Privacy Policy

Last updated: (10/25/2026) | Version 1.2

This Privacy Policy explains how 2C Consulting LLC (doing business as Charlie Forêt), operating integrationera.com, charlieforet.com and charliefoxtrotwriter.com (together, the "Site"; "we," "us"), collects, uses, and protects your information. This one policy covers all three sites.

Contact: theintegration@integrationera.com

1. Information We Collect

Information you provide

Account registration: email address, username, password (hashed).
Newsletter signup: email address.
Patron subscription: name, billing address, and payment details. Payment card details are collected and processed by Stripe; we do not store full card numbers. We receive a limited record (last four digits, card brand, expiration) for account management.
Community posts / comments / feedback: any text or files you submit.
Correspondence: content of emails you send us.
Members' tools: if you ask for or are given access to Met Someone, a private notebook for the people you meet, we keep your request and our decision, which version of its terms you accepted and when (not your IP address), your capture keys (stored only in a scrambled form we can't reverse, with a name, a four-character hint and when each was last used), and the captures you send. See "Information members store about other people" below.

Reader programs (beta reading and advance review copies)

Beta reading. If you apply to read an unpublished manuscript, we also collect:

Your application: your answers, your name, and — if you choose to be credited in the book — the name you'd like printed. We record which version of the Beta Reader Agreement you accepted, and when; we do not record your IP address for this.
Approximate country: a two-letter country code worked out from your connection when you apply (see "IP location" in Section 4). We keep only the code, not your IP address.
Your reading: which chapters and paragraphs you have reached, reading-session details (the device type, when a session was last active), and how far each session read, used to show your progress and to protect the unpublished manuscript. The manuscript page shows your name and a copy code faintly on screen.
What you write: notes, discussion posts and feedback answers. Notes you choose to share and your discussion posts are visible to the other readers in your round; private feedback answers are seen only by the author.

Advance review copies. If you sign up for an advance review team ("ARC program"), we also collect:

Your sign-up details: your name; which platforms you can post reviews on; your Amazon storefront and whether you meet Amazon's requirements to post reviews; and, if you choose to give them, links to your reviewer profiles, a short note about yourself, and social media handles.
Your agreement: which version of the ARC Reader Agreement you accepted, and when. We do not record your IP address for this.
Approximate country: when you apply, a two-letter country code worked out from your connection (see "IP location" in Section 4), used only to help us review applications. We keep only the country code, not your IP address.
Your copy: each advance copy is personalised. Your name, email address and a unique copy code are marked in the file, and we record when your copy was prepared and downloaded.
Your reviews: the links to reviews you submit, the platform, the date you posted, and any star rating you give.

Information members store about other people

Members with access to Met Someone can store details of people they meet: what a scanned code or shared web page contained (usually a name, links and contact details), the member's own notes and tags, and a photo if they took one. We receive only text and images. Any speech-to-text happens on the member's phone, and we never receive audio. Photos are stripped of location and other hidden data. We don't use facial recognition or anything else that identifies people from photos.

When a member captures a link, we may open that public page and keep the details we read there: the person's name, a short bio and their links. We read only what anyone could see, and we don't keep their picture. We organise each member's captures into one record per person, with the member's notes, tags and follow-up dates, and members can record the conferences they attend.

We hold this on the member's behalf. Only that member can see it, and we don't use it for our own purposes, share it, sell it, or send it to an AI service. If you think a member holds your details, see Section 8.

Information collected automatically

Log data: IP address, browser type, operating system, referring URLs, pages visited, timestamps.
Reading progress: if you're signed in, which chapters and stories you open, how far you get in each, and when you finish them, whether you read or listen.
Cookies and similar technologies: session cookies for login, and limited analytics cookies (see Section 5).
Device identifiers where applicable.

Information from third parties

Stripe provides payment status, fraud signals, and subscription state.
Hosting and email providers may log delivery and bounce data for transactional emails.

2. How We Use Information

We use your information to:

Operate the Site and deliver Services you request;
Process payments and manage subscriptions (via Stripe);
Authenticate your account and prevent fraud;
Send transactional email (receipts, account notices, password resets);
Send the newsletter or dispatch emails you opted into (you can unsubscribe any time);
Respond to your inquiries and support requests;
Run reader programs you join: review applications, show beta readers the manuscript and record their progress and feedback, deliver your personalised advance copy, send program reminders, record which reviews were posted, and identify the source of a manuscript or copy shared in breach of the program agreement;
Provide private tools to members, such as Met Someone, review requests to use them, and hold what members store in them on their behalf;
Analyze aggregate usage to improve the Site;
See how individual signed-in readers move through serials and stories (for example, which chapters they finish and where they stop), so we can improve the stories and their release schedule. Only site administrators see this;
Comply with legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal information. We do not use your information to train AI models.

3. Legal Bases (for EEA/UK users)

Where GDPR applies, we rely on:

Contract performance for account and subscription management, for reader programs under their agreements, and for members' tools under their terms;
Legitimate interests for security, fraud prevention, site analytics, reviewing reader-program applications, and protecting unreleased books from unauthorised distribution;
Consent for marketing emails and non-essential cookies;
Legal obligation for tax and regulatory records.

For details a member stores about other people, we act on the member's behalf. The member is responsible for having a lawful reason to keep them, and their terms require it.

4. Sharing

We share information only with:

Stripe, Inc. — payment processing and subscription management. Stripe's privacy policy: https://stripe.com/privacy
Hosting, email, storage, and analytics providers acting as our service providers, bound by confidentiality.
IP location: an IP-geolocation service (ipwho.is) receives IP addresses to return an approximate location, which we use for aggregate visitor statistics and, for reader programs, an approximate country.
Legal or regulatory authorities if required by law, court order, or to protect our rights.
Across our own sites. We operate the three sites listed above. Reader-program information is visible to our team whichever of those sites you signed up on. Beyond the service providers listed above, it is not shared outside 2C Consulting LLC. Met Someone captures are the exception: they are visible only to the member who stored them, on the site where they stored them.
Successors in the event of a merger, acquisition, or asset sale (you'll be notified).

Your personalised advance copy contains your name, email address and copy code. If the file is shared, that information goes with it.

5. Cookies

We use:

Essential cookies for login sessions and CSRF protection (cannot be disabled).
Analytics cookies (if enabled) to understand aggregate usage.
Stripe cookies on checkout pages for fraud prevention.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling essential cookies may break login and checkout.

6. Data Retention

Account data: retained while your account is active and deleted when you close it (see "Backups" below), unless longer retention is required for legal or tax purposes.
Activity summary: a summary of your activity on the Site (the days you visited, when you were last signed in, counts of what you read, listened to and downloaded, and your reading progress: which chapters and stories you opened and finished, and how far you got) is kept with your account and deleted with it.
Subscription and payment records: retained as required by tax law (typically 7 years in the US).
Newsletter subscribers: retained until you unsubscribe, plus a short record of the unsubscribe to honor it.
Unconfirmed sign-ups: if you sign up for an account or the newsletter and never confirm your email address, we delete that sign-up 30 days after the last confirmation email we sent you.
Log data: server logs and error reports are kept for a short time, at most 90 days, to fix problems and keep the Site secure. Our page-view records keep the page, the referring page, the time and an approximate location (country and region, never your IP address), and we keep them to produce statistics. If you delete your account, they are kept without your account attached.
Beta reading: your approximate country is deleted when the round starts reading (or closes). Reading-session and reading-activity records are deleted after 12 months. Your application, agreement acceptance, the program's decisions about it, and what you wrote are kept as the record of the round.
Advance review copies: your approximate country is deleted when advance copies are sent out. Your Amazon storefront, social handles, reviewer profile links and note about yourself are deleted 12 months after the program closes. A record of your agreement acceptance, your copy code and its download record, and the review links you submitted are kept, so that a copy shared in breach of the agreement can still be traced and any dispute resolved.
Met Someone: captures, contact records, the conferences a member records, and their photos are kept until the member deletes them or closes their account, when they are deleted at once. If a member loses access, they are kept for 30 days, with two emails and a download link, and then deleted. Access requests and our decisions are kept with the account and deleted with it.
Backups: deleted information can remain in our backups for up to about three months (93 days) before it is gone for good. Backups are used only to recover from accidents.

7. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your information, including HTTPS, hashed passwords, access controls, and reliance on PCI-compliant providers (Stripe) for card data. Capture keys are stored only in a form that can't be turned back into the key, and Met Someone photos are kept in private storage that only their owner can open, through links that expire after a few minutes. No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to:

Access the personal information we hold about you;
Correct inaccurate information;
Delete your information ("right to be forgotten");
Export your information in a portable format;
Object to or restrict certain processing;
Withdraw consent for marketing.

To exercise these rights, email theintegration@integrationera.com from the address on your account. We'll respond within the timeframes required by applicable law (typically 30–45 days).

If you delete your account, your personal details are removed from reader programs too. An advance copy's copy code and download record are kept without your name, for the reason given in Section 6. Deleting your account also deletes your Met Someone list at once, apart from backup copies (Section 6).

If a member holds your details. Met Someone captures belong to the member who made them. We hold them on that member's behalf and don't look at them. If you believe a member holds your details, email us with your name and any email address or web links that would appear in a capture. We'll search for those details only, pass your request to the member who holds them, and delete the details ourselves where the law requires. We'll tell you what we did.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA): You have the right to know what personal information we collect, request deletion, correct inaccuracies, and opt out of any sale or sharing of personal information. We do not sell personal information.

EEA/UK residents (GDPR): You have the rights listed above and may lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority.

9. Children

The Site is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

10. International Transfers

We are based in the United States. If you access the Site from outside the US, your information will be transferred to and processed in the US, which may have different data protection laws than your country.

11. Changes

We may update this Privacy Policy. Material changes will be announced on the Site or by email at least 14 days before taking effect.

12. Contact

2C Consulting LLC (dba Charlie Forêt) theintegration@integrationera.com