Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Quiet Winners, a service operated by Foremind, LLC (“we,” “us,” or “our”), collects, uses, and shares information about you when you use our website, leaderboard, reports, and emails (the “Services”). It also explains how we handle information about people mentioned in our reports. We keep it in plain language, because you should actually be able to read it.

• Account information. When you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from your Google account, along with the account identifier and sign-in tokens Google provides. When you sign in with an email code, we receive your email address. We also create a display name and username for your account, which you can change in your settings, and we store a profile picture if you upload one. We never see your Google password.
• Invitation list. While sign-ups are invite only, we keep a list of invited email addresses and email domains so those people can sign up.
• Plans, payments, and unlocks. Your plan, subscription status, billing and refund history, unlock balance and history, and the reports you have unlocked. Payment card details are handled by our payment processor, Stripe, and never touch our servers.
• Email preferences. Whether you receive the leaderboard email, the language you receive emails in, and delivery records for the emails we send you, such as whether an email was sent or could not be delivered.
• Usage and device information. We run our own analytics, which record events such as the pages, reports, and chapters you view, when you see or click a paywall, sign-ups, unlocks, and purchases, along with your IP address, browser and device type, the page that referred you, and identifiers stored in cookies or your browser. If you arrive through a link with campaign tags or through an ad, we also record those tags and the ad click identifier.
• Sign-in security. When you request an email code, Cloudflare Turnstile checks that the request comes from a person, and we keep short-lived records of sign-in attempts, such as the email address and IP address, to limit abuse. We also record the IP address and browser of each signed-in session.
• Technical logs. Our servers and security systems keep technical logs, which can include your IP address and the requests you make, to keep the Services running and secure.
• Feedback and support. Messages you send us through the feedback form or by email, along with your account details.

Our reports analyze websites and the businesses behind them. To do this, our research systems collect publicly available information and data from third-party data providers. This can include information about people, such as the names and public roles of founders and team members, public profiles and posts on social media and forums, quotes from public reviews and interviews, and public statements about a business. We use this information to research, analyze, and report on the businesses we cover, and every quote links to its source. We also use the research materials behind our reports, which can include this information, to evaluate and improve our research systems, including models we train ourselves. We do not sell this information or use it to market to the people it is about.

If you are mentioned in a report and want us to correct, update, or remove information about you, email support@quietwinners.com with a link to the page. We review every request, correct what is inaccurate, and remove information where the law requires it or where it is not needed for the report.

• Provide the Services, including your account, the leaderboard, and the reports and chapters you can access;
• Manage plans, payments, unlocks, and refunds;
• Send emails: sign-in codes, a welcome email, billing notices and renewal reminders, and each new leaderboard issue, which you can unsubscribe from;
• Understand how the Services are used, for example which reports people read and where the paywall stops them, so we can fix problems and improve the Services;
• Protect the Services and our content: detect and prevent fraud, abuse, automated access, and unauthorized sharing of full reports, and enforce our Terms;
• Comply with legal obligations, such as tax and accounting rules.

We do not use your account information or your activity on the Services to train AI models.

When you open a full report, we add a short invisible marker to its text. The marker is a code derived from your account that only we can decode; it does not contain your name or email address. If text from a full report is copied, the marker goes with it, which lets us find out which account it came from when a report is shared without permission. We use the marker only for this purpose.

• Service providers. Companies that help us run the Services and only receive what they need to do their job: cloud hosting, database, and storage (Amazon Web Services), website hosting (Vercel), bot protection for sign-in (Cloudflare Turnstile), sign-in (Google), email delivery (Resend), and payment processing (Stripe). Google and Stripe also handle the information they receive under their own privacy policies, for example to keep accounts and payments secure;
• Legal authorities. When required by law or court order, or to protect our rights, users, or the public;
• Business transfers. If we are involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to this policy.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with third parties for targeted advertising. We do not currently use third-party analytics, session recording, error monitoring, or advertising tools. If that changes, we will update this policy before it happens and explain the choices you have.

We use cookies and similar technologies, such as your browser’s local storage, to keep you signed in, remember your language, run our own analytics (including a device identifier and the campaigns or ads that first and most recently brought you to us, stored in your browser), keep the ad click identifier in a cookie for up to 90 days, and protect sign-in from automated abuse. To offer Google sign-in, our pages load Google’s sign-in service: if you are signed in to Google in your browser, it may show a sign-in prompt, and Google may use its own cookies under its privacy policy. Stripe sets its own cookies on its checkout and billing pages. We do not currently use third-party advertising cookies or pixels.

You can control or delete cookies in your browser settings, but disabling them may break core features such as staying signed in. Our Services do not currently respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals.

We send you emails that are part of the Services: sign-in codes, a welcome email, billing notices, and reminders before an annual plan renews. When you create an account, we also send you each new leaderboard issue. You can unsubscribe from the leaderboard email at any time with the link in any issue, with your email app’s unsubscribe button, or in your email settings; you will still receive the account and billing emails you need. Links in our emails include campaign tags so we can tell that a visit came from an email.

We keep information for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy:

• Account information, for as long as your account is open;
• Plans, payments, refunds, and unlocks, for as long as tax, accounting, and other laws require, and as needed to handle disputes;
• Usage and analytics records, for as long as they help us understand and improve the Services;
• Sign-in attempt counters, for no more than a day (sign-in codes themselves stop working after a few minutes);
• Technical logs, generally for about two weeks.

When you delete your account, we close it right away: we sign you out everywhere, remove your sign-in connections (such as your link to Google), stop sending you emails, and remove your access to the reports you unlocked. We keep a record of the closed account, including your email address, name, and profile picture, your plan, payment, refund, and unlock history, and the related analytics and email records, to prevent fraud and abuse (for example, signing up again to get another first-payment refund), to handle disputes, and to meet legal obligations. Residual copies may remain in secure backups for a limited period.

Depending on where you live, for example in the European Union, the United Kingdom, or U.S. states such as California, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To exercise these rights, email support@quietwinners.com from the address associated with your account (or with enough information for us to verify it’s you). We will respond as required by the laws that apply to you, and we will never treat you differently for exercising your rights. You can also delete your account at any time from your settings.

Where the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation applies, we process your information to perform our contract with you, for our legitimate interests (such as keeping the Services secure, understanding how they are used, protecting our reports from unauthorized sharing, and researching and reporting on businesses, including information about the people in our reports), to comply with legal obligations, or with your consent where required. You can also lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

We are based in the United States, and we and our service providers process information in the United States and other countries, which may have data protection rules different from those where you live. Where required by law, we use appropriate safeguards for these transfers.

We use reasonable technical and organizational safeguards to protect your information, including encryption in transit and access controls, and only team members who need it can access personal information. No online service can guarantee perfect security, so please keep your email and Google account secure and tell us right away if you suspect unauthorized access.

The Services are not directed to children, and you must be 18 or older to create an account. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a minor has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by updating the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, by additional notice such as email.

Questions about this policy or your data? Email us at support@quietwinners.com. See also our Terms of Service.