A public message on privacy.

Let’s make this part as simple as possible, shall we?

• If you subscribe to any of our free newsletters, the only info you’ll need to provide is your email address — which allows us to, y’know, send the newsletters to your email address.
• If you decide to become a member of The Intelligence Insider membership community or participate in one of our premium e-courses, you’ll need to submit your name and payment info as well (more on both of those fronts in a moment).
• And if you opt to purchase any physical goods from The Intelligence, you’ll also have to provide your name and payment info along with shipping details for any such items.

Now, for some more specifics:

1. Newsletters and courses

The Intelligence newsletters and courses are all created and distributed with a service called Kit. That service allows us to collect your email address when you subscribe, put together some rather dapper publications, and then send those publications to your curiously mint-scented inbox. You can always unsubscribe at any time, if you wish — there’s a link to do so at the bottom of every single message we send — and if you do, we won’t email you ever again (though, full disclosure, JR might shed a single tear while no one’s watching).

The newsletter software provides us with a limited amount of analytical data based on the messages that are delivered — namely if the emails are being opened and what, if any, links from within ’em are being clicked. That info helps us understand the reach of the newsletter and gain a better appreciation of what’s connecting with people (as well as potentially brag about how many smart and attractive mammals are actually reading what we’re writing). It also allows us to make sure we aren’t sending emails to people who never open ’em and thus probably don’t want to be hearing from us. Aside from your email address, ConvertKit doesn’t collect any sort of personal information, precise location information, undergarment preference information, or really any significant information beyond what I just mentioned.

The newsletters typically include sponsored sections. Those are a way for us to recoup some of the costs associated with providing this service, which is a completely independent effort and is not directly financed or controlled by any of the other outlets where you might see our bylines or other The-Intelligence-associated materials appear. 

Again, let us emphasize: We will never share, sell, or otherwise distribute your email address to anyone. Advertisers and sponsors will never have access to your email address or any other information (unless, of course, you choose to click on an ad and then directly give that sort of information to them on your own). We will also always clearly disclose when any section is part of a partnership arrangement. Full transparency is incredibly important in these quarters, as is avoiding any sort of conflict of interest. We’ll work hard to ensure no The Intelligence publication ever does anything that might be in any way misleading or deceitful. You have our word on this.

For more on our ethical promises and how we operate, see the full The Intelligence Code of Ethics.

And finally, if you choose to participate in one of our premium e-courses, your payment will be processed by Stripe — which is kind of like PayPal if PayPal weren’t stuck in 1997-level design and technology. Stripe handles the processing directly, and no one at The Intelligence ever has access to any manner of credit card info or personal data beyond your name and email address. You can find Stripe’s privacy policy here, if you’re interested.

2. The Intelligence Insider

The Intelligence Insider membership program relies on a Patreon-owned service called Memberful for managing payments, subscriptions, and access to the various member-only resources. Memberful is incredibly careful about security (see its security page and data protection page, if you want the 7-zillion-word version of that same assurance), and it does not access or in any way utilize your personal information (see the “End Users” section of its privacy policy for a much more verbose word-barfing that’ll tell you the same thing).

Memberful processes all payments, meanwhile, via Stripe, and neither Memberful nor anyone at The Intelligence ever sees or has access to any credit card info or detailed personal info. Once more, you can find Stripe’s privacy policy here, if you’re interested.

The Intelligence Insider Community forum allows members to interact with The Intelligence staff and each other using a combination of community-wide messages, private messages, images, and comments. Whatever content you create within the Insider Community is stored on our private server space and visible only to The Intelligence staff and Intelligence Insider members. It is not publicly accessible on the internet or visible to any search engines. We can’t, however, guarantee that other members will never copy, screenshot, or share forum content outside of that area, so keep that in mind when deciding what you do and do want to share.

3. The Intelligence Store

We may at times offer physical merchandise through an online storefront. Any and all such orders — the processing, the payments, the production, and the shipments — are currently handled by a company called Spreadshirt. We’ve found it to be an exceptionally good partner for this purpose, with superb products, stellar support (with actual reachable humans, even!), and a very customer-centric approach in general. You can read all about its stance on protecting personal data in its privacy policy, if you’re so inclined, but the short version is that it might send you the occasional marketing message after you make a purchase but won’t sell your info to anyone and will make it easy for you to opt out of ongoing messages whenever you want.

4. External advertising

The Intelligence occasionally runs ads via sources such as Google and other similar networks to try to introduce the newsletter or e-courses to new audiences. As a result, some of the confirmation pages that come up after you first sign up for a newsletter or course may sometimes include a tiny conversion tracking code that allows us to see how many people are actually coming over as a result of those promotions. 

You can read all about the technology Google uses for that and how you can opt out of the process entirely on this page.

5. General website forms

If you ever need to provide feedback or reach out to The Intelligence for any other reason through this website, you’ll be asked to provide your name and email address in the relevant contact form. That information isn’t stored in any way, shared externally, or used for any purposes beyond allowing us to receive your message and respond to it, as needed.

The information we collect when you use the website and the associated services, as described above, will generally be accessed only by The Intelligence staff and the specific third parties that are mentioned below. However, on rare occasions, the information could be accessed by:

• Law enforcement or government institutions — subject to a legal request, court order, or other lawful summons with respect to an ongoing investigation
• Other companies — in the event of any business transfer activity, including a merger, an acquisition, a sale of an asset(s), bankruptcy, or a consolidation between The Intelligence and another company or companies
• Strategic partners — in the case of a strategic partnership we will share certain, limited information with specific companies, but we will always make it 100% clear when we are doing so, and readers will be able to unsubscribe from partner mailing lists at any time.
• Other users — when you create and submit user-created content, such as images, comments, and messages within the Insider Community forum
• Rogue geckos — if one manages to infiltrate our highly secure office fortress, overtake all of us by sheer force, and then hack into the mainframes in a way only a devious gecko could

As highlighted above, some of the services offered ’round these parts rely on the help of tracking codes — such as pixels, cookies, and other such tasty-sounding bits of technology. We’ll call ’em all cookies from here on out, both for simplicity’s sake and because it sounds the most delicious.

Cookies are tiny bits of data attached to the website and downloaded onto your device browser to enable us and the third parties we work with to perform certain functions, including tracking user interactions on our ads and content, enabling payment processing, and keeping Intelligence Insider members signed into the website.

The types of cookies used on the website may include (i) necessary cookies — those that allow us to perform functions and services required for the site’s operation, (ii) performance cookies that help us see and gather info about which mammals open our content (sort of like gathering analytics), and (iii) targeting cookies that allow us to know who might be interested in seeing The Intelligence info via targeted ads in the future.

For full disclosure, while we’re on the subject, the types of cookies used in the The Intelligence offices may include sugar, chocolate chip, and snickerdoodle.

Cookies can stay on your browser for a single browsing session or for specified period of time depending on if the cookie is a session or persistent cookie. Session cookies expire when you close your browser, while persistent cookies have set expiry periods, which can range from minutes to years. (Chomp, chomp, chomp.)

You, however, have the ability to control cookies — at least, the virtual variety — via the settings, tools, or help section of your chosen browser. Just be aware that if you reject any cookie, the function the cookie performs may become unavailable and fail to perform properly. If you reject any physical cookie, meanwhile, you’ll miss out on a delightful snack. If you’re still puzzled by what cookies are and why they exist, you can learn more at www.allaboutcookies.org for the digital type and the The Intelligence pantry for the edible variety.

And one more thing: This website uses Google Analytics to collect data about visits to the website. This helps us understand the big picture of the number of people visiting and where they’re coming from, and it also allows us to run some ads through Google’s Ads program in order to reach new readers who might be interested in what we’re doing. It’s all pretty standard stuff — everything’s completely anonymous, but cookies are involved (both for browser-based data analysis and for midafternoon enjoyment). You can find Google’s full privacy policy here, if you’re really desperate to fall asleep, and if you’d like to opt out of having your data used by Google Analytics in any way, you can learn more about how to do so on this page.

Like cookies, you can stop Google Analytics from gathering anonymous information about you. The only difference is you may need to download a Google Analytics opt out extension on your browser to achieve this.

For users who subscribe to the free The Intelligence newsletters or e-courses, we’ll collect and use your email address for the duration of your subscription. Once you exercise your right to unsubscribe and opt out, we’ll immediately remove your email address from our database. And you’ll never be treated to the angelic sound of our virtual voices again.

For Intelligence Insiders members, information you share related to your membership mechanics — namely your payment details — is all stored and saved within Stripe, the payment processor, and used solely to process your payments and fulfill your orders. You can read about Stripe’s data retention policy here.

Any information posted to the Insider Community forum will be retained and available within the confines of that forum indefinitely, though if there’s ever something specific you really want to remove, just let one of the friendly Community Pros in that area know. We’ll do our best to accommodate your request.

If you are a person and/or amphibian who uses this website and its associated services from any country that relies on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) law, goodness gracious, are you in for a treat. Ready for even more riveting info?

For the sake of the GDPR, The Intelligence is your “data controller,” which means that we decide and control how your email address, payment method information, name, shipping details, or any information you submit on the website is used. (It also means we get to wear really nifty “CONTROLLER” badges that we made up to make ourselves feel fancy.) The Intelligence does everything possible to ensure that the third parties mentioned within this privacy policy use the data you submit the way that’s outlined on this page and in accordance with the GDPR provisions. 

Now, brace yourself — here come a couple o’ hilariously lawyered sentences: The legal or lawful bases we rely on before sending you newsletters and e-courses or collecting any other information from you is based majorly on your consent (i.e., where you specifically consent to The Intelligence using your data for specific purpose we communicate to you). In some instances, and where we do not collect your data based on consent, we use your data because it helps us identify how you and other users interact with our content, and this allows us to to identify what you want and then serve you with better content. (That was fun, wasn’t it?)

As highlighted throughout this privacy policy, we do not share your data outside of the specific instances mentioned earlier — although we may need to transfer your data from the GDPR region in which you provided it to other regions where the third parties referenced in this privacy policy operate from.

As we’ve said approximately 7.2 zillion times now, we take privacy seriously. And as such, we engage only with third parties who respect your privacy in similar ways. We’ll also only transfer your data in accordance with the safeguards described by the GDPR. Some of these safeguards include using Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission. Exciting stuff, we know.

If you ever think The Intelligence is not using your data as described in this section, the GDPR provides you with the right to report us to any data protection authority in the GDPR region where you reside.

If you use the services The Intelligence provides from the State of California with the United States of ‘Murica, this next section is for you. Don’t you feel special?!

The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) requires that we disclose the categories of third parties we’ve shared your information with, including providing you with an opt out option if we ever disclose your information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes. 

The only information we presently collect is described in the earlier parts of this privacy policy. We do not currently — nor do we plan to in the future — sell, disclose, or rent your email address to third parties for any direct marketing purposes (though I do occasionally rent out space on my fibula, if you’re ever interested in leasing).

Last but not least, the California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) — another privacy law that applies to California residents — requires us to disclose if we react to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. That’s a fancy name for browser feature that, if switched on, sends a signal to us to not track your online activity.

DNT isn’t a widely accepted or used feature, and as such, we have not structured The Intelligence to respond to DNT signals. You can find more information at www.allaboutdnt.com.

If you use the services The Intelligence provides from Nevada, this section applies to you! Nevada law gives you the right to opt out of the sale of your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing. This also prevents such third parties from reselling the same information to additional third parties, including, I assume, any birthday parties that may or may not involve cookies and other forms of pastry.

As I’ve now mentioned 7.7 zillion times, we don’t engage in the sale of personal information to third parties in any context. If you really want, you can reach out via the Contact area of this site to request that we exempt your information from any future sales — but since we don’t intend to engage in any such practices at any point, that’ll either result in no response or possibly an email along the lines of: “Got it. Cool. Yeah, we won’t be doing that.”

Hiya! There’s actually nothing specific to say about privacy in Iowa. We just figured folks in Iowa don’t get recognized all that often, so we thought we’d take this opportunity to make you feel extra-special and appreciated.

The website and the associated content may contain links and content from third parties. These third parties may include the third-party service providers we use, The Intelligence sponsors, and other non-affiliated third parties. Links from third parties do not indicate that this privacy policy represents how said third parties will treat your information when you click through to their sites and services.

If you want to know how any third-party sites and services will use your information — and/or you want to emulate the effects of a high-dosage dog tranquilizer on your brain — you should be sure to find and read the privacy policies posted by any site and service you visit upon clicking over to it. (This paragraph, FYI, is also known as the “common sense” clause.)

The Intelligence’s privacy practices may evolve over time, due to changes in applicable privacy laws, the way we handle your information, and random inexplicable mood shifts (though that last one’s pretty unlikely). As such, we may need to review and change certain portions of this privacy policy periodically to document those changes.

With that in mind, you may wish to review this page once in a while to be aware of any privacy-related changes and/or for bathroom-time entertainment. The Intelligence may also, at our discretion, alert you to any especially significant changes via email, if you’re a subscribed reader of the newsletter — or alert you via carrier pigeon delivery, if you live in the early 1900s.

Whew! That was a lot of monotonous mumbo-jumbo to get through. Seems like there oughta be a bit of spicy bonus fine print for anyone who’s actually still reading this, don’t you think? Let’s see…

Side effects of visiting this website may include headache, nausea, incontinence, diabeetus, virginity, general irritation, and spontaneous shouting of 90s-era sitcom catchphrases like “Cut, it, out!” and “Did I do that?” Three out of four doctors recommend wearing protective headgear, mouthguards, and chastity belts whilst consuming The Intelligence content — you know, just for general protection in all the important areas. (Hey, you never know when someone might sneak up behind you with a sock full of pennies.)

And with that, we’re officially, thankfully done. Got questions? Give us a shout. Otherwise, we’ll look forward to seeing you in your inbox — and beyond.