hosting providers receive connection metadata, including IP addresses, for any connection to our website and update/licensing servers, and may retain it in their service logs, even though our software does not separately transmit your IP address as data.
6. How We Share Information
We share information with the following service providers, solely to operate the Service:
- Stripe — processes your card details, billing address, and tax ID for payments. We never see or store your card number.
- Resend — delivers our emails; receives the recipient email address and message content.
- Discourse (our community forum) — receives your user ID, email, a username derived from your name or email, and admin status, when you access the forum from our site.
- Cloudflare R2 — stores support ticket attachments and software installers.
- Neon — hosts our database.
- Vercel — hosts our website.
- Amazon Web Services — hosts the software update feed that GCnester checks at startup.
We do not sell or share your information with third parties for advertising purposes.
7. Marketing Communications
We may send you occasional marketing or product update emails. You can opt out of these at any time; opting out will not affect transactional emails (such as license or login emails) needed to operate your account.
8. Data Retention
When you cancel or your account otherwise becomes inactive, we archive rather than delete your account data, in order to maintain financial and licensing records as required for our business and accounting purposes.
9. Children's Privacy
The Service is not directed to, and is not intended for use by, anyone under 18 years of age.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will update the "Last updated" date above when we do.
11. Contact Us
Questions about this Privacy Policy can be sent to support@gc-cad.com.