Beta Briefing — Privacy Policy

Version: v1.0 Last updated: 2026-05-01

The short version

Beta Briefing is a personalized news briefing service. To do that, we need to know a few things about you (your email, what you're interested in, when you'd like your briefing) and we need to send some of that information to AI providers, search APIs, and an email-delivery service so we can actually research and ship your briefing.

We don't sell your data. We don't run advertising trackers. The web portal uses a single signed session cookie; the public site uses a privacy-friendly analytics service that doesn't set cookies and doesn't store your IP address. Briefing emails measure deliverability and engagement (opens and clicks) so we can tell whether briefings are actually landing — full details in §2.3.

You can edit, export, or delete your data at any time — sign in to the portal, or email us.

The rest of this document is the formal version.

1. Who we are

This Privacy Policy describes how Beta Briefing LLC, a California limited liability company ("Beta Briefing," "we," "us," or "our"), handles your personal information when you use our website, email briefings, audio briefings, podcast feeds, web portal, and related services (together, the "Service").

This Policy is incorporated into our Terms of Use. For questions, contact us at [email protected].

2. Information we collect

2.1 Information you give us directly

• Account information. Your name (optional) and email address.
• Onboarding description. When you sign up via our public onboarding form, you provide a freeform description of yourself and your interests. We use this to generate your initial briefing configuration.
• Briefing configuration. Topics, publications, schedule, format, writing-style preferences, audio preferences, and similar settings you set or edit through the portal. You can change these at any time.
• Smart Edit prompts. When you use the portal's natural-language config editor, the prompts you write are sent to our AI provider to generate the proposed configuration changes.
• Requests and feedback. Text or audio you submit via the Requests page in the portal. Audio messages are converted to MP3 and emailed to the operator for review.
• Referral source. If you tell us how you heard about Beta Briefing during signup, we store that for our own understanding of where users come from.
• Email theme preference. Whether you prefer the light or dark email template. Stored server-side as part of your briefing configuration so we can render emails in your preferred style.
• Telegram chat ID. Only if you choose to link your Telegram account for briefing notifications, in which case we store the chat ID needed to message you.

2.2 Information generated as you use the Service

• Briefing memory. To make recurring stories feel coherent over time, we keep two kinds of memory tied to your briefing:
  • Story memory, a rolling 30-day record of recent stories and key facts so we don't repeat ourselves and can write follow-ups intelligently.
  • Topic memory, a longer-lived evolving summary per topic that captures the running thread of a beat. Topic memory is updated after each briefing run; we may delete it on request.
• Run records. Operational metadata about each briefing run — when it ran, which models and search providers were used, success/failure, token and dollar costs. This is used for cost tracking, debugging, and reliability.
• Briefing artifacts. The intermediate research, candidate stories, and editorial outputs produced when generating your briefing. These are stored on our server and are not published unless your briefing belongs to a public channel (see §5).
• Magic-link tokens. Short-lived signed tokens for portal sign-in and email verification. These expire after 15–30 minutes.
• Telegram link tokens. Short-lived one-time tokens used during the Telegram linking flow. Expires after 15 minutes.

2.3 Information collected automatically

• Portal session cookie. When you sign in to the portal, we set a single signed session cookie (itsdangerous-signed, ~7-day lifetime). It identifies your account on subsequent requests. No third party reads it.
• Public-site theme preference. Your light/dark theme choice on the public website is stored locally in your browser via localStorage — it doesn't leave your device. (This is separate from your email-template preference in §2.1, which is stored server-side because we need it at email-render time.)
• Public-site analytics. Our public site uses Cloudflare Web Analytics, which provides aggregate visitor counts. It does not set cookies, does not fingerprint visitors, and does not record full IP addresses.
• Email-delivery metadata and engagement. Our email provider (Resend) reports deliverability information (delivered, bounced, complained) and may track engagement with our emails — specifically, when emails are opened (via a small embedded tracking image) and when links inside briefings are clicked (via a tracking redirect that forwards you to the source). These events record a timestamp and basic technical data, such as user agent and approximate location derived from your IP address. We use this information to monitor inbox placement, troubleshoot delivery problems, and understand which briefings and stories are being read so we can improve them.
• Server logs. Our web servers and pipeline logs may briefly record IP addresses, user agents, request paths, and error traces for security and debugging. We don't combine these with your account profile for tracking.

2.4 Information we do not collect

• We don't run ad networks or third-party marketing pixels.
• We don't ask for and don't store payment information during the beta.

3. How we use your information

We use the information described above to:

• Operate and personalize the Service — researching, generating, rendering, and delivering your briefings.
• Maintain continuity in your briefings (using memory described in §2.2) so recurring stories build on prior coverage.
• Send you transactional messages: your daily briefing, recap emails, sign-in magic links, account notifications.
• Monitor email deliverability and engagement (such as whether briefings are reaching inboxes, being opened, and which stories or links are being read) to maintain delivery quality and improve briefings.
• Detect, prevent, and debug operational problems, errors, abuse, and security incidents.
• Improve the Service. Briefing artifacts and feedback may be reviewed manually by the operator to improve quality. We do not sell or share this data with outside parties for their own use.
• Comply with applicable law and respond to lawful requests.

We do not use your data to train general-purpose AI models. We select providers and configurations whose terms do not, by default, use customer API data to train their models. For routed providers (such as OpenRouter), training behavior depends on the underlying model's upstream provider, and we choose models accordingly.

Automated processing. Briefings are produced by automated systems that select, score, and write content based on your configuration. Human review is limited to the operator's ongoing quality monitoring rather than a per-briefing approval step. If you have concerns about how this processing affects you, contact us at [email protected].

4. Third-party services we share data with

To operate the Service we send relevant portions of your data to the following providers. Each receives only what's needed for its function.

The providers listed above may use their own infrastructure sub-processors (such as cloud hosting providers like AWS, GCP, or Azure) under their own terms.

We may also disclose information when required by law, to enforce our Terms of Use, to protect the rights, property, or safety of Beta Briefing, our users, or others, or in connection with a sale or transfer of the Service (in which case the recipient is bound by terms at least as protective as these).

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share it with advertisers.

5. Public channels and publication

Some briefings are published as public channels with their own permanent web archive, RSS feed, and podcast feed. Public-channel briefings include an anonymized intro paragraph and audio script — no recipient name or other personal identifiers are included. Publication is intentional and channel-level, not user-level: a personal briefing is never published unless it has been explicitly configured as a public channel.

If your briefing is part of a public channel, the published briefing content is publicly accessible by design. The settings, configuration, and memory associated with it remain private to you and the operator.

6. Data retention

• Account and briefing configuration. Retained for as long as your account is active. Deleted (or anonymized to the extent we still need it for operational records) when you ask us to delete your account.
• Story memory. Retained on a rolling 30-day window per briefing.
• Topic memory. Retained until updated by a future briefing run, edited at your request, or deleted on request.
• Run records and briefing artifacts. Retained for as long as needed for cost tracking, reliability, and reproducibility, and reviewed periodically for deletion. Deleted on request, subject to legal record-keeping needs.
• Magic-link and verification tokens. Expire on their own and are deleted shortly after use or expiry.
• Public-channel archives. Retained indefinitely as part of the public archive. Because they're anonymized at the channel level (no recipient names or personal identifiers), individual user-account deletion doesn't affect them. If you operate a public channel and want it discontinued or specific past briefings unpublished, contact us.
• Email-delivery metadata. Retained by our email provider for the period described in their policy.

7. Your rights and choices

Wherever you live, you can:

• Access and edit your data. Sign in to the portal at the URL we email you. The portal exposes your full briefing configuration and your portal settings (email theme, premium audio, Telegram, announcements preferences); edits take effect immediately. To change your name or email address, or to access or edit your briefing memory (story memory and topic memory described in §2.2), email us — we'll send you a copy or apply your edits.
• Export your data. Email us and we'll send a copy of the data we hold about you in a machine-readable format.
• Unsubscribe. Briefing emails carry an unsubscribe link; you can also email us to stop briefings.
• Delete your account. Email us and we'll delete your account, configuration, memory, and (if you ask) your historical artifacts. (Public-channel archives are anonymized and channel-level; see §6 for what happens to them.) We may retain limited records as required by law or for security and abuse prevention.
• Opt out of optional integrations. Telegram notifications and premium audio can be turned off or changed in your portal settings. For recap-email preferences, email us.

California residents (CCPA): You have the right to request access to, correction of, and deletion of your personal information, and to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We do not sell or share personal information as those terms are defined in the CCPA. To exercise your rights, email [email protected].

EEA / UK residents (GDPR / UK GDPR): You have rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and objection. Our legal basis for processing is performance of our agreement with you (delivering the Service you signed up for) and our legitimate interests in operating, securing, and improving the Service. To exercise your rights, email [email protected]. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.

We will respond to verifiable requests within the time required by applicable law (typically 30–45 days).

8. Children

The Service is not directed to children under 18, and we don't knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us and we'll delete it.

9. International users

Beta Briefing operates from the United States, and our service providers are primarily located in the United States. If you use the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, which may have data-protection rules that differ from your local laws.

10. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including TLS for all web traffic, signed session cookies, magic-link authentication (no passwords stored), and access controls on operational data. No system is perfectly secure, however, and we can't guarantee the security of information transmitted to or from the Service.

If we become aware of a security incident affecting your information, we'll notify you and any required authorities as required by applicable law.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we'll notify you by email or through the Service before they take effect, and we'll bump the Version at the top of this document. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Policy.

12. Contact

Questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy?

• Email: [email protected]
• Mailing address: Beta Briefing LLC, 2108 N St, Ste N, Sacramento, CA 95816, USA