Soft Systems Studio

Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 2026

This page says what actually happens to your information when you use this site or work with us. No boilerplate, just what's true.

“We” means Soft Systems Studio LLC, an Alabama limited liability company based in Smiths Station, Alabama. Austin Hodges runs it. This policy covers this site, the quote sign-up, questionnaire and previews at tool.softsystemsstudiollc.com, and the information we handle while we build or look after a client's site.

Asking for a quote

“Get a quote” takes you to a short sign-up form on our own tool. It asks for your name, business name, email, phone number, what kind of site you're after, and when. We then email you a private link to a longer questionnaire about your business. The link is how you get back into it, so don't forward it to anyone.

What you enter is saved in that tool's database so we can follow up, quote your project and build your site from your answers. When you sign up, open the link or send your answers, we get an email and a Discord notification so we don't miss it. The link is sent through Resend, an email delivery service. We don't sell or rent what you send, and we don't add you to a mailing list.

If we contacted you first

We sometimes email local businesses we think we could help. We find them through public listings, using Google's Places service (the data behind Google Maps). We look over what's already public: the business name, address, phone, rating, reviews and website. Some of our tools use an AI service (Anthropic) to review a site and draft a suggested preview or email. We work only from public business information, nothing personal beyond a business's published contact details.

When a business lists an Instagram account, we may look up its public numbers (followers, number of posts, when it last posted, and its bio) through Instagram's official business API from Meta. That only works for business and creator accounts, and the only thing we send Meta is the account's public username.

Every marketing email we send includes an unsubscribe link. Use it, or just reply and ask, and we stop. We keep your email address on a do-not-contact list so we don't write to you again.

Previews we make for you

If we send you a preview of a site we made for your business, the preview tells us when it was opened and how much of it was looked at: which pages, how far down they were scrolled, how long the tab was on screen, and whether it was a phone, tablet or computer. We use this only to know whether the preview was useful and when to follow up. It sets no cookies. It keeps a random visit number in your browser's session storage, which is cleared when you close the tab.

If you're a client

While we build or look after your site, you'll send us things like your text, photos, logo and sometimes logins (for your domain or an old site). We use them only for your project, and you're welcome to change any password as soon as we're done with it.

Payments go through Stripe. We see that you paid and the last four digits of your card. We never see or store the full card number.

If your site has its own contact or quote form, what your visitors send through it is your information. Those forms send messages through Web3Forms, a form delivery service, which emails them to you. We handle that information only to deliver it to you and keep the form working. Sites we build may also load their fonts from Google Fonts, which means a visitor's browser asks Google for the font files.

Error monitoring and hosting

This site doesn't run Google Analytics, advertising trackers or session recording. We use Sentry for error monitoring only: when something breaks, Sentry records the error, the page it happened on, and your browser and device type, so we can fix it. It doesn't record what you do on the page. The site is hosted on Vercel, which, like any web host, logs basic request details such as your IP address.

Cookies and storage

This site sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. The previews described above keep one random visit number in session storage, and nothing else. We use no advertising or analytics cookies anywhere, so there is nothing to opt in to or out of.

Services that handle your information

We share your information only with the services that run our business, and only for that:

  • Vercel and Cloudflare: hosting and domains
  • Supabase: the database behind our tool
  • Resend: sending email from our tool
  • Google Workspace: our email
  • Google Places: finding businesses we might contact
  • Meta (Instagram): looking up the public numbers of a business's Instagram account through Meta's official API
  • Discord: our own notifications
  • Stripe: payments
  • Sentry: error monitoring
  • Anthropic: AI assistance, as described above
  • Web3Forms: delivering form messages on sites we build for clients

We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

How long we keep it

We keep quote requests and client records while we're talking or working together. After that, we keep them only as long as we need them for our business and tax records, or until you ask us to delete them. Payment records are kept as long as tax law requires. Preview visit records are deleted along with the business's record.

Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

  • tell you what information we hold about you, and give you a copy
  • correct anything that's wrong
  • delete it
  • stop contacting you

Some US states, such as California, give you these rights by law, along with the right to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information. We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it for advertising. We won't treat you differently for using any of these rights.

To make a request, email austin@softsystemsstudiollc.com. We check that a request is really from you by replying to the email address we have on file for you. We answer within 45 days.

A deletion request covers our tool's database (your sign-up, questionnaire answers and preview visits), our email inbox, the email records at Resend, and our Discord notifications. Stripe keeps the payment records tax law requires, and we keep your email address on our do-not-contact list so we don't write to you again.

Children

This site and our services are for businesses. They aren't meant for anyone under 13, and we don't knowingly collect information from children.

SSS Hub, and Austin's own Google Calendar and Gmail

This part isn't about you or anything you do on this site. It's here because Google requires a public privacy policy before a private tool can connect to a Google account. If you're a visitor or a client, none of this involves your information.

Austin runs a private dashboard for the business called SSS Hub. It's not a public product, it has no other users, and it runs on his own computer. Nobody else can sign into it.

To show Austin his own day at a glance, SSS Hub asks his Google account for two things:

  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/calendar.readonly — read-only access to his calendar
  • https://www.googleapis.com/auth/gmail.readonly — read-only access to his Gmail

Both are strictly read-only. SSS Hub can't send, delete or change anything in the calendar or the inbox. It can only look.

What it looks at, and what it does with it: it shows the next few calendar events, how many emails arrived in the last day, and the subject line and sender of the handful Gmail has already marked important. It never reads the body of an email. All of it shows on a password-protected dashboard only Austin can reach. Once a day, the same summary goes into a short note he keeps for himself and an email to his own inbox. It goes nowhere else.

The sign-in token that keeps this connected lives in a file on Austin's own computer. It is kept out of source control and is never sent out through anything the dashboard shows in a browser.

None of it is sold, shared with anyone else, or used for advertising.

You can see or revoke anything connected to a Google account from Google's own permissions page: myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Docklight Lo-Fi, and TikTok/YouTube

Same as the section above: this isn't about you or anything you do on this site. Docklight Lo-Fi is an ambient music channel we run (@docklightlo-fi), and part of publishing it is automated. TikTok and YouTube both require a public privacy policy before they let an app like that connect to an account.

The automation signs in as the @docklightlo-fi account itself, on each platform, and asks only for what it needs to publish video there:

  • video.upload — upload a video to the account, as a draft
  • video.publish — post a video directly to the account's own profile
  • user.info.basic — read the account's own basic profile info (open id, display name, avatar), so the automation can confirm which account it's about to post as before it does

It never touches any other account, and it doesn't read, collect or store anything belonging to @docklightlo-fi's viewers, commenters or followers.

You can see or revoke this connection from each platform's own settings. On TikTok, go to Settings and privacy → Security and login → Manage app permissions. On YouTube/Google, use myaccount.google.com/permissions.

Changes to this policy

If what this site, our tools or SSS Hub do with information changes, we'll update this page and the date at the top to match. It's meant to describe what's true now.

Contact

Questions about any of this? Email us at austin@softsystemsstudiollc.com, or write to Soft Systems Studio LLC, 3720 Lee Rd 379, Smiths Station, AL 36877.