Privacy Policy

Merrin helps parents think through everyday parenting moments. This policy explains what we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do with it. Merrin is in early access: parenting support is not generally available yet, and the sections below describe what each part of the service actually does today.

Joining the waitlist

The waitlist stores your email address, the date you joined, and permission to receive early access and occasional product updates. Joining is that permission (we do not send a separate confirmation email), and you can withdraw it at any time from the unsubscribe link in any email we send, or by contacting us. After you join we ask a few optional questions so we can tailor what we build and send: your first name, the age ranges of your child or children, and the topics you would most want help with. You can skip them, and skipping does not affect your place on the list. We do not ask for your children’s names or any other details about them, and joining does not create an account. We use Neon to store waitlist records and Loops to deliver emails and manage the waitlist. Only authorized Merrin administrators can manage this list.

We use a short-lived, keyed hash of your network address to limit spam; the waitlist does not store the raw address. You can unsubscribe from product updates or contact hello@getmerrin.com to request access, correction or deletion of your waitlist information.

Professional inquiries

If you write to us through the form on our For Professionals page, we store your name, work email address, professional role, the organization you give if you give one, and what you tell us about your interest, so we can answer you. We email that inquiry to the Merrin team and keep the record in the same database as our waitlist, with the same spam protection: a short-lived, keyed hash of your network address, never the raw address. The form joins our Professional Interest List, as its button says, so we also add your name, email address, role and organization to a Merrin Inquiries list in Loops and may send you occasional updates for professionals. You can unsubscribe from the link in any of those emails, or by contacting us. That list is separate from our parent waitlist, and writing to us neither puts you on the waitlist nor creates an account. Contact hello@getmerrin.com to request access, correction or deletion of your inquiry.

Parent accounts and family details

Parent accounts are invitation only during early access. When you accept an invitation we store your name, email address, a sign-in session, and the country you select. If you choose to add family details, we store a nickname and birth month for each child. We ask for a nickname rather than a full name, and a birth month rather than a date of birth, so Merrin can adapt to a child’s stage without holding more identifying information than it needs.

Sign-in sessions record an IP address, browser user agent and expiry so we can keep your account secure and let you sign out. Adding family details is optional, and you can edit or delete them at any time from your account.

Conversations and family memory

Messages you send Merrin are stored so a conversation can be resumed and so the family context you have shared carries forward. Family memory stays visible, correctable and deletable from your account. AI-generated replies are switched off while our reviewed guidance and response policy are being qualified. We will update this policy before they are turned on for parents.

Merrin staff administer invitations and account access, and cannot browse family conversations from the admin tools. Staff review is performed against our own guidance library, not your conversations.

Text messages

If you add a mobile number to your account, we send it a code to confirm it is yours and then store it with your account. Texts you send Merrin and its replies are stored in your conversation, and Twilio delivers them on our behalf. Message frequency varies, and message and data rates may apply. Reply HELP for help or STOP at any time to stop texts. We do not share your mobile number or your consent to receive texts with third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes.

Site analytics

We use two services to count visits to our public pages, such as which pages are viewed, the referring site, and approximate device, browser and location. OpenPanel does not use cookies. Google Analytics sets a first-party cookie in your browser (“_ga”) so a visit and a later waitlist signup can be counted as the same session, and it is sent the URL of each page you view. Neither service is loaded on admin, parent account or waitlist confirmation pages, and we do not send either your name, email address or family details. If you arrive from one of our ads, the campaign labels on the link (the “utm” parameters, which name the ad and where it ran) are counted with that visit and with a waitlist signup, so we can tell which campaigns work. Those labels describe the ad, not you. We keep them in your browser’s session storage for the rest of your visit so a signup on a later page is still credited to the right campaign; closing the tab discards them.

Advertising

We advertise Merrin on Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram. Our public pages load the Meta advertising pixel, which sets its own cookies in your browser and tells Meta when a browser that saw one of our ads viewed a page or joined the waitlist. That is how we learn whether an ad is worth running. We do not send Meta your email address, your name, your waitlist answers or anything about your family, and the pixel is not loaded on admin, parent account or waitlist confirmation pages. Meta uses this information under its own policies, including to show ads, which under some state privacy laws counts as “sharing” personal information for targeted advertising. We do not sell your information for money.

You can opt out. Browser settings that block third-party cookies, tracker-blocking extensions and the Global Privacy Control signal all prevent the pixel from working, and you can control ad personalization in your Facebook or Instagram settings. You can also email hello@getmerrin.com and ask us not to share your information for targeted advertising, and we will honor it.

Who we share it with

We do not sell your information. We share it with the service providers that run Merrin on our behalf: Neon for the database, Vercel for hosting, Loops for email, Twilio for messaging, and OpenPanel and Google Analytics for the page counts described above. Each may process data only to provide its service to us. The one exception is advertising: the Meta pixel on our public pages reports page views and waitlist signups to Meta, as described under Advertising above. We never share your waitlist answers, your account or any family content for advertising. We may also disclose information if the law requires it, or to protect the safety of a person.

How we protect it

Data is encrypted in transit and stored with our hosting and database providers under their encryption at rest. Access is limited to the people who need it: administrator accounts are separate from parent accounts, credentials and AI access stay server-side, and family content is never placed in our source code, test fixtures, analytics payloads or build output. No service can promise perfect security, and we will tell affected people promptly if a breach puts their information at risk.

How long we keep it

Waitlist records are kept until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove them. Professional inquiries are kept while we are in touch about them, and removed on request; unsubscribing from the Professional Interest List stops those emails and takes you off that list. Account, family and conversation data is kept while your account is open and deleted, or irreversibly anonymized, within 30 days of you closing it or asking us to delete it. We may keep a minimal record of the deletion itself, and any data we have to retain by law.

Children’s information

Merrin is for parents and caregivers aged 18 or over. Children do not use Merrin and we do not knowingly collect information directly from them. The child details in your account are provided by you, limited to a nickname and birth month, and removable at any time. If you believe a child has given us information directly, email hello@getmerrin.com and we will delete it.

Where we operate

Merrin is offered in the United States and Canada, and the providers listed above may store or process data in either country. We rely on their standard contractual protections for transfers between the two.

Your rights and choices

You can ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or object to a particular use. You can edit or remove family details yourself from your account, and you can unsubscribe from email updates at any time from any email we send or from your account settings. Email hello@getmerrin.com and we will respond within 30 days. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to complain to your local privacy regulator.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page as Merrin grows, and change the date above when we do. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell you by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions about privacy can be sent to hello@getmerrin.com. Our Terms and Conditions cover the rest of your use of Merrin.