Appleton Advisors, LLC (“Appleton,” “we,” “our”) respects your privacy. This policy explains what information we collect when you visit appletonadvisors.ai (the “Site”) or contact us, how we use it, whom we share it with, and the choices you have. If any term here conflicts with the written scope of a signed engagement, the engagement governs.
1. Who we are
Appleton Advisors, LLC is a private financial-leadership firm providing fractional CFO, controller, capital formation, diligence, and board-readiness services. We are the controller of the personal information described below. For privacy questions, write to privacy@appletonadvisors.ai.
2. Information we collect
2.1 Information you provide
- Contact details — name, work email, company, and anything else you include when you unlock the pricing calculator, use the triage assistant, or email a partner.
- Triage assistant messages — the text you type into the on-site intake assistant. These messages are sent to our LLM provider (Anthropic, PBC) to generate a response. We do not retain these messages server-side beyond what is needed to handle the request.
- Engagement information — documents, financials, or correspondence you share with us during a prospective or active engagement. These are governed by our engagement letter and NDA, not this policy.
2.2 Information collected automatically
- Log data — IP address, user-agent string, referring URL, and request timestamps. Used for rate-limiting, debugging, and abuse prevention.
- Analytics — if enabled, aggregate, privacy-respecting page-view metrics via Vercel Analytics. No advertising cookies, no cross-site tracking.
- Local storage — a single flag (
aa_pricing_unlocked) that remembers you've already unlocked the calculator so you aren't prompted again. Not transmitted.
3. How we use your information
- To respond to inquiries and route them to the right partner.
- To operate the triage assistant and the pricing calculator.
- To send a brief partner-signed reply; we do not add you to a marketing newsletter unless you explicitly opt in.
- To detect, prevent, and respond to abuse, fraud, or security issues.
- To comply with applicable law and enforce our agreements.
We rely on the legal bases of legitimate interests (to respond to inbound inquiries and run the Site securely) and, where applicable, consent. You may withdraw consent at any time; see §8 below.
4. Who we share it with
We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share data only with vetted service providers acting on our instructions:
- Hosting — Vercel, Inc. (site hosting, edge network, serverless functions).
- LLM inference — Anthropic, PBC (triage assistant). Messages are sent to Anthropic's API and governed by Anthropic's commercial terms; they are not used to train foundation models.
- Transactional email — Resend, Inc. (lead notifications to Appleton partners).
- Productivity — Google LLC (Workspace email, Sheets for the internal lead log).
- Error monitoring (optional) — Sentry, if enabled. Stack traces and IP-level metadata.
We may also disclose information if legally required (e.g., subpoena, court order), to protect our rights or the safety of others, or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets (in which case we will honor commitments made here).
5. International transfers
Our processors are primarily located in the United States. If you are in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland, your personal data may be transferred to countries without an adequacy decision. Where required, we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent safeguards provided by our processors.
6. Retention
We retain lead information for up to 24 months from your last interaction, or longer if required to comply with legal, tax, or accounting obligations. Engagement records are retained per our engagement letter and applicable professional-services retention rules (typically seven years). You may request earlier deletion; see §8.
7. Security
We use TLS in transit, least-privilege access to internal systems, secret management via hosting-provider vaults, and rate-limiting on abusable endpoints. No system is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a qualifying breach, we will notify affected individuals and authorities as the law requires.
8. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- Access the personal information we hold about you.
- Correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
- Delete your information, subject to exceptions (e.g., ongoing engagements, legal obligations).
- Restrict or object to certain processing.
- Receive a portable copy of information you provided to us.
- Withdraw consent, where we rely on it.
- Lodge a complaint with your local data-protection authority.
To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@appletonadvisors.ai. We will verify your request and respond within the time window required by applicable law (typically 30 days for GDPR, 45 days for CCPA).
9. California residents (CCPA / CPRA)
We do not “sell” or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act. California residents have the right to know, correct, and delete personal information, and the right to non-discrimination for exercising those rights. We do not use or disclose “sensitive personal information” for inferring characteristics.
10. Children
The Site is not directed to children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.
11. Cookies
We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. The Site uses a single localStorage flag to remember that you've unlocked the pricing calculator. Analytics, if enabled, uses anonymous page-view pings — no cross-site identifiers.
12. Changes
We may update this policy as our practices or the law evolve. Material changes will be announced by updating the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. The current version always governs.
13. Contact
Privacy inquiries: privacy@appletonadvisors.ai
General inquiries: partners@appletonadvisors.ai
This policy is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Where local law imposes stricter requirements, those requirements control.