Privacy, clearly.

Who we are

Starling Global is a technology consulting and development studio. For privacy questions, contact [email protected].

When you visit this website

This website does not use advertising trackers or marketing cookies. Fonts and site assets are served from our own domain. Our hosting infrastructure and Cloudflare may process technical information, such as IP addresses, browser details, requested pages, and request timestamps, to deliver and protect the website. Cloudflare also provides the traffic and performance analytics enabled for this domain, which may process page visits, browser details, and performance measurements. Cloudflare may use security-related cookies when needed to protect the service.

When you contact us

When you request a workflow review, project discussion, free written audit or emailed calculator estimate, we store the details you submit in our private studio workspace. These may include your name, email address, selected service, tools, workflow description and calculator inputs and results. We use them to review and respond to that request. These forms do not subscribe you to a mailing list. “Copy request” copies your details to your device clipboard without sending them.

If you email us, we receive the information you choose to share, including your name, email address, and message. We use it to respond to your inquiry and discuss or deliver our services. Your email provider may also process the message under its own privacy terms.

The free business checkup

When you start a checkup at starlingglobal.io/start, or from one of our printed cards, you give us your business website, business phone number or business name, and your name with an email address or mobile number. We use them as follows.

• Your public website. Our server reads the public pages of the website you enter: the home page and up to three pages such as About, Services or Contact. It notes things like whether the site works on phones, offers online booking or payments, and which contact details and social links it shows. It may also request a public speed score from Google PageSpeed Insights.
• Your public Google listing. We look up the business on Google Maps: its name, category, address, phone number, rating, number of reviews and opening hours. We do not request review text.
• Automated first look. This public information goes to an AI service (Anthropic’s Claude), which writes a short summary and suggestions. It is an automated first look. A person at Starling Global goes through it with you before anything is decided.
• What we keep. Your details, the automated result, the services you pick, your notes, and any call you book are stored in our private studio workspace and customer records, so we can follow up. Your checkup link holds a random private token. We store only a one-way fingerprint of it. Your browser keeps the token in local storage so you can come back to your checkup.
• Files and requirements. Files you upload are stored privately on our server, outside the public website. Only Starling Global staff can download them. We accept PDF, PNG, JPG, WebP, TXT, CSV, ZIP, DOCX and XLSX files, and check that each file’s content matches its type.
• Deposits. If you pay a deposit, you enter your payment details with Stripe on Stripe’s own checkout page. We receive the payment status, the amount, the package and your email address, never your card number.
• Email. Booking confirmations, calendar invitations and checkup links are sent through our email provider (SendGrid), with link and open tracking switched off.
• Limits against misuse. We keep a salted one-way fingerprint of your network address, not the address itself, to limit how many checkups can be started in an hour.

Our phone line and text messages

Calls to 1-888-461-GROW, (888) 461-4769, are answered by an AI assistant that runs on AssistCall, the phone receptionist product we build. The greeting tells you that you are speaking with an AI assistant and that the call may be recorded. AssistCall and its telephone and speech providers process the call. The recording, the transcript and a summary are kept in our AssistCall account. The summary, the details you give and any call you book are added to our customer records, so a person can follow up. During a call, the assistant may look up your business’s public website and Google listing, as described above.

We only send a text message if you ask for one during a call and say yes when the assistant asks your permission. Texts carry only what you asked for, such as your checkup, booking, payment or upload link. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, or HELP for help. We do not sell, rent or share mobile phone numbers or text message opt-in data or consent with third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes.

Short links and QR codes

When you open one of our short links or scan a QR code (starlingglobal.io/go/…), we record the visit without cookies: the time, which link, whether it was scanned or typed, the type of device and browser, the approximate country (and city when available) from our network provider, and a salted one-way fingerprint of the network address, never the address itself. We use this only to see which printed materials work.

Calculator and external links

The calculator runs in your browser. Calculating or saving an estimate does not send your inputs to us. If you choose to request the estimate by email, we receive the estimate and your email address so the team can reply. External links, including LinkedIn and our product websites, take you to services with their own privacy terms.

Client and studio workspaces

Accounts, projects, proposals, electronic acceptance records, invoices, payment references, messages, and files are stored to manage our working relationship. Access is restricted by role and client company. Signing records include the document version and fingerprint, signer-supplied name and email, consent, time, and network and browser information. A secure signing link grants access to its specific document; keep it private. Session cookies are used for sign-in, and secure-link tokens may be kept in your browser’s session storage while you use a shared document.

Where online payments are enabled, payment details are entered with Stripe. We store transaction references and payment status, rather than card numbers. Email delivery providers may process invitations and document links when those features are configured. Administrative changes and access events are recorded for accountability.

Retention and sharing

We retain correspondence as needed to manage our relationship, provide our services, and meet applicable obligations. Service providers involved in hosting, security, email, payments (Stripe), AI processing (Anthropic), business listings (Google Maps, through our search provider Serper) and our phone line (AssistCall and its telephone and speech providers) may process information to provide those services. We do not sell personal information.

Your choices

You can browse, calculate and save an estimate without submitting a form. To ask about access to, correction of, or deletion of information you have shared with us, email [email protected]. We will review your request and any applicable requirements.

Updates

We may update this notice as the website or our services change. The date above shows the latest revision.