Resource · Telling your customers
Do you have to tell your customers?
Six questions, in the order worth asking them. The first one is not what your contract says.
Why the order matters
Most people arrive at this question with the contract already open, and that is the fourth thing to check rather than the first. Before any of it: did anything happen?
96% of the 1,228 page changes in the record moved no fact at all. A notice about a renamed footer link costs more credibility than the silence would, and you will need your customers to read the next one.
The six questions
Question 1
Did a fact move, or did the page just change?
A vendor page changes for many reasons and almost none of them are the reason you watch it. A footer link renamed, a date stamp advanced, a paragraph reflowed — the document differs and nothing you promised anyone has changed.
Yes
Go to the next question. A named sub-processor, a moved window, a changed retention period: those are facts, and a fact that moved is the thing your clauses are written about.
No
Nothing to tell. Record that you looked and what you found, because a change you examined and dismissed is a defensible position and a change you never saw is not.
From the record: 96% of the 1,228 page changes in the record moved no fact we could name.
Question 2
Does the change touch data you process for customers?
A vendor's sub-processor list covers everything that vendor does, including the parts you do not use. A payroll processor added to a company whose API you call for transcription may never see a byte of yours.
Yes
Go to the next question, and note which of your products or systems is affected — your customers will ask that before they ask anything else.
No
Record it and move on. Telling a customer about a change that cannot reach them trains them to stop reading your notices, and you will need them to read the next one.
Question 3
Does your own agreement require you to give notice?
Your contracts, not theirs. Most enterprise agreements carry a sub-processor notice clause, a breach clause and a material-change clause, each with a different period and often a different recipient.
Yes
Find the period and whether it is business days, and go to the next question. If you have not written these down, that is the worksheet.
No
You may still owe something. A privacy notice that names your sub-processors is a statement your customers rely on, and a customer who finds out from the vendor's page rather than from you will ask why.
Question 4
Is your notice period longer than the vendor's window?
The vendor's window runs from their notice rather than from your discovery, and yours runs from theirs. Subtract one from the other and what is left is the time you actually have.
Yes
You are already late, and the answer is to send today with what you know rather than to wait until you know everything. A notice that says a change happened and the detail is coming beats one that arrives after the deadline.
No
You have the difference, and it is usually days rather than weeks. Put the date in a calendar now, because the clause will not remind you.
From the record: Every one of the 36 published vendor windows is 30 days or fewer, median 15. Against a 30-day promise to your customer, 22 of them leave you late before you begin and 0 leave any slack.
Question 5
Is it notice you owe, or consent you need?
Notice is something you send. Consent is something you have to receive, and until you do, the change is not approved as far as that customer is concerned — whatever your vendor has already done.
Yes
Send early, ask explicitly, and record the reply. A consent clause with no reply on file is the same as no consent when somebody comes to look.
No
Send the notice and keep the proof of sending. What you need later is that it went, on a date, to the right person.
Question 6
Does silence approve it — yours, or your customer's?
Some agreements deem an unanswered notice to be approval. It cuts both ways: it may be how your vendor treats your silence, and it may be how you treat your customer's.
Yes
Diary the deadline the day the notice goes out, on both sides. A window you did not answer is a decision you made.
No
The objection stays open until somebody closes it, which is slower and safer.
From the record: 13 agreements in the record state that not objecting approves the sub-processor.
When the answer is yes
Two things make the difference between a notice that lands and one that generates a thread. Work out who you owe and by when before you draft anything, because the deadline decides how much detail you can afford to wait for.
Then send the notice with the vendor’s own words in it. A customer asked to accept your summary of a change will ask for the source; one given the quote and the link usually does not.
Where the figures come from
The branches are written. Every figure beside them is read from the record by the same code the product runs: the material-change split from the classifier behind our own alerts, the windows from published notice clauses, and the deeming clauses from the ones that treat silence as approval.
Common questions
- Do I have to tell my customers when a vendor adds a sub-processor?
- Only if your own agreement says so, and only if the change can reach data you process for them. Most enterprise agreements carry a sub-processor notice clause; check what triggers it, what period it gives you, and whether it asks for notice or for consent.
- How do I know whether a vendor page change matters?
- Ask whether a fact moved rather than whether the page did. 96% of the page changes in the record moved no fact we could name — a footer link renamed, a date stamp advanced, a paragraph reflowed.
- What if my notice period is longer than the vendor's window?
- Then you are late before you begin, and the answer is to send today with what you know rather than to wait until you know everything. Against a 30-day promise, 22 of the 36 published vendor windows leave you late and none leaves slack.
- What if my contract says nothing about sub-processor notice?
- You may still owe something. A privacy notice naming your sub-processors is a statement your customers rely on, and a customer who learns of a change from the vendor's page rather than from you will ask why.
- Is notice the same as consent?
- No. Notice is something you send; consent is something you have to receive, and until you do the change is not approved as far as that customer is concerned — whatever your vendor has already done.
Telling your customers
Work out who you owe notice, and by when.
- What happens downstream when an AI vendor changes a page
One edit, three contracts: the vendor, the company that embeds it, and that company's enterprise customer.
- Telling your customers a sub-processor changed
The notice to pass on, rendered from the same function the product uses to draft it — so the two cannot drift apart.
- What counts as a material change, and why
Our own alerting ruleset, published in full — a change is material when a fact moved, which suppresses 96% of page diffs.
- Customer notice obligation worksheet
Who you owe notice and by when — against the finding that every published vendor window is 30 days or fewer, and the median is 15.
This is not legal advice, and no set of six questions decides an obligation in your agreement. The vendor clauses counted here are published documents read on the dates the record holds; your negotiated contract governs. The record is free to read, and corrections are free to request.