Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 15, 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how Notewares LLC ("Echinos", "we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, stores, and shares information when you create or use an Echinos business account or use the Echinos websites and software at echinos.co and echinos.app.

In this Privacy Policy, "you" and "your" refer to the business, business owner, or authorized business user using Echinos. "Customers" or "your customers" refers to people who use Echinos to submit feedback to your business or communicate with your business.

Echinos provides businesses with software that allows their customers to voluntarily submit feedback and, when they choose, communicate directly with the business.

1. We do not sell messages or contact information

Customer messages and correspondence, as well as business and customer contact information, are not sold, licensed, or otherwise monetized by Echinos.

We do not share this information with third parties for their advertising or marketing purposes.

2. Information we collect

Business account information

When you create or use an Echinos business account, we may collect information necessary to create, maintain, secure, and administer your account.

This may include information such as:

• account and login information;
• business name or business alias;
• business location information;
• business contact information;
• customer-facing contact information that you provide;
• subscription and account status information; and
• information necessary to provide and support the Echinos software.

Information from your customers

When your customers use Echinos to submit feedback, Echinos processes information necessary to receive, store, and display that feedback and, when applicable, allow you and the customer to communicate through Echinos.

The information associated with customer feedback depends on whether the customer chooses Stealth Mode or Kinda Brave Mode, as described below.

Customer feedback and messages

Your customers may voluntarily use an Echinos QR code or related Echinos page to submit feedback directly to your business.

Stealth Mode

Stealth Mode allows a customer to send feedback without associating the message with an Echinos customer account.

When a Stealth Mode message is submitted, Echinos does not associate a user account identifier with the message. You cannot reply to that customer through Echinos.

Echinos may use short-lived technical information, including an essential cooldown cookie, to enforce message-frequency limits, protect the service from abuse, and maintain the security and availability of the platform. This technical information is not provided to your business as customer contact information.

Kinda Brave Mode

Kinda Brave Mode allows a customer and your business to communicate through Echinos.

Customers must be signed in to an Echinos customer account to initiate a Kinda Brave conversation. Echinos internally associates the conversation with the customer's account so that the customer can access and participate in the conversation.

Your business is shown an automatically generated alias rather than the customer's account identifier. This alias is used to identify the conversation within Echinos.

You may be able to read messages on your Echinos chat page for at least one year, provided you have not deleted the conversation and your business account remains active.

You may be able to reply to the customer through your Echinos chat page for at least one year, provided neither party has deleted the conversation and your business account remains active.

After one year, associated information may be permanently deleted from our systems, at which point you will no longer be able to contact the customer through that conversation.

If a conversation is deleted, you will no longer be able to use that conversation to contact the customer through Echinos.

Emailing a business

Echinos may provide customers with the option to contact your business by email. When a customer chooses this option, Echinos may open the customer's email application and populate the recipient field with the email address your business has provided.

The email is composed and sent through the customer's email application and email service, rather than through Echinos. Echinos does not receive or store the contents of an email merely because the customer uses this feature to open their email application.

Emails sent in this manner are subject to the practices and policies of the customer's email provider and your business's email provider.

3. How we use information

We use information collected through Echinos as necessary to operate and maintain the software, including to:

• create and maintain Echinos accounts;
• authenticate users and secure account access;
• provide customer feedback and communication features;
• display information about your business to customers using Echinos and enable customer-initiated contact features, including opening a customer's email application with your business email address populated;
• maintain your subscription and account access;
• provide customer support;
• operate, secure, troubleshoot, and maintain the software;
• enforce message-frequency and other anti-abuse limits;
• prevent misuse, fraud, and security incidents; and
• comply with applicable legal obligations.

4. Service providers

We may share information with third-party service providers when reasonably necessary to operate, secure, maintain, and support Echinos.

These providers may include companies that provide:

• cloud hosting and infrastructure;
• payment and subscription services;
• security and fraud-prevention services;
• email or communications infrastructure; and
• other technical services necessary to operate Echinos.

These service providers may process information in connection with providing their services to us and are subject to their applicable contractual and legal obligations.

5. Payments and billing

Echinos uses ... as its Merchant of Record for subscription purchases. ... processes payments and manages related billing, tax, and transaction matters in accordance with its own terms and privacy policy. When you purchase an Echinos subscription, ... may collect and process payment, billing, tax, transaction, and related information. Echinos does not receive or store your complete payment card information. We may receive information about your subscription, payment status, and transactions as necessary to provide and manage your Echinos account.

6. Cookies and similar technologies

Echinos uses cookies and similar browser technologies where necessary to operate, secure, and protect the service.

Cookies may be used for account authentication, security, session management, and other core application functionality.

The customer feedback application also uses short-lived cooldown cookies to limit how frequently new Stealth Mode and Kinda Brave feedback can be submitted. These cookies help prevent abuse and excessive message submissions.

If Echinos introduces optional analytics, advertising, or other non-essential cookies, this Privacy Policy and any applicable cookie controls may be updated accordingly.

7. Data retention

We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide Echinos, maintain accounts, support the functionality described in this policy, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce our agreements, and protect the security and integrity of our systems.

Stealth Mode feedback is retained for at least one year unless deleted earlier by the business owner. Businesses and customers may communicate through a Kinda Brave conversation for at least one year, provided neither party has deleted the conversation. If either party deletes a Kinda Brave conversation, neither party can send additional messages through it. However, the party that did not delete the conversation may continue to read it for at least one year, provided it remains available in our system. After one year, feedback and conversations may be permanently deleted from our systems.

When a business's subscription and any remaining additional access credit expire, its Echinos QR codes stop accepting customer feedback, and the business loses access to its Echinos account. Existing feedback and conversations may remain stored in accordance with our data retention practices. If the business resubscribes, access to its account and any retained messages will be restored.

Different retention periods may apply to account, subscription, security, transaction, backup, and other operational records where reasonably necessary or legally required.

8. Data security

We use procedures and security measures intended to protect information handled by Echinos.

However, no method of transmitting information over the Internet or storing information electronically can be guaranteed to be completely secure. We therefore cannot guarantee the absolute security of information transmitted to or stored by Echinos.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Echinos account credentials and for taking reasonable steps to prevent unauthorized access to your account.

9. Legal disclosures

We may preserve, use, or disclose information when we reasonably believe doing so is necessary to comply with applicable law, legal process, or a valid request from a government or law-enforcement authority.

We may also use or disclose information where reasonably necessary to investigate fraud, abuse, security incidents, or violations of our terms, or to protect the rights, safety, and security of Echinos, our users, or others.

10. Your responsibilities for customer information

Echinos provides software that allows your business to receive feedback and communications initiated by your customers.

You are responsible for using information made available to your business through Echinos in accordance with applicable law and the Echinos terms of use.

Echinos must not be used to send unsolicited marketing communications, manipulate public reviews or ratings, or selectively direct customers to public review platforms based on whether their experience or feedback is positive or negative.

11. Your choices and privacy rights

You may update certain account and business information through your Echinos account.

Depending on where you live, applicable privacy law may provide rights concerning your personal information, which may include rights to request access, correction, or deletion of certain information.

Where such rights apply, you may contact us to make a privacy-related request. We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling certain requests.

We will review and respond to privacy-related requests in accordance with applicable law. Some information may need to be retained for legal, security, or other permitted purposes.

Customers who have questions about personal information processed through Echinos may also contact us at the email address provided below.

12. Children's privacy

Echinos is a business feedback platform and is not designed or intended specifically for children.

13. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes to Echinos, our business practices, legal requirements, or the service providers we use.

When we make changes, we will update the "Last updated" date shown at the top of this policy.

14. Contact us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, questions about how Echinos handles information, or would like to make a privacy-related request, please contact:

Notewares LLC / Echinos
Email: support@echinos.co