Datadog
Information Technology
50
out of 100. Number 209 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Datadog does well
- Arbitration 0 of 20. Nothing found.
- No forced arbitration anywhere: the MSA and Website Terms send disputes to New York state or federal courts — no arbitration clause, no class-action waiver, which is unusually fair for a SaaS company.
- Renewal price hikes are capped at the greater of 9% or the CPI increase, with ~30 days' email notice for 12+ month orders; customers on fixed 12+ month terms are also shielded from unilateral MSA changes until their next renewal term, and the contract promises Datadog won't materially decrease service security or functionality during a term.
- Deletion commitments are explicit in places: post-termination data "in no event" retained past the Service Plan retention period, a 30-day post-termination data-download window, the right to request earlier deletion, no sale of children's data, and the privacy policy honors Global Privacy Control / Do-Not-Track opt-out signals.
- Account-level data gets a GDPR rights intake form, Data Privacy Framework certification with TRUSTe dispute resolution, and a published Transfer Impact Assessment — above-average privacy transparency for the sector.
Every subscription auto-renews by default.
The fine print
10 clauses and findings from the draft archive, dated 1 October 2026. The plain English comes first; the small print is the company's own words. None of these has been checked yet.
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Every subscription auto-renews by default. If you don't cancel in time, Datadog treats your silence as agreement to whatever price increase they announced.
"Unless either Party takes a non-renewal action as described in Section 6.3, Orders will automatically renew as a new Order for additional periods of the same duration as the expiring Order Term" and "Failure of Customer to take a non-renewal action in a timely manner, shall be deemed to constitute consent to the applicable fee increase."
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There's no self-serve cancel button described — to stop auto-renewal you must email a specific Customer Success Manager at least 15 days before the term ends (or make changes inside the product), a classic cancellation-trap funnel.
"If Customer does not want to auto-renew, Customer must submit a request to their Datadog Customer Success Manager at least 15 days before the expiration of the then current Order Term or make the desired changes within the Services."
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At renewal, Datadog can unilaterally raise prices up to 9% (or the CPI increase, whichever is greater), and any discounts or credits you had simply vanish — renewal is repriced at full list.
"Datadog may increase the pricing in effect at the end of the applicable Order Term for the Services by up to the greater of 9% or a percentage equal to the increase for the prior 12-month period ... in the CPI – All Urban Consumers" — and "credits do not renew and promotional or one-time pricing for any Services under the Order will not be extended to any renewal."
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Datadog can rewrite the whole contract just by posting a new version online; your only option is to walk away at renewal. Customers on fixed 12+ month orders are at least shielded until their next renewal term.
"Datadog may modify this Agreement at any time by posting a revised version at https://datadoghq.com/legal/msa, which modifications will become effective as of the first day of the calendar month following the month in which they were first posted... if Customer objects to the updated Agreement, as its sole and exclusive remedy, Customer may choose not to renew in accordance with Section 6.3."
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Datadog keeps a perpetual right to mine your anonymized usage data for anything — product development, published reports, new business lines — even after you stop being a customer.
"Customer agrees that Datadog may use aggregated or anonymized Customer Data and Usage Data for any business purpose during or after the term of this Agreement, including without limitation to develop and improve Datadog products and services and to create and distribute insights, reports and other materials."
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Datadog openly admits it feeds your personal data (including location and inferences) to advertising partners for targeted ads, and buys third-party data profiles about you to merge with what it collects.
"The personal information that we've shared with our advertising partners for cross-context behavioral advertising in the past 12 months" — including identifiers, online identifiers, IP address, email address, internet activity, geolocation, and inferences. Plus: "We may receive information about you from third parties ... We may combine this information with information we collect."
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If Datadog invents a new use for your personal data, the default is consent — you have to find and exercise an opt-out rather than them asking permission first.
"We will not process your personal information for purposes materially different from the above without providing you with the opportunity to opt out."
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After you leave, your data is deleted 'in the ordinary course' — with no hard deadline and no transparency into what that ordinary course actually is; only the retention-plan ceiling is a real guarantee.
"Customer Data post termination will be deleted in the ordinary course, but in no event will be retained beyond the applicable Service Plan retention period."
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Datadog can put your company name and logo on its marketing site and in sales materials without asking first — you have to notice and then opt out, and they get 30 more days of use.
"Datadog may include Customer's name and logo in its lists of Datadog customers, its public website and other promotional material... Datadog agrees to cease such uses of Customer's name and logo within 30 days following Customer's request."
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If the website causes you harm, Datadog's total liability is $200; on the paid product it's capped at one year of your fees, with all indirect and consequential damages — like business losses from an outage — excluded entirely.
"IN NO EVENT SHALL DATADOG'S CUMULATIVE AND AGGREGATE LIABILITY UNDER THESE TERMS EXCEED TWO HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS." (MSA counterpart: liability capped at fees paid in the prior 12 months, with all indirect/consequential damages excluded.)
How these were found
Documents read directly from datadoghq.com via text fetch on 2026-10-01: the Master Subscription Agreement at https://www.datadoghq.com/legal/msa/ (the page's 'Last updated' field was blank in the fetched copy, so the version date could not be confirmed), the Privacy Policy at https://www.datadoghq.com/legal/privacy/ (same — 'Last updated' blank), and the Website Terms of Use dated 2023-09-12 at https://www.datadoghq.com/legal/terms/2023-09-12/. No mirrors needed. Not individually reviewed: the versioned Free-Trial Subscription Agreement, the versioned Service Terms (2024-01-03), and the Supplemental Terms (RUM/Session Replay provisions); findings are from the three core documents above plus the RUM supplemental snippet from official-domain search results.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.