Privacy Policy

Last updated: April 23, 2026

WhyChose ("we", "our", "us") operates whychose.com. This page explains what data we collect, why, and how you can control it.

1. What we collect

• Email address — when you join the waitlist or sign up, so we can contact you about the product.
• Extracted decision records — the 5–50 short strings we surface from each chat export (e.g. "chose Postgres over Mongo, Jan 14, 2026"). These are generated in your browser, then saved to your account so you can search and share them.
• Usage data — pages you visit, buttons you click, session duration. Used to improve the product, never sold.
• Device info — browser type, screen size, approximate location (country level) inferred from IP.
• Communications — emails you send us and our replies.

We do not collect or store: your raw ChatGPT or Claude chat transcripts, financial information, government IDs, health data, precise location, or information from children under 16.

1a. How chat exports are processed

When you upload a ChatGPT or Claude export JSON, extraction runs in your browser. The raw transcript is parsed locally and only the extracted decision records (typically 5–50 short strings per quarterly export) are transmitted to our servers. The raw JSON file you uploaded is never written to our disk as durable storage — it stays in the browser tab. This is the central privacy choice behind WhyChose, and it will not change.

2. Why we collect it

• To provide the service you signed up for.
• To notify you about product updates (you can opt out at any time).
• To fix bugs and improve features based on aggregate usage patterns.
• To comply with legal obligations (tax records, anti-fraud, etc.).

3. Who we share with

We share the minimum necessary data with these categories of processors:

• Hosting — our servers are operated by the WhyChose maintainer on a single VPS. Waitlist emails and decision records are stored in a SQLite database on that VPS.
• Payment processing (Stripe) — if and when you upgrade to a paid plan. Stripe handles the card details; we never see or store them.
• Analytics — we use server access logs only, parsed in aggregate. No third-party analytics SDK runs on this site.

We do not sell your data. Ever. We do not share it with advertisers, and we do not use your decision records or chat content to train any AI model — ours or anyone else's.

4. Cookies

We use a minimal set of first-party cookies for session management. No third-party tracking cookies. If you disable cookies, some features (like staying logged in) won't work, but browsing stays functional.

5. Your rights

Under GDPR (if you're in the EU) and similar laws elsewhere, you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of everything we have on you.
• Correction — ask us to fix incorrect data.
• Deletion — ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten"). We'll comply within 30 days unless legally required to retain (e.g. tax records).
• Portability — get your data in a machine-readable format.
• Objection — opt out of any processing based on legitimate interest.

Email privacy@whychose.com to exercise any of these rights.

6. Data retention

We keep your account data while you have an account, plus 90 days after deletion (for backup recovery). Waitlist entries are deleted after 2 years of inactivity.

7. Security

Data is encrypted in transit (HTTPS) and at rest. Access is limited to the people who need it to operate the service. We are not perfect; if a breach affects you, we will notify you within 72 hours.

8. International transfers

Our servers are in the EU. If you access the service from outside the EU, your data may be transferred to and processed in the EU — which has strong privacy laws.

9. Changes

We'll update this page if material things change. If we do, we'll notify registered users by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect.

10. Contact

Questions? Email privacy@whychose.com. We reply within 2 business days.