Privacy Policy

We built Matome to make your inbox easier to manage. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, who else processes it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have. We've kept it as clear as we can while covering everything that matters.

1. Information We Collect

Account Information. When you sign up, we collect your name and email address through Google OAuth. We do not collect or store payment information.

Email Data. To provide our filtering service, Matome accesses and processes email through the Gmail API. This includes sender information, subject lines, message bodies, headers, Gmail category labels, and metadata. When a new primary Gmail account is connected, Matome uses Gmail's category labels to archive Promotions older than seven days and all Social and Updates messages that are still in the inbox. That initial cleanup retrieves message identifiers only, removes only the Inbox label, preserves unread status, and does not include the historical messages in a Matome brief. Afterward, Google Pub/Sub sends Matome a mailbox-history notification when inbox mail changes; the notification does not contain the message body. Matome then retrieves only the changed Gmail messages needed to classify them and generate your Matome brief.

Usage Data. We collect information about how you interact with Matome, including filtering preferences, feature usage, and session activity. We use essential cookies for authentication and session management. We do not use analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies.

2. How We Use Your Information

To Provide the Service. We use your email data and account information to clean the Promotions, Social, and Updates categories when you first connect your primary Gmail account, deliver Matome's ongoing filtering functionality, generate your daily brief, and manage your account. This is the primary and essential use of your data.

To Personalize Your Experience. Matome uses automated classification and your saved preferences to improve filtering for your account. Matome does not train models on your email data. Your email data is not combined with other users' data to train generalized or non-personalized AI or machine learning models, and Google API data is not used to develop, improve, or train generalized, foundational, or frontier AI or ML models.

To Communicate with You. We may use your email address to send service-related communications, such as your daily Matome brief, account updates, and responses to support requests. We do not send promotional emails to you on behalf of third parties.

3. What We Do Not Do with Your Data

We want to be explicit about what Matome will never do with your information:

No Advertising. We do not use your email data or personal information for advertising purposes, including serving ads, retargeting, personalized advertising, or interest-based advertising.

No Data Sales. We do not sell, rent, license, or trade your personal information or email data to any third party, including advertisers, data brokers, or information resellers.

No Unauthorized Human Access. Matome employees and contractors do not read your emails unless (a) you have given specific, affirmative consent to view a particular message (for example, as part of a support request you initiated), (b) it is necessary for security purposes such as investigating abuse or a security incident, (c) it is required to comply with applicable law, or (d) the data has been aggregated and anonymized such that it is no longer personally identifiable and is used only for internal operational purposes.

No Creditworthiness or Surveillance. Your data is never used to determine creditworthiness or for lending purposes, and is never provided to any entity for the purpose of conducting surveillance.

4. Sub-processors

Matome relies on the following third-party service providers to operate. Each is contractually bound to use your data only as necessary to provide services on our behalf and in accordance with this policy. We do not transfer your Google user data to any party not listed below, except as necessary to comply with applicable law or as part of a merger or acquisition (with prior explicit notice and consent).

Google (privacy policy) — provides OAuth authentication, Gmail API access, and Pub/Sub mailbox-change delivery. Google is the source of all email data Matome processes. We request only the Gmail scopes required to read and archive messages, manage Matome's labels, and retire Matome's own legacy archive filters. The real-time notification path adds no OAuth scope and creates no replacement sender-wide filters.

Supabase (privacy policy) — hosts our PostgreSQL database in US East. Stores your account, application-encrypted OAuth tokens, preferences, newsletter bodies on the legacy digest path (until the 7-day purge described in §5), minimal real-time triage decisions, AI summaries, digest history, and audit log. Encrypted at rest at the application layer (AES-256-GCM for OAuth tokens) and at the disk layer (AES-256).

Vercel (privacy policy) — hosts the Matome web application in US East and ingests structured logs. Logs pass through an application-layer redaction pass that removes known PII keys (email addresses, OAuth tokens, OAuth state, cookies, Authorization headers) before write.

OpenAI (privacy policy) — generates the daily digest summaries and classifies newsletter senders. Receives subject lines and full message bodies on the digest path; receives subject, sender, and the first 300 characters on the classification path. Default OpenAI API policy is to not use prompts or completions to train models; we are pursuing a Zero Data Retention agreement with OpenAI to formalize this contractually.

SendGrid (Twilio) (privacy policy) — delivers your daily brief by email. Receives your recipient email address, the rendered AI-generated summaries, Gmail message URLs to the original newsletters, and theme tokens. SendGrid does not receive raw newsletter content.

Google Sheets (privacy policy) — stores the public waitlist log (timestamp, email, ESP type only). Receives no Gmail-derived content.

5. Data Retention

Newsletter bodies. The text and HTML body of every newsletter Matome processes is retained for 7 days, then permanently nulled by a daily retention-purge cron. After purge, only the message metadata and AI summary remain.

Real-time triage. The real-time path does not store message bodies. It stores the Gmail message id, sender, subject, category, action, confidence, short digest summary, and classifier signals so Matome can retry safely and avoid duplicate digests. The original message remains in Gmail.

Initial inbox cleanup. Matome does not store the Gmail message identifiers returned for the initial category cleanup. We retain only the cleanup status, the last attempt time, and aggregate counts in the audit log so interrupted work can retry and completion can be verified.

AI summaries and metadata. Subject lines, sender information, AI-generated summaries, and digest history are retained indefinitely while your account is active. The summary is the product — your past briefs must remain readable — and metadata is required to deduplicate senders and personalize classification on your account.

OAuth tokens. Encrypted at the application layer (AES-256-GCM) and held only while your account is active. Deleted immediately on account deletion (see §7).

Audit log. Append-only and retained indefinitely as a forensic record of consent grants, initial inbox-cleanup counts, exports, and deletions. Audit rows reference your user id but are not deleted with your account, so the record of your deletion request itself survives.

Backups. Matome's current Supabase Free Plan does not include provider-managed automated backups or point-in-time recovery. Account deletion removes records from the live production database immediately; because there are no managed backups, there is no backup-retention tail for those records.

6. Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored on US-based cloud infrastructure using industry-standard encryption in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest (AES-256). OAuth refresh and access tokens are additionally encrypted at the application layer with AES-256-GCM before they reach the database. We implement administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect your information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. These measures include role-based access controls, append-only audit logging, row-level security policies on every user-data table as a forensic backstop, and regular security reviews. No method of electronic storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. For our security-disclosure process and contact, see /security.

7. Your Rights & Choices

Self-serve export. You can download a JSON export of every record we hold about you — account, subscriptions, newsletter metadata, real-time triage decisions, summaries, digests, mailbox-watch state, and linked email addresses — from the dashboard at any time. The export deliberately omits OAuth tokens.

Self-serve deletion is immediate. When you trigger deletion from the dashboard, Matome revokes every linked Google OAuth token, writes a final audit entry, and permanently removes your account, subscriptions, newsletter items, real-time triage decisions, mailbox-watch state, digests, and linked email addresses in a single database transaction. There is no 90-day delay and no soft-delete period.

Email-based requests. If you cannot reach the dashboard, you may also request export, correction, or deletion by emailing hello@matome.ai.

Revoke Google access. You may revoke Matome's access to your Google account at any time through your Google Account permissions. Revoking access immediately stops Matome from accessing your email.

Unsubscribe. You can stop receiving Matome emails at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any digest email or by contacting us directly.

Cookies. Most browsers allow you to manage cookie preferences through their settings. Matome only uses essential cookies for authentication and session management; disabling them will prevent you from signing in.

8. California Residents (CCPA)

If you are a California resident, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, the purposes for which it is used, and whether it is sold or disclosed. You have the right to request deletion of your personal data and to opt out of the sale of your personal information. Matome does not sell your personal information. To exercise your rights, contact us at hello@matome.ai. We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

9. European Users (GDPR)

If you are located in the European Economic Area, you have additional rights under the General Data Protection Regulation, including the right to access, rectify, port, and erase your data, as well as the right to restrict or object to certain processing. Our legal bases for processing your data are: (a) your explicit consent, provided when you connect your email account and authorize Gmail API access; (b) performance of a contract, as processing is necessary to deliver the Service you have requested; and (c) our legitimate interest in maintaining the security and integrity of the Service. You may withdraw your consent at any time by revoking Matome's access through your Google Account settings or by contacting us. To exercise any of these rights, contact us at hello@matome.ai.

10. Children's Privacy

Matome is not directed at individuals under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we become aware that a child has provided us with personal data, we will take steps to delete that information promptly. If you believe a child under 16 has provided us with personal information, please contact us at hello@matome.ai.

11. Data Breach Notification

In the event of a data breach that affects your personal information, we will notify affected users by email and, where required by applicable law, notify the relevant supervisory authorities within the timeframes required by law. Our notification will describe the nature of the breach, the data affected, and the steps we are taking in response. Our security-disclosure contact and process are documented at /security.

12. Google API Services — Limited Use Disclosure

Matome's use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Specifically, Matome:

(a) Only uses access to Google user data to provide and improve user-facing features that are prominent in Matome's user interface, namely email filtering, classification, and daily brief generation.

(b) Does not transfer Google user data to third parties except as necessary to provide or improve user-facing features (with user consent), to comply with applicable law, or as part of a merger or acquisition (with explicit prior consent). Matome does not transfer Google user data to any advertising platform, data broker, or information reseller.

(c) Does not use Google user data for serving advertisements, including retargeting, personalized, or interest-based advertising.

(d) Does not allow humans to read Google user data unless the user has provided affirmative consent to view specific messages, it is necessary for security purposes, it is required by applicable law, or the data is aggregated and anonymized for internal operations.

(e) Does not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train non-personalized AI or machine learning models. Any machine learning applied to your email data is personalized to your account only and is not co-mingled with other users' data for generalized model training.

13. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date below. If we make material changes — particularly changes to how we access, use, or share your Google user data, or the addition of a new sub-processor that receives Gmail-derived content — we will notify you by email before the changes take effect and will request your consent before accessing any types of data not previously disclosed. Your continued use of Matome after any non-material changes constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

14. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, your data, or your rights, contact us at hello@matome.ai. For security-disclosure inquiries, see /security.