Privacy Policy

This policy explains what personal information BFT LLC ("we") collects on PodiumOracle (podiumoracle.com), why, and your choices. We collect as little as we can: you don't need an account to use the site, and we never sell your personal information.

What we collect

• Account details (if you create an account): name, username, email address and password. These are held by Clerk, our sign-in provider; your password is stored hashed by Clerk and never seen by us. Our own database keeps only your account ID, your favourites, your plan and how much of the monthly chat allowance you've used.
• Payments (if you buy Podium+): handled by Stripe, which receives your payment details and billing address. We receive only a customer and subscription reference and whether the subscription is active. We never see your card number.
• Posts, replies, live chat messages and votes (if you post): public, with your username. We keep them with your account ID, along with your votes, any reports you make, and any pause or ban on your posting. Before it appears, each post, reply and message is sent to an AI model through OpenRouter to check it against the rules (the text only, nothing that identifies you).
• Chat questions and answers: sent to AI models through OpenRouter to produce the answer, and recorded with the model, cost and speed (and your account ID, if you're signed in) so we can check quality and costs. Please don't put personal information in chat questions.
• Usage and device information: pages viewed, clicks, approximate location (country and region from your IP address), browser and device type, referring site and page speed, collected by Google Analytics and PostHog. PostHog may also record anonymised session replays (what was clicked and scrolled, with anything typed hidden) to help us fix problems.
• Errors: when something breaks, the error and the page it happened on are sent to Sentry and PostHog, with your account ID if you're signed in.
• Feedback: bug reports you send, and the email address if you choose to give one. Feature requests, votes and comments on the ideas board are kept with your account, under your username, like posts in the discussions. If you subscribe to the changelog, we keep the email address you gave (or your account's) until you unsubscribe.
• Technical data: to stop abuse, we count requests and chat questions per visitor using a one-way hash of the IP address that changes every day (every month for counting chat questions that aren't about sports); we don't store the address itself.

Cookies and local storage

• Necessary: Clerk's sign-in cookies keep you signed in; your browser's local storage keeps your favourites, theme, recent leagues, chat history and cookie choice on your device.
• Analytics: Google Analytics and PostHog cookies. Visitors in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland are asked first (in Google's consent message when the page shows ads, otherwise in ours), and nothing is stored until they agree; elsewhere these run unless you choose "No thanks". You can change your choice at any time with "Privacy choices" in the footer.
• Advertising: Google AdSense cookies, for visitors who see ads, and OpenAI's ad measurement cookies (__oppref and __obref), which tell OpenAI when a visit came from one of our ads in ChatGPT (below). Both follow the same choice as the analytics.

Advertising

Visitors without Podium+ may see ads from Google AdSense. We don't show ads on the account page or to Podium+ subscribers. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland, Google's consent message asks first, and ads there are personalised only if you agree. Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies to serve ads based on your earlier visits to this site and other sites; Google's advertising cookies let it and its partners show you ads based on those visits. You can turn off personalised ads in Google's Ads Settings, or choose "No thanks" in "Privacy choices" in the footer (a Global Privacy Control signal from your browser does the same); the ads you then see aren't personalised. Learn more about how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

We also advertise PodiumOracle in ChatGPT. To see which of those ads bring visitors, OpenAI's Measurement Pixel tells OpenAI which pages you view here (the page's address and title) along with an identifier from the ad you clicked, stored in its cookies for up to a year. It may also send a one-way hash (never the address itself) of an email address it finds on a page, such as the bug report form's. It counts nothing on the account page, and we send OpenAI nothing about your account, purchases or chat. It follows the same choice as the analytics: in the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland it runs only if you agree, elsewhere it runs unless you choose "No thanks" in "Privacy choices" or your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal. See OpenAI's privacy policy.

Why we use it

To run the site and your account (contract), to process payments (contract and legal obligations), to keep the site secure and working and to understand how it's used so we can improve it (our legitimate interests), and for analytics and ad measurement cookies where the law requires it, your consent.

Who helps us run the site

These service providers process data on our behalf, under their own security and privacy terms: Cloudflare (hosting and security), Clerk (accounts and sign-in), Stripe (payments and tax), Google Analytics and PostHog (analytics, session replay, error tracking), Google AdSense (ads), OpenAI (measuring our ads in ChatGPT), Sentry (error reports), OpenRouter and the AI model providers it routes to (chat answers and checking posts), Zoho Mail (sending the changelog to subscribers), Slack (internal alerts about errors and feedback) and GitHub (feature request tracking). Most are based in the United States, so your data may be processed there. We share information otherwise only if the law requires it, to protect people or the site, or as part of a sale or merger of the business.

How long we keep it

• Account information, favourites and plan: until you delete your account. Deleting it (from your account page) removes your Clerk account and everything in our database straight away. Your posts and replies are blanked and shown as "[deleted]", so the replies under them still make sense, with nothing of yours left in them; your live chat messages are deleted; and your votes, reports and profile are removed.
• Posts, replies and live chat messages: until you or a moderator delete them, or you delete your account. Moderation records (reports about a post, and bans with their reason) are kept as long as they're needed to keep the discussions safe.
• Payment records: kept by Stripe as the law requires, even after you delete your account.
• Analytics, session replays, logs and error reports: kept for the provider's retention period (session replays for 30 days), then deleted.

Your rights

Depending on where you live (for example under the GDPR, UK GDPR or California's CCPA/CPRA), you can ask to access, correct, delete or get a copy of your personal information, object to or restrict how it's used, and withdraw consent. You can delete your account yourself at any time. For anything else, email support@podiumoracle.com; we'll answer within 30 days. You can also complain to your local data protection authority. We don't sell personal information for money. Personalised ads from Google may count as "sharing" personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising under California law (and as a "sale" or "targeted advertising" in some other US states); you can opt out with "No thanks" in "Privacy choices" in the footer or with a Global Privacy Control signal.

Children

PodiumOracle isn't directed to children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

Security

We use encrypted connections everywhere, keep secrets out of our code, give each service only the access it needs, and let trusted providers handle passwords and payments. No system is perfectly secure, but we'll tell you and the authorities promptly if a breach affects your information.

Changes

We'll update this policy as the site changes; the date at the top shows the latest version, and we'll give notice of significant changes. Questions: support@podiumoracle.com.