Privacy Policy

The short version

I'm a one-person business. I collect what I need to run it, and not much else.

I don't sell your information. I don't trade it. I don't share it with other members. If you upload a formulation, I don't show it to anyone, and it isn't used to train AI models.

The rest of this explains the details, because you're entitled to them and because California law requires me to write them down. If you'd rather just ask me something, email hello@mariegale.com.

1. Who I am and what this covers

I'm Marie Gale, a sole proprietorship at 1485 Overlea St., Clearwater, FL 33755. You can reach me at hello@mariegale.com.

This policy covers both of my sites:

• mariegale.com, my blog and the place I sell books and consulting
• advisor.mariegale.com, the Compliance Advisor subscription service

It also covers my email list, whichever site you joined it from.

I've organized this by what you're doing rather than by which site you're on, because nobody keeps track of which subdomain they're on.

2. What I collect, and why

If you just visit

My web host records requests to the site, including IP addresses. That's ordinary server logging. I use it to keep the site running and to look into problems.

Analytics and cookies are covered in Section 4.

If you comment on the blog

I collect what you type into the comment form, plus your IP address and browser information, which helps catch spam.

Comments are checked by Akismet, an automated spam filtering service run by Automattic. Akismet receives the comment itself along with your email address, IP address and browser information, and decides whether it looks like spam. Automattic's privacy policy is at https://automattic.com/privacy/.

If you sign up for emails

I collect your email address, and your name if you give it.

You can end up on my email list several ways: registering on the blog, buying a book or consulting directly from me, or ticking the box that asks to hear from me. That box is on my contact form, my consulting form, the free MoCRA Wizard, the Label Quick Check purchase and the Compliance Advisor signup. Buying a Label Quick Check or subscribing doesn't, on its own, put you on the list.

Blog registration is the standard WordPress kind, with a password and a profile, and you need to be registered to leave a comment. Registering also adds you to my email list — your details are passed across as you register — so your information sits in two places: the blog's registration records on mariegale.com, and my email list, which is what actually sends you anything. Every email has an unsubscribe link.

I use "register" for the blog and "subscribe" for Compliance Advisor, so it's clear which is meant.

Every one of those boxes starts unticked. Ticking it is up to you.

Whether or not you check it, you'll receive transactional email while you have an account with me: receipts, account notices, password resets, renewal reminders, and announcements about the service. Those aren't marketing and you can't turn them off while your account is open.

Every mailing-list email has an unsubscribe link, and it needs no password. It takes you to a page where you can choose what you'd like to keep — updates about your subscription, articles and news, offers — or stop all of it at once. Unsubscribing stops the mailing-list email and leaves your account notices alone.

All my email goes out through Postmark, on two separate streams — one for account email, one for the mailing list. Postmark receives your email address, your name, and the content of the message being sent, and keeps it for 45 days. The mailing list itself is held here, in Compliance Advisor, and not by an outside service.

I keep a record of the email I send you: the date, the subject, the address it went to, and whether it arrived or bounced. For mailing-list email, and for member email about the service, like Office Hours reminders and the welcome letters that help you get started, I also record whether it was opened and whether you clicked a link, so I can tell which emails are worth writing. Receipts, password resets, billing notices and other account email carry no tracking at all.

If you use the contact form

Your name and email address are recorded in my database, and the content of your message is emailed to me so I can reply to you directly.

There's a box you can tick to join my email list. If you tick it, your name and email are added; if you don't, they aren't.

If you send feedback

Each tool has a feedback form, available when you run it. What you write is emailed to me, and it's attached to the tool run it came from, so I can see the result you were looking at. That's how I find out what needs fixing, correcting or updating — and, sometimes, that something worked well.

Because the feedback is attached to the run, it's connected to your account.

Feedback on the MoCRA Wizard works a little differently, because the Wizard doesn't need an account. Your feedback is attached to the Wizard run it came from, so I can see the result you were looking at. If you gave your email address in the Wizard, or you give it with your feedback so I can reply, I keep that address to write back to you, and it comes to me with the notification that feedback arrived.

If you use the free MoCRA Wizard

The Wizard is free and doesn't need an account.

Your answers aren't shown to anyone. They're stored with the details of the run, and I use them only for anonymized statistics and to manage, check and improve the tool.

If you give your email address, the fact that you used the Wizard is noted in your contact information, but your answers and results are not. Your address goes on my mailing list only if you also tick the box asking to hear from me.

Your results can't be retrieved afterward, so print or save them before you leave the page.

If you buy a Label Quick Check or subscribe to Compliance Advisor

I collect your name and email address, and a password, which is stored only as a hash. I can't see it and I can't recover it. If you give a business name, I keep that too.

Payment is handled by Stripe. Compliance Advisor talks to Stripe directly. Your card number never reaches my systems and I never see it. What comes back to me is your Stripe customer ID, your subscription ID, your plan and rate, and whether your subscription is active. For each payment I keep the amount, the currency, whether it went through, what it was for, Stripe's fee, the date it was paid, a link to your Stripe receipt, any refund, and which of my emails, if any, led to it. If you give Stripe a phone number, or Stripe has your name when mine doesn't, I keep those too.

When you agree to my Terms and this policy at checkout, the version numbers of both are recorded with your order at Stripe.

I also record when you log in.

If you use the tools

When you run a check, I keep a record of it: which tool, when, what you entered, and what the tool returned.

What you enter — ingredient lists, formulations, percentages, product information — is kept with the run record.

Label images work differently. When you run a label check, the image you upload is used to read your label. We remove location data from label images before they are stored. I keep it for 90 days from the run. It isn't shown in your dashboard — you can't retrieve it, and no one else who logs in can see it either. During those 90 days I may look at it myself, in the admin area, to check that the tool read your label correctly and to make the checks more accurate. That means me reviewing images and refining my own rules. The images are not used to train AI models. After 90 days the image is deleted.

The rest of a label check stays with the run record after the image is gone: the names of the files you uploaded, your answers on the intake form, and the text the tool read from your label. I keep them because they're how I check how accurately the label checks are working.

Uploaded label files are limited to 4 MB.

If you use the Ingredient Lookup

The Ingredient Lookup is a one-off tool — the result isn't saved to your dashboard.

I do keep a log of lookups, and it's connected to your account. I use it to see how often the tool is used and what people are looking for, so I can find gaps where someone didn't get the result they expected. Because the log is tied to your account, I can also get in touch if I spot a problem with a result you were given.

If you ask me a question

Ask Marie questions come to me, and are answered by me. (I may use AI to help draft a reply; see Section 3.)

Questions and answers may later be anonymized, edited, and added to a shared Library section so other members can benefit. Your name, any identifying information, and any product name or identifying detail are removed first.

If you attend Office Hours

Office Hours calls are held over Zoom, and they are recorded. The recording captures your voice unless you're muted, your video if your camera is on, your display name, and anything you show on your screen.

Recordings go into the Compliance Advisor Library, where current members can watch them. They are not public. They stay in the Library indefinitely.

The recording is made in Zoom's cloud, then downloaded and deleted from Zoom once I have it.

Before it goes into the Library, I edit the recording in Descript (see Section 3), so Descript receives it, voices, video, display names and shared screens included.

You can attend without being in the recording. Stay muted, keep your camera off, use whatever display name you like, and send your question through the chat if you'd rather not be heard asking. I'll answer it without saying who asked.

I don't normally edit recordings after the fact. If something comes up and you need a recording changed, email me and I'll sort it out.

If you buy a book or consulting from me

I collect what's needed to fill the order and do the work, and you go onto my email list.

3. AI and your information

Where and how I use AI is explained in Section 3 of my Terms of Service. What matters for your privacy is what goes to an AI service, and that none of it is used to train AI models:

• Label checks. Your label images, the text read from them and your intake-form answers go to my AI provider, Anthropic, only to produce your result. Anthropic is contractually prohibited from training on them.
• Drafting. If I use AI to help draft a reply to your Ask Marie question, your feedback or a message you sent me, the text I'm working on goes to Anthropic. I've set up my accounts so none of it is used for training.
• Video editing. Office Hours recordings are edited in Descript. I've switched off Descript's data sharing, and Descript says the outside AI companies it works with are contractually barred from training on its customers' data.

Nothing else you enter goes to AI. In particular, the formulation you enter in the Ingredient Declaration Builder, percentages and all, never goes to AI or to anyone else.

4. Cookies and tracking

Cookies that make the site work

On Compliance Advisor:

• A session cookie that keeps you signed in and keeps forms working, lasting 3 days. It's set when you sign in or open a page with a form on it, such as a checkout or the contact form; just reading the other pages doesn't set it.
• If you choose "Remember me," that same cookie lasts 60 days

On the blog:

• A temporary cookie that checks whether your browser accepts cookies, discarded when you close it
• Login cookies lasting two days, or two weeks if you choose "Remember Me," and a screen-options cookie lasting a year
• If you comment and choose to, a "Remember Me" cookie saving your name, email and website for a year, so you don't retype them

If you block these, parts of the site stop working.

Which email brought you here

If you arrive from one of my emails, the link carries a short code saying which email it was. I store that code in a cookie on your browser for 30 days, so that if you subscribe or buy something I can tell which email led to it.

The code identifies the email, not you. It is set by my own site and does nothing else. If you subscribe or buy, the code travels with your order to Stripe, so the purchase can be matched to the email. Blocking it costs you nothing.

Spam protection on forms

My contact form, my consulting form and the email box on the MoCRA Wizard use Cloudflare Turnstile to keep out bots. When you use one of them, Turnstile checks your browser, and Cloudflare receives your IP address. Cloudflare's privacy policy is at https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/.

Fonts, icons and page code

Compliance Advisor's pages load their fonts from Google Fonts, and some page code and icons from jsDelivr, a public service that delivers those files. Your browser asks them for the files, so they receive your IP address and browser information. They don't set cookies for me or tell me anything about you. On the checkout pages, Stripe's payment form loads from Stripe.

Analytics

Google Analytics is used on the blog and on Compliance Advisor's public pages. It uses cookies to collect device and browser information, your IP address, and what you do on the site, and derives your general location from your IP address. Google keeps this data for 30 months. Google publishes information for visitors of sites using Google Analytics and an opt-out browser add-on.

Clicky is also used on both sites, on Compliance Advisor's public pages. It records visits, pages viewed, and IP addresses. It doesn't collect your name, email address, or anything you'd have to type in. Clicky's privacy policy is at clicky.com/terms/privacy.

Advertising

On the blog and on Compliance Advisor's public pages, I use Meta's advertising pixel to measure how my ads perform and to show ads to people who have visited my sites.

Amazon affiliate links

Some links to my books, and occasionally other products, are Amazon affiliate links. Clicking one places a cookie identifying that you came from my site. If you buy something at Amazon within 24 hours, I usually receive a small commission.

Embedded content

I sometimes embed content from other sites, usually YouTube videos, and videos in the Compliance Advisor Library may play from YouTube. Embedded content behaves as though you had visited that site directly. Those sites may collect data about you, set their own cookies, and track your interaction with the embedded content, including linking it to your account there if you're logged in.

Managing cookies

You can set your browser to warn you when a cookie is being sent, or to refuse cookies entirely. Every browser is different, so check its help menu. Turning off all cookies will disable some features here.

Do Not Track

Some browsers send a "Do Not Track" signal. There's no agreed standard for what a site should do about it, and I don't currently respond to those signals. The cookie controls in your browser, and the Google Analytics opt-out linked above, do work.

5. Who your information goes to

I use a small number of services to run my business. Each gets only what it needs.

• Stripe — payment processing, called directly from Compliance Advisor, with its payment form on my checkout pages
• Postmark — all my email: receipts, account notices, password resets, reminders, and the mailing list
• Anthropic — receives label images, the text read from them and your intake-form answers, only to produce your label check result, and is contractually prohibited from training its models on them
• Zoom — Office Hours calls and recordings, which I remove from Zoom's cloud after downloading
• Descript — video editing, including Office Hours recordings, with its own AI features
• Words in a Row — my web host, on rented servers in the United States
• Cloudflare — Turnstile spam protection on my forms
• Google Fonts and jsDelivr — fonts, icons and page code your browser downloads
• YouTube — videos played in the Library and on the blog
• Google Analytics — analytics on both sites
• Clicky — analytics on both sites
• Meta — advertising pixel on both sites
• Akismet (Automattic) — spam filtering for blog comments

I'll also disclose information if I'm legally required to, or where it's necessary to protect someone's rights or safety. If I ever sell or transfer my business, customer information would transfer with it.

6. What I don't do

• I don't sell your information
• I don't rent or trade it
• I don't share your formulations or label content with anyone. Your label content, including your ingredient declaration, goes only to my AI provider for the label checks (Section 3). The formulation you enter in the Ingredient Declaration Builder, with its percentages, isn't shared with AI or anyone else.
• I don't share your information with other members
• I don't use your content to train AI models
• I don't use your information to build a profile of your business for anyone else

7. Using anonymized examples

Real questions and situations are the best teaching material there is, so I sometimes use them in articles, on Office Hours calls, and in Library materials.

When I do, identifying details come out first: your name, your business name, your brand and product names, and any detail distinctive enough to point back to you.

If I use a formulation as an example, I remove the percentages or replace them with ranges, so the actual formulation is never disclosed. The ingredients make the teaching point. The percentages are yours.

If a situation can't be explained without a detail that would identify you, I'll ask you first.

8. Testimonials

If you write something kind in a feedback form or in an email, I may ask whether I can use it as a testimonial.

I'll always ask first. You can say no, and that's the end of it. You can also say yes on conditions — without your full name, without your business name, or without anything else you'd rather not have attached.

9. How long I keep things

• Account information — while your account exists, and afterward as described below
• Tool run records — indefinitely, for running your account and for understanding how the tools are used
• Label images — 90 days from the run, then deleted
• Label check file names, intake answers and the text read from your label — with the run record, after the image is deleted
• MoCRA Wizard answers — kept with the details of the run, never shown to anyone
• Ingredient Lookup log — kept with your account, so I can improve the tool and follow up on a result
• Blog registration records — until you ask me to remove them. Unsubscribing from email doesn't delete your blog registration.
• Contact form messages and feedback — indefinitely. I use them to track how the tools are being used and to make sure corrections and updates actually get made.
• Your results in your dashboard — as long as you want them. See Section 10.
• Label Quick Check results — online through your private link for 30 days from the run, and on your dashboard for 60 days from the run if you set up a password. An unused Quick Check expires 365 days after purchase. If you subscribe within 60 days of running it, the check stays on your dashboard.
• After you cancel — your run history can be restored if you rejoin within 60 days of your subscription ending; after that I can't promise it
• Office Hours recordings — indefinitely, in the Library
• Ask Marie questions — on the same basis as your other information, and permanently once anonymized and added to the Library
• Email between us — indefinitely. It sits in my email the same way it would with any business you've written to.
• Email delivery records — I keep a record of what was sent to you, and Postmark keeps its own for 45 days. Where my record includes whether an email was opened or clicked, after 180 days those are added into per-email totals and the individual records are deleted. Records of account email (the date, subject and address) are kept while your account exists.
• Blog comments — indefinitely, so follow-up comments from you are approved automatically
• Email list — until you ask me to remove it. If you unsubscribe, I keep your email address so you don't get added back by accident.
• Google Analytics data — 30 months, held by Google
• Payment records — seven years, for tax and accounting. If you ask me to delete your information, the payment records stay for that time with your name and contact details removed. Stripe keeps its own records under its own privacy policy.

10. Your choices

You can do all of these whether or not the law where you live requires it.

• See what I have. Ask, and I'll send you a copy.
• Correct it. Update your profile, or email me.
• Tidy your dashboard. You can hide any tool result you don't want to see, and unhide it later. Hiding only changes what's displayed to you.
• Delete all your personal information. I'll delete your account and your history. Run data may be kept in anonymized form for statistics, with nothing connecting it to you. Anonymized Library entries stay, because there's nothing in them identifying you. Payment records stay for seven years with your details removed (see Section 9). If you've unsubscribed, I keep just your email address on my do-not-send list, so you're never added back by accident. Email between us stays in my email — if you want a particular exchange deleted, ask and I'll delete it.
• Stop the marketing email. Unsubscribe link in every one. Account notices continue while your account is open.
• Cancel your subscription. From your dashboard, any time. To close your account altogether and have your information deleted, email me.

Email hello@mariegale.com for any of these. I'll respond within 30 days.

I won't treat you differently for asking.

11. If you're in the EU or the UK

While the information I provide is primarily directed at people in the United States, I do accept Compliance Advisor subscribers and blog registrations from outside the US, and I have registrants in Europe.

If you're covered by the GDPR or the UK GDPR, this section is for you. I'm the controller of your information.

Why I'm allowed to process your information

• To perform our contract — running your account, performing the checks, billing you
• With your consent — promotional email where you ticked a box to receive it, on the Compliance Advisor signup, the Label Quick Check purchase, my contact form, my consulting form, or the MoCRA Wizard. You can withdraw that consent at any time.
• For my legitimate interests — sending article notices and related email to people who registered on the blog, since registration itself puts you on the list. Object or unsubscribe at any time and I'll stop.
• For my legitimate interests — keeping the site secure, preventing fraud, and improving the tools through anonymized analysis
• To meet legal obligations — keeping payment records for tax and accounting

Your rights

You can ask me to give you a copy of your information, correct it, delete it, restrict how I use it, or send it to you in a portable form. You can object to processing based on legitimate interests. You can withdraw consent to marketing at any time, and withdrawing it doesn't affect anything I did beforehand.

Email hello@mariegale.com. I'll respond within 30 days.

You also have the right to complain to the data protection authority in your country if you think I've handled your information badly. I'd rather you told me first so I can fix it, but the right is yours either way.

Automated decisions

The tools evaluate labels, not people. Nothing here makes an automated decision about you personally.

Where your information goes

I'm in the United States, and I process your information here.

The services I use, listed in Section 5, are mostly US companies, but several of them operate internationally and may process your information outside the United States, under their own privacy policies.

12. Security

Connections to my sites are encrypted. Passwords are stored as hashes, so nobody, including me, can read them. Card numbers never reach my systems. Access to member information is limited to me.

No system is perfectly secure, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What I can tell you is that I keep the amount of information I hold small, which is the most effective protection there is.

Use a strong password you don't use anywhere else, and don't share your login.

If information I hold is ever exposed in a way that could affect you, I'll tell you promptly.

13. Children

Compliance Advisor is for adults, and members must be 18 or older. My sites aren't directed at children, and I don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13.

14. Changes to this policy

If I change this policy, I'll update the version number and effective date at the top. For anything significant I'll email members and registrants.

I don't publish old versions on the site, but I keep them. If you'd like to see an earlier version, or the version that was in force when you joined, email me and I'll send it to you.

15. Contact

Marie Gale
1485 Overlea St., Clearwater, FL 33755
hello@mariegale.com

Questions about your information, this policy, or anything else all come to the same place. Just email me.