Privacy Policy

Two kinds of data, two roles

Merchants and their teams create Counter accounts. For their account data, we decide how it is used and act as the controller.

Shoppers are the customers and visitors of a merchant’s store who chat with Counter. We process their data on the merchant’s behalf and only to provide support for that store, as a processor (or “service provider”). The merchant is responsible for its own privacy notice to shoppers. If you are a shopper, you can also contact the store directly about your data.

What we collect

From merchants and their teams

• Account details: name, email address, password (stored only as a secure hash) and an optional profile photo. With Google sign-in, Google shares your name, email and photo.
• Workspace and store settings: support rules, knowledge you write or upload, branding, team members and their roles.
• Store connection: Shopify or Medusa credentials, stored encrypted.
• Activity: a record of configuration changes and actions your team approves, for accountability.
• Plan and usage: your plan and how many AI conversations you used. Payments are handled by Shopify for Shopify stores and by Stripe for Medusa stores; we never receive card details.

From shoppers, on the merchant’s behalf

• Chat messages and any photos or files a shopper sends.
• An email address, if the shopper asks about an order. We send a one-time code to that address to confirm the order is theirs.
• Order and customer details read live from the store for the request in progress, such as order status, items, tracking and the shipping address. These are not copied into a separate customer database.
• The IP address and country of the browser using the chat, to detect spam and abuse.
• Pseudonymous references to the shopper and their orders, stored as private one-way hashes, so repeat refunds or discounts can be prevented.

How we use it

• To answer shopper questions and, where the merchant allows it, carry out requests such as returns, refunds, cancellations, discount codes and address changes, following the merchant’s own rules.
• To hand conversations to the merchant’s team and notify them.
• To verify that a shopper is the owner of an order before showing or changing it.
• To prevent spam, fraud and abuse, and to keep Counter secure.
• To run merchant accounts, measure plan usage and bill through Shopify or Stripe.
• To measure which of our Google ads lead merchants to sign up for Counter.
• To understand how visitors find and use Counter’s website and dashboard, so we can improve them.
• To meet legal obligations.

We do not sell personal data or build profiles of shoppers across stores. Shopper data is never used for advertising, and shopper data from one store is never used for another store.

AI processing

Counter uses OpenAI’s API to write replies and read uploaded documents. For each reply, only the conversation, the relevant store knowledge and the order details needed for that request are sent. We ask OpenAI not to store these requests for later retrieval. Under OpenAI’s API terms, API data is not used to train its models and may be kept for up to 30 days for abuse monitoring.

The assistant can make decisions such as approving a refund or return, always within rules the merchant sets, and asks the shopper to confirm before acting. A shopper can ask for a person at any time, and the merchant can require staff approval for any action.

Who we share it with

We share personal data only with the service providers below, only as needed to run Counter, under agreements that protect it. We may also disclose data when required by law, to protect people’s safety or our rights, or as part of a merger or acquisition, in which case this policy continues to apply.

These providers process data in the United States. Where data about people in the EU, UK or Switzerland is transferred, we rely on the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or an equivalent safeguard.

How long we keep it

• Conversations, their messages and the assistant’s work records are deleted 30 days after the last activity. Merchants can set this between 7 and 365 days.
• Order verification codes expire after 10 minutes; a confirmed email stays valid for that chat for one day.
• When a merchant uninstalls Counter, its store credentials are deleted immediately. When Shopify asks us to erase the store’s data, its conversations, settings and records are deleted.
• When Shopify forwards a shopper’s erasure request, that shopper’s conversations are deleted. Where a refund, gift card or discount was issued, a minimal record without contact details is kept so it can’t be issued twice.
• Merchant account data is kept while the account is open and deleted on request when it closes. Billing records are kept as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Google Ads click identifiers used to attribute merchant trial starts and first payments are kept for up to 90 days. They are never collected from shoppers using a store’s chat.

Security

All traffic uses HTTPS. Data is encrypted at rest by our hosting providers, and store credentials are encrypted again by Counter with keys kept separately from the database. Access is limited by role, so team members only reach the stores in their workspace, and staff views of shopper conversations and orders are logged. Production data is kept separate from development and test data. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects personal data, we will notify affected merchants without undue delay and as the law requires.

Cookies and local storage

The Counter dashboard uses cookies to keep you signed in. Counter’s website and dashboard also load the Google tag, which sets Google Ads cookies so we can tell when someone who clicked one of our ads goes on to sign up or choose a plan. Ad personalization is turned off, so these visits are not used for remarketing. You can block these cookies in your browser or opt out at adssettings.google.com without affecting how Counter works.

We also use DataFast for website analytics. Its script sets first-party cookies that count visits and tell new visitors from returning ones, and records which pages are viewed, where visitors came from, their browser, device and country. DataFast does not sell this data or use it for advertising. You can block these cookies in your browser without affecting how Counter works.

The chat on a store uses the browser’s local storage to remember the open conversation. It sets no advertising or analytics cookies, and shoppers are never tracked.

Your rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete or export your personal data, to object to or restrict its use, and to complain to a data protection authority. California residents have these rights under the CCPA; we do not sell or share personal data for cross-context behavioral advertising.

Merchants can exercise these rights by emailing privacy@usecounter.ai. Shoppers should contact the store they chatted with. We also act on data requests that stores send us through Shopify, and will help a merchant answer any request about data we process for them.

Children

Counter is a business service and is not directed to children under 16. We do not knowingly collect their personal data.

Changes

We will update this page when our practices change and tell merchants about material changes by email or in the dashboard before they take effect.

Contact

Alexander Attie, Paseo de Tamarindos 90, Torre 1 piso 20, CDMX, México, 05120. privacy@usecounter.ai