Privacy Policy
Effective date: October 2026. Replaces the version dated August 3, 2025.
The short version
- You can read this site without giving us anything. There are no accounts.
- If you take an assessment, we ask for your email address so we can send your result. Your result is sent by email only. It is not shown on screen.
- We keep your email address, your total score, whether you answered for yourself or for someone you care about, your result band (Low, Caution or High, called Strong Attachment on the short quiz), the date, and a record of what you agreed to. We do not keep your answers to individual questions.
- We do not store your IP address in our database.
- After your result email, we send a short series of six follow-up emails over about three weeks. This is the default for everyone who takes an assessment. Every email has an unsubscribe link, and one click stops all of them.
- We do not sell your information. We do not send your result to advertising or analytics tools.
- This site is for adults, 18 and over.
- You can ask us to delete your data at any time: info@theaiaddictioncenter.com.
We cannot promise that nothing will ever go wrong with data held online. The section on security says what we do and what we cannot guarantee.
Who we are
The AI Addiction Center, 175 Commerce Dr, Hauppauge, NY 11788. Phone: +1 (914) 893-2821. Email: info@theaiaddictioncenter.com. The AI Addiction Center is operated from New York, USA.
This policy covers https://theaiaddictioncenter.com, the assessments, and the guides we sell. Our emails are sent from info@theaiaddictioncenter.com.
We are an information site. We are not a healthcare provider. See the HIPAA page and the Medical Disclaimer.
What we collect
When you take an assessment
| What | Why | Kept? |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To send your result, and the follow-up series | Yes (see “How long we keep it”) |
| Which assessment you took, short or full | To score it correctly and word the email | Yes |
| Total score, result band and who the check-in was for | To write your result email; to choose which follow-up emails to send | Yes. We keep only your most recent result |
| The date and time | To manage the email queue and retention | Yes |
| What you agreed to: the version of the consent wording, the time, and the time you were enrolled in the follow-up series | A record of your consent | Yes |
| A random reference code | Added to the link to a guide in your email, so a purchase can be matched to your record | Yes |
| Your answer to each question | Used once, in memory, to work out your total | No. Not saved |
| Your IP address and browser details | Not stored by us (see “Spam protection and logs”) | No |
| Your name or any account details | We do not ask | No |
You must tick a box to confirm you are 18 or older before you can submit. We do not store a separate record of that tick.
When you buy a guide
Purchases are made on Gumroad, not on our site. Gumroad collects your name, email address and payment details and handles the payment. We never see your card number. Gumroad can tell our server when a sale happens. We then store the sale reference, the product, the price and the date, and we link the sale to your assessment record if the reference code or your email address matches. If you buy, we stop the follow-ups so you are not sent offers for something you own. See Gumroad’s own privacy policy for what it keeps.
When you write to us
If you email info@theaiaddictioncenter.com or phone us, we receive your email address or phone number and whatever you tell us. Please do not send medical records or details you would not want kept.
Automatically, when you visit
- Ahrefs Web Analytics loads on every page. According to Ahrefs, it sets no cookies and does not store IP addresses. It counts visits and shows us which pages are read.
- Our own daily page and click counts: how many times each page was opened and how often the quiz and the Gumroad links are used, as totals per day. Each count is a page address or a link name and a number, with no email address, no IP address and no identifier. They run without a cookie and stop if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.
- A daily count of finished assessments, by assessment and band, with no email address and no other identifier. We use it to see how many people use the tool.
- Our own cookie-free visit counts (not sent to anyone): page views, how many different visitors came each day, the country they came from, and which website sent them (the website’s name only, never the page address). To count each visitor once a day we use a scrambled value made from part of the network address, your browser type and a secret that changes daily. We cannot reverse it, and we delete it within 36 hours. We keep only the totals. We do not store your IP address, and nothing is counted if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.
- Google Analytics runs on every page and sets cookies to count visits. See “Cookies and analytics” for how to turn it off.
- Our host, Hostinger, keeps ordinary web server logs that include IP addresses. We do not control these logs and cannot turn them off. Hostinger keeps them under its own schedule.
Anything else
We do not collect names, addresses, health records, medication, diagnoses, insurance details, or location. We do not use ad pixels or social media tracking tags.
Why we use it
- To send you the result you asked for.
- To send the short series of follow-up emails that follows your result email, until you unsubscribe.
- To protect the quiz from misuse (see “Spam protection and logs”).
- To understand, in total numbers, which pages and tools are used, so we can improve them.
- To process refunds, answer questions, and handle your privacy requests.
- To meet legal duties and defend legal claims.
We do not use your result to show you ads, and we do not use it to decide what price you pay.
If you are in the EU, EEA or UK: our legal bases are your consent (the result email and follow-up emails), our legitimate interest in understanding how the site is used and keeping it secure and working (visit counts, Ahrefs and Google Analytics, rate limiting), and legal obligation (records we must keep). You can withdraw consent at any time.
Who handles your data for us
We use these providers. We do not sell your data to anyone.
| Provider | What it does | What it can see |
|---|---|---|
| Hostinger (hosting, database, server logs) | Runs the website and the database where your record is stored | Everything stored in our database, and ordinary server logs |
| Resend (email sending) | Sends our emails: your result email and your follow-up emails. Follow-ups are sent from our own system through Resend | Your email address and the message, which includes your result band |
| Gumroad (purchases) | Sells our guides, collects payment, sends receipts | Your name, email and payment details, and your purchase |
| Ahrefs Web Analytics | Counts visits | Page views without cookies or IP storage, according to Ahrefs |
| Google Analytics | Counts visits, in more detail | On every page. It sets cookies |
| Telegram (internal reports) | Delivers a report of totals to the owner twice a day | Totals only. No email addresses, scores or names |
We may also share information when the law requires it, to respond to valid legal process, to protect safety or prevent fraud, or if you ask us to share it. We would only refer you to a professional with your permission.
These providers handle data under their own terms and privacy policies.
Cookies and analytics
What we set ourselves: no cookies. We set no login, advertising or tracking cookies.
Google Analytics: loads on every page and sets its standard cookies to count visits. We turn off advertising features and Google signals, and IP addresses are anonymised. It is not shown or loaded if your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control. You can also opt out with Google’s browser add-on or block it in your browser.
Ahrefs Web Analytics: loads on every page. According to Ahrefs, it uses no cookies and keeps no IP address. It is also skipped when your browser sends Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control.
Your assessment answers and result are never sent to Google Analytics or to any advertising tool.
You can also block cookies in your browser settings, or opt out of Google Analytics with Google’s browser add-on.
How long we keep it
We delete sooner if you ask.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Email, result band and consent record, while you are on the follow-up list | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete |
| After you unsubscribe | Within 30 days we delete your score and clear your band. We keep your email address and the date you unsubscribed, so that we never email you again by mistake |
| Email-queue records (no answers) | 30 days after they finish |
| Spam-protection counters | 48 hours |
| Visitor-counting scrambled values | 36 hours |
| Anonymous daily totals (counts by day and band, no names or emails) | Kept without a time limit |
| Purchase records on our server (sale reference, product, price, date) | 7 years, for tax and legal reasons. The link to your assessment record is removed if you ask us to delete your data |
| Support email and phone messages | 24 months after the last message |
| Refund correspondence | 7 years |
| Privacy request records | 3 years |
| Google Analytics data | 14 months, the longest standard setting |
| Old WordPress records, kept in a private archive (see “Data from the old version of this site”) | Until you ask us to delete them |
| Resend delivery logs, Hostinger server logs and Gumroad records | Set by each provider |
Your choices and rights
Unsubscribe. Every email we send has an unsubscribe link. Open it and press the button, and all email from us stops. You can also write to info@theaiaddictioncenter.com and we will do it by hand. Unsubscribing stops the follow-up emails we send from our own system.
Delete your data. Write to info@theaiaddictioncenter.com from the address you used, and say “delete my data”. We will delete your record from our database, and confirm by email, within 30 days. We may keep a small suppression entry (your email address and the date) so we never email you again, and any records the law requires (see the table). Copies held by Resend, Gumroad, Hostinger backups and Google follow those providers’ own schedules. We cannot delete your Gumroad account or purchase history. You would ask Gumroad for that.
See, correct or receive a copy. Write to the same address. Because we keep so little, a copy is short: your email, your latest band and score, the date, and what you agreed to.
Withdraw consent for follow-ups at any time, and opt out of analytics as described above. Doing so does not affect what we did before.
EU, EEA and UK residents also have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interest, to restrict processing, to data portability, and to complain to their data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office).
California residents have the right to know, delete, correct, and opt out of sale or sharing of personal information, and not to be treated differently for using these rights. We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context advertising. Residents of other US states with privacy laws can use the same contact route.
We can only act on a request we can match to the address involved. If you write from a different address, we may ask you to confirm by replying from the one in question. Please make privacy requests by email, so we have a record of the address.
The sensitive nature of an assessment result
An assessment result can say something about your wellbeing. We treat it that way. We collect the least we can, we do not keep your answers, we do not use your result for advertising, and we do not give it to analytics tools. Your result does reach the email providers that deliver it (Resend).
Security
The site is served over HTTPS, so information in transit between your browser and our server is encrypted. We limit what we store, and our database sits on a hosting account protected by passwords and access limits.
We do not claim more than that. We cannot promise that data held online is safe from every attack, error or legal order. We cannot promise confidentiality for an email that is sent to you. Email is not a private channel, and anyone with access to your inbox or your device can read it. Your result is in the body of the email. The subject line does not show it. See the HIPAA page for practical tips.
If we learn that a security incident has exposed your personal data, we will notify the people and authorities the law requires, without undue delay.
Spam protection and logs
To stop people from using the quiz to send emails to other people’s addresses, the form has a hidden field that people ignore and bots tend to fill in, and we limit how often one network and one email address can submit. We do this with a scrambled value made from part of the network address and a secret that changes daily. We cannot reverse it, and we delete it within 48 hours. We do not store your IP address in our database. Our host, Hostinger, keeps ordinary server logs that include IP addresses (see above).
Data from the old version of this site
Before the current version of this site, the assessments ran on a different system. That system stored your email address, your IP address, your browser details and your answers in the site’s old database and in the form tool it used. It passed some of that to the automation service Make.com, and it sent an internal alert message for each submission that included the email address, score, page and IP address. The new site does not store IP addresses, browser details or individual answers.
The records from that system (email addresses and scores) are kept in a private archive. We do not use them to send email and we do not use them for marketing. We have not added these people to any list and we will not email them. We only count them toward the public number of completed assessments, which is a fixed figure that we set ourselves. No addresses were copied into the new site.
If you took an assessment on the old site and want your old data deleted, write to info@theaiaddictioncenter.com and we will delete it. Copies held by outside services that ran the old site follow those services’ own schedules.
Children
This site and its assessments are for people 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. Some pages are written for parents. They are for adults reading about a child, and they do not collect a child’s information. If we learn that we hold information from someone under 18, we will delete it. If you are under 18 and worried about your AI use, talk to a parent, carer or another adult you trust. Crisis lines are on the Medical Disclaimer.
International visitors
We are based in the United States, and our hosting and email providers may process data in the United States and in other countries. Privacy laws there may differ from the laws where you live. The site is aimed at a US audience, but it is read in many countries, and the EU and UK rights above apply to you if you live there.
Changes to this policy
When we change this policy, we post the new version with a new effective date at the top. If a change is material, we will also tell subscribers by email. You can ask us for an earlier version.
Contact
- The AI Addiction Center
- 175 Commerce Dr, Hauppauge, NY 11788
- Phone: +1 (914) 893-2821
- Email: info@theaiaddictioncenter.com