Setec Astronomy Lab Privacy Policy

Setec Astronomy Lab, LLC ("Setec," "we") is a Delaware company that builds apps and websites. Big Spoon is the first. This one policy covers every product we make, because you have one account across all of them. When a product needs its own rules, they're at the end under that product's name.

Some of what's in here is unusual for a dating app. We say the unusual parts plainly instead of hiding them in the middle.

The short version

• You have one Setec account. What we learn about you in one of our apps can be used in our other apps once you join them.
• We use your information to run our products, keep people safe, and build new things — including training our own AI models.
• We share some information with advertising partners like TikTok and Meta. Under California law that counts as "selling" or "sharing," and you can opt out of it.
• We promote our other apps inside our apps. You can't turn that off. You can turn off marketing emails and texts, and you control notifications in your phone's settings.
• We keep your information for as long as your account exists. When you delete your account, we delete it, with a short list of exceptions below.
• Photos are screened automatically. Reports are reviewed by an AI system and by us.
• You must be 18. If you're not, we delete your account when we find out.
• The Terms of Service include an agreement to arbitrate disputes instead of going to court. That's in the Terms, not here, but you should know it's there.

What we collect

In short: what you tell us, what you do in our products, and a little about your device.

What you give us

• Your phone number, which is how you sign in. We text you a code; there's no password.
• Your first name, birthday, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ZIP code.
• Profile facts you choose to add. Your height, what you do for work, where you grew up, whether you have or want children, and your religion — each optional, shown on your profile to members who can see you, and never shared with advertising partners.
• Photos you upload — a profile photo and any others you add.
• Your answers to our questions, in text and sometimes photos.
• Messages you send to a match.
• Your email address, when we ask for it and you give it.
• Payment information when you buy a membership. Card numbers go directly to Stripe or your app store; we get a record of the purchase, not your card number.
• Anything you send us by email or through support, including reports about other people.

What we observe

• Who you liked and who you passed on.
• Which profiles we showed you and what you chose. We don't track how long you look at something or how far you scroll.
• Which features you use, when you open the app, and what you buy.
• Your device and connection: device type, operating system, app version, and IP address.
• Your approximate area, from your ZIP code and IP address. We don't collect your precise location or ask your phone for GPS.
• On the web: cookies and similar technologies for sign-in, security, analytics, and advertising measurement.

From others

• Advertising platforms tell us when someone arrived from one of our ads.
• App stores and Stripe tell us about your purchases.
• Other users may report you, or upload a photo that includes you.
• Friends you invite may answer one question about you through a link you send them. We keep their answer with your profile until you delete it or delete your account. Answers you keep appear on your profile; answers you remove are deleted. They give us no personal information of their own.

Sensitive information. Your sexual orientation is sensitive information. So is a transgender or nonbinary identity, so is your religion if you add it, and so is anything your photos, answers, or messages reveal — religion, health, ethnicity, and so on. We collect these because a dating app can't work without them. We use them to run and improve our products and to keep people safe. We don't give them to advertising partners.

What we don't do

• No GPS or precise location.
• No access to your contacts, your camera roll beyond the photos you pick, or your other apps.
• No face recognition to identify you today. Automated screening does look at faces to estimate age — see "How we use AI." If we add selfie verification, we'll ask you first.
• No tracking of how long you look at anything.
• No fake people. We never create profiles or send messages pretending to be another user.

How we use it

In short: to run the products, keep people safe, make money the way we said we would, and build what comes next.

1. Run the products. Show your profile to other people, form matches, deliver messages, process purchases, send you codes and receipts.
2. Safety and moderation. Screen photos, review reports, enforce our rules, and prevent fraud, scams, and abuse.
3. Improve and build. Understand how people use our products, fix problems, test changes, and develop new products and features.
4. AI. Provide features that use AI, and train and improve our own AI models using content and activity from our products. More below.
5. Tell you about our products. Promote our other apps inside our apps, and send marketing by email or text if you've opted in to those channels.
6. Advertising measurement. Understand which of our ads work, and reach people who might like our products.
7. Legal and business. Comply with law, respond to legal requests, enforce our terms, and handle a sale or merger of the company.

We don't use your information for purposes unrelated to these. If we add a purpose that's materially different, we'll update this policy and ask you to agree again.

One account, all our apps

In short: joining another Setec app carries your information with you.

Your Setec account is keyed to your phone number. When you sign into another Setec app with it, we may use what we already know about you — your name, contact details, purchases, activity, and profile information — in that app too, and the other way around. We don't use your information inside an app you haven't joined.

Sensitive details like your sexual orientation are used only in apps where they're relevant to what that app does.

We promote our other apps inside each app, in places like screens, cards, and pop-ups. That isn't something you can turn off. You can turn off marketing emails and texts anytime, and you control notifications in your phone's settings.

How we use AI

In short: automated systems look at your content, and we train our own models on it.

• Photo screening. Every photo you upload is checked by an automated service for nudity, violence, and signs that a person may be under 18. To estimate age, it analyzes faces. It doesn't identify who you are or match you against other people's photos.
• Report review. When someone is reported, an AI system reads the report and the related content — including messages and photos — and recommends an action. We make the final call on bans.
• AI features. Some features send your content to AI models to work — for example, reading your answers to ask a better next question.
• Training. We use content and activity from our products — answers, photos, messages, and how people use features — to train and improve our own AI models.
• Vendors. The AI companies we use work under contract to provide services to us and receive only what the service needs.

Who we share with

In short: companies that work for us, advertising partners, other users, and the law.

• Service providers. Companies that host our data, send texts and emails, process payments, deliver notifications, screen photos, run AI models, and help us operate. They act under contract and on our instructions, and may use your information only to do the job we hired them for.
• Advertising and analytics partners. Advertising platforms such as TikTok and Meta, through pixels and server-to-server connections. They receive a hashed version of your phone number; events like "signed up" or "purchased"; the identifiers their own cookies and ad links set; and your IP address and browser information. They learn that you use one of our products. They don't receive your age, gender, ZIP code, sexual orientation, answers, photos, or messages. Under California's definitions this is "selling" or "sharing," and you can opt out.
• Other users. Your profile — photo, first name, age, and answers — is visible to the people we show it to. Your match sees the messages you send them. See the product section for exactly what's shown.
• App stores and payment processors. Apple, Google, and Stripe handle your payments under their own privacy policies.
• Legal. When the law requires it, or when we believe it's necessary to protect someone's safety, investigate fraud, or enforce our terms. Suspected child sexual abuse material is reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as the law requires.
• A future owner. If Setec or one of its products is sold or merged, your information goes with it. The new owner is bound by this policy until they change it and tell you.
• With your consent. Anything else, only if you say yes.

How long we keep it

In short: as long as your account exists; then we delete it, with a few exceptions.

We keep your information for as long as your account exists. That includes your likes: a like you gave long ago can still become a match, so we don't expire them. Messages from a match that has ended disappear from the app, but we keep them while your account exists so we can investigate reports.

When you delete your account, we delete your information within 30 days, except:

• Reports. If you were reported, or you reported someone, we keep the report and a snapshot of the content it was about for twelve months after the case is decided — longer if the law requires it or an investigation needs it — and after that only the record of what we decided. This is how we cooperate with investigations.
• Records we have to keep. Payment and tax records, a coded record that you accepted our Terms (we can match it only if you give us your phone number), and anything the law requires us to hold. Purchase records are kept for at least seven years.
• Usage records. Some records of activity are kept for analysis with your name and contact details removed. They still contain an internal identifier, so treat them as pseudonymous, not anonymous.
• Backups. Copies in backups can survive up to 30 days after deletion.
• Logs. Server logs containing your IP address and requests are kept up to 90 days.
• Safety. If your account was banned, we keep enough to recognize you if you try to come back.

Your choices and rights

In short: you can see, fix, download, and delete your information, and opt out of marketing and ad sharing. Anyone can, wherever they live.

• Edit. Change your profile in the app anytime. Your birthday can't be changed in the app; email support with proof and we'll fix an error.
• Delete. Delete your account in the app under Profile › Account. It's permanent.
• Download. Email support@bigspoon.love and include the phone number on your account. We'll text that number a code to confirm it's you, then send your copy within 45 days. It includes what you gave us and what you did — not other people's messages, and not what other people did.
• Marketing. Unsubscribe links in our emails; reply STOP to our texts; notification controls in your phone's settings.
• Advertising sharing. Use the "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" link on our websites, or the matching setting in the app where it exists. We also honor Global Privacy Control browser signals.
• Correct. Tell us if something we hold is wrong and we'll fix it.
• No penalty. We won't treat you differently for using these rights.
• Agents and appeals. Someone can act for you if they can show you authorized it. If we decline a request, we'll say why, and you can ask us to look again.

Some states give you these rights by law — California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Oregon, and others. We offer them to everyone, through the same steps. The formal state notices are at the end.

Security

We encrypt your information in transit and at rest. Access to production systems is limited to the founder, and production changes run through recorded workflows. Photos and messages are stored privately and shown only to the people who are supposed to see them. No system is perfectly secure; if you think your account has been compromised, email support@bigspoon.love.

Children

Our products are for adults. You must be 18 to use them. If we learn someone under 18 has an account, we delete it and the information in it.

Where your information lives

Our servers are in the United States. Our products are built for people in the United States — Big Spoon requires a US phone number. If you use them from somewhere else, your information is processed in the United States under this policy.

Changes to this policy

This policy is versioned, and the version number and effective date are at the top. The current version is always at https://bigspoon.love/legal/privacy. If we make a material change — a new use of your information, a new kind of sharing — we'll ask you to agree to the new version in the app before you continue. Smaller changes, like clarifications, take effect when we publish them.

Big Spoon

How this policy applies to Big Spoon specifically.

• What others see. Your profile photo, first name, age, the answers you chose to give, and your other photos. Not your last name, phone number, birthday, ZIP code, or exact location. Not who you liked. Not how many people liked you — we never show that to anyone.
• Matches. You hold one match at a time. Your match sees your profile and the messages you send. When a match ends — for any reason, including one of you deleting your account or blocking the other — the other person sees only that the match has ended.
• Likes are permanent. A like is kept as long as your account exists, and a match can form from it long after you gave it. Passing on someone hides them for a while but isn't permanent.
• Reports. When you report someone, we take a snapshot of their profile and, if it's a match, the last fifty messages of your conversation. The person you reported isn't told. Reports survive account deletion on both sides; the snapshot is kept as described under "How long we keep it."
• The waitlist. Before your city is live, we hold your profile and any membership you bought. Your membership term starts when your city opens.
• Background checks. We don't run criminal background checks on members today. We may in the future; if we start, this policy and the Terms will change first.
• Safety Tips. https://bigspoon.love/legal/safety

California and other state notices

The plain-language sections above are the notice. For people who want the categories in the legal format:

• Categories we collect: identifiers (phone, name, email, internal IDs, IP address); characteristics of protected classes (age, gender identity, sexual orientation); commercial information (purchases); internet and app activity (usage, interactions with our ads); coarse geolocation (ZIP code, IP-derived area); audio/visual (photos); sensitive personal information (sexual orientation, gender identity, and anything revealed by your content); inferences we draw to run and improve the products.
• Sources: you; your device; other users; advertising platforms; app stores and payment processors.
• Purposes: the seven listed in "How we use it."
• Sold or shared: identifiers (a hashed phone number, advertising cookies and click identifiers, IP address), commercial information (that you purchased), and internet activity (that you signed up or purchased), with advertising and analytics partners. Not age, gender, ZIP code, sexual orientation, transgender or nonbinary identity, photos, messages, or answers. We have no actual knowledge of selling or sharing the information of anyone under 18.
• Sensitive information: used to provide and improve the products and for safety, which California treats as permitted uses, so there is no separate "limit" setting.
• Retention: as described in "How long we keep it."
• Rights: know, access, delete, correct, opt out of sale and sharing, non-discrimination, and appeal — through the steps in "Your choices and rights."

Contact

Setec Astronomy Lab, LLC support@bigspoon.love