Sously is a chat assistant that food bloggers install on their own websites. This policy explains what we collect from bloggers who subscribe, what we handle on behalf of their readers, and who we share it with.
On this page
Who we are
Sously ("Sously", "we", "us") is operated by AE Labs LLC, a limited liability company registered in Illinois, United States. We are the data controller for information about bloggers who subscribe to our service.
Where Sously runs on a blogger's website and handles questions from their readers, the blogger is the controller of that reader data and we act as their processor, following their instructions.
Information we collect
From bloggers who subscribe
- Account details — name, email address, and the web address of the blog you install Sously on.
- Billing information — handled by our payment processor. We receive confirmation of payment and the last four digits of the card; we never see or store full card numbers.
- Blog content — the recipes, posts, and (if you enable it) the comment archive that Sously indexes so it can answer questions about your site.
- Usage data — which features you use, how many questions your readers ask, and error logs.
From people who contact us
- What you send the form — your name, email address, the address of your blog, which plan interests you, and anything you write in the message box.
- We use it to reply to you and to set Sously up if you go ahead. We do not add you to a mailing list.
From readers who use the widget
- Question content — the messages a reader types into Sously, and the answers we return.
- Page context — which recipe page the conversation happened on.
- Technical data — IP address, browser type, and a session identifier, used for security, abuse prevention, and rate limiting.
We do not ask readers to create an account, and we do not require them to give us their name or email address to use the widget.
Reader conversations
Readers can type anything into a chat box, including things we never asked for. Please do not enter sensitive personal information — health conditions, allergies tied to your identity, financial details — into the Sously widget. If you do, it is processed as part of the conversation and stored under the retention rules in section 8.
Bloggers: if you enable comment-history learning, you are instructing us to process the comments your readers have already left on your site. Make sure your own privacy policy covers that.
How we use information
- To provide the service — indexing your recipes and answering your readers' questions.
- To bill you and manage your subscription.
- To monitor for abuse, spam, and excessive usage.
- To diagnose faults and improve reliability.
- To send service messages about your account. Marketing email only with your consent, and you can opt out at any time.
We do not sell personal information. We do not use your blog content to train our own models, and we do not share one blogger's content with another.
AI processing and model providers
Sously generates answers using a third-party large language model. To produce an answer, we send the model the reader's question, relevant excerpts from your recipes, and the conversation so far.
Our model provider is Anthropic, which operates Claude. Anthropic's Commercial Terms of Service state that Anthropic may not train its models on customer content submitted through its API, and that the customer retains rights to its inputs and owns its outputs. Their handling of that data is governed by Anthropic's Commercial Terms and Privacy Policy, which we do not control and which may change.
AI-generated answers can be wrong. Sously's answers about substitutions, scaling, allergens, and food safety are suggestions, not professional advice — see the Terms of Service for the full disclaimer.
Who we share information with
We share information with service providers who help us run Sously, each bound by contract to protect it:
- Hosting and content delivery — Vercel
- AI model inference — Anthropic
- Payment processing — Stripe
- Webfonts — Google Fonts, which receives your IP address when a page loads
- Email delivery — Resend, which carries messages you send us through the contact form. We do not send bulk or marketing email.
- Analytics — none. We do not measure visitors.
We may also disclose information where required by law, to enforce our terms, or as part of a merger or acquisition — in which case we will tell you before your information becomes subject to a different policy.
Cookies and local storage
Sously sets no cookies. Neither this website nor the widget uses cookies, local storage, session storage, or any other identifier stored on your device. A reader's conversation is held in the page's memory while the tab is open and is gone once it is closed or reloaded.
We run no analytics and no advertising. There is no cookie banner on this site because there are no cookies to consent to.
One third party does see something. Our pages load their typefaces from Google Fonts, so Google receives your IP address as part of serving those files. No cookie is set for it.
How long we keep information
- Account and billing records — for the life of your subscription, then seven years, which is the outside range US tax rules expect.
- Indexed blog content — until you remove the widget or ask us to delete it.
- Reader conversations — 90 days, then deleted or anonymised.
- Server logs — 30 days.
Your rights
Several US states give residents privacy rights, and the list is growing. Rather than track which ones you qualify for, we extend the same rights to everyone: you may ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, and ask us to stop using it.
If you are in California, you may also request disclosure of the categories of personal information we collect, and opt out of "sharing" as the CPRA defines it. We do not sell personal information, and we will not treat you differently for exercising any right.
To exercise a right, email hello@sously.chat. We respond within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can raise it with your state attorney general.
If your question is about a conversation you had with Sously on someone else's blog, contact that blogger first — they control that data, and we will help them respond.
Security
We use encryption in transit (HTTPS), restrict internal access to what each person needs, and keep API credentials on our servers, never in the browser. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach affects your personal information we will notify you and any required regulator without undue delay.
Children
Sously is a business tool for website owners and is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has provided information through the widget, email us and we will delete it.
Where your information is processed
AE Labs LLC operates from the United States, and our service providers process information there. Sously is offered to customers in the United States only, and we do not currently onboard bloggers in the UK or the European Economic Area.
Readers of a customer's blog may of course be anywhere. If a reader outside the United States uses the widget, their question is processed in the United States, where privacy law may differ from their own.
Changes to this policy
We will update this page when our practices change and revise the date at the top. For material changes affecting subscribers, we will email you at least 14 days before they take effect.
Contact us
Questions, requests, or complaints: hello@sously.chat, or write to AE Labs LLC, Illinois, United States.