Privacy notice
Here is a plain account of what reaches me when you contact the site, how I put it to use, and what control you keep over it. This is a one-person audit practice. There is no newsletter pipeline, no sales desk, and no team mailbox passing your details around.
Who is responsible
This site is run by Rowan Vale, who audits how AI shoppers and search systems describe e-commerce brands and their catalogues. For the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and comparable laws, the party answerable for the data described here is the operator of generativeengineoptimization.info. To raise a privacy matter, or to act on one of your rights, write to hello@generativeengineoptimization.info.
What reaches me
When you submit the enquiry form, the following lands in my inbox:
- Your name and email address, so I can reply and address you properly.
- An optional second contact route (phone, LinkedIn, Signal), for the times email is not how you prefer to work.
- Whatever you write about the catalogue problem: the product range, the visibility issue, and the product names, collection URLs, claims, or AI summaries you want looked at. Only name and email are required; everything else is yours to share or hold back.
I use these details for one job: to answer the enquiry you sent. No marketing list is built, your details go to no third party (the single exception is the payment service noted below, and only if a payment is actually taken), and nothing is harvested beyond our own correspondence. Filed alongside the message is the time it arrived and a salted SHA-256 hash of your IP address, which is what blunts automated abuse. The raw IP is never kept, and neither are browser fingerprints or device traits.
What I leave alone
- No tracking cookies. The analytics I use is cookie-free and stores no per-visitor identifier.
- No retargeting pixels, no marketing-automation tags, and no ad-network trackers are wired into the site.
- No automated profiling, and no automated decisions that carry a legal effect for you.
- No selling or sharing of personal information with commercial partners. That is simply not how this audit practice earns its keep.
My legal basis for processing it
Enquiry messages are handled under GDPR art. 6(1)(b), as steps taken at your request before any possible engagement. The IP hash that shields the form from abuse rests on GDPR art. 6(1)(f), a legitimate interest in keeping the form working. Where payment-outcome data exists, it is processed on the contractual basis.
How long it stays
- Enquiry messages: held for the length of the engagement and 24 months afterward, so the trail of the work stays whole, then removed. Enquiries that do not turn into work are held for 12 months and then removed.
- Payment records: held for as long as tax and accounting law demands (often 5–6 years), then removed.
- IP hashes: held for 90 days, which is enough for abuse protection, then removed.
- Email threads: held while we are working together, or for 24 months after our last exchange, whichever runs longer.
Your rights
Under GDPR and similar laws you may ask to see your information, correct it, erase it, take it elsewhere, restrict how it is used, or object to its use. For any of these, write to hello@generativeengineoptimization.info and I will respond within 30 days. If you think the law has been broken, you may complain to your local data-protection authority.
Where the data sits
The servers behind this site sit in European Union (Germany). Should any further processors (email provider) end up outside the European Union, those transfers rely on standard contractual clauses together with the safeguards each one publishes.
Updates to this notice
I update this notice whenever the way I handle data changes in a way that matters. The "Updated" date at the top marks the current version. When a change is material, I flag it on the home page for 30 days so returning readers notice.