Privacy Policy

This policy explains how FounderDuels (“we”, “us”) collects and uses personal data when you visit founderduels.com, create an account, compete, vote, enter a competition, buy a product or contact us. We collect only what we need to run a fair competition platform, and we never sell personal data.

We don't use advertising networks or third-party tracking scripts, and we don't build advertising profiles.

FounderDuels is a public competition platform, so much of what you do here is visible to anyone:

• your name, username, photo, headline, bio, startups and verification status;
• your Founder Rating, rank, record, streaks, achievements and competition history;
• your duels, entries (once voting opens), results, rating changes and comments.

Never public: your email address, how you voted in a particular duel, anti-abuse signals, and payment details. In your privacy settings you can hide your country, social links and rating history, and choose whether your profile appears in search.

• Providing the service you signed up for: your account, profile, duels, votes, ratings, competitions and purchases.
• Legitimate interests in keeping results fair and accounts secure (anti-abuse signals, security logs, moderation) and in improving the product (usage counts). We balance these against your rights.
• Consent for marketing emails, which you can withdraw at any time.
• Legal obligations, such as keeping payment records.

We send emails you need, such as verification links, password resets, receipts and account notices. Other notifications, like invitations, reminders, results, rating changes, achievements and competition news, can be switched on or off by category in your notification settings. Every optional email has a one-click unsubscribe link.

Marketing emails are off unless you opt in. If a founder challenges you by email before you've joined, we send that invitation on their behalf and use your address only for that challenge.

We share personal data only with service providers who help us run FounderDuels, under contracts that limit how they can use it:

• Stripe, for payments and subscriptions;
• our email delivery provider, to send the emails described above;
• our hosting and infrastructure providers, which store and serve the platform.

We may disclose data when the law requires it, to protect people from harm, or to protect the integrity of the platform. If FounderDuels is ever involved in a merger or acquisition, data may transfer as part of it, and this policy will continue to apply to it.

We use two cookies: a session cookie that keeps you signed in, and an anonymous voter cookie set only when you vote without an account in a duel that allows public voting. There are no advertising or analytics cookies. See the Cookie Policy for details.

• Account and profile data while your account is open.
• When you close your account, your profile is hidden immediately and duels you're in that haven't finished are cancelled. You can restore the account by logging in within 30 days. After that, your personal data is anonymised and your email address is released so it can be used again.
• Results, votes and rating history are kept after closure because they form part of other founders' records and the integrity of past results. They're no longer linked to your profile.
• Banned accounts: we keep only a keyed hash of the email address, so it can't be used to sign up again.
• Payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Sessions expire 30 days after you were last active. Records used to count duel views are deleted after 2 days.
• Security and audit logs for as long as needed to investigate abuse and protect the platform.

Depending on where you live, you have rights over your personal data. On FounderDuels you can:

• Access and export your data as a downloadable file from your account settings. It includes your account, profile, startups, duels and entries, votes, comments, notifications, achievements, reports, payments and subscriptions.
• Correct your profile at any time, or ask us to fix anything you can't edit.
• Delete your account from your settings, as described above.
• Object or restrict certain uses, and withdraw consent to marketing emails.

To exercise a right that isn't available in your settings, email [email protected]. We may need to confirm your identity first. You can also complain to your local data protection authority.

Passwords are hashed with a modern algorithm designed for passwords, sessions use secure, HTTP-only cookies, the site is served over HTTPS, uploaded images are re-encoded to strip hidden metadata, and administrative actions are logged. No system is perfectly secure, so if you think your account has been compromised, change your password and contact us.

FounderDuels isn't for anyone under 16, and we don't knowingly collect their data. If you believe a child has an account, contact us and we'll remove it.

Our service providers may process data in countries other than yours. Where that happens, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses, to protect it.

We'll update this policy when our practices change. For significant changes, we'll tell you by email or in the app before they take effect.