Privacy notice

Who we are

techlash.fyi is run by Hawthorn Strategies LLC, 2930 N Williams St., Denver, CO 80205. We decide how and why the personal information described here is used, which makes us its controller. For purchases, Paddle.com acts as our reseller and Merchant of Record and is a separate controller of the payment information it collects, under Paddle's privacy notice.

The short version

You don't need an account to use techlash.fyi, and the site sets no cookies and runs no advertising or tracking scripts. We collect personal information when you write to us, send a tip, join the waitlist or subscribe to a paid plan, and we use it to run the site and those services. We don't sell it or share it for advertising.

Visiting the site

Our host, Cloudflare, receives your IP address, browser details and the pages you request, as every web host does. We use this to serve the site, keep it secure and count visits in aggregate. Our pages send small signals when a page has been read, which carry no identifier and store nothing on your device. Pages load fonts from Google Fonts, so Google also receives your IP address and browser details. Why: to run and secure the site, which is our legitimate interest.

Contact form

Your name, email address, topic and message. We use them to reply to you and keep a record of the conversation. Why: you asked us to.

Tip line

Whatever you write in your tip. Our research process reviews tips, with help from AI tools, to check them and add public information to the database. Please leave out personal details about private individuals. Why: you asked us to, and accurate research is our legitimate interest.

Waitlist

Your work email, your company or organization, whether you say you qualify for nonprofit pricing, the plan you picked and what you want alerts on. We use them to set up your alerts and tell you when it's ready. Why: you asked us to.

Paid plans

Your name and email address, your plan, the alerts you set up and any district lists you give us, the names and email addresses of teammates you add, and a record of what we've sent. We use these to deliver your alerts, support your account and keep business records, and we may measure whether our emails are opened and their links clicked so we can improve them. Your card details go to Paddle and never reach us. Paddle shares what we need to manage your subscription, like your name, email address, country, plan and payment status. Why: to provide the service you bought, and to meet our legal obligations for business records.

Bot checks

Our forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to tell people from bots, which looks at information about your browser and device. Why: to protect the site from abuse, which is our legitimate interest.

Who receives it

• Service providers that handle it for us: Cloudflare (hosting, security and bot checks), Airtable (where messages, tips, waitlist sign-ups and subscriber records are stored), Resend (sending email), GitHub (running the nightly jobs that build the site and send alerts), Google (fonts) and Anthropic (AI tools that help review tips and set up alerts)
• Paddle.com, as Merchant of Record for every purchase
• Professional advisers, such as accountants and lawyers, when needed
• Authorities, when the law requires it

Some of these providers process information outside the country where you live, including in the United States.

How long we keep it

Contact messages and waitlist sign-ups: up to 2 years after our last exchange. Subscriber records: while your subscription is active and up to 2 years after it ends, and longer where tax or accounting law requires. Tips: kept with our research records, since they become part of how we check the data. Cloudflare keeps its own logs for short periods under its policies.

Your choices and rights

You can ask to see, correct or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to get a copy of it, and you can unsubscribe from any email with the link in it. Depending on where you live, you may have more rights, such as objecting to some uses or complaining to a data protection authority. Contact us and we'll respond within 30 days. Using these rights won't change how we treat you.

Security

Every connection to the site is encrypted, we use providers with strong security practices, and we limit who can see personal information. No system is perfectly secure. If a breach puts your information at risk, we'll tell you promptly.

Cookies

techlash.fyi sets no cookies. Paddle's checkout and Cloudflare's bot check may use cookies or similar technology to process payments and stop abuse, under their own policies.

Children

techlash.fyi is meant for adults and isn't directed to children under 13. We don't knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes

When this notice changes, we update the date above, and we email paid subscribers before material changes.

Contact

Privacy questions or requests: use our contact form or write to Hawthorn Strategies LLC, 2930 N Williams St., Denver, CO 80205.