Legal
Privacy policy
This policy explains what personal data CiteGaps collects, why we collect it, who processes it for us, how long we keep it and what you can ask us to do with it. We have tried to write it in plain English.
Who we are
CiteGaps is operated by Mallikharjun, an individual sole proprietor ("we", "us"). We decide how and why the personal data described here is processed, so we are responsible for it under the data protection laws that apply to us.
You can reach us about anything in this policy at the contact details at the end.
What we collect
Account details. Your email address, and your name and profile picture if you sign in with Google. Passwords are handled by Firebase Authentication; we never see or store your password in readable form.
Workspace details. What you enter when you set up a workspace: brand name, website, competitors, industry, country, language, the questions you track, brand aliases and, on the Agency plan, the agency name, logo and colour used on white-label reports.
Data we generate for you. The AI answers collected for your questions, the brands and sources we extract from them, your scores, recommendations, drafts and weekly PDF reports. When you create a workspace we also fetch the public text of your website's home page once, to give the drafting step context.
Billing details. Your plan, subscription status, and the customer, subscription and payment IDs that Razorpay gives us. Card, UPI and bank details are entered on Razorpay's checkout and are held by Razorpay, not by us.
Free check. If you use the free check on our website, we store the brand, website, question and country you entered, the answer we collected, and a one-way hash of your IP address that we use only to limit how many checks one network can run per day. If you enter your email to see the full result, we also store your email address and your consent to be contacted about it.
Messages. Emails you send us and our replies.
Technical data. Our hosting provider records standard request logs (such as IP address, browser type and time of request) for security and troubleshooting.
We do not ask for sensitive personal data such as financial account numbers, health information or government identity numbers, and we ask you not to put any into questions, competitors or other workspace fields.
Cookies and similar technology
The marketing website does not set advertising or analytics cookies. The web app uses your browser's storage only to keep you signed in through Firebase Authentication. Our pages load the Inter typeface from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address and browser details when the font is downloaded.
How we use your data
- To provide CiteGaps: collect AI answers for your questions, calculate scores, generate recommendations and drafts, and produce and email weekly reports.
- To run your account and subscription, including billing, receipts, renewal and payment-failure notices.
- To send the free-check result you asked for and to follow up about it, if you gave consent.
- To answer your messages and provide support.
- To keep the service secure, prevent abuse (for example, rate limiting the free check) and fix problems.
- To meet legal, tax and accounting obligations.
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.
Where your data is stored
Our application data is stored on Google Cloud (Firebase). Some of the processors listed below may process data in other countries, under their own security and data protection commitments.
Processors we use
We share data with the following service providers only as far as each one needs it to do its job for us:
| Provider | What it does for us | Data it receives |
|---|---|---|
| Google (Firebase and Google Cloud) | Website and app hosting, sign-in, database, file storage and background jobs | All of the data described above |
| Google Gemini API | Reads collected answers to extract brands, positions, sentiment and sources; suggests questions for new workspaces | Answer text, questions and workspace details such as brand and competitor names |
| Anthropic | Writes content drafts | The recommendation, workspace details, the related answers and your home page text |
| cloro.dev | Collects answers from AI engines | The questions you track, the engines and the country; not your email address |
| Razorpay | Payment processing and subscriptions | Your email, plan and payment details you enter at checkout |
| Resend | Sends our emails, including weekly reports and free-check results | Your email address and the content of the email |
How long we keep data
- Your account and workspaces are kept while your account is open. If your subscription ends, your dashboard stays readable until you delete your account.
- When you delete a workspace or your account, it is marked as deleted at once and permanently purged, together with its reports and uploaded logos, 30 days later. The 30-day window lets us recover data deleted by mistake if you ask quickly.
- Billing records such as invoices and payment references are kept for as long as tax and accounting law requires, even after your account is deleted.
- Free-check records and the email you gave us are kept until you ask us to delete them.
- Rate-limit counters for the free check are deleted automatically after a short period.
Your rights
You can ask us to:
- tell you what personal data we hold about you and how we use it;
- correct or complete data that is wrong or out of date;
- delete your data (you can also delete your account yourself from the app's settings);
- stop contacting you about a free check, or withdraw a consent you gave.
You can also nominate another person to exercise these rights on your behalf if you are unable to. To make a request, email us from the address on your account, or from the address you used for the free check. We will reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the data protection authority that applies to you.
Security
Access to the database is restricted so that each account can read only its own workspaces, and data is encrypted in transit and at rest by our hosting provider. No system is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a breach that affects your personal data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.
Children
CiteGaps is a business tool and is not meant for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children.
Changes to this policy
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and, for significant changes, email account holders before the change takes effect.
Contact and grievances
For privacy questions, requests and grievances, contact Mallikharjun:
Email: support@citegaps.com
Address: Hyderabad, India