Privacy Policy

Ship Your Directory ("SYD", "we", "us") runs shipyourdirectory.com, the SYD Pro member portal and the SYD newsletter. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have. If anything here is unclear, email frey@shipyourdirectory.com.

Information we collect

• Account information. Your name, email address and password (stored as a secure hash by our authentication provider) when you create a portal login.
• Membership and payment information. Your subscription status from Stripe. Card details are entered on and stored by Stripe, never on our servers.
• Newsletter information. Your email address and subscription preferences if you join the newsletter.
• What you add to the portal. Projects, notes, photos, idea submissions, questions for office hours and similar content you choose to enter.
• Connected Google data. Only if you connect a Google account to the Growth Dashboard. Details are in the next section.
• Integration keys you provide. For example an Ahrefs API key in Niche Discovery. These are encrypted at rest and only used to run the tool for you.
• Basic technical information. Our hosting provider records standard server logs (such as IP address, browser type and pages requested) for security and reliability.

Google user data (Growth Dashboard)

The Growth Dashboard lets you connect a Google account so you can track your directory websites. When you connect, you choose to grant us read only access to:

• Google Search Console (webmasters.readonly): the list of sites in your account and search performance data for the sites you choose, such as clicks, impressions, click through rate, average position, top search queries and top pages.
• Google Analytics (analytics.readonly): the list of Analytics properties in your account and traffic data for the properties you choose, such as sessions, users, pageviews and the sources of that traffic.
• Your Google account email address (openid, email), so you can tell your connected accounts apart.

How we use it. We use this data only to provide the Growth Dashboard to you: to show your traffic charts, calculate your stage and milestones, and generate recommendations for your directory. SYD staff (Frey) can view your dashboard to support you and improve recommendations.

What we never do. We do not sell Google user data. We do not use it for advertising. We do not use it to build or improve general artificial intelligence or machine learning models, and we do not transfer it to anyone except as needed to run the features you use (see service providers below), for security, or when required by law.

Visibility. Projects are private by default. If you make a project public, other logged in SYD Pro members can see its name, domain, traffic chart, stage and milestones. Your search queries, pages, traffic sources and action items are never shown to other members.

Storage and security. Google access is read only. Your Google refresh token is encrypted (AES 256) and only used by our servers to fetch updates, at most a few times a day. We store daily totals and short summaries (like your top queries) so the dashboard loads quickly.

Disconnecting and deletion. You can disconnect a Google account at any time from Growth Dashboard settings. That revokes our access with Google and deletes the stored token. Deleting a project deletes its stored data. You can also remove our access from your Google Account permissions page.

Our use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

How we use information

• To run the website, the member portal and the tools inside it.
• To manage memberships, including checking that a subscription is active.
• To send emails you signed up for, such as the newsletter, and service emails such as password resets.
• To answer your questions and give you better recommendations.
• To keep the service secure and fix problems.

AI features

Some portal tools use AI to answer questions or draft recommendations. When you use them, the relevant information is sent to our AI provider (Anthropic) only to generate your result. Our provider does not use this data to train its models.

Service providers

We use a small set of trusted providers to run SYD. They only process information to provide their service to us:

• Supabase (database, authentication and file storage)
• Vercel (website hosting)
• Stripe (payments)
• Kit (newsletter)
• Resend (service emails)
• Anthropic (AI features)
• Google (sign in to connect Search Console and Analytics, and the data you choose to connect)

The SYD community forum is hosted separately on Circle, which has its own privacy policy.

Cookies

We use only the cookies and local storage needed to keep you signed in and remember preferences like dark mode. We do not use advertising cookies.

Data retention

We keep your information while you have an account. If your SYD Pro membership ends, Growth Dashboard data is kept for 120 days in case you come back, and is then deleted along with the connected Google tokens. You can ask us to delete your data sooner at any time.

Your choices and rights

• Access, correct or delete your information by emailing us.
• Unsubscribe from the newsletter using the link in any email.
• Disconnect Google or other integrations at any time.
• Depending on where you live, you may have additional rights under local privacy laws. We will honor valid requests.

Children

SYD is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect information from them.

Changes

If we make meaningful changes, we will update this page and the date at the top, and tell members by email or in the portal.

Contact

Questions or requests: frey@shipyourdirectory.com.