Privacy Policy

The data controller is LaunchNests (www.launchnests.com), reachable at support@launchnests.com. This Privacy Policy explains how LaunchNests collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal data when you visit our website, submit developer tools or products, authenticate as a maker, or interact with our APIs and machine-readable surfaces. We respond to verified data-subject requests within 30 days.

We collect minimal, developer-focused data necessary to provide discovery services, authenticate makers, and prevent community manipulation:

• Account Data: Display name, email address, profile avatar, and a stable provider identifier from your authentication service (Google OAuth via BetterAuth). Optional profile fields include maker bio, location, and social links.
• Listing & Submission Data: Tool and product specifications, taglines, URLs, logos, screenshots, pricing tiers, platform tags, problem/solution descriptions, and declared tech stack ("Built With") graph relationships.
• Engagement Data: Upvotes cast, comments posted, live product visits while signed in, and community leaderboard interactions.
• Payment & Sponsorship Data: Transaction IDs, sponsorship tiers, and invoice statuses. Credit card numbers, CVVs, and banking credentials are handled directly by our PCI-DSS compliant payment processor (Dodo Payments) and never touch our servers.
• Technical & Edge Logs: Device type, browser user-agent, IP address, edge geolocation (country and region derived from IP), and HTTP access logs. Server logs are automatically purged within 30 days.
• Analytics Data: Aggregated page views, referral sources, and device categories collected via Vercel Analytics and Google Analytics (GA4) to understand platform usage trends without selling personal data.
• Communications: Direct inquiries sent to support@launchnests.com or questions regarding listing reviews.

We process your data for transparent, technical, and operational purposes:

• Operating the Discovery Directory: Authenticating sessions, rendering tool and product profiles, calculating live launch rankings, and resolving tech-stack dependencies.
• Content Moderation & Integrity: Detecting and preventing artificial upvote manipulation, bot farms, disposable-email voting, and fraudulent listings.
• Sponsorship Delivery: Fulfilling booked sidebar advertising placements, managing invoices, and verifying backlink activations via Dodo Payments.
• Transactional Notifications (Upcoming): Sending listing approval notices, editorial feedback, and critical account security alerts once automated notifications are fully integrated.
• Platform Optimization: Debugging edge routing, monitoring API performance, and optimizing database queries.
• Machine-Readable AI Indexing: Serving structured, public listing data to AI search crawlers, answer engines, and LLMs via /llms.txt, /llms-full.txt, /api/ai, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoints.
• Legal & Regulatory Compliance: Retaining required tax records and cooperating with lawful requests.

Where GDPR, India's Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, or equivalent privacy frameworks apply, we process personal data under the following lawful grounds:

• Contract Performance: Creating and authenticating maker accounts, publishing submitted listings, and delivering reserved sponsorship placements.
• Legitimate Interests: Protecting platform voting integrity, preventing bot abuse, maintaining server security logs, and operating a public developer discovery index.
• Consent: Optional email notifications or communications, which you may withdraw at any time.
• Legal Obligations: Maintaining tax invoices and complying with statutory obligations.

Developer tool listings, product showcases, "Built With" architectural dependencies, creator profiles, and community reviews are intentionally public. By submitting technical listings or comments, you acknowledge that this information will be indexed by public search engines (Google, Bing), ingested by AI answer engines (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity), and made available in structured formats (JSON, Markdown, and MCP tools). This cross-promotional indexing is the foundational purpose of LaunchNests. Do not submit private, confidential, or proprietary data.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to data brokers or advertising networks. We share minimal data only with trusted service providers essential for platform operations:

• Hosting & Edge Network: Vercel Inc. (global edge distribution and SSR compute).
• Database & Infrastructure: Neon Serverless PostgreSQL (encrypted cloud database).
• Authentication: Google OAuth via BetterAuth (secure identity verification).
• Payments & Billing: Dodo Payments Inc. (PCI-DSS compliant merchant of record and payment gateway handling sponsorships, invoices, and customer billing details).
• Analytics & Telemetry: Google LLC (Google Analytics 4 for aggregated site usage metrics) and Vercel Analytics.
• Transactional Communications (Planned): Resend or equivalent email delivery providers (for future automated listing approval notices and editorial communications).
• Public AI Engine Indexing: Publicly available directory listings and open tech-stack data may be indexed by third-party search and answer engines (including Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity, and Google) via public endpoints (/llms.txt, /api/mcp). User-private dashboard data and account settings are strictly excluded.
• Legal Authorities: Where strictly mandated by court orders, applicable laws, or to defend platform integrity against malicious attack.

LaunchNests operates globally with core infrastructure hosted in secure data centers across the US and EU (via Vercel and Neon). Where personal data is transferred internationally, we ensure appropriate safeguards are maintained, including Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and encryption in transit and at rest.

We store personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes outlined in this policy:

• Account Data: Retained while your account remains active. Upon account deletion, personal profile records and session tokens are permanently removed from live production systems within 24 hours.
• Listing Data: Persisted while published. If you delete a listing or request removal, public pages are unpublished immediately and purged from cache.
• Server & Edge Logs: Automatically rotated and deleted within 30 days.
• Payment & Invoice Records: Retained for up to 7 years to satisfy statutory accounting and tax regulations.
• Abuse & Fraud Logs: Banned IP hashes or bot signatures may be retained indefinitely to protect platform security.

Under applicable global privacy regulations (including GDPR, DPDP Act, and CCPA/CPRA), you have enforceable rights regarding your personal information:

• Right to Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification: Correct inaccurate or incomplete profile information.
• Right to Erasure (Deletion): Request the permanent deletion of your maker account and associated data.
• Right to Restrict Processing: Request limits on how your personal data is utilized.
• Right to Data Portability: Receive your account and submission data in a structured, machine-readable JSON format.
• Right to Withdraw Consent: Revoke consent for non-essential notifications at any time.
• To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@launchnests.com. We respond to all verified requests within 30 days without charge.

We prioritize user privacy and use strictly necessary first-party cookies for authentication, session persistence, and CSRF protection via BetterAuth. We also utilize Google Analytics (GA4) measurement cookies (_ga, _ga_*) to analyze aggregated web traffic and enhance platform performance. We do not deploy third-party advertising retargeting trackers or cross-site behavioral advertising scripts.

LaunchNests explicitly authorizes transparent search and answer engine crawlers (including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Applebot-Extended, and Google-Extended) to index public directory pages in compliance with our published robots.txt and ai.txt policies. AI models and agents are permitted to access and answer queries using only publicly available directory information (such as approved tool and product profiles, taglines, architectural "Built With" relationships, categories, and public community scores). We strictly safeguard user-private data: under no circumstances are private user analytics, draft submissions, personal account settings, or private authenticated data accessible in /dashboard views ever shared with or ingested by AI models or crawlers. Automated systems are forbidden from attempting to scrape private or non-public endpoints.

LaunchNests is designed exclusively for software developers, engineers, and technical founders. It is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors. If you believe a minor has registered an account, contact support@launchnests.com and we will promptly delete the data.

We implement robust technical and organizational security controls to protect your data, including HTTPS/TLS encryption in transit, encrypted database storage at rest, strict database role separation, rate limiting against brute-force attacks, and edge firewall protections. While no internet platform can guarantee absolute immunity from threats, we regularly audit our dependencies and security architecture to safeguard developer accounts.

We may update this Privacy Policy to reflect platform enhancements, legal amendments, or new service integrations. The "Last updated" date at the top of this document indicates the current effective version. For substantive changes, we will provide conspicuous notice on our website or platform announcement.

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data handling practices, please reach out to our team:

• Email: support@launchnests.com
• X / Twitter: https://x.com/AbuBakkar2502
• Canonical URL: https://www.launchnests.com/privacy