Privacy & Security

Policy

This policy applies to the GladGrade mobile and web applications and to all websites operated by GladGrade Holding Corp, including but not limited to gladgrade.com and its subdomains — among them GladGrade Analytics (analytics.gladgrade.com) and Campaigns on Chains (campaignsonchains.gladgrade.com).

Campaigns on Chains collects and publishes information in ways our other services do not. Section 8, Campaigns on Chains — Candidate Accounts and Published Positions, describes it and governs that site where the two differ.

1. Data Collection

GladGrade collects the following user data to enhance the experience and ensure better service:

• Telephone Number: We collect your phone number to verify your identity, validate your account, and ensure that your location is accurate for providing nearby recommendations.
• Location Data: We collect your location to provide tailored services and help you find businesses or services nearby. This location data is only collected when the app is actively in use.
• Review Data: We collect the reviews you provide, including business ratings, answers to tailored questions, and any written reviews or uploaded photos. Receipts uploaded as evidence are collected to validate your reviews and maintain the integrity of our platform. Please note that receipts are never shared with anyone and are used solely for internal verification purposes to ensure that grades and reviews are genuine and not fake.
• Private Reviews: Users have the option to flag their reviews as private, in which case the review will not be shown publicly but will be accessible to the business owner or administrator to assist in addressing the issue and improving customer satisfaction.
• Contact Us Messages: When using the Help feature, users can submit internal messages through the Contact Us form, which includes categorizing the issue (such as Error, Security, Investment, or Other), subject, message, a flag indicating if a reply is required, contact telephone, and contact email.
• Usage and Device Information: Pages viewed, referring site, approximate location derived from IP address, and device and browser characteristics. See Section 3, Analytics.
• Candidate Account and Questionnaire Information: Collected only from candidates who receive an invitation to Campaigns on Chains. See Section 8, Campaigns on Chains — Candidate Accounts and Published Positions.

2. Cookies and Similar Technologies

We use a small number of cookies and browser storage entries across our websites. We do not use cookies for advertising, and we do not sell or share the information they hold.

• _ga: Distinguishes visitors so repeat visits are not counted as new ones. Type: Analytics. Lifetime: 2 years.
• _ga_<ID>: Retains session state for Google Analytics. Type: Analytics. Lifetime: 2 years.
• coc.language: Remembers the language you chose on Campaigns on Chains. Type: Functional. Lifetime: 1 year.
• Firebase Authentication storage: Keeps a signed-in candidate signed in between visits. Set only after you sign in, and only on Campaigns on Chains. Type: Essential. Lifetime: until sign-out.

The coc.language entry is also written to your browser's local storage, so your language choice survives when cookies are unavailable.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking the analytics cookies does not affect any feature of our sites. Blocking the Firebase Authentication storage will prevent candidates from staying signed in.

3. Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 on our websites to understand how they are used — which pages are read, and whether people can find what they came for.

Each site reports into its own separate Google Analytics property. We do not combine them, and we do not track visitors from one site to another.

What Google Analytics collects on our behalf

• Pages viewed and the order they were viewed in.
• The site or search engine that referred you, if any.
• Approximate location — country, region and city — derived from your IP address.
• Device type, operating system, browser and screen size.
• Language preference.
• Scrolls, outbound link clicks, file downloads and site searches.

On Campaigns on Chains we additionally record

• Which candidate profiles are viewed.
• Search terms typed into the candidate search.
• Whether a verification lookup found a matching record.
• Whether a candidate began and completed the questionnaire.

We deliberately do not send the verification reference itself to Google Analytics. That value identifies one candidate's submission, and it is kept out of our analytics for that reason. No candidate name, email address, telephone number or questionnaire answer is ever sent to Google Analytics.

What is not collected

• Google Analytics does not store your full IP address. It is used to derive approximate location and is then discarded.
• We do not enable Google Signals, advertising features, remarketing, or demographic reporting.
• We do not use analytics to build advertising profiles, and we do not sell or share analytics information.

Retention. Analytics event data is retained for 14 months, after which Google deletes it.

How to opt out. You can install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, block cookies in your browser, or use your browser's tracking protection. None of these affects your ability to use our sites.

Information collected through Google Analytics is processed by Google LLC. See Google's Privacy Policy and how Google uses information from sites that use its services.

4. Data Usage

The data we collect is used to:

• Provide location-based recommendations for businesses and services.
• Allow users to grade businesses and submit reviews, which are used to calculate the Global Customer Satisfaction Grade (GCSG).
• Award Glad Points for verified reviews with receipts.
• Improve our services and ensure the quality and authenticity of user-generated content.
• Provide businesses with insights to help them improve customer satisfaction.
• Facilitate communication with users who submit issues via the Contact Us feature.

5. Data Storage

GladGrade uses Google's Firebase and Firestore services to store user data, including personal information and images uploaded by users. Google provides storage as a service, and they do not access or use this data for commercial purposes. All data is securely stored and protected using industry-standard practices to ensure your privacy.

GladGrade does not share your personal data with any third parties beyond Google's Firebase and Firestore, which are used solely for storage purposes, and Google Analytics, which is described in Section 3.

6. Data Retention and Deletion

We retain your data for as long as necessary to provide our services effectively. You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data at any time. Upon receiving your request, we will delete your data unless it is required for legal or regulatory purposes.

Exception: This does not extend to GladGrade Analytics Campaigns and Surveys answers, which may be stored on blockchain and through third-party processors such as IPFS and Filecoin, and which cannot be deleted, changed or withdrawn once submitted. See Section 8, Campaigns on Chains — Candidate Accounts and Published Positions.

Please note that messages submitted through the Contact Us feature are not deleted by default when a user opts to delete their account. If you wish for these messages to be deleted as well, you must submit a Contact Us request with the category set to Other and explicitly request the deletion of prior messages prior to executing the account deletion. The process may take up to 30 days as it is a manual procedure, and you must check the Requires a reply flag and provide a valid email for further validation.

To delete your account, please navigate to the Profile section from the lower navigation menu, click Edit your profile, and expand the Other Options section at the bottom. To proceed with account deletion, type delete in the text box, then click Next. You will be shown a confirmation window explaining what data will be deleted and when, with the option to abort by exiting the window.

7. User Rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate data, including first name, last name, email, date of birth, and telephone number.
• Request data deletion of your account and associated data.

These rights are subject to one exception. Questionnaires submitted on Campaigns on Chains cannot be deleted, amended or withdrawn once submitted, for the reasons set out in Section 8, Campaigns on Chains — Candidate Accounts and Published Positions.

If you have questions or concerns about how your data is handled, please use the Contact Us feature in the app, which can be found by accessing the lower navigation menu, selecting Profile, then Help, and finally Contact Us, and choose the category Security. GladGrade is committed to protecting your privacy and ensuring that your personal information is handled responsibly.

8. Campaigns on Chains — Candidate Accounts and Published Positions

Campaigns on Chains (campaignsonchains.gladgrade.com) records what candidates for public office say about issues, so voters can read it and confirm it was not changed afterwards. Please read this section carefully before submitting a questionnaire: submission is permanent and cannot be undone.

Who this applies to. Only candidates who receive an invitation and create an account. Visitors who browse or search the site are covered by Section 2, Cookies and Similar Technologies, and Section 3, Analytics, and by nothing in this section.

What we collect from candidates

• Account credentials: Email address and password, handled by Google Firebase Authentication. We never see or store your password.
• Campaign contact details: Campaign email address, telephone number, mailing address, contact name and title.
• Questionnaire answers, including drafts saved while you work.
• Your language preference.

What becomes public

When you submit your questionnaire, the following becomes visible to anyone with the link, with no account required:

• Your name, the office you seek, party affiliation, photograph and district.
• Your final answers to every question.
• The date and time of submission.
• A SHA-256 cryptographic hash of your submission, and its archive identifiers.

What never becomes public

Your campaign email address, telephone number, mailing address, contact name and contact title are never published. Neither are your account credentials, your invitation, or any draft you saved but did not submit. Drafts are private working state at every stage and are never shown to anyone but you.

Permanence — and what it means for deletion

Once you submit, your answers cannot be changed, edited or withdrawn — by you, or by anyone at GladGrade. This is the purpose of the service rather than a limitation of it: a record a candidate could quietly revise afterwards would not be worth anything to a voter.

To make submissions independently verifiable, each one is hashed and archived to IPFS and Filecoin, distributed storage networks that GladGrade does not control and cannot delete from. Copies may be retained by third parties indefinitely.

As a result, we cannot honor a request to delete or amend a submitted questionnaire, and you should treat submission as publishing a permanent public statement. You are told this before you submit and must acknowledge it to continue.

This does not affect your other rights. We can delete your account credentials and your campaign contact details on request, and we will. To make such a request, contact campaignonchain@gladgrade.com.

Verification

Anyone can independently confirm a submission was not altered by recomputing its hash from the published record. This is why the archived text is published in full.