Privacy Policy

1. What This Policy Covers

This policy explains how Comment Coach collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information. We are committed to transparency about our data practices.

2. Information We Collect

2a. Account Information

• Name — displayed on shared content and feedback
• Email address — used for login, verification, password reset, and share notifications
• Username — optional, used for direct sharing and displayed on shared content
• Password — stored as a salted hash, never in plain text

2b. Content You Create

• Subjects, paragraphs, comments, coaching feedback
• Reactions and text feedback on shared content
• This content is encrypted field by field (AES-256-GCM) before being stored in our database, and is only accessible by you (or by recipients if you share it)

2c. Payment Information

• Subscription billing is processed entirely by Stripe
• We never see, store, or have access to your credit card numbers
• We store only your Stripe customer ID to link your subscription to your account

2d. Automatically Collected

• IP address — used for rate limiting and anonymous reaction deduplication
• User agent — used for reaction fingerprinting (not stored long-term)
• Usage metrics — page views, feature usage events (aggregated, used for product improvement)

2e. What We Do NOT Collect

• We do not use tracking cookies or third-party analytics (no Google Analytics, no Facebook Pixel)
• We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information to third parties
• We do not collect location data beyond IP-derived country
• We do not store your API keys on our servers. When you add your own API key (BYOK), it is saved locally in your browser and transmitted to our server only to relay your AI requests. The key is discarded immediately after each request — it is never written to our database or logs.

3. How We Use Your Information

• Provide the service — store and display your comments, subjects, and coaching results
• AI coaching — your comment content is sent to Anthropic (Claude AI) for coaching, scoring, generation, and translation. Anthropic's data policies apply to this processing.
• Email communication — verification, password reset, and share notifications via Resend
• Payment processing — subscription management via Stripe
• Abuse prevention — rate limiting, reaction deduplication
• Product improvement — aggregated usage metrics (not individual tracking)

4. AI & Transcription Processing Disclosure

When you use AI coaching features, your comment text is sent to Anthropic's Claude API for processing. This includes:

• Comment content (the text you write)
• Source paragraph text (context for coaching)
• Language preference

We do not send your email, name, or other personal identifiers to the AI service. Anthropic's privacy policy governs their processing of this data.

When you use live transcription with Deepgram, audio from your microphone is streamed to Deepgram's API for real-time speech recognition. This includes:

• Audio stream (voice and ambient sound within microphone range)
• Language preference

We enable Deepgram's mip_opt_out setting on every request. This means your audio is kept only long enough to process the transcription, then discarded. It is not retained, stored, or used for model training. Deepgram does not share your data with third parties without permission. Your name, email, and other personal identifiers are never sent to Deepgram. See Deepgram's privacy policy.

When you provide your own API key (BYOK) for Anthropic, OpenAI, or Deepgram, requests are made directly using your key. Your key is stored only in your browser's local storage and is never persisted on our servers.

5. Third-Party Service Providers

6. Data Retention

7. Your Rights

All Users

• Access — export all your data via Settings > Download My Data
• Deletion — delete your account and all associated data via Settings > Delete Account
• Portability — export your data as JSON for use elsewhere
• Correction — update your name, email, and password in Settings

California Residents (CCPA/CPRA)

You have the right to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, and opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

EU/EEA Residents (GDPR)

Our legal basis for processing is your consent (provided at signup) and legitimate interest (operating the service). You have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict processing, and data portability. Contact us at contact@comment.coach to exercise these rights.

8. Data Security

We protect your data with:

• HTTPS encryption for all data in transit
• Salted password hashing (bcrypt via BetterAuth)
• Fly.io private networking for secure server access
• Rate limiting on authentication and API endpoints
• Server-side session management with secure cookies

9. Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected users via email within 72 hours of discovery, and report to relevant authorities as required by applicable law.

10. Children's Privacy

Comment Coach is not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us and we will promptly delete it.

11. Cookies and Tracking

Comment Coach uses only essential cookies for authentication (session management). We do not use tracking cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party analytics scripts.

For anonymous reaction deduplication, we generate a server-side fingerprint from your IP address and user agent. This fingerprint is stored as a salted hash and cannot be reversed to identify you.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated via email or in-app notification. The "Last updated" date at the top indicates the most recent revision.

13. Contact Us

For privacy questions or to exercise your data rights, contact us at contact@comment.coach.

You can also manage your data directly:

• Settings — update profile, export data, delete account