JournoHelper Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

PLEASE READ THIS PRIVACY POLICY CAREFULLY AND IN ITS ENTIRETY BEFORE USING WWW.JOURNO.HELP (THE “SITE”).

This Privacy Policy describes what information we collect, what it is used for, and the measures we take to protect it.

IMPORTANT NOTE: By using the Site and/or creating an account, subscribing to alerts, purchasing a subscription, connecting an integration, or otherwise using JournoHelper’s monitoring, alerting, analysis, and drafting tools (collectively, the “Services”), you voluntarily agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact Brad Gerick at strategy@gericknews.com.

If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, do not use or browse the Site.

2. Definitions

• “Company”, “We”, “Our”, or “Us” means Gerick LLC and www.journo.help (JournoHelper).
• “Content” means any and all written, visual, video, or audio information contained on the Site, including emails received from the Company and any material viewed, generated, or otherwise offered through the Services.
• “Personal Information” means information that can be used on its own or in conjunction with other information to identify, contact, or locate a person — for example your name, email address, payment information, or site behavior.
• “Services” means the Site, Content, JournoHelper’s government-meeting monitoring, alerting, AI analysis and drafting features, email list, and any related offerings available on the Site.
• “Site” means www.journo.help and all of the Company’s associated pages, tabs, landing pages, forms, or sub-pages.
• “You” or “Your” means the user, customer, or viewer of the Site.

3. Company Statement

The Site and its Content are owned by Gerick LLC.

Gerick LLC is committed to protecting your Personal Information. We will only collect or use your Personal Information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

4. What kind of Personal Information do we collect?

Personal Information You Provide: when you create an account and use the Services, you may provide your name and email address (sign-in is handled by our authentication provider, Clerk), your team or newsroom affiliation, the government sources you choose to follow and your alert preferences, custom analysis instructions you write, and communications you send to support. If you purchase a subscription, payment is collected by our payment processor (Stripe); all transactions are processed through that gateway provider and your full card details are not stored or processed on our servers.

Personal Information Automatically Collected: through your use of the Site, we automatically receive standard technical information such as your IP address, browser and device type, and authentication/session data (via Clerk) in server logs, used for security and to operate the Services.

Analytics: we may use data-collection technology such as Google Analytics 4 (“Data Collection Companies”) to collect information related to your use of the Site, such as approximate geographic location, pages viewed, and whether you view the Site on mobile, tablet, or desktop. We collect this information for statistical purposes only and to improve the viewer experience.

The documents JournoHelper monitors and analyzes — government agendas, minutes, transcripts, and press releases — are public records published by government bodies, not your Personal Information.

5. What if the Personal Information we have about you is incorrect or you want to update it?

If the Personal Information we have collected about you is incorrect or incomplete in any way, or you would like to update what we have, you can edit your profile in the app or contact Brad Gerick at strategy@gericknews.com. We will make the appropriate corrections when notified, as long as the corrections requested are not incorrect or fraudulent in any way.

6. When do we collect Personal Information?

We collect Personal Information from you when you create an account, subscribe to or configure alerts, connect an integration (such as Slack), make purchases, subscribe to our newsletter, fill out a form, contact support, or enter any of your Personal Information on the Site. If you are just viewing the public pages of the Site, you are not required to provide Personal Information to browse.

If you are outside of the EU: if you sign up for the Services or purchase from us, you may be added to our email list to receive messages from us, including product updates and newsletters. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of each email. If you have any questions, or difficulty unsubscribing, email Brad Gerick at strategy@gericknews.com.

If you are IN the EU: you will only be added to our email list to receive such messages if you affirmatively consent to receiving them. You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of each email.

7. How do we use your Personal Information?

We may use the Personal Information we collect from you in the following ways:

• To operate the Services you configure — monitoring the public government sources you follow and delivering the alerts, digests, analyses, and drafts you request.
• To personalize your experience and deliver the type of content and product offerings most relevant to you.
• To improve the Site and Services in order to better serve you.
• To respond to your customer service requests.
• To process your transactions and manage your subscription.
• To send periodic emails regarding the Services, including product updates and newsletters.

8. Do we share your Personal Information with anyone?

In general, we DO NOT sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your Personal Information to outside (third) parties for marketing or advertising purposes, except for the following purposes:

• In order to comply with an investigation, law enforcement inquiry, government entities, courts, or other third parties as required or allowed by applicable law, such as for legal and/or safety purposes.
• Third-party service providers that provide platforms or services to us so we can operate the Services: Clerk (authentication), Stripe (payments), Vercel and Railway (hosting and infrastructure), Resend (email delivery), Slack (only if you connect the Slack integration), and AI providers such as OpenAI and Anthropic (to perform the document analysis and drafting features you use). These providers receive only what is necessary to perform their function.

We may disclose your Personal Information to our contractors, subcontractors, affiliates, or successors in interest when necessary to carry out our business functions, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. Non-personally identifiable, aggregated information may be used for statistical purposes.

We DO NOT allow third-party behavioral tracking on the Site.

9. Slack Integration Data

If you choose to connect Slack, we store your Slack workspace ID and name, your chosen channel ID and name, and a bot access token. The bot token is encrypted at rest using strong encryption (AES-256-GCM).

Our Slack app requests no message-reading permissions: we cannot and do not read your workspace’s messages or content. We use the connection solely to post the alerts you configure into the channel you choose.

Disconnecting Slack in your settings deletes the connection and revokes the token immediately. Uninstalling JournoHelper from your Slack workspace deletes the connection automatically. We never sell or share Slack data, never use it to train AI models, and never use it to contact you outside of Slack.

10. How do we protect your Personal Information?

We aim to make your use of the Site as safe as possible. The Site is served exclusively over HTTPS (SSL/TLS), and we never transmit your credit card information by email.

Your Personal Information is contained behind secured networks and is only accessible by a limited number of persons who have special access rights to such systems and are required to keep the Personal Information confidential. Sensitive credentials, such as integration tokens, are stored encrypted at rest.

We implement a variety of security measures when a user places an order to maintain the safety of your Personal Information. All transactions are processed through a gateway provider (Stripe) and are not stored or processed on our servers.

11. Do we use “cookies” or social media pixels?

Cookies. We use cookies that are necessary to operate the Services — primarily authentication and session cookies (set via our authentication provider, Clerk) that keep you signed in, and cookies that remember your preferences. If we enable analytics (see Section 13), those services may also set cookies to help us compile aggregate data about Site traffic and interaction so that we can offer better experiences and tools in the future.

You can choose to have your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you can turn off all cookies through your browser settings. If you disable cookies, you will not be able to stay signed in to the Services.

Pixels. No — the Company DOES NOT USE social media pixels.

12. Third-Party Links

The Services link extensively to third-party sites — most importantly the official government websites and documents we monitor on your behalf, and occasionally other articles or resources. These third-party sites have separate and independent privacy policies (or none). We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our Site and welcome any feedback about linked sites at strategy@gericknews.com.

13. Google Analytics

We do not currently run Google Ads. We may use Google Analytics 4 to understand aggregate Site usage (such as Demographics and Interests Reporting). When analytics are active, we and third-party vendors such as Google may use first-party cookies to compile data regarding user interactions with the Site.

To opt out: you can set preferences for how Google advertises to you using the Google Ad Settings page, opt out via the Network Advertising Initiative Opt-Out page, or use the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser add-on.

14. Password Privacy

Sign-in to the Services is managed through our authentication provider, Clerk. It is your responsibility to keep your login credentials safe. You are responsible for any actions which occur through the use of your account. You shall notify us immediately by email at strategy@gericknews.com of any unauthorized use of your login information or any other security breach. You may not share your login information with anyone else; we are not responsible or liable for any loss or damages resulting from your failure to protect your login information.

15. California Online Privacy Protection Act (“CalOPPA”)

Pursuant to CalOPPA, we agree to the following:

• Users CAN visit our public pages anonymously.
• There IS a link to this Privacy Policy in the footer of our homepage.
• Our Privacy Policy link DOES include the word “Privacy” and can easily be found on the page specified above.
• You will be notified of any Privacy Policy changes on this page (see the “Updated on” date below).

16. Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”)

We do not specifically market to children under the age of 13. Please STOP and do not use, view, purchase, or otherwise browse the Site or Services if you are under 13 years old. If you are younger than 13, you are not permitted to enter any Personal Information on this Site.

If you are a parent and you believe your child under the age of 13 has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us immediately to have it removed by emailing strategy@gericknews.com.

17. Fair Information Practices

In order to comply with Fair Information Practices, should a data breach occur we will notify you via email without undue delay after the breach becomes known to us.

18. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

The CAN-SPAM Act is a U.S. law that establishes rules for commercial email messages, gives you the right to stop certain commercial emails from being sent to you, and outlines penalties for violations.

We collect your email address and name so we can send the alerts and digests you configure, respond to inquiries, process orders and send related updates, and email you newsletters and information about the Services. In accordance with the CAN-SPAM Act, we agree to the following:

• We WILL NOT use false or misleading subjects or email addresses.
• We WILL identify any advertisement email message as an advertisement in some reasonable way.
• We WILL include our business mailing address in our commercial emails.
• We WILL monitor third-party email services for compliance. We use Resend to send our emails to you.
• We WILL honor opt-out/unsubscribe requests quickly.
• We WILL allow users to unsubscribe by using the link at the bottom of each email.

TO UNSUBSCRIBE: you can adjust or turn off alerts in your settings at any time, follow the unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of any email you receive from us, or email Brad Gerick at strategy@gericknews.com and we will promptly remove you from future correspondence. Unsubscribing from one list may not unsubscribe you from ALL future emails (for example, account and billing notices). If you experience any problems unsubscribing, please email strategy@gericknews.com.

19. Your General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) Rights

If you are located within the European Union (“EU”), you are entitled to certain rights under the GDPR. You have the right to:

• Know how long we will keep your information. We will keep your Personal Information until the earlier of: (1) you ask us to delete your information, or (2) the Company decides it no longer needs the data and the cost of retaining it outweighs the value of keeping it.
• Access, rectify, or erase your Personal Information.
• Withdraw your consent to the Company’s processing of your data, which shall have no effect on the lawfulness of the processing of your Personal Information prior to your withdrawal.
• Lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over GDPR issues.
• Provide only the Personal Information which is reasonably required to enter into a contract with us. The Company will not ask for your consent to provide unnecessary Personal Information as a condition of entering into a contractual relationship with the Company.

20. Contacting Us

If there are any questions regarding this Privacy Policy, you may contact us using the following information:

Gerick LLC

Website: www.journo.help (see the support page)

Mailing Address: 253 Timmons Street, Nashville, TN 37211

Email: strategy@gericknews.com