1. What we collect

When you create a PinTool account we store: email, hashed password (bcrypt cost 12), name (optional), Pinterest username (optional), and your Stripe customer ID if you upgrade.

We log product events (searches, page views, keyword tracking) tied to your account so we can improve the product and detect abuse.

We record the signup request IP with the account event for security. We use a locally loaded DB-IP country database to add an approximate country to the founder-only new-account alert; the alert does not include the IP. We do not send individual visitor IPs to DB-IP. The estimate can reflect a VPN or proxy rather than your residence.

We also count anonymous visits to selected public pages and clicks on their buttons. No email address, IP address, or visitor identifier is saved with these events.

If you connect PinTool to Claude, ChatGPT, or another compatible AI client, we log the PinTool tool used, the connecting client, and the input sent to PinTool (for example, a research keyword or public Pinterest profile). This helps us improve research quality, reliability and plan safeguards. We never receive or store your full AI conversation, its unrelated context, or your AI account credentials.

For accounts created after this update, we record when you accepted the Terms of Service and whether you separately chose to receive marketing email. Declining marketing email does not prevent you from using PinTool.

2. What we never collect

We never log into your Pinterest account. We never ask for your Pinterest password. We never read private boards. The Pinterest username we store is only used to query publicly visible profile data — the same data anyone can see by visiting your Pinterest profile URL.

3. Cookies & sessions

We use a session cookie (pk_session, HTTP-only, SameSite=Lax, 30 days) to keep you logged in. When configured, Google Analytics 4 runs on public and product pages to measure visits and use of the site. PinTool does not use account or research data for targeted advertising.

For the Research Sprint page, session storage remembers that this tab has already counted a visit today. That flag contains no visitor identifier and is not sent to PinTool.

4. Email choices

We send service emails needed for your account, such as welcome and password-reset messages. We may send occasional product news and offers to people who separately choose marketing email at signup. We record that choice and any later withdrawal. Marketing messages include a way to unsubscribe; service emails can still arrive after you unsubscribe.

We do not treat older accounts as having chosen marketing email merely because they created an account. To ask about or change your email choice, contact patrick@pintool.io.

5. Selling or sharing data

We do not sell your personal information, individual account profiles or private research histories. We may use aggregated information that does not identify a person to understand and explain broad product usage.

If we plan to sell or share personal information in the future, we will explain the specific data, purpose and recipients before that practice begins and provide the choices required by applicable law. Accepting our Terms or this Privacy Policy does not authorize such a future change.

6. Subprocessors

Stripe — payment processing for paid plans (we never store full card numbers).
Pinterest — official Pinterest Trends and Ads APIs for keyword volume data.
SMTP provider — account and service emails, and marketing email when your recorded choice permits it.
Google Analytics 4 — site and product usage measurement when configured.

7. Your choices and rights

You can ask to access, correct, export or delete your data, and to stop marketing emails. Email patrick@pintool.io; we will handle requests under the applicable law. Each marketing email also provides an unsubscribe method.

8. Data retention

We keep your account, product-event and tracked-keyword data as long as your account is active. After deletion, backups are purged within 30 days.

9. Contact

Privacy questions: patrick@pintool.io.