Western Digital
Information Technology
57
out of 100. Number 156 of 512, counting from the worst.
Where Western Digital does well
- Renewals 4 of 20. Few problems found.
- The binding arbitration clause CAN be opted out of: a written mailed letter to WD's Legal Department (5601 Great Oaks Parkway, San Jose, CA
- within 30 days of accepting the Terms of Sale preserves your right to sue — unusual, since many companies offer no opt-out at all.
- WD pays all arbitration filing/administration fees, preserves a small-claims-court option, and includes a $1,000 minimum award plus double attorney's fees if you beat their last settlement offer in arbitration.
- The website Terms of Use (not the store terms) has NO forced arbitration — disputes go to California courts.
- The Privacy Statement states plainly: 'We do not sell personal information for monetary value' and 'We do not knowingly sell the personal information of minors under 18.'
- WD honors Global Privacy Control (GPC) browser opt-out signals.
- The store offers 30-day returns on devices and gives California minors the right to have publicly posted content removed.
If you buy anything from WD's online store, you give up your right to sue in court or join a class action; disputes go to private individual arbitration instead.
The fine print
6 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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If you buy anything from WD's online store, you give up your right to sue in court or join a class action; disputes go to private individual arbitration instead.
ARBITRATION MEANS THAT YOU WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO A JUDGE OR JURY IN A COURT PROCEEDING AND YOUR GROUNDS FOR APPEAL ARE LIMITED. ... YOU AND WDT AGREE THAT EACH PARTY MAY BRING DISPUTES AGAINST THE OTHER PARTY ONLY IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY, AND NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY PURPORTED CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING, INCLUDING FEDERAL OR STATE CLASS ACTIONS, OR CLASS ARBITRATIONS.
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You have only one year to bring a claim against WD, or you lose it forever — far shorter than many state consumer-protection deadlines.
YOU AND WDT AGREE THAT ANY ARBITRATION OR SMALL CLAIMS COURT PROCEEDING REGARDING A DISPUTE UNDER THIS AGREEMENT MUST BE INITIATED WITHIN ONE YEAR AFTER THE DISPUTE FIRST AROSE; OTHERWISE THE DISPUTE IS PERMANENTLY BARRED.
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WD can rewrite its store terms whenever it wants without telling you first; you just have to re-read them before every purchase. The Terms of Use for its websites has the same rule: 'WE MAY, AT OUR SOLE DISCRETION, CHANGE THESE TERMS OF USE AT ANY TIME BY UPDATING THIS PAGE. IF YOU CONTINUE TO USE THE SERVICES AFTER ANY SUCH CHANGE, THEN YOU ARE BOUND BY SUCH CHANGE.' (Terms of Use — https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/legal/terms-of-use)
These Terms are subject to change by WDT without prior written notice at any time, in our sole discretion.
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WD says it doesn't 'sell' data for cash, but it does hand over your identifiers, browsing activity, and inferred profile info to targeted-advertising partners — which counts as 'sharing' under privacy law. Elsewhere the statement adds: 'we also may share your personal information with advertisers, data analytics providers, and social media networks, which assist us with making product recommendations, marketing messaging, and sending you relevant content.'
We may have shared the following categories of personal information with our targeted advertising service providers and partners: Direct Identifiers, Internet Activity Information, and Profile Information.
Privacy Statement (effective December 23, 2025), California Privacy Rights
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Turning on Do Not Track in your browser does nothing on WD's sites — they keep collecting your data anyway (though they do honor Global Privacy Control opt-out signals).
At present, the Sites do not respond to 'Do Not Track' signals and consequently, the Sites will continue to collect information about you even if your browser's 'Do Not Track' feature is activated.
Privacy Statement (effective December 23, 2025), Browser Signals
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No fixed deletion schedule: WD holds your data for the whole relationship and then indefinitely during vague 'legal limitation periods.' The Terms of Use adds that if WD shuts down a service, it has 'no obligation to maintain or provide Your Content or other data' (https://www.westerndigital.com/en-gb/legal/terms-of-use).
We usually keep your personal information until the end of our relationship with you. Beyond this retention period, we may keep your personal information during the applicable legal limitation periods or statutory limitation periods.
Privacy Statement (effective December 23, 2025), Personal Information Retention
How these were found
Documents read directly via browser_open on official westerndigital.com pages: Terms of Sale (Consumer) (United States), last modified January 22, 2021; Terms of Use, en-gb locale page last updated September 1, 2020 (the US locale version was not separately retrievable, but the underlying Terms of Use content is the same document); Privacy Statement, effective date December 23, 2025. Note: SanDisk completed its spin-off from Western Digital in early 2025 and now has its own legal pages; these findings cover Western Digital (WD) only. No WD consumer subscription service with auto-renewal terms was found in the legal documents, so the autorenew score reflects order-cancellation language rather than subscription traps. All quotes are verbatim from the documents above; no mirrors were used.
These notes come from the original draft and are not independent verification.