Privacy Policy

balbalo is operated by [LEGAL ENTITY], based in the United States. We are the controller responsible for personal information processed to run the balbalo platform, including account, billing, security, and platform-wide analytics data.

balbalo is a multi-tenant platform. Independent creators use balbalo to run their own publications (“outlets”) and to build and email their own audiences. For personal information that a creator collects and controls through their outlet — for example their subscriber lists and the content they publish — that creator acts as an independent controller, and balbalo processes it on their behalf. If you interact with a specific outlet, that creator’s own practices may also apply to you.

Account information

When you create an account — as a creator or as a reader who signs in — we collect your name, email address, and a password (which we store only as a salted hash, never in plain text). Your account may also include a username/handle, a short bio, social links, and a profile image. If you choose “Continue with Google,” Google shares your basic profile and verified email with us so we can create or sign you into your account; we do not receive your Google password.

If you do not upload a profile image, we generate a default avatar for you. For technical reasons the default avatar is generated from your email address using a third-party avatar service (DiceBear). This means your email is used to produce that image; you can replace the default at any time by uploading your own picture.

Session and device information

To keep your account secure and manage your sign-in sessions, we record your IP address and browser user-agent when you log in, together with session timestamps. This is the primary place we retain your full IP address, and we use it for authentication, security, and fraud/abuse prevention.

Content and submissions

We store the content and materials you create or submit through the Services, such as posts and other published content, collections, comments and community posts, reactions, direct messages, uploaded media and files, and form submissions. Where you submit a public form, we may also record basic technical metadata (such as the browser user-agent and a source reference) to help creators manage and moderate submissions.

Subscriptions and payments

If you subscribe to a paid plan or a creator’s paid reader tier, payments are processed by Stripe. Stripe handles your card details directly — we do not store your full card number or payment credentials on our servers. We retain only identifiers and metadata needed to manage billing, such as a Stripe customer/subscription identifier, plan and tier, status, and renewal dates.

Email and audience information

If you subscribe to an outlet’s emails or are added as a contact, we process information such as your email address, name (if provided), locale and time zone, tags/attributes a creator applies, your consent and subscription status, and email engagement events (for example whether a message was delivered, opened, or clicked, and bounce/complaint signals). We keep a consent and preference record so we can honor your choices and unsubscribe requests.

Our privacy-first analytics

We run our own analytics in-house (using ClickHouse) instead of a third-party ad or tracking network. It is deliberately minimal.

What we do not collect in analytics: we do not store your IP address, we do not store your full user-agent, we do not build advertising profiles, we do not fingerprint your device, and we do not track you across other websites. Our system actively strips out fields that could carry personal data (such as email, message content, and IP).

What we do collect in analytics:a coarse, non-identifying picture of usage — a two-letter country code (derived at our network edge, never from an IP we store), a broad browser family and device type (desktop / mobile / tablet), the referring page, a short-lived per-tab session identifier, and product events such as a page or content item being viewed or read.

For visitors who are not signed in, these analytics are effectively anonymous: we do not ask who you are, and we no longer offer an anonymous login. In a future update we plan to add opt-in controls that give you even more choice over anonymization and tracking.

Support and communications

When you contact us for support or otherwise communicate with us, we keep your messages and contact details so we can respond and improve the Services.

We keep our use of browser storage to what the product needs:

• Essential session cookie. When you sign in we set a secure, HTTP-only session cookie so you stay logged in (including across balbalo subdomains). Without it, you cannot use signed-in features.
• Analytics session identifier.Our in-house analytics use a random identifier stored in your browser’s sessionStorage for the current tab. It resets when you close the tab and is not a persistent, cross-site tracking cookie.
• Local preferences. We may store interface preferences and similar UI state locally in your browser.

We do not set advertising cookies or third-party ad-tracking cookies. We plan to introduce a user-facing cookie and consent control tied to our own event tracking; when it launches you will be able to manage relevant preferences from within the product.

We use personal information to:

• provide, operate, and maintain the Services and your account;
• authenticate you and keep the platform secure — including preventing spam, fraud, and abuse (for example CAPTCHA checks on public forms and rate limiting);
• send transactional messages and the emails you or a creator you subscribe to have asked for, and to honor your email preferences;
• process payments, subscriptions, and billing;
• understand product usage in aggregate so we can fix problems and improve balbalo;
• provide creators with aggregated, non-identifying statistics about their own outlets (such as content views and email performance); and
• comply with legal obligations and enforce our terms and policies.

If you are in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, we rely on the following legal bases under the GDPR / UK GDPR:

• Performance of a contract— to provide the Services and your account, and to process payments you request;
• Legitimate interests— to secure the platform, prevent abuse, and understand product usage through our minimal, privacy-preserving analytics;
• Consent— for marketing emails and any optional features that request it (you can withdraw consent at any time); and
• Legal obligation— where we must process information to comply with the law.

We do not sell your personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share information only in the limited ways described here.

Service providers (processors)

We rely on a small set of trusted providers to run balbalo. They process data on our instructions to deliver the Services, not for their own marketing:

• Stripe— payment and subscription processing.
• Google— optional “Continue with Google” sign-in. Additionally, where an outlet is themed with a Google font, that font is served by Google, which necessarily receives the visitor’s IP address and user-agent as part of loading the font.
• Resend— sending transactional and marketing email (receives recipient addresses and message content).
• Cloudflare— Turnstile, a privacy-focused CAPTCHA used on public forms and abuse reports to stop spam (it receives the visitor’s IP address and a challenge token); and R2 object storage for uploaded media and files.
• Vercel— hosting of our web application and provisioning of creators’ custom domains.
• Error-monitoring provider— to capture technical error reports so we can keep the Services reliable; these reports may include internal identifiers such as a user or organization ID.
• DiceBear— generation of default profile avatars (as described above).

Other disclosures

• Creators and outlets. If you interact with an outlet, the relevant creator receives the information you provide to them (such as a subscription or form submission) and aggregated, non-identifying statistics about their outlet.
• Legal and safety. We may disclose information if required by law or legal process, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of our users, the public, or balbalo.
• Business transfers. If balbalo is involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

Outlets are run by independent creators. On the Pro plan, a creator using a verified custom domainmay add their own code or scripts to their outlet — for example their own analytics or tools. When they do, those tools are controlled by that creator, not by balbalo, and may collect information according to the creator’s own privacy policy, which we encourage you to review.

For your protection, this custom code only runs on a creator’s own verified custom domain and never on balbalo subdomains (for example, pages under balbalo.com).

We keep personal information for as long as needed to provide the Services and for legitimate business or legal purposes, then delete or anonymize it. Sessions expire automatically. Where we receive raw delivery data from our email provider, we redact it after processing and keep only the minimal engagement signals we need. Contacts can be anonymized or deleted, and we support erasure requests as described below.

balbalo is operated from the United States, and information may be processed in the United States and other countries where we or our providers operate. Certain private media is stored with EU data residency. Where we transfer personal information out of the EEA or the UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses (and the UK addendum), to protect it.

EEA / UK rights

If you are in the EEA or UK, you have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, or object to our processing of your personal information, the right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

US state privacy rights (including California)

Depending on your state, you may have the right to know what personal information we collect and how we use it, to request access to or deletion or correction of your information, and to opt out of the “sale” or “sharing” of personal information and of targeted advertising. Because we do not sell or share personal information and do not run targeted advertising, there is nothing to opt out of on that front. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@balbalo.com. We may need to verify your identity before we act on a request. If your request concerns data controlled by a specific creator/outlet, we may direct your request to, or coordinate with, that creator.

balbalo is not directed to children, and you must be at least 16 years old to use the Services. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, please contact us and we will delete it.

We protect information using measures appropriate to its sensitivity, including hashing of passwords, encryption of data in transit, signed and scoped access to private media, and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to protect your information and to respond promptly to any incident.

The Services may contain links to, or content from, third-party sites and services that we do not control. This policy does not apply to those third parties, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Services after an update means you accept the revised policy.

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your information, contact us at privacy@balbalo.com.

[LEGAL ENTITY]
[BUSINESS ADDRESS]