Privacy Policy

Summary of Key Points

• What personal information do we process? When you visit, use, or navigate our Services, we may process personal information depending on how you interact with us and the Services, the choices you make, and the products and features you use.
• Do we process any sensitive personal information? We collect a date of birth in order to confirm that a user is at least 13 years old, and users may optionally tell us their country. Depending on where you live, some of this may be treated as sensitive or protected-classification information. We do not collect government identifiers, financial account details, biometric data, health data, or precise geolocation.
• Do we collect any information from third parties? If you sign in with Google, we receive basic profile information from Google. We do not buy or receive personal information from data brokers.
• How do we process your information? We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law.
• In what situations and with which parties do we share personal information? We may share information in specific situations and with specific third parties. Learn more about when and with whom we share your personal information.
• How do we keep your information safe? We have organizational and technical processes in place to protect your personal information. However, no electronic transmission over the internet can be guaranteed 100% secure.
• What are your rights? Depending on where you are located geographically, the applicable privacy law may mean you have certain rights regarding your personal information.
• How do you exercise your rights? The easiest way is by submitting a data subject access request, or by contacting us.

Table of Contents

1. What Information Do We Collect?
2. How Do We Process Your Information?
3. How We Use AI
4. Age Requirements and Younger Users
5. What Legal Bases Do We Rely On?
6. When and With Whom Do We Share Personal Information?
7. Do We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies?
8. How Do We Handle Your Social Logins?
9. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
10. How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?
11. What Are Your Privacy Rights?
12. Controls for Do-Not-Track Features
13. Do United States Residents Have Specific Privacy Rights?
14. Do Other Regions Have Specific Privacy Rights?
15. Do We Make Updates to This Notice?
16. How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?
17. How Can You Review, Update, or Delete Your Data?

1. What Information Do We Collect?

Personal information you disclose to us

In Short: We collect personal information that you provide to us.

We collect personal information that you voluntarily provide to us when you register on the Services, express an interest in obtaining information about us or our products and Services, when you participate in activities on the Services, or otherwise when you contact us.

Personal Information Provided by You. The personal information we collect may include:

• Email addresses
• Usernames
• Passwords
• Names
• Date of birth, used to confirm you are at least 13 years old
• Country, if you choose to add one to your profile
• Profile details you choose to publish, such as your skills, what you are building, and links to your own social accounts
• The content you submit to the platform, including pitches, daily challenge answers, ideas, and comments

Sensitive Information. We collect a date of birth for age verification, and country if you provide one. Some privacy laws treat age and national origin as protected-classification or sensitive information, so we disclose them here. We do not collect government identifiers, financial account or payment details, biometric data, health data, precise geolocation, or information about race, religion, sexual orientation, or political opinions.

Social Media Login Data. We may provide you with the option to register using your existing social media account details, like Google. If you choose to register in this way, we will collect certain profile information from the social media provider, as described in “How Do We Handle Your Social Logins?”

All personal information that you provide to us must be true, complete, and accurate.

Information automatically collected

In Short: Some information, such as your IP address and browser characteristics, is collected automatically when you visit our Services.

We automatically collect certain information when you visit, use, or navigate the Services. This information does not reveal your specific identity but may include device and usage information such as your IP address, browser and device characteristics, operating system, language preferences, and other technical information primarily needed to maintain the security and operation of our Services.

• Log and Usage Data. Service-related, diagnostic, usage, and performance information our servers automatically collect when you access or use our Services.
• Device Data. Information about your computer, phone, tablet, or other device used to access the Services.
• Approximate Location. Your IP address indicates an approximate region. We do not collect precise device location.

2. How Do We Process Your Information?

In Short: We process your information to provide, improve, and administer our Services, communicate with you, for security and fraud prevention, and to comply with law.

• To facilitate account creation and authentication and otherwise manage user accounts. We may process your information so you can create and log in to your account, as well as keep your account in working order.
• To operate the competitive features of the platform. We process your submissions and results to run matches, calculate your ELO and XP, maintain streaks, and display leaderboards.
• To score submissions using AI. The text you submit to a challenge or a 1v1 battle is sent to our AI provider so that Yip can score it and decide an outcome. See section 4 for who receives it.
• To verify eligibility. We use date of birth to confirm that a user is at least 13 years old.
• To moderate content and keep the platform safe. We screen submissions for prohibited content and act on reports from users.
• To communicate with you. We send transactional email such as account verification and password resets, and reply to messages you send us.
• To save or protect an individual's vital interest. We may process your information when necessary to save or protect an individual's vital interest, such as to prevent harm.

2a. How We Use AI

In Short: An AI model scores your submissions and decides 1v1 outcomes. It does not make decisions that carry legal or similarly significant effects.

Yip, our automated judge, is built on a large language model provided by Anthropic. When you submit a pitch or a challenge answer, the text of that submission and the prompt it responds to are sent to Anthropic so that a score or a winner can be returned. We do not send your name, email address, or account identifiers alongside it, and Anthropic does not use this content to train its models.

These automated decisions affect your standing inside a game: your score, your ELO, and your position on a leaderboard. They do not affect your legal rights, your access to education, employment, credit, or any comparable outcome. If you believe a result was scored in error, contact us at privacy@bizyip.com and a human will review it.

Content you post publicly, along with the automated scores attached to it, may be visible to other users.

2b. Age Requirements and Younger Users

In Short: BizYip is for users aged 13 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 13.

The Services are not directed to children under 13 years of age, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. We ask for a date of birth at sign-up in order to enforce this. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete that account and the associated information promptly.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child under 13 has created an account, contact us at privacy@bizyip.com and we will remove it.

Many of our users are between 13 and 18. We do not sell or share the personal information of any user, and we do not serve targeted advertising to anyone on the Services.

Classroom use

Students sign up for BizYip individually with their own accounts. We do not currently operate a school-managed product, we do not accept student rosters uploaded by a school, and we do not act as a school official maintaining education records on a school's behalf. An educator who registers interest through our educator form provides only their own name, work email, school name, role, and an estimated class size. That form collects no student information.

If we later launch classroom features that involve schools providing student information to us, we will update this notice before doing so and address the applicable requirements at that time.

3. What Legal Bases Do We Rely On?

In Short: We only process your personal information when we believe it is necessary and we have a valid legal reason to do so under applicable law.

If you are located in the EU or UK, this section applies to you. We may rely on the following legal bases:

• Consent. We may process your information if you have given us permission to use your personal information for a specific purpose. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
• Legal Obligations. We may process your information where we believe it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations.
• Vital Interests. We may process your information where we believe it is necessary to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of a third party.

If you are located in Canada, this section applies to you. We may process your information if you have given us specific permission (express consent) or where permission can be inferred (implied consent). You can withdraw your consent at any time.

4. When and With Whom Do We Share Personal Information?

In Short: We share information with the service providers that run the platform, and in the limited situations described below. We do not sell your personal information.

Service providers we rely on

We use a small number of third-party processors to operate BizYip. Each receives only what it needs to perform its function, and each is bound by its own agreement with us:

• Supabase. Hosts our database and handles authentication. Your account record and the content you post are stored here.
• Vercel. Hosts and serves the website, and provides us with aggregate traffic and performance analytics. Server logs processed here include IP addresses.
• Anthropic. Provides the AI model behind Yip, our automated judge. When you submit a pitch, a daily challenge answer, or another entry that Yip scores, the text of that submission and the prompt it responds to are sent to Anthropic to generate a result. We do not send your name, email address, or account identifiers with it. Anthropic does not use this content to train its models.
• Resend. Delivers transactional email, such as account verification and messages you send us through our contact and educator forms.
• Google. If you choose to sign in with Google, Google authenticates you and shares basic profile information with us.

Other situations

• Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
• Legal Requirements. We may disclose information where we are legally required to do so, or where we believe disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, investigate a violation of our Terms, or protect the safety of a user or the public.
• Public Content. Some of what you create is public by design. Your username, rank, ELO, XP, streak, public profile fields, and any content you post publicly, such as ideas, comments, and pitch submissions shown in public feeds or on leaderboards, are visible to other users and to visitors who are not signed in.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising.

5. Do We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies?

In Short: We use a small number of cookies to keep you signed in and remember your preferences. We do not run advertising trackers.

We use cookies to operate the Services. These fall into two groups:

• Strictly necessary cookies. These keep you signed in, protect your session, and record that you have completed onboarding. The Services do not work without them.
• Preference storage. We store your light or dark theme choice in your browser so the site renders the way you left it. This stays on your device.

Analytics

We use Vercel Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights to understand aggregate traffic and page performance. These are privacy-oriented analytics products that do not use cookies to build a cross-site advertising profile of you. We do not use Google Analytics.

Advertising

We do not serve advertising on the Services, we do not permit third-party advertising trackers on the Services, and we do not share personal information for targeted or cross-context behavioral advertising.

6. How Do We Handle Your Social Logins?

In Short: If you choose to register or log in using a social media account, we may have access to certain information about you.

Our Services offer you the ability to register and log in using your third-party social media account details (like your Google logins). Where you choose to do this, we will receive certain profile information about you from your social media provider. The profile information we receive may vary but will often include your name, email address, and profile picture.

We will use the information we receive only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice. Please note that we do not control, and are not responsible for, other uses of your personal information by your third-party social media provider.

7. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?

In Short: We keep your information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this Privacy Notice unless otherwise required by law.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as it is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Notice, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law. No purpose in this notice will require us keeping your personal information for longer than the period of time in which users have an account with us.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymize such information, or securely store it and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

8. How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?

In Short: We aim to protect your personal information through a system of organizational and technical security measures.

We have implemented appropriate and reasonable technical and organizational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, despite our safeguards and efforts to secure your information, no electronic transmission over the Internet or information storage technology can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. You should only access the Services within a secure environment.

9. What Are Your Privacy Rights?

In Short: In some regions, such as the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada, you have rights that allow you greater access to and control over your personal information.

In some regions (like the EEA, UK, Switzerland, and Canada), you have certain rights under applicable data protection laws. These may include the right (i) to request access and obtain a copy of your personal information, (ii) to request rectification or erasure; (iii) to restrict the processing of your personal information; (iv) if applicable, to data portability; and (v) not to be subject to automated decision-making. You can make such a request by contacting us using the contact details provided in the section “How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?” below.

Withdrawing your consent: If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided below.

Account Information

If you would like to review or change the information in your account or terminate your account, you can log in to your account settings. Upon your request to terminate your account, we will deactivate or delete your account and information from our active databases, though we may retain some information to prevent fraud or comply with applicable legal requirements.

If you have questions or comments about your privacy rights, you may email us at privacy@bizyip.com.

10. Controls for Do-Not-Track Features

Most web browsers and some mobile operating systems include a Do-Not-Track (“DNT”) feature or setting you can activate to signal your privacy preference not to have data about your online browsing activities monitored and collected. At this stage, no uniform technology standard for recognizing and implementing DNT signals has been finalized. As such, we do not currently respond to DNT browser signals.

California law requires us to let you know how we respond to web browser DNT signals. Because there currently is not an industry or legal standard for recognizing or honoring DNT signals, we do not respond to them at this time.

11. Do United States Residents Have Specific Privacy Rights?

In Short: If you are a resident of California, Colorado, Connecticut, or other applicable states, you may have the right to request access to and receive details about the personal information we maintain about you, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information.

Categories of Personal Information We Collect

The following table shows the categories of personal information we have collected in the past twelve (12) months:

We retain the collected personal information as long as the user has an account with us, and then as described in section 7.

We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information for any purpose other than those permitted without a right to limit under applicable law. We collect a date of birth solely to confirm eligibility to use the Services, and we do not use it to infer characteristics about you.

In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have not sold personal information and have not shared personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Your Rights

• Right to know whether or not we are processing your personal data
• Right to access your personal data
• Right to correct inaccuracies in your personal data
• Right to request the deletion of your personal data
• Right to obtain a copy of the personal data you previously shared with us
• Right to non-discrimination for exercising your rights
• Right to opt out of the processing of your personal data if it is used for targeted advertising, the sale of personal data, or profiling

How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise these rights, you can contact us by submitting a data subject access request, by emailing us at privacy@bizyip.com, or by referring to the contact details at the bottom of this document.

California “Shine The Light” Law

California Civil Code Section 1798.83 permits our users who are California residents to request and obtain from us, once a year and free of charge, information about categories of personal information (if any) we disclosed to third parties for direct marketing purposes. If you are a California resident and would like to make such a request, please submit your request in writing to us using the contact details provided below.

12. Do Other Regions Have Specific Privacy Rights?

In Short: You may have additional rights based on the country you reside in.

Australia and New Zealand

We collect and process your personal information under the obligations and conditions set by Australia's Privacy Act 1988 and New Zealand's Privacy Act 2020. This Privacy Notice satisfies the notice requirements defined in both Privacy Acts.

If you believe we are unlawfully processing your personal information, you have the right to submit a complaint about a breach of the Australian Privacy Principles to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner and a breach of New Zealand's Privacy Principles to the Office of New Zealand Privacy Commissioner.

Republic of South Africa

At any time, you have the right to request access to or correction of your personal information by contacting us using the contact details provided below. If you are unsatisfied with how we address a complaint regarding our processing of personal information, you can contact the Information Regulator (South Africa).

13. Do We Make Updates to This Notice?

In Short: Yes, we will update this notice as necessary to stay compliant with relevant laws.

We may update this Privacy Notice from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated “Last updated” date at the top of this Privacy Notice. If we make material changes to this Privacy Notice, we may notify you either by prominently posting a notice of such changes or by updating the date at the top of this privacy notice. We encourage you to review this Privacy Notice frequently.

14. How Can You Contact Us About This Notice?

If you have questions or comments about this notice, you may email us at privacy@bizyip.com, or write to us at:

BizYip, privacy@bizyip.com, Raleigh, North Carolina, United States

15. How Can You Review, Update, or Delete Your Data?

Based on the applicable laws of your country or state of residence, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we collect from you, details about how we have processed it, correct inaccuracies, or delete your personal information. To request to review, update, or delete your personal information, please fill out and submit a data subject access request.