Privacy Policy
Last updated: March 12th, 2023
Your privacy is critically important to us. At Flame Lab, we have a few fundamental principles:
- We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our services.
- We store personal information for only as long as we have a reason to keep it.
- We aim to make it as simple as possible for you to control what information on your website is shared publicly (or kept private), indexed by search engines, and permanently deleted.
- We aim for full transparency on how we gather, use, and share your personal information.
This privacy policy was adapted from Automattic’s Privacy Policy under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
Below is our Privacy Policy, which incorporates and clarifies these principles.
Who We Are and What This Policy Covers
Hello! We are the people behind 52x Grow - the software designed to help you grow your professional services business through high-quality, tasteful, curated email newsletters. This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:
- Our websites (including 52xgrow.com, leaderlens.io, and our customers’ websites hosted on [customer’s subdomain].leaderlens.io);
- Our products, services, and features that are available on or through our websites (for example, 52xgrow.com plans, the Payments feature); and
- Other users’ websites that use our Services, while you are logged in to your account with us.
This Privacy Policy also applies to information we collect when you apply for a job at Flame Lab or one of our subsidiaries. Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our websites, software, and other products and services collectively as “Services.” Below we explain how we collect, use, and share information about you, along with the choices that you have with respect to that information.
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so — for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better. We collect this information from three sources: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us directly. Here are some examples:
- Basic account information: We ask for basic information from you in order to set up your account. For example, we require individuals who sign up for a 52x account to provide an email address and password, along with your name, company, job title, and industry. You may provide us with more information — like your address and other information you want to share too.
- Newsletter subscription information: When you subscribe to a blog or newsletter powered by 52x (for example, via a newsletter website or newsletter subscription form), we ask you to provide information like your email address, name, company, job title, and other information which the owner of the newsletter configures to be collected.
- Newsletter settings & website information: If you have an account with us, we collect the information that you provide for your newsletter's settings and website configuration. For example, if you have a 52x account, your businesse's mailing address is part of that configuration, along with any other information you put into your newsletter's configuration, like a photo or an “About Me” description. Your public newsletter and website information is just that — public — so please keep that in mind when deciding what information you would like to include.
- Payment and contact information: There are various ways in which you may provide us payment information and associated contact information. For example, if you buy something from us — a subscription to a 52x plan, you’ll provide additional personal and payment information like your name, credit card information, and contact information. We also keep a record of the purchases you’ve made.
- Business Profile: Our product also collects additional information from you as part of creating a user/customer profile. For example, we may add you to our customer relationship database (CRM) using information you provide us including your name, your employer, your job title or role, your contact information, and your communications with us.
- Content information: You might provide us with information about you in draft and published content (a post, newsletter issue, or text on your website, that includes biographic information about you, or any media or files you upload).
- Communications with us (hi there!): You may also provide us with information when you respond to surveys, or communicate with our support team about a support question, post a question in our public forums, or sign up for a newsletter that we publish. When you communicate with us via form, email, phone, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications (including any call recordings as permitted by applicable law).
- Job applicant information: If you apply for a job with us — awesome! You may provide us with information like your name, contact information, resume or CV, professional or personal references, similar professional and employment-related data, and work authorization verification as part of the application process. We may also collect additional information about you during the process, like background and credit checks (in applicable jurisdictions and only for certain job roles). You may also provide us with demographic information when required by law or to support our diverse workplace initiatives, such as your gender, racial or ethnic origin, veteran status, and disability status if you voluntarily submit such information as part of your application. We collect demographic information in accordance with applicable law, and do not request demographic information in jurisdictions where it may be prohibited. We will only use this sensitive information to accommodate a disability or illness, comply with legal obligations, protect the health and safety of our employees, and facilitate our internal programs relating to diversity, inclusion, and anti-discrimination.
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log information: Like most online service providers, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, including the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information. We collect log information when you use our Services — for example, when you create or make changes to your website on 52xgrow.com.
- Transactional information: When you make a purchase through our Services, we collect information about the transaction, such as product details, purchase price, and the date and location of the transaction. This includes when you purchase something we sell like a subscription to our software.
- Usage information: We collect information about your usage of our Services. For example, we collect information about the actions that site administrators and users perform on a site using the 52xgrow.com services — in other words, who did what and when (e.g. "newsletter name was updated to x"). The Services may also track information like your email address, account and newsletter settings, along with information about your account, like the aggregate number of subscribers. We also collect information about what happens when you use our Services (e.g., page views, features enabled for your website, and interactions with our Services) along with information about your device (e.g., screen size, name of cellular network, and mobile device manufacturer). We use this information to, for example, provide our Services to you, get insights on how people use our Services so we can make our Services better, and understand and make predictions about user retention.
- Email interaction information We collect information about how you interact with the communications and emails we send you. For example, when you open an email in your inbox, we collect information about whether you opened the email or not, what device it was opened on (e.g. which email client) and at what time it was opened. We also collect similar information about the links or buttons you click within emails we send (e.g. which links you clicked on, and at what time).
- Location information: We may determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate how many people visit our Services from certain geographic regions.
- Information from cookies & other technologies: A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, and that the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Pixel tags (also called web beacons) are small blocks of code placed on websites and emails. Flame Lab uses cookies and other technologies like pixel tags to help us identify and track visitors, usage, and access preferences for our Services, as well as track and understand email campaign effectiveness and to deliver targeted ads.
How and Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you for the purposes listed below:
- To provide our Services. For example, to set up and maintain your account, operate and host your newsletter and website, provide customer service, process payments and orders, and verify user information. If you're a subscriber of a newsletter powered by the Services, your information may be used to facilitate your subscription, including sending you content that the newsletter's owner publishes.
- To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our Services. For example, by providing automatic upgrades and new versions of our Services. Or, for example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our Services so we can create new features that we think our users will enjoy and that will help them create and manage websites more efficiently or make our Services easier to use.
- To market our Services and measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our marketing. For example, by targeting our marketing messages to groups of our users (like those who have a particular plan with us or have been users for a certain length of time), advertising our Services, analyzing the results of our marketing campaigns (like how many people purchased a paid plan after receiving a marketing message), and understanding and forecasting user retention.
- To protect our Services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of Flame Lab and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a transaction or terminating Services.
- To fix problems with our Services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
- To customize the user experience. For example, to personalize your experience by serving you relevant notifications and advertisements for our Services. If you've subscribed to a newsletter powered by the Services, your information may be used by the newsletter's owner to help personalize and customize the content they send to you.
- To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, share tips for getting the most out of our products, or keep you up to date on Flame Lab; texting you to verify your payment; or calling you to share offers and promotions that we think will be of interest to you. If you don’t want to hear from us, you can opt out of marketing communications at any time. (If you opt out, we’ll still send you important updates relating to your account.) If you've subscribed to a newsletter that is powered by the Services, your information may be used by our customers to send you posts or content that they publish.
- To recruit and hire new employees. For example, by evaluating job applicants (including verifying their identity, experience, and other information submitted) and communicating with them by phone, email, or social media platforms. If the application progresses, we may also collect interview information and background check information. This may also include verifying information required to initiate employment, for purposes such as confirming ability to legally work in a specific location, setting up payroll, and complying with statutory reporting requirements.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that: (1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under the applicable terms of service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account — for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid plan; or (2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or (3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or (4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information — for example, to provide and update our Services; to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience; to safeguard our Services; to communicate with you; to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising; and to understand our user retention and attrition; to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services; and to personalize your experience; or (5) You have given us your consent — for example before we place certain cookies on your device and access and analyze them later on.
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We share information about you in limited circumstances, and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy. These are spelled out below, as well as in the section called Ads and Analytics Services Provided by Others:
- Subsidiaries and independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries and independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our Services or process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for any personal information that we share with them.
- Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you or your site. This includes vendors that help us provide our Services to you (like Stripe, payment providers that process your credit and debit card information, fraud prevention services that allow us to analyze fraudulent payment transactions, cloud storage services, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you; those that assist us with our marketing efforts (e.g., by providing tools for identifying a specific marketing target group or improving our marketing campaigns, and by placing ads to market our services); those that help us understand and enhance our Services (like analytics providers); those that make tools to help us run our operations (like programs that help us with task management, scheduling, word processing, email and other communications, and collaboration among our teams); other third-party tools that help us manage operations; and companies that make products available on our websites, who may need information about you in order to, for example, provide technical or other support services to you. We require vendors to agree to privacy commitments in order to share information with them.
- Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
- To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Flame Lab, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
- Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Flame Lab goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
- With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction with third parties when you authorize us to do so.
- Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about the use of our Services, or share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
- Published support requests: If you send us a request for assistance (for example, via a support email or one of our other feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request in order to clarify or respond to your request, or to help us support other users.
- Publishers of newsletters which are powered by our Services: If you've subscribed to a newsletter which is powered by our Services, the information that you provide to us may be made available to the publisher of that newsletter for the purpose of helping them with their marketing efforts. For example, if you fill out a form as part of the subscription process where you provide information including your email, name, company, title and other information, the publisher of that newsletter will have access to the information you provided and may process it in accordance with their own privacy policy. Additionally, the publisher of that newsletter will also have access to the information which is automatically collected as you interact with emails that they send to you, including email engagement information as outlined in the Information We Collect Automatically section. If you'd like more information about how a specific newsletter's publisher uses your information, visit their privacy policy or contact them directly for specifics.
Information Shared Publicly
Information that you choose to make public is — you guessed it — disclosed publicly. That means information like posts, and other content that you make public on your website — and we hope they get a lot of views! Public information may also be indexed by search engines or used by third parties. Please keep all of this in mind when deciding what you would like to share publicly.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when it’s no longer needed for the purposes for which we collect and use it — described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information — and we’re not legally required to keep it.
For example, we keep web server logs that record information about a visitor to one of Flame Lab’s websites, like the visitor’s IP address, browser type, and operating system, for a few months. We retain the logs for this period of time in order to, among other things, analyze traffic to Flame Lab’s websites and investigate issues if something goes wrong on one of our websites.
As another example, when you delete a post from your newsletter, it may remain in our database while your account is still active.
If you are a job applicant, we will keep your personal data during the application process, and for a certain period thereafter. To determine that period, we take into account a number of factors, like our legal and regulatory obligations (such as equal opportunity obligations) and whether we may need to retain personal data for internal business purposes like analyzing our applicant pool.
Security
We work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We monitor our Services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the information that you provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our Services may not be accessible. If you are a job applicant, and you choose not to provide certain data elements to us, we may not be able to proceed with the recruitment process.
- Opt out of marketing communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional communications from us. Just follow the instructions in those communications or let us know. If you opt out of promotional communications, we may still send you other communications, like those about your account and legal notices.
- Set your browser to reject cookies: At this time, Flame Lab does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Services. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Flame Lab’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Flame Lab’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
- Close your account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, you can close your account if you no longer want to use our Services. (Reach out to [email protected] if you'd like help with this.) Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above — for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain parts of the world, including California and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”), you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.
European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
- Request access to your personal data;
- Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
- Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
- Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
- Request portability of your personal data.
You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
US Privacy Laws
Laws in some US states, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, and Virginia, require us to provide residents with additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it. You’ll find that information in this section (if you are a California resident, please note that this is the Notice at Collection we are required to provide you under California law).
In the last 12 months, we collected the following categories of personal information, depending on the Services used:
- Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and device and online identifiers);
- Commercial information (your billing information and purchase history, for example);
- Characteristics protected by law (for example, you might provide your gender as part of a research survey for us or you may choose to voluntarily disclose your race or veteran status as part of your job application);
- Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our Services including actions you take within the Services);
- Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address);
- Audio, electronic, visual or similar information (such as your website picture, if you uploaded one); and
- Inferences we make (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).
If you are a job applicant, we may have also collected:
- Education information, such as the education you disclose in your job application.
You can find more information about what we collect and sources of that information in the Information We Collect section above.
We collect personal information for the business and commercial purposes described in the How and Why We Use Information section]. And we share this information with the categories of third parties described in the Sharing Information section. We retain this information for the length of time described in our How Long We Keep Information section.
In some US states you have additional rights subject to any exemptions provided by your state’s respective law, including the right to:
- Request a copy of the specific pieces of information we collect about you and, if you’re in California, to know the categories of personal information we collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, and the categories of third parties we share it with;
- Request deletion of personal information we collect or maintain;
- Request correction of personal information we collect or maintain;
- Opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information;
- Receive a copy of your information in a readily portable format; and
- Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights.
Right to Opt Out
We never directly sell your personal information in the conventional sense (i.e., for money).
We may share your information as necessary with our third-party service providers to provide our services to you. To the extent that we share your information with certain advertising, marketing, or analytics vendors, this can be considered a “sale” or “share” in certain U.S. States, which you may have the right to opt out of.
Our opt-out is managed through cookies, so if you delete cookies, your browser is set to delete cookies automatically after a certain length of time, or if you visit sites in a different browser, you’ll need to make this selection again.
We do not collect or process your sensitive (and potentially sensitive) personal information except where it is strictly necessary to provide you with our service, where the processing is not for the purpose of inferring characteristics about you, or for other purposes that do not require an option to limit under California law. We don’t knowingly sell or share personal information of those under 16.
Contacting Us About These Rights
You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to or you’d like to contact us about one of the other rights, contact us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help.
When you contact us about one of your rights under this section, we’ll need to verify that you are the right person before we disclose or delete anything. For example, if you are a user, we will need you to contact us from the email address associated with your account. You can also designate an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf by giving us written authorization. We may still require you to verify your identity with us.
Appeals Process for Rights Requests Denials
In some circumstances we may deny your request to exercise one of these rights. For example, if we cannot verify that you are the account owner we may deny your request to access the personal information associated with your account. As another example, if we are legally required to maintain a copy of your personal information we may deny your request to delete your personal information.
In the event that we deny your request, we will communicate this fact to you in writing. You may appeal our decision by responding in writing to our denial email and stating that you would like to appeal. All appeals will be reviewed by an internal expert who was not involved in your original request. In the event that your appeal is also denied this information will be communicated to you in writing. Please note that the appeal process does not apply to job applicants.
If your appeal is denied, in some US states (Colorado, Connecticut, and Virginia) you may refer the denied appeal to the state attorney general if you believe the denial is in conflict with your legal rights. The process for how to do this will be communicated to you in writing at the same time we send you our decision about your appeal.
Controllers and Responsible Companies
Flame Lab’s Services are worldwide. Different Flame Lab companies are the controller (or co-controller) of personal information, which means that they are the company responsible for processing that information, based on the particular service and the location of the individual using our Services. Depending on the Services you use, more than one company may be the controller of your personal data. Generally, the “controller” is the Flame Lab company that entered into the contract with you under the Terms of Service for the product or service you use. In addition, Flame Lab LLC, our US-based company, is the controller for some of the processing activities across all of our Services worldwide. The chart below explains the current controllers for processing your personal information. We use the term “Designated Countries” to refer to Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Russia, and all countries located in Europe (including the UK and ROI). All Flame Lab Services
If you reside outside of the Designated Countries:
Flame Lab LLC 1204 Main St #906 Branford, CT 06405
If you reside in the Designated Countries:
Flame Lab LLC 1204 Main St #906 Branford, CT 06405
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us via email: [email protected].
Other Things You Should Know (Keep Reading!)
Transferring Information
Because Flame Lab’s Services are offered worldwide, the information about you that we process when you use the Services in the EU may be used, stored, and/or accessed by individuals operating outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who work for us, other members of our group of companies, or third-party data processors. This is required for the purposes listed in the How and Why We Use Information section above. When providing information about you to entities outside the EEA, we will take appropriate measures to ensure that the recipient protects your personal information adequately in accordance with this Privacy Policy as required by applicable law. These measures may include entering into European Commission approved standard contractual arrangements with entities based in countries outside the EEA. You can ask us for more information about the steps we take to protect your personal information when transferring it from the EU.
Visitors to Our Users’ Websites
We also process information about visitors to our users’ websites, on behalf of our users and in accordance with our user agreements. Please note that our processing of that information on behalf of our users for their websites isn’t fully covered by this Privacy Policy. We encourage our users to post a privacy policy that accurately describes their practices on data collection, use, and sharing of personal information. Users control the content posted on their sites, so any disputes regarding content on a user’s site should be made directly to the site owner using the contact information they provide.
Privacy Policy Changes
Although most changes are likely to be minor, Flame Lab may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Flame Lab encourages visitors to frequently check this page for any changes to its Privacy Policy. If we make changes, we will notify you by updating the "last updated" section at the top of this page, and, in some cases, we may provide additional notice like sending you a notification through email or your dashboard). Your further use of the Services after a change to our Privacy Policy will be subject to the updated policy.