Introduction
Five Sparks LLC ("Five Sparks," "we," "us," or "our") operates MeridianSpark, including the MeridianSpark website, mobile experiences, and related online services (collectively, the "Service").
In this Privacy Policy, "MeridianSpark" refers to the product and Service; "we," "us," and "our" refer to Five Sparks LLC as the company responsible for your personal information.
This Privacy Policy applies to visitors, registered users, newsletter subscribers, and customers who purchase prepaid access through MeridianSpark.
By using the Service, you agree to this Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
Information We Collect
Account information
When you create an account, we collect your email address and a password (stored as a one-way hash—we never store your plain-text password).
If you sign in with Google, we receive your email address and may receive your display name and profile image from Google, according to your Google account settings and the permissions you grant.
- Optional at signup. Whether you want to receive marketing or product-update emails (marketing opt-in).
- Signup source (first visit). If you register within 30 days of your first visit, we may store how you reached MeridianSpark (for example direct visit, search engine, social link, campaign UTM parameters, or a first-party promo partner link) on your user record for internal product analytics. We do not use third-party advertising or behavioral analytics cookies.
Subscription and billing information
When you purchase prepaid access, we record subscription status, plan type, access period dates, and Stripe identifiers in our database. We also store invoice summaries such as amount, currency, status, and links to hosted receipts.
Payment card numbers and full payment credentials are processed by Stripe. We do not store your full card number in our database. When you view saved payment methods on your account page, we retrieve limited card metadata (such as brand, last four digits, and expiration) from Stripe.
Newsletter and marketing email
If you subscribe to our newsletter from the homepage, we collect your email address only after you provide explicit consent via the consent checkbox.
If you opt in during account registration, we may add your email to our marketing list and record that preference on your user profile.
We keep subscription status (active or unsubscribed), how you joined (homepage, signup, or account settings), and timestamps related to subscribe and unsubscribe events.
Saved projects (signed-in users only)
When you are signed in, you may save (bookmark) published projects to your workspace. We store that saved flag linked to your account and the project. Saving does not unlock the handbook or change your membership. This information is private to you and is not published on public project pages, sitemaps, or search snippets.
Contact form
When you submit the Contact Us form on MeridianSpark, we collect your email address, optional name, category, subject, and message so we can respond to your inquiry.
We may store a one-way hash derived from your IP address and a truncated browser user-agent string to detect abuse and rate-limit automated submissions. We do not publish contact submissions on public pages, sitemaps, or AI crawler summaries.
We deliver your message to our support team using our email provider (Resend). General support is also available at support@5sparks.ai.
Public social media replies (operator analytics)
When we publish MeridianSpark-related posts on public social platforms (starting with X), our operators may use the platform’s official APIs to retrieve our own recent posts and publicly visible replies for internal review and sentiment analysis.
That data may include public reply text and public profile fields such as display name and username. It is stored for operator use only, is not shown on public MeridianSpark pages, and is not used to build advertising profiles. Reply text may be sent to our AI providers solely to classify or summarize sentiment for operators.
Automatically collected information
Like most websites, our hosting provider may process standard server logs (such as IP address, browser type, referring URL, and timestamps) for security, reliability, and troubleshooting.
We do not use third-party advertising networks or behavioral analytics SDKs in the application today.
How We Use Information
Legal bases (for users in the European Economic Area, UK, and Switzerland): we process personal data to perform our contract with you (account and paid access), based on your consent (marketing email), and where necessary for our legitimate interests (security, fraud prevention, and improving reliability), balanced against your rights.
- Provide the Service. Create and secure your account, authenticate you, deliver project-page and handbook access according to your plan, and maintain your saved projects.
- Process payments. Complete checkout, mirror prepaid access periods, show billing history, and send transactional billing emails (such as payment confirmations or access-ending reminders).
- Send marketing communications. With your consent, send newsletters and product updates. You may withdraw consent at any time via unsubscribe links or your account settings.
- Send transactional emails. Deliver non-marketing messages necessary for the Service, including welcome or resubscribe confirmations, unsubscribe confirmations, and billing notices.
- Protect the Service. Detect abuse, enforce access rules, and maintain the security and integrity of our systems.
- Respond to support inquiries. Read and reply to messages you send through the Contact Us form or to our support email.
- Generate research content. Our automated research pipeline creates published project pages and handbooks. It does not use your personal information as input.
Marketing Communications
We send marketing or product-update emails only to addresses on our active marketing list. Joining the list requires your opt-in consent (homepage checkbox or registration checkbox).
Every marketing email includes a way to unsubscribe. You may also manage marketing preferences from your account when signed in.
Even if you unsubscribe from marketing, we may still send transactional emails related to your account or prepaid access (for example, billing receipts or legally required notices).
Research Content vs. Your Data
MeridianSpark publishes project pages (previews) and paid handbooks to help students plan independent work. That content is generated by our internal research pipeline and is separate from your personal account data.
Your saved-project choices are stored privately for your account. Aggregated save counts may be used internally for product operations; we do not publish per-user saved lists on public pages.
Children's Privacy
MeridianSpark is designed for college-bound high school students and the adults who support them (parents, guardians, and mentors).
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 without appropriate parental involvement. If you believe a child under 13 has provided personal information without consent, contact us and we will take appropriate steps.
Users under 18 should use the Service with guidance from a parent, guardian, or educator.
International Transfers
Five Sparks LLC operates MeridianSpark from the United States. If you access the Service from outside the United States, your information may be processed in the United States and other countries where our service providers operate.
Where required by applicable law (including the GDPR), we rely on appropriate safeguards for cross-border transfers, such as Standard Contractual Clauses or equivalent mechanisms offered by our processors.
Your Privacy Rights
All users
- Access and update. Sign in to view subscription and marketing-email status on your account page. Profile fields from Google reflect your Google profile.
- Marketing opt-out. Use unsubscribe links in emails or account settings to stop marketing messages.
- Deletion requests. Email us at privacy@5sparks.ai to request account deletion. Self-service account deletion is not yet available in the product.
European Economic Area, UK, and Switzerland
Depending on your location, you may have the right to access, rectify, erase, restrict, or object to certain processing, and to data portability. Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw consent at any time without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
You may lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. We encourage you to contact us first so we can address your concern.
California residents (CCPA/CPRA)
California residents may have the right to know what personal information we collect, use, and disclose; to request deletion of personal information; to correct inaccurate personal information; and to not be discriminated against for exercising privacy rights.
We do not sell or share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising as defined under California law.
To exercise California privacy rights, email privacy@5sparks.ai with enough information for us to verify your request. You may designate an authorized agent where permitted by law.
Data Retention
- Account data. Kept while your account is active. If you request deletion, we will delete or anonymize personal data subject to legal and operational requirements.
- Marketing list. If you unsubscribe, we retain your email with an unsubscribed status to honor your preference and maintain audit records.
- Billing records. Retained as needed for accounting, tax, and dispute resolution, and as mirrored from Stripe.
- Email send logs. Retained for operational and deliverability review unless a shorter period is required by policy.
- Saved projects. Retained while your account is active. If you request account deletion, saved-project records tied to your account are removed with it.
- Contact form submissions. Retained for about 12 months for support continuity and abuse prevention, then deleted or anonymized, unless a longer period is required for an ongoing dispute or legal obligation.
Security
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information, including hashed passwords, HTTPS in production, server-side access controls for paid content, and restricted access to production credentials.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.
Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when it was last revised.
If we make material changes, we will provide additional notice as appropriate (for example, by email or a prominent notice on the Service).
Contact Us
Questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices may be directed to:
Email: privacy@5sparks.ai
Five Sparks LLC (operator of MeridianSpark)
For general product, account, or billing questions, use the Contact Us form at /contact or email support@5sparks.ai.