Privacy Policy

Melsmark, LLC ("Melsmark," "we," "us," or "our") is a creative design studio based in East Bethel, Minnesota. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect through melsmark.art (the "Site"), how we use it, and the choices you have.

We keep this simple: nobody pays us for your personal information, and what you submit through the Site is used to review and quote your project and to communicate with you about it. The Site does run advertising and analytics tools that share some information with Google and Meta, and the sections below spell out exactly what.

Information We Collect

Information you provide. When you submit our contact or quote form, we collect your first and last name, your email address, and any optional phone number, company name, service of interest, and project details you choose to share. If you email, call, or text us, we receive whatever information you include.

Information collected automatically. Like most websites, we use Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, which set cookies and collect standard usage data such as your IP address, browser and device type, pages you visit, and how you arrived at the Site. This helps us understand how the Site is used and improve it. We also run the Meta Pixel for advertising, which collects similar usage data and, when you submit a form, a hashed version of the contact details you entered. The Advertising section below explains that in full.

Information submitted to the AI Readability Check. When you use our AI Readability Check tool, we collect the website address you submit, the results we generate for it, and any answers you give to the optional questions. If you ask us to send you the prioritized fix list, we also collect your email address. See the section on that tool below for details on how it works.

How We Use Your Information

• To review, prepare, and send project quotes and estimates
• To respond to your inquiries and communicate with you about your project
• To provide, maintain, and improve the Site and our services
• To keep records of our business communications
• To comply with legal obligations and protect our rights

We do not add you to marketing lists without your consent. One exception to note on advertising: with Meta's advanced matching enabled, a hashed fingerprint of the contact details you submit is sent to Meta so it can measure which ads produced an inquiry. The Advertising section below explains exactly what that means.

The AI Readability Check Tool

Our AI Readability Check at /ai-readability-check is a free tool that looks at a website you submit and reports how readable it is to AI systems. Because it involves sending information to a third party, we want to be specific about what happens.

What we fetch. When you submit a website address, our server requests a small number of publicly available pages from that site, the same way a search engine crawler would. Our crawler identifies itself honestly as MelsmarkAuditBot and does not attempt to disguise itself as a browser. We do not log in, we do not access anything behind a password, and nothing in your browser contacts the site you are checking.

What we send to Anthropic. One of the twelve checks asks whether your pages answer their question early. To assess that, we send short excerpts of the public text from up to four of those pages to Anthropic's Claude API, along with the page addresses and titles. We do not send your email address, your name, or any information about you personally. Anthropic processes this to return the assessment and, under its commercial terms, does not use API inputs to train its models. If you would rather not have this happen, do not submit a site to the tool.

What we store if you only run the check. We store the result against the website's hostname for up to twenty four hours so that repeat checks return instantly instead of refetching the site, and it is deleted after that. We keep a short-lived record of request counts tied to your IP address in order to enforce rate limits and prevent abuse. Running the check on its own does not ask for your name or email, and we do not attach the result to you.

What we store if you ask for the fix list. Requesting the fix list is different, and it is worth being clear about. Along with your name and email, we keep a copy of the full result the tool showed you, including every item you passed and did not pass, and Mel receives that same copy by email. We need it for longer than twenty four hours because a person reads it and writes your fix list from it, so it is retained as a business inquiry on the same basis as any other message you send us, not on the twenty four hour cache schedule. You can ask us to delete it at any time.

What you are confirming. By submitting a website address, you are confirming that you own that website or are otherwise authorized to request an analysis of it.

Emails you will receive. When you request the fix list you are agreeing to receive email from info@melsmark.art about that request, which means your fix list and any follow-up about your website. That is the extent of it. We will not add you to a mailing list without asking separately, and if we ever offer one it will be a checkbox that is unchecked by default with an unsubscribe link in every send.

We Do Not Sell Your Information

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. Nobody pays us for it and we do not hand your details to data brokers or list sellers.

One clarification worth making plainly, because some privacy laws use these words in a specific way. Because the Site runs the Meta Pixel with advanced matching, described under Advertising below, information about your visit and a scrambled fingerprint of the contact details you submit are passed to Meta for advertising purposes. Under laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, that can count as "sharing" for cross-context behavioral advertising, and some interpretations treat it as a "sale" even though no money changes hands. We would rather say so than rely on a technicality.

You can opt out at any time by blocking the pixel with a content blocker or your browser's cookie settings, by adjusting your Facebook ad preferences, or by emailing us at info@melsmark.art and asking. Nothing on the Site stops working if you do.

Service Providers

We rely on a small number of trusted third-party providers to operate the Site and our business. They process information only as needed to provide their services to us:

• Vercel — website hosting
• Neon — database hosting for form submissions
• Resend — delivery of notification emails to us
• Google (Tag Manager and Analytics) — website analytics
• Anthropic — AI analysis of public page excerpts for the AI Readability Check only
• Meta (Facebook) — advertising measurement and audiences via the Meta Pixel

These providers maintain their own privacy practices. We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect our legal rights.

Advertising

The Site uses the Meta Pixel, which sets cookies and reports to Meta that a browser visited a page here, along with standard information such as IP address, browser, and device type. We also report when someone completes a form, so we can tell which ads produce genuine inquiries rather than only clicks. Meta may use this to show you our ads elsewhere and to build audiences of people who behave similarly.

Advanced matching. The pixel has Meta's automatic advanced matching enabled. When you submit a form on the Site, it reads the contact details you entered, currently your name, email address, and phone number, converts each into a scrambled fingerprint using a one-way process called hashing, and sends those fingerprints to Meta alongside the event. The plain text values are not sent.

Hashing is not the same as anonymizing, and we would rather be straight with you about that. Meta compares the fingerprint against its own records, so if the email you gave us is the email on your Facebook account, Meta can recognize that the two are the same person. That matching is the entire purpose of the feature: it lets us see which ads actually produced an inquiry, and it lets us reach people similar to those who did.

If you would rather not participate, a content blocker or your browser's cookie settings will stop the pixel from loading, and your Facebook ad preferences let you limit how Meta uses activity from other websites. Everything on the Site, including every form, works normally either way. You can also contact us to ask what we hold about you and to have it deleted.

Cookies and Analytics

The Site uses cookies through Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics, and the Meta Pixel. You can control cookies through your browser settings, and you can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Blocking cookies will not affect your ability to submit the contact form.

Data Retention

We keep contact submissions and related communications for as long as needed to evaluate and quote your project, provide our services, and maintain reasonable business records. You may ask us to delete your information at any time (see Your Choices and Rights below).

For the AI Readability Check specifically: cached audit results expire automatically after twenty four hours, and the request counts we keep for rate limiting expire within hours. If you asked for a fix list, your name, email, and the full result are kept for longer, because they are what we work from to write it. That inquiry is retained on the same basis as any other contact submission, and you can ask us to delete it at any time.

Data Security

We take reasonable measures to protect the information we collect. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, however, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Your Choices and Rights

You may contact us at info@melsmark.art to:

• Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• Ask us to correct or update it
• Ask us to delete it

Depending on where you live, including if you are a Minnesota resident, you may have additional rights regarding your personal information. We honor these requests as required by applicable law, and we will not discriminate against you for exercising them.

Children's Privacy

The Site is intended for businesses and adults. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us information, please contact us and we will delete it.

Links to Other Sites

The Site may link to third-party websites, such as our social media profiles. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Last updated" date above, and significant changes will be reflected on this page.

Contact Us

Melsmark, LLC East Bethel, MN Email: info@melsmark.art Phone: 612-431-5643