Privacy policy

This policy explains what Spell Solutions LLC (“Spell Solutions”, “we”) collects when you use Spella at askspella.com and the Ask Spella apps for iOS and Android, why, who we share it with, and the choices you have. We are the controller of this data.

What we collect

• Account details. Your email address and the name you give us. If you sign in with Google, we receive your name, email address and profile photo from Google. Your password is handled by Amazon Cognito; it is never stored in our database and we cannot see it.
• Birth details. Date of birth, time of birth if you provide it, and place of birth, which we convert to coordinates and a time zone. These are needed to calculate your chart.
• Your questions and readings. What you ask Spella, the readings she writes, and any rating or feedback you leave.
• Purchases. Which credit pack you bought, the amount, the payment status and a transaction reference, plus your credit balance and how it changed. We never receive your card number: payments are taken by Stripe on the web, and by Apple or Google in the apps.
• Preferences. Your language, astrology system and chart style.
• Technical data. Our servers keep short-lived logs of requests and errors so we can operate and secure the service.
• Support email. If you write to us, we receive your message and your email address.

Birth details are personal, and together with your name they can identify you. We treat them accordingly and use them only to calculate your charts and write your readings.

How we use it, and why we are allowed to

• To provide Spella: create your account, calculate charts, generate readings, keep your reading history, and manage credits. This is necessary to perform our contract with you.
• To take payments and prevent fraud, including refusing purchases made in test mode. Necessary for the contract, and in our legitimate interest.
• To send service email such as sign-up codes, password resets and receipts. Necessary for the contract.
• To keep the service secure and working, for example by investigating errors and blocking automated abuse. Our legitimate interest.
• To understand how the site is used, only if you accept analytics cookies. Based on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To meet legal obligations, such as tax and accounting requirements.

We do not sell your personal information, share it for advertising, or use it for automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.

How readings are generated

When you ask a question, we send the AI model your question, the first name you gave us, your birth date, time, place and coordinates, the calculated chart, and, for follow-ups, the earlier part of that conversation. We do not send your email address. Readings are written by Anthropic’s Claude models, or OpenAI’s models if we switch providers, under their commercial API terms, which do not allow them to train their models on your content.

Readings are for reflection and entertainment. They are not medical, psychological, legal or financial advice.

Who we share it with

We share personal data only with service providers that process it for us, under contract, to run Spella:

• Amazon Web Services: hosting, database, file storage, sign-in (Amazon Cognito) and email (Amazon SES).
• Anthropic, and OpenAI if selected: generating readings.
• Google: place-of-birth search (Google Places) and, if you choose it, Sign in with Google.
• LocationIQ: an alternative place-of-birth search provider. Only the text you type into the place search is sent.
• Stripe: card payments on the web.
• Apple and Google Play: in-app purchases, under their own privacy policies.
• RevenueCat: validating in-app purchases so the right credits reach your account. It receives your account identifier and purchase details, not your birth details or readings.
• Sentry: error diagnostics, when enabled.
• PostHog: website analytics, and only if you accept analytics cookies.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the rights and safety of our users or others, or as part of a sale or reorganisation of our business, in which case this policy would continue to apply.

Where your data is stored

Spella runs on servers in the United States. If you use Spella from outside the United States, including the UK, the EU or India, your data is transferred there. Where the law requires it, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep it

• Your account, birth details, charts, readings and purchase history are kept while your account is open.
• When you delete your account, from Settings on the web or in the app, those records are removed from our live database immediately. Copies in our encrypted database backups expire within 14 days.
• Server logs are deleted after 30 days.
• Emails you send us are kept in raw form for 90 days, and in our support inbox for as long as needed to handle your request.
• Stripe, Apple and Google keep their own payment records as their own legal obligations require.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, receive a copy in a portable format, object to or restrict certain processing, and withdraw consent. You can delete your account yourself at any time. For anything else, email privacy@askspella.com. We will respond within 30 days, and may need to confirm your identity first.

If you are in the UK or EU, you can also complain to your data protection authority. If you are in India, you may contact us at the same address with any grievance under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. California residents: we do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined under California law.

Cookies

• Essential: keeping you signed in, protecting sign-in forms against forgery, and remembering your language. These are needed for the site to work and do not require consent.
• Analytics: used only if you accept them in the cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time with the Cookie settings link in the footer.

Checkout pages are hosted by Stripe, which sets its own cookies under its own privacy policy.

Security

Data is encrypted in transit, and our database is encrypted at rest. Access to production systems is restricted. No system is perfectly secure, but we work to protect your data and will notify you and the relevant authorities of a breach where the law requires it.

Children

Spella is not intended for anyone under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has given us personal data, email us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we make a material change, we will update the date above and let you know by email or in the product before it takes effect.

Contact

Spell Solutions LLC, 1000 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002, United States. Email privacy@askspella.com for privacy questions, or hello@askspella.com for anything else.