Thank you for using the Instacart Services! We are committed to providing you the best online shopping and delivery experience possible. This Privacy Policy explains what information we (Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart and its affiliates including Unata Inc., collectively, “Instacart”) collect, how that information is used, under what circumstances we share information, and the choices you can make about that information. This Privacy Policy applies whether you access the Instacart Services (as defined in the Terms of Service) through a browser, a mobile application, or any other method.
This Privacy Policy also describes how we collect, use and disclose your personally identifiable information (“PII”). PII is information about you that may be used to identify you (such as your name, phone number, or address).
Under California Civil Code § 1798.83, California residents may request a notice identifying the categories of personal information which we share with certain third parties for direct marketing purposes under certain circumstances and providing contact information for such third parties. If you are a California resident and would like a copy of this notice, please submit a written request to us at the address provided below under the Section entitled “Contact Information.”
Additional Terms
Instacart is an independent business, separate from SFM, LLC d/b/a Sprouts Farmers Market and its affiliates (collectively, “Sprouts”). This Privacy Policy, not those of Sprouts, explains how Instacart will collect, use and share information that we collect on the portion of this
shop.sprouts.ocom site administered by Instacart to provide delivery services. Sprouts is a trademark of SFM, LLC d/b/a Sprouts Farmers Market. All Rights Reserved.
We may share any information collected from this Sprouts Store Site, including your personal information, information about your order details, and information that we combine from other sources, with Sprouts. Sprouts may use this information for its own purposes, including for its own sales and marketing purposes. You can opt-out of receiving Sprouts’ sales and marketing emails at any time by following the unsubscribe instructions in those emails. Further details are available in Instacart’s
Information we collect
Information you provide to us or allow others to provide to us
At various points in the Instacart experience, you may provide us with information about yourself. For example, when you create an account through the Services, you provide us with personal information like your name, email address, and zip or postal code. And if you place an order through the Services, we collect information including your address, phone number, birth date (for alcohol orders or prescription delivery, where available), credit card information, vehicle license plate number(s) (for curbside pickup orders) and the details of your order. Your account information may be updated or corrected by accessing your account settings.
If you log into the Services through a third-party service, both we and that third-party may receive some information about you and your use of the services. For example, if you choose to log into the Services with your Facebook account, we may receive information from Facebook, such as your name, e-mail address, public profile information, and information about your contacts. We may also offer social sharing tools (such as the Facebook “Like” button) that let you share actions on the Services with other websites and vice versa. In those cases, the providers of those tools may receive information about you when you use those tools. You should check the privacy policies of these third party services and your settings there for more information.
If you wish to invite your friends and contacts to use the Services, we will give you the option of either entering in their contact information manually or, for United States residents, importing it from your address books on other third party services. In both cases, we will store this information for the sole purposes of allowing you to send your friends referral offers, for determining whether your friends use the Services after a referral is sent, and, for United States residents, to remind your friends of the referral sent on your behalf.
Our partners may let us collect information about use of their sites/apps or share such information with us. For example, if you use an Instacart button or widget on another site or app, we may receive information about your use of that button or widget and the third-party site/app.
Our Services are not intended for children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13. If we obtain actual knowledge that any information we collect has been provided by a child under the age of 13, we will delete that information.
Location Information: When you use the Services, we may collect precise location data. For instance, if you allow the Services to access location services through the permission system used by your device’s mobile operating system or browser, we may collect the precise location of your device. We use your location information to facilitate the prompt hand-off of pickup orders (where available), to assist you in finding nearby stores for which pickup or delivery are available, for other similar purposes and for analytics purposes. You can choose whether or not to enable the location tracking feature through the settings on your device or browser, or when prompted by the Instacart mobile app. We may also infer your general location information, for example by using your internet protocol (IP) address.
Technical information about usage of the Services
When you use the Services, either through a browser or mobile app, we automatically receive some technical information about the hardware and software that is being used.
Cookies, Pixels, and Other Tracking Technologies: We, our partners, our advertisers, and third party advertising networks use various technologies to collect information, including but not limited to cookies, pixels, scripts, and device identifiers. Cookies are small text files that are sent by your computer when you access our services through a browser. We, our partners, our advertisers, and third party advertising networks may use session cookies (which expire when you close your browser), persistent cookies (which expire when you choose to clear them from your browser), pixels, scripts, and other identifiers to collect information from your browser or device that helps us do things such as understand how you use our services and other services; personalize your experience; measure, manage, and display advertising on the Services or on other services; understand your usage of the Services and other services in order to serve customized ads and remember that you are logged into the Services. By using your browser settings, you may block cookies or adjust settings for notifications when a cookie is set.
We employ some third-party services to help us understand the usage of the Services and the performance of advertising, and these third-parties may also deploy cookies, pixels, or other identifiers on the Services or collect information through our mobile applications. For example, we use Google Analytics to understand, in a non-personal way, how users interact with various portions of the Services — you can
learn more about information that Google may collect here.
Log information: When you use the Services, our servers will record information about your usage of the Services and information that is sent by your browser or device. Log information can include things like the IP address of your device, information about the browser, operating system and/or app you are using, unique device identifiers, pages that you navigate to and links that you click, searches that you run on the Services, and other ways you interact with the Services. If you are logged into the Services, this information is stored with your account information.
Interest-Based or Online Behavioral Advertising: Instacart may use third-party advertising companies to serve interest-based advertisements to you. These companies compile information from various online sources (including mobile-enabled browsers and applications) to match you with ads that will be the most relevant, interesting, and timely for you. If you would like to opt-out of interest-based advertising, please visit
http://optout.networkadvertising.org/#/. Please note that you will be opted out of all interest-based advertising from all business members of the Network Advertising Initiative for that specific browser on that specific device. If you opt-out, you may continue to see Instacart’s or our partners’ online advertisements; however, these ads will not be as relevant to you.
How we use your information
We may use the information we collect for various purposes, including to:
- Provide the Services to you, improve the quality of the service, and develop new products and services
- Allow your Personal Shopper (which means those that shop for and/or deliver the order for you, including our retail partner and their employees/agents where applicable or our third-party providers) to choose your items at a retailer site, deliver your items to you, and/or call or text you with any updates or issues
- Charge you for the purchase and delivery costs through one or more payment processing partners
- Offer you customized content (including advertising, coupons, and promotions)
- Understand how users interact with the Services (including advertising both on and off the Services) as a whole and to test new features or changes in our features
- Provide customer service, respond to your communications and requests, and contact you about your use of the Services
You can opt-out of receiving promotional communications from Instacart by using the settings on the Account Info page or by using the unsubscribe mechanism included in the message, where applicable.
What we share
The Services comprise a platform that enables you to select goods from the
shop.sprouts.ocom site powered by Instacart for picking, packing, and delivery by individual Personal Shopper(s) to your location or, if available, for you to pick up in-store. In order to make this work, we need to share information about you and your order with the other parties who help enable the service. This includes, for example, the Personal Shopper(s) who pick and deliver your order, the payment processing partner(s) that we use to validate and charge your credit card, and the retail partner(s) from whom you are purchasing goods. To be clear, only our payment processing partner(s) receive credit card information.
We also share information under the following principles:
- With your consent or at your direction — We will share your information with entities outside of the Services when we have your consent to do so or it is done at your direction. For example:
- If you enter loyalty card information from Sprouts, we share that information with Sprouts you chose along with your order so that information can be added your loyalty card account.
- If you share a recipe publicly on the Services, it is viewable by anyone along with your first name and last initial.
- If you invite friends to use the Services through our referral program or to share a shopping cart, we will share some information with the friends you invite like your name and picture. Likewise, if you choose to join someone else’s cart, they will see some of your information.
- With Sprouts— We will share your information with Sprouts in order to provide and maintain the Services.
- For external processing or service provision — We sometimes share information with third parties to process information on our behalf or to otherwise provide certain services (such as delivery services, advertising services, or information to better tailor our services to you). For the purposes of this processing or provision of services, we may share your information with such third parties under appropriate confidentiality provisions.
- For legal purposes — We may share your information when we believe that the disclosure is reasonably necessary to (a) comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal process, or requests from law enforcement or regulatory authorities, (b) prevent, detect, or otherwise handle fraud, security, or technical issues, and (c) protect the safety, rights, or property of any person, the public, or Instacart.
- On a non-personal or aggregate basis — We share information on both a non-personally identifying basis (including, but not limited to, order and delivery details but not including credit card information) or an aggregate basis.
- To enable purchase of alcohol (not available in all jurisdictions) — When you buy alcohol using the Services, we may be required by law to share certain information with the retailer who makes the sale. This information could include, among other things, the names and addresses of the purchaser and recipient, government issued ID information, the quantity, brand, price, proof, and volume of alcohol purchased, and a recipient signature.
- For business purposes — We may share your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company. We may also share your information between and among Instacart, and its current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership.
Changes to this Policy
This policy may change from time to time and any revised Privacy Policy will be posted at this page, so we encourage you to review it regularly. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of this Privacy Policy and, in the case of materials changes to the Privacy Policy, we may provide you with additional notice (such as a notice in our user interface or sending you a notification by email).
For Residents of California
If you are a California resident, you may ask Instacart for a notice describing what categories of personal information Instacart shares with third parties or affiliates for those third parties or affiliates’ direct marketing purposes and identify the name and address of the third parties that received such personal information. Please submit a written request to the address provided below and specify you want a copy of your California Privacy Rights Notice.
Under California Civil Code Section 1789.3, California residents are entitled to the following specific consumer rights notice: If you have a question or complaint regarding the Website, please send an email to
[email protected]. You may also contact us by writing to us at the address provided below under the Section entitled “Contact Information.” California residents may reach the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs may be contacted in writing at 400 R Street, Suite 1080, Sacramento, California 95814, or by telephone at (916) 445-1254 or (800) 952-5210.
Contact Information
Questions or comments about our Privacy Policy? Contact our Trust & Safety Manager at:
Instacart
50 Beale Street, Suite 600
San Francisco, California 94105
[email protected]
1-888-246-7822
For customer service inquiries visit our
Help Center.