When you interact with IdealistMode, we may collect the following types of information:

• Personal Information You Provide: When you register for an account or subscribe to IdealistMode, you provide personal data such as your first name, last name, and email address. If you contact support or communicate with us, you might also provide additional information in those communications. For subscription purchases, you will provide payment information (e.g., credit card details, billing name, and address) to our payment processor (Paddle), but we do not receive or store your full payment card details on our servers.
• Startup Idea Content: When you use the Service, you may input various content related to your startup ideas (e.g., descriptions, notes, and any other details you submit for analysis) and you receive AI-generated reports. This content is stored in our system to provide the Service to you. Remember that all such User Content is kept private to your account (unless you choose to share it). We treat this content as confidential data.
• Usage Data: We automatically collect certain information about how you access and use IdealistMode. This includes technical information such as your IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, and referring website. We also record usage information like the pages or features you access, the time and date of your visits, and the amount of time spent on the site or app. This data helps us analyze trends and improve the Service. We do not tie this usage data to your identity in our analytics; it is collected in an aggregate or anonymized form where possible.
• Cookies and Tracking Technologies: IdealistMode uses a minimal approach to cookies. We may use an essential cookie (or similar technology) to maintain your session (for example, to keep you logged in). We do not use traditional tracking or advertising cookies. For analytics, we use Google Analytics in a privacy-friendly, cookieless mode, which means Google Analytics operates without storing cookies on your browser. Instead, it collects usage information in a way that does not rely on persistent identifiers. (See more under "Cookies and Analytics" below.)
• Payment and Transaction Data: When you make a purchase, our payment partner Paddle collects information necessary to process the transaction. This may include your name, email, payment method details, and billing address. Paddle may share with us certain information such as confirmation of payment, subscription term, and transaction ID, which we keep for record-keeping and support. We do not see or store your sensitive payment details like full credit card numbers.

We do not intentionally collect any sensitive personal data (such as racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, health information, etc.) from you, and we ask that you do not provide this type of information on our platform. The Service is also not intended to collect any personal data from children (see "Children's Privacy" below).

IdealistMode uses the collected information for the following purposes:

• To Provide and Improve the Service: We use your personal information (name, email) to create and manage your account, to authenticate you when you log in, and to provide you with the features of our Service. Your startup idea content is used to generate the AI analysis and reports that are the core function of IdealistMode. We may also analyze overall usage patterns and user feedback to improve our platform's functionality, user interface, and features.
• Subscription Management and Payments: We use your information to manage subscriptions, process payments, and fulfill our contractual obligations. For example, we (and Paddle on our behalf) use your provided payment and contact details to process subscription fees, send you receipts or invoices, and handle renewals or cancellations. We may also notify you of any issues with your billing (e.g., if a payment fails).
• Communication: We may use your email address to send important administrative or transactional communications. These include confirmations of your subscription or changes to it, critical Service updates, security alerts (like password reset emails or notifications of unusual account activity), and responses to any support inquiries you send us. We may also send informational newsletters or product updates, but only if you have opted in to receive such communications. You can unsubscribe from non-essential emails at any time.
• Analytics and Service Improvement: Usage Data and analytics help us understand how our users interact with IdealistMode. We use Google Analytics (in its cookieless mode) and similar tools to identify usage trends, such as which features are most popular or where users might encounter errors. This data is primarily aggregated and does not focus on individual user behavior. We use it to troubleshoot performance issues, plan new features, and improve the quality and usability of the Service. (For instance, understanding that a certain feature is rarely used could indicate it needs improvement or better explanation.)
• Security and Abuse Prevention: We process certain data (like IP addresses and logs of activity) to maintain the security of the platform, to detect and prevent fraudulent or malicious activity, and to enforce our Terms of Service. For example, IP addresses might be used to mitigate distributed attacks or to investigate if an account is being accessed from suspicious locations.
• Legal Compliance: In some cases, we may need to use or retain your information to comply with applicable laws and regulations. For instance, we may keep transaction records to satisfy accounting or tax requirements, or use data to fulfill obligations upon a lawful request from authorities (such as complying with a court order).
• Other Purposes (with Notice/Consent): If we intend to use your personal data for any purpose not listed above, we will provide specific notice and obtain your consent when required. For example, if in the future IdealistMode wants to use your feedback or success stories for marketing, we would ask for your permission before associating your name or content with any testimonial.

If you are located in the European Economic Area (EEA), United Kingdom, or another region with laws governing data collection and use, we rely on certain legal grounds for processing your personal data under the GDPR and similar regulations. The legal bases we use are:

• Performance of a Contract: We process personal data to provide the Service as described in our Terms of Service. For example, we need your name and email to create your account and authenticate you, and we need to process your startup idea content to deliver the analysis you requested. This also covers processing payments through Paddle as part of providing you the subscribed Service. These activities are necessary for us to fulfill our contract with you.
• Legitimate Interests: We process certain data as necessary for our legitimate business interests, provided those interests are not overridden by your data protection rights. For instance, it is in our legitimate interest to collect and analyze Usage Data (in a privacy-preserving way) to improve our Service, to ensure security, and to prevent misuse. We rely on legitimate interests to use a cookieless Google Analytics for understanding user engagement, and to send you communications about product updates or new features if you are an existing customer (you can opt out of such communications at any time).
• Legal Obligation: In some cases, we must process or retain data to comply with a legal obligation. For example, we may retain payment transaction records for tax and accounting purposes, or disclose information if required by a lawful government request or court order.
• Consent: Where required by law, we will obtain your consent before processing your personal data. For example, if you are a new user in a jurisdiction that requires cookie consent, we would ask for consent before setting any non-essential cookies (note: currently, our analytics is cookieless, so this may not apply). Similarly, if we ever want to use your personal data in a way that requires consent (such as using your email to send marketing messages in a country where that requires consent), we will do so only if you have given consent. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, and if you do so we will stop the processing that was based on consent.

If you have questions about the legal basis of how we process your data, or need further clarification, you can contact us (see "Contact Us" below). In any case where personal data processing is based on legitimate interests, we have balanced those interests against your rights and freedoms and determined that they do not override your interests or fundamental rights.

We understand that your personal and business information is important, and we only share it with third parties in certain situations, as described below. We do not sell your personal data to third parties for marketing or any other purpose.

Service Providers: We use trusted third-party companies to facilitate and support our Service ("Service Providers"). These include:

• Payment Processor (Paddle): Paddle handles all payment transactions on our behalf. When you make a purchase or subscribe, the information you provide in the checkout process (such as name, email, billing address, and payment details) will be transmitted to Paddle. Paddle processes your payment and shares with us the necessary details (like confirmation of payment, subscription term, and your name/email) so we can activate or manage your subscription. Paddle is obligated to protect your information and use it only for the purposes of payment processing and related compliance. Please review Paddle's privacy policy for more information on their data practices.
• Analytics (Google Analytics): We use Google Analytics in a configuration that does not use cookies or persistent identifiers. Google Analytics may receive information such as your IP address, browser type, and pages visited, which allows us to analyze usage of our site. We have configured Google Analytics to anonymize IP addresses (when applicable) and to avoid collecting any personally identifying information. Google acts as a data processor for us, meaning it only processes data on our behalf and as we instruct. The analytics data is used internally and not shared further. Google may store this data on servers in various countries (including the USA), but they are obligated to protect it under their terms with us. You can opt out of Google Analytics by using browser opt-out tools if you wish (though our implementation is privacy-focused by design).
• AI Processing Providers (Perplexity, Gemini): To deliver the core functionality of IdealistMode - AI-driven analysis of your startup ideas'we rely on external artificial intelligence services such as Perplexity AI and the Gemini AI API. When you submit content for analysis, our system securely transmits your content to these providers, which then process the data and return the analysis results. These AI service providers act as our processors: they are authorized to use your data only to perform the requested analysis and for no other purpose. We do not allow them to retain your content or use it to train their models (to the best of our ability and agreements with them). However, please be aware that any data transmitted to a third-party service is subject to that service's security measures. We carefully select providers that commit to privacy and confidentiality. If you would like more details about these providers or their privacy commitments, please contact us.
• Infrastructure and Other Vendors: IdealistMode may also use cloud hosting providers or other IT service vendors to operate the platform (for example, for data storage, email delivery, or performance monitoring). These providers may process your data only for purposes of providing their services to us. We require all such vendors to implement reasonable security measures and to handle data in compliance with applicable privacy laws.

Business Transfers: If IdealistMode (or the company owning it) is involved in a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or other business reorganization, your personal data might be transferred to the succeeding entity. We would ensure that the new owner is bound by terms that are at least as protective of your privacy as the terms of this Privacy Policy. In such a case, we will notify you (for example, via email or a prominent notice on our site) of any change in ownership or use of your personal data, as well as any choices you may have regarding your personal data.

Legal Requirements and Protection: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court or government agency), or if we believe in good faith that such action is necessary to:

• Comply with a legal obligation or regulatory requirement.
• Protect and defend the rights, property, or safety of IdealistMode, our users, or the public.
• Investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations.
• Enforce our Terms of Service, billing agreements, or other contracts.
• Address emergencies, such as situations involving potential threats to personal safety.

With Your Consent: Apart from the cases listed above, we will share your personal data with third parties only if you give us your explicit consent to do so. For example, if you opt-in to a program where we partner with another company for a combined service, or if you ask us to share your data with an advisor or third party, we will do so only with your authorization.

We want to reiterate that we do not share your startup ideas or analysis results with any third parties for their own use. Any sharing that occurs (such as with the AI providers) is solely to deliver the Service functionality to you, under strict controls. All third-party service providers are required to adhere to confidentiality obligations and data protection standards equivalent to ours.

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law.

• Account Information: Information like your name, email, and account credentials is retained for as long as your account is active. If you choose to delete your IdealistMode account, we will delete or anonymize personal data associated with your account within a reasonable period, except for data we are required or permitted to retain by law (for instance, billing records for financial reporting, or logs needed for security and fraud prevention).
• User Content: The startup ideas and analysis reports you have in your account are stored so that you can access them whenever you use the Service. If you delete specific content or delete your account entirely, we will remove your User Content from active databases. However, some residual copies of data might remain in our secure backups for a short period (these backups are purged periodically). We will not use your content for any new analysis once the data is deleted or your account is closed.
• Transaction Data: We will retain transaction records (payments, invoices, subscription history) as long as needed for accounting and compliance purposes. For example, tax regulations may require us to keep invoice information for a certain number of years.
• Usage Data: Usage Data used for analytics is generally aggregated or anonymized, and we may retain aggregated analytics indefinitely to help us improve the Service (this data cannot be linked back to an individual user). Raw logs and IP addresses are retained for a shorter duration, typically for a few months, unless we need to retain them longer for security analysis or legal purposes.
• Legal Compliance & Disputes: If we are under a legal obligation to retain data (such as to comply with law enforcement requests or preserve data due to litigation), we will retain the data as needed for that purpose. Additionally, if you have an unresolved dispute or issue with the Service, we may retain necessary information until the issue is resolved.

Once the retention period expires or the purpose for collecting the data has been fulfilled, we will securely dispose of your personal data by deleting it or anonymizing it (so that it can no longer be associated with you). If deletion is not possible (for example, because your data has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your data and isolate it from further processing until deletion is possible.

IdealistMode takes reasonable and appropriate measures to protect your personal data from loss, misuse, and unauthorized access or disclosure. We employ a range of security practices and technologies, including but not limited to:

• Encryption: We use encryption protocols (such as HTTPS/TLS) to secure data in transit between your device and our servers. Sensitive data (like passwords) is stored in encrypted form. For user content and other data stored on our systems, we use encryption at rest on our databases and backups.
• Access Controls: Personal data is accessible only by those within our organization who need access to perform their duties (for example, customer support or engineers addressing a technical issue) and by our authorized service providers (as detailed in this policy). Both internal personnel and external providers are subject to strict access controls and confidentiality obligations.
• Security Testing and Updates: We regularly update our software and systems to address security vulnerabilities. Our infrastructure is monitored for potential threats, and we utilize firewalls and intrusion detection systems to guard against unauthorized access. We also periodically review our security measures and may conduct penetration testing or audits to ensure the ongoing safety of our platform.
• Anonymization and Minimization: Where feasible, we minimize the amount of personal data we store. For instance, our use of cookieless analytics is designed to avoid collecting more personal information than necessary. We also anonymize data when full details are not needed (e.g., truncating or hashing IP addresses for analytics).
• Incident Response: Despite all precautions, no method of transmission or storage is completely secure. In the event of a data breach or security incident that affects your personal data, we have a response plan in place. We will notify you and the appropriate authorities of any breach as required by law, and will take necessary steps to mitigate any harm and prevent future occurrences.

Please understand that you also play a role in keeping your data secure. Ensure that your password for IdealistMode is strong and not used on other accounts, and notify us immediately if you suspect any unauthorized access to your account. We will never ask you for your password via email or unsolicited communications.

You have certain rights regarding your personal data that we process. Below is a summary of those rights and how you can exercise them:

• Right to Access: You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to obtain information about how we process it. Most of your basic information (like your profile details and content) can be accessed directly by logging into your account. For any additional data or a full report, you can contact us to request it.
• Right to Rectification: If any of your personal data is inaccurate or incomplete, you have the right to ask us to correct or update it. You can update your account information (such as your name or email) through your profile settings. For any other corrections, please reach out to us.
• Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten): You may request that we delete your personal data. For example, you can delete your account through the settings, which will remove your personal details and stored content from the Service (subject to the retention policy above). If you want us to delete specific information sooner, or you have trouble deleting your account, contact us with your request. We will honor deletion requests unless we are legally required to retain certain data (we will inform you if that is the case).
• Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your data in certain circumstances. This could apply if you contest the accuracy of the data, if our processing is unlawful and you prefer restriction over deletion, or if you need us to retain data beyond our normal retention period for a legal claim. When processing is restricted, such data will be marked and only processed for specific purposes (e.g., with your consent or for legal claims).
• Right to Object: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data when that processing is based on legitimate interests. If you object, we will evaluate whether our legitimate grounds for processing override your privacy rights. You also have an unconditional right to object to your data being used for direct marketing purposes. For example, if you receive any marketing emails from us, you can opt out at any time and we will stop sending them.
• Right to Data Portability: To the extent applicable, you have the right to receive the personal data that you have provided to us in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format, and you have the right to transmit that data to another controller. In practice, this might mean we can provide you with a JSON or CSV file containing your account data upon request, which you could then import into another service.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: If we rely on your consent for any processing of your data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. For instance, if you've consented to receive a newsletter, you can unsubscribe (withdraw consent) and we will stop that processing. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, and it won't affect processing under other legal bases.
• Right to Lodge a Complaint: If you believe that we have infringed your privacy rights or violated data protection laws, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory data protection authority. If you are in the EU, this would typically be the authority in your country of residence. We encourage you to contact us first, so we can address your concerns directly and hopefully resolve them to your satisfaction.

To exercise any of your rights, please contact us at the email or address provided in the "Contact Us" section below. For security, we may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests (for example, by asking you to confirm from your registered email or by requesting additional information). We will respond to your request as soon as possible, and in any case within the time frame required by applicable law (usually within 30 days). Please note that some rights may be subject to limitations or exceptions under applicable law; if we cannot fulfill a request, we will explain the reason in our response.

As mentioned, IdealistMode has a very limited use of cookies and tracking technologies, prioritizing your privacy:

• Essential Cookies: We may use a session cookie or similar local storage mechanism to keep you logged in and remember your preferences (for example, interface language or other settings). These cookies are strictly necessary for the functioning of the Service. Because they are essential, they do not require consent. You can set your browser to refuse cookies, but this may cause parts of our Service (like the login or account features) to not work properly.
• Analytics (Cookieless): For understanding how users use our platform, we utilize Google Analytics in a cookieless mode. This means that Google Analytics does not place or read cookies on your device through our site. Instead, it might use other means (such as ephemeral identifiers or device information) to distinguish visits, without permanently storing unique identifiers in your browser. The data collected through Google Analytics includes information like pages visited, time spent on pages, browser type, and general geographic region (based on IP, which as noted we anonymize). We have configured Google Analytics to anonymize IP addresses and to avoid collecting any personally identifying information. The analytics data helps us improve the product - for example, by showing which features are used most or if users drop off at a certain step in the process. If you still wish to opt out of this lightweight analytics, you could use a browser-based opt-out mechanism provided by Google or adjust your browser's Do Not Track settings (we honor Do Not Track where applicable).
• No Third-Party Ads: We do not use any third-party advertising networks or cookies on IdealistMode. You will not receive third-party cookies for advertising or targeting purposes by using our Service.
• Do Not Track: "Do Not Track" (DNT) is a preference you can set in your web browser to signal that you do not want to be tracked across websites. While there is not yet a universal standard for DNT, we will honor it to the extent possible. Since our analytics does not track users across different websites (only within our own site usage), and we limit tracking overall, our Service is inherently privacy-oriented. If a universal DNT standard emerges, we will follow it accordingly.

For more information about our use of cookies or similar technologies, or if you have any questions about how we honor privacy preferences, feel free to contact us. Any future changes to our cookie or analytics practices will be reflected in an updated version of this Privacy Policy.

IdealistMode is not intended for use by children or minors under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. Our Service, content, and offerings are all directed to individuals who are at least 18 years old.

If you are under 18, you are not permitted to use IdealistMode or provide any personal information to us. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a person under 18, we will take immediate steps to delete that information from our servers and terminate the associated account (unless we are legally obligated to retain it for some reason, in which case we will isolate and protect it from further use).

If you are a parent or guardian and you believe that a minor under 18 may have provided personal information to us, please contact us immediately so that we can take appropriate action.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, legal requirements, or other factors. When we update the policy, we will change the "Last Updated" date at the top of this document. If any modifications are substantial or significantly affect your rights or the way we use your data, we will provide a more prominent notice (such as by emailing you at the address we have on file, or by placing a notice on our website).

We encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about how we are protecting your information. Your continued use of IdealistMode after any changes to this Privacy Policy constitutes your acceptance of the updated terms, to the extent permitted by law.

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please do not hesitate to contact us. We are committed to resolving any issues and answering any questions you may have.

Contact Information for Privacy Inquiries:

IdealistMode is operated by Andrii Varenitsya, sole proprietor.

Novoyavorivsk, Ukraine

Email: info@idealistmode.com

We will respond to privacy-related inquiries as promptly as possible, generally within 30 days. If you contact us to exercise any of your data protection rights, we may need to request additional information to verify your identity for security purposes.

If you are located in the European Union and believe we have not adequately addressed your privacy concerns, you have the right to contact your local Data Protection Authority. However, we welcome the opportunity to address your concerns first and will do our utmost to resolve any issues to your satisfaction.

Thank you for trusting IdealistMode with your startup ideas and personal data. We are dedicated to protecting your privacy and providing a secure, valuable service to you.