Privacy Policy

Effective date: October 16, 2026

The short version

• Your watches, notes, photos and research are private to your account, and nothing from your account is used to research for anyone else.
• I don't sell your data or show ads, and nothing here tracks you across other websites. The public site counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics, which uses no cookies; the app has no analytics.
• A research report shares only what it needs with an AI model and web search. Your email, watch notes and photos stay out.
• You can download your data any time. You can ask to delete your account from the app or by email.

Who I am

I'm Holden Richardson. I run Holden's Watch Desk ("Watch Desk") myself, as a sole proprietor in Michigan, USA. Reach me by email at holden@holdenswatchdesk.com.

This policy covers the Watch Desk app and holdenswatchdesk.com. My YouTube channel and social accounts follow those platforms' policies.

What I collect

Your account. Clerk confirms your email address when you sign up, and I store it with your account. If you sign in with Google, Google shares your name, email and profile picture with Clerk. Watch Desk keeps only your email.

Your desk. Your watches, notes, prices, ratings, rankings, tiers, Grails, buying limit, Buy first settings and any research preferences.

Your photos. Stored privately with your account. Photos can carry hidden details, like where they were taken. The app removes those from every photo before it's stored, and refuses photos that still carry them.

Your research. Each report you run: the watch you asked for, the report and its sources, and a record of the run (when, which AI model, whether it saved, what it cost me, any error). The note you type with a request goes to the AI but isn't stored on my server. Your browser remembers your last request so you can rerun it, and clears it when you sign out.

Plans and credits. Your plan, credit balance and history, and whether you hold a founding place. From Stripe I keep your customer and subscription IDs, status and renewal date. Stripe handles your card; I never see your card number.

Activity log. What changed in your account and when, like "watch added" or "credits granted." Not the content of your notes.

Technical data. Counters that limit how often an account can make requests. Cloudflare, my host, handles your IP address to deliver the site and keeps short-lived request logs. The app itself doesn't store your IP address.

Site visits. holdenswatchdesk.com counts visits with Cloudflare Web Analytics: the pages viewed, how fast they loaded, the site that sent you, and your browser, operating system, device type and country. It uses no cookies or other storage in your browser, doesn't build a profile of you, and doesn't follow you to other websites. The app doesn't use it.

Waitlist. Your email, the date you joined, the page and form you used, any campaign tags in the link that brought you to the site (like utm_source=instagram), and the sentence shown beside the form when you joined. To stop abuse, the waitlist counts sign-up attempts from each IP address. It stores a one-way code made from the address with a secret key, never the address itself, uses it only for that limit, and deletes old counts as new sign-ups arrive.

In your browser. A copy of your desk so it loads quickly, kept per account and cleared when you sign out, plus Clerk's cookies that keep you signed in. On holdenswatchdesk.com, if a link with campaign tags brought you there, the site keeps those tags in that browser tab (session storage, not a cookie) until you close it, so a waitlist sign-up can record where it came from. No advertising or analytics cookies.

How I use it

• To run Watch Desk: show and save your desk, run the research you ask for, and keep your plan and credits right.
• To sign you in and keep accounts separate and secure.
• To bill you through Stripe and answer you when you write.
• To keep things working and fair, with rate limits and daily research caps.
• To set prices from totals, like how many reports ran and what they cost.

I open a particular account only to fix a problem, answer your request, look into abuse, or when the law requires it.

I don't use your data to choose content for my channel, and I'll never show your account, watches or notes in a video or post without your permission.

What a research report shares

Research is the only time your data goes to an AI. For each report, the AI model and its web search receive:

• the watch you asked for and any note you add to the request;
• your research preferences, if you've written any;
• a short summary of the watches you own: brand, model, reference, type, role, whether you're selling it, and any name in its owner field;
• the short IDs of the watches already on your desk, which usually contain their names, so it doesn't add a duplicate.

It doesn't receive your email, your notes on individual watches, your photos, your rankings, or anything from another account.

The AI is told to search for the watch, never for you, and a filter blocks searches and web addresses that contain distinctive words from your preferences, request note or owner names. The filter is a safeguard, not a guarantee, so keep sensitive personal details out of research notes.

The AI reads public web pages to build the report. Those sites see a request from my server, not from you.

Who else handles your data

Each provider gets only what its job needs and handles it under its own privacy terms.

I ask OpenRouter to use only model hosts that say they don't collect your data. OpenRouter says it doesn't store prompts or responses by default; it keeps request details like size and speed, and samples a few prompts, with no link to an account, to categorize usage. The search service may keep queries and use them to improve its service, which is why searches are about the watch, never about you.

Images from other websites. Reports show product photos and video thumbnails from the sites where research found them. Your browser loads those images straight from those sites, which can see your IP address but not which page you were on.

I may also share data when the law requires it, to protect someone's safety, or to stop fraud or abuse. If I ever sell or hand over Watch Desk, I'll tell you before your data moves, so you can delete your account first.

What I don't do

• Sell or rent your data.
• Show ads, or let anyone advertise to you using your data.
• Track you across other websites, or put analytics in the app. The only analytics are the cookie-free visit counts on holdenswatchdesk.com described above.
• Share data between accounts, or use your research, notes or preferences to research for anyone else.
• Train AI models on your data.

How long I keep it

• Your account and desk: while your account is open. Moving to a cheaper plan deletes nothing.
• After you ask me to delete your account: I delete it within 30 days, including your desk, photos, research, history and Clerk sign-in record. Database backups last up to 30 more days.
• Payment records: kept by Stripe and me as tax and accounting law requires.
• Cloudflare request logs: up to 7 days.
• Waitlist: until 6 months after I email you that Watch Desk is open, or sooner if you ask.

Your choices

These apply to everyone, wherever you live.

• Download it. Account, then Download my data, gives you a ZIP file with your watches, notes, sources, preferences and every photo you uploaded.
• Correct it. Edit your desk in the app. To change your email address, email me.
• Delete it. Delete watches and photos in the app any time. To delete your account, use Account, then Delete my account, or email me from its address. I'll cancel any paid plan at the same time. Deleting is permanent, and unused credits are lost.
• Stop paying. Cancel any time under Account, then Manage plan.
• Leave the waitlist. Reply to my email or write to me at holden@holdenswatchdesk.com.

I'll answer within 30 days and may ask you to confirm the request is from you.

Security

Every request is checked against your signed-in session and limited to your own account, and your photos are served only to you. The site and the app run over HTTPS. The app blocks scripts from anywhere but itself and its sign-in provider, and holdenswatchdesk.com blocks scripts from anywhere but itself and Cloudflare's analytics. Card details go to Stripe, never to me.

No system is perfect. If a breach affects your data, I'll tell you promptly and as the law requires.

Children

Watch Desk is for people 18 and older. If I learn that someone younger has an account, I'll delete it.

Where your data is processed

I run Watch Desk from the United States. My providers may process data in the US and other countries.

Do Not Track

Watch Desk doesn't track you across other websites, so a Do Not Track setting changes nothing here.

Changes to this policy

I'll post any new version here with a new effective date, and email account holders at least 30 days before an important change applies.

Contact

Holden Richardson, Holden's Watch Desk
holden@holdenswatchdesk.com

Notices about this policy and your data go by email: I'll write to the address on your account or the one you gave the waitlist, and you can write to holden@holdenswatchdesk.com.