Average Matty LLC, a California limited liability company doing business as Hey There Friend (“Hey There Friend,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), operates the Service and respects your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how information is collected, used, disclosed, and protected when you use HeyThereFriend.com and the Hey There Friend personalized messaging service.
1. INFORMATION WE COLLECT
We may collect information you provide directly, including your name, email address, mobile phone number, account information, subscription selections, communication preferences, interests, goals, schedule information, personality or communication preferences, onboarding responses, support communications, and other information you voluntarily provide.
If you use conversational features such as Talk Back, we may process messages you send to the Service and relevant conversation history.
We may also collect technical information reasonably necessary to operate and secure the Service, such as device/browser information, timestamps, request information, and records relating to account activity, consent, verification, billing, and messaging.
Eligibility information includes your declared country and state of residence, adult-eligibility confirmation, optional birth year, and associated timestamps. We also maintain current and recorded previous phone numbers for account security, verification, and handling data requests.
Gift records may include the buyer’s email, gift note, payment identifiers, purchased plan and duration, and redemption details. Waitlist records include the email and state you submit, the signup source, and the submission time; we use them to manage availability requests and related updates. Contact support to ask to leave the waitlist.
Conversation information includes inbound and outbound messages, saved memories or summaries derived from conversations, and automated safety classifications and actions. These inferences may be inaccurate. Messages you voluntarily send can reveal sensitive information about health, relationships, or other personal matters. Please avoid sending passwords, full payment-card details, government identification numbers, or unnecessary private information about other people.
2. HOW WE USE INFORMATION
We may use information to:
- create and maintain your account;
- personalize messages and conversations;
- provide scheduled and conversational messaging features;
- verify your mobile number;
- process and manage subscriptions;
- provide customer support;
- remember preferences and improve continuity;
- maintain records of messaging consent and opt-outs;
- prevent fraud, abuse, and security incidents;
- troubleshoot and improve the Service;
- comply with legal obligations; and
- enforce our Terms.
3. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND PERSONALIZATION
Hey There Friend uses artificial-intelligence systems to generate or personalize messages and conversations.
Information you provide, including relevant profile information and conversation context, may be processed by service providers that help us provide AI functionality.
We use this processing to provide the personalized experience requested by the user and to operate, secure, and improve the Service as described in this Policy.
OpenAI processes relevant profile details, messages, conversation context, and saved memories to help generate replies and review safety. When a response uses a web-search feature, relevant query content may also be processed to retrieve information. Do not treat conversations as privileged professional communications.
Authorized personnel may access customer information and messages when needed for support, troubleshooting, safety, security, or handling privacy requests. This does not mean a person monitors each conversation in real time.
If you send a supported photo through Talk Back, Twilio receives and stores the attachment, and OpenAI processes the photo for automated screening, reply generation, and safety review. Our reply service processes photo files in memory without saving a separate copy in our application database. Captions, replies, attachment counts, and safety records may be retained as conversation records. Provider retention and deletion practices also apply, as described below. Photo replies do not use web search. Videos and unsupported attachments are not analyzed; the service can ask you for a supported photo or text description instead.
4. SMS AND MOBILE INFORMATION
If you separately opt in to the Hey There Friend SMS program, we use your mobile number to deliver the personalized messaging service you requested.
Message frequency varies based on your selected plan and conversation activity.
Message and data rates may apply.
You may reply STOP to opt out of SMS messages and HELP for assistance.
We do not sell or share your SMS opt-in data, phone number, or message content with third parties for marketing purposes. Optional website advertising technology is described separately below.
We do not share, sell, rent, or provide your mobile phone number, SMS opt-in information, or messaging consent to third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes.
We may disclose mobile information to service providers acting on our behalf when reasonably necessary to provide the Service, including telecommunications and messaging providers that deliver messages. Such providers may process the information only as necessary to provide services on our behalf and not for their own marketing purposes.
5. MESSAGING CONSENT RECORDS
We may retain records showing when and how you opted in or opted out of messaging, the version of the consent disclosure presented to you, your verified-phone status, and related records reasonably necessary to demonstrate and honor your messaging preferences.
Messaging consent is specific to Hey There Friend and is not sold, rented, transferred, or shared for third-party marketing purposes.
6. PAYMENTS
Payments may be processed by third-party payment processors such as Stripe.
We may receive information concerning your subscription, payment status, transaction identifiers, billing status, and limited payment-related information necessary to administer your subscription.
We do not need to directly store your complete payment-card number to provide the Service.
7. SERVICE PROVIDERS
We use third-party service providers to operate portions of Hey There Friend, including providers of payment processing, telecommunications and SMS delivery, cloud/database infrastructure, hosting, security, and artificial-intelligence functionality.
These providers may process information on our behalf only as reasonably necessary to provide their services to us, subject to applicable contractual and legal obligations.
Our current providers include:
- Supabase: account authentication, databases, backend functions, operational logs, and backups.
- Twilio: phone verification, SMS/MMS transmission, media storage, delivery records, and messaging safeguards; mobile carriers also process message delivery.
- Stripe: payment processing, subscriptions, billing management, and transaction records.
- OpenAI: AI processing and the Sites infrastructure used to host this website.
- Namecheap Private Email: support correspondence and delivery of account sign-in, security, subscription, and renewal-notice emails.
Providers may also retain or process information for their own security, fraud-prevention, billing, or legal obligations where permitted by applicable law and agreements. Availability only to US residents does not mean every provider processes information exclusively in the US.
8. DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
We may disclose information:
- to service providers acting on our behalf;
- when reasonably necessary to protect the Service, our users, or others;
- to investigate fraud, abuse, or security incidents;
- when required by law, regulation, subpoena, court order, or other valid legal process;
- in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, restructuring, or sale of all or part of the business, subject to applicable law; or
- with your direction or consent.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, SMS opt-in data and messaging consent will not be sold or shared with third parties or affiliates for their marketing or promotional purposes.
9. DATA RETENTION
We retain information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide the Service, maintain account and transaction records, honor messaging preferences and opt-outs, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, prevent fraud or abuse, and enforce our agreements.
Retention periods may differ depending on the type of information and why it is maintained.
Account profiles, messages, and saved memories are maintained to provide continuity during your use of the Service. Transaction, consent, security, safety, and privacy-request records may require different retention based on their purpose, applicable obligations, disputes, and fraud prevention. We do not promise one uniform deletion period for every record.
Deletion is handled in two stages. After verifying the request and completing billing and messaging-safety checks, we remove eligible account profiles, messages, saved memories, and login data from our active application systems. We track provider cleanup separately, so unresolved provider-retention questions do not by themselves require us to keep your active account. Some provider records require separate requests or are subject to retention restrictions. Removing data from active systems does not instantly remove backup copies or copies retained by providers under applicable obligations. We retain only the limited identifiers and records reasonably needed to handle outstanding provider requests, document fulfillment, comply with applicable obligations, or prevent deleted data from being reintroduced. Where applicable, we use supported provider deletion tools or direct requests and track unresolved matters. A submitted request is not a confirmation that provider-held data has been erased, and local account removal does not mean the overall privacy request is complete.
Phone-verification records. Twilio Verify processes phone numbers and related verification records. Twilio has advised us that it does not currently offer a self-service API or Console procedure to delete individual end-user Verify records. Deleting your Hey There Friend account therefore does not by itself confirm removal of those provider records. Twilio may retain verification information under its retention practices, including for security, fraud prevention, billing, or legal purposes. We review provider-retention limitations when handling deletion requests and do not represent documentation of retention as proof of erasure. Contact us for questions about your request.
SMS copies on your phone, a recipient’s device, or systems outside our control are not erased by deleting your Hey There Friend account. Support correspondence and gift-purchase records may also require separate review.
10. ACCOUNT AND DATA REQUESTS
Signed-in customers can use Download my data in their account to download a JSON copy of their account details, profile, conversation history, saved memories, subscription records, privacy requests, and received gift membership records. The download contains selected records and may not include all personal information we hold about you.
For additional personal records, corrections, or help accessing your information, email support@heytherefriend.com. This email is also available if you cannot sign in or do not have an account. You do not need to create an account to submit a privacy request. We review requests and respond as required by applicable law.
Customers can use Request account deletion in their account or email the same address. Submitting a deletion request does not immediately delete records, stop texts, or cancel subscription renewals. To stop renewals now, use Cancel renewal in your membership settings. We review deletion requests, including any information we must retain under applicable law.
We may need to verify your identity before fulfilling a request. Account cancellation, access requests, and deletion requests are separate choices; you do not need to cancel first to request deletion. Downloading your data does not close any existing privacy request. We may consolidate duplicate pending requests and apply reasonable security and abuse controls without limiting rights provided by applicable law. We do not impose a blanket once-a-year limit on privacy requests.
11. CALIFORNIA PRIVACY RIGHTS
California residents may have rights regarding their personal information under applicable California privacy laws, including rights to request access, correction, deletion, or information concerning certain uses or disclosures of personal information.
Where applicable, requests may be submitted to support@heytherefriend.com.
We will not discriminate against you for exercising applicable privacy rights.
Depending on your state of residence and the laws that apply to us, you may also have rights to a portable copy, to appeal a denied request, or to use an authorized agent. Submit requests or appeals to the support email above, identifying what you are asking us to review. We may require proportionate identity or agent-authority verification, and will explain applicable exceptions or a refusal. We respond within applicable legal deadlines; rights can vary by law and eligibility.
Cookies, browser storage, and tracking choices
We use browser storage and similar technologies to keep sign-in sessions, remember display preferences, and preserve signup or gift progress. Hosting, security, authentication, and payment providers may use cookies and collect technical data necessary to deliver their services. Blocking these technologies may affect sign-in, checkout, or saved progress.
Optional website analytics. If you enable website analytics in Privacy choices, we use Supabase to store page visits, signup steps, short campaign/source labels, approximate device categories based on screen width, event times, and randomly generated event and browser-session identifiers. These records help us understand website use and improve signup. They are not linked to your customer account. Our analytics events exclude contact details, personal signup answers, conversation content, full URLs, and checkout or gift tokens. This feature does not collect visitor location. Hosting and security providers may still process ordinary technical request information, including IP addresses, separately.
Analytics stays off until you allow it. Rejecting optional analytics does not affect signup, payment, or texting. Use Privacy choices / Do not sell or share on the homepage, gift pages, waitlist, or this Privacy Policy to change your choice. Your choice is saved in this browser; separate browsers and the www and non-www versions of our site may have separate settings. A random tab-session identifier expires after 30 minutes of inactivity. We schedule daily removal of analytics events older than 90 days; backups and provider technical logs may follow different retention periods.
Optional Meta advertising. If you choose “Allow all” or enable Advertising under Customize in Privacy choices, we load the Meta Pixel on eligible homepage visits to measure advertising and help personalize ads. Meta may receive the public page URL, referring URL, IP address, browser/device information, event time, and cookie or advertising identifiers, and may associate this activity with your Meta account. We do not pass your phone number, email, signup answers, messages, or saved memories to this integration. Automatic advanced matching and automatic event collection are disabled in our integration. We do not load the pixel on account, login, admin, gift, or privacy pages, or on payment-return links containing checkout credentials. Homepage tracking stops when signup opens. After Stripe confirms a paid subscription checkout, a separate page with no checkout credentials in its URL may report a Purchase event, the amount paid, USD currency, and an opaque event identifier. We save an event marker in this browser to avoid reporting the same purchase again. Purchase reporting requires your advertising permission and is separate from SMS consent; it does not include recurring renewals or gift purchases.
Advertising is off until you choose “Allow all” or enable it under Customize. Previous analytics permission does not enable advertising. Use Privacy choices / Do not sell or share to reject optional tracking or change your settings. Changes apply to this browser and origin; a new choice may take effect on your next eligible page visit. Withdrawing permission stops future tracking; it does not erase information already received by Meta. We honor Global Privacy Control and Do Not Track by keeping both optional analytics and advertising off. Essential service processing continues.
We do not sell personal information for money. Optional advertising disclosures to Meta may constitute “sharing” for cross-context behavioral advertising under applicable privacy laws. You can opt out using the controls above. Meta processes received information under its own Privacy Policy, including its retention practices. Contact support for help with privacy requests.
12. SECURITY
We use reasonable administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information.
No internet-connected system or method of electronic storage or transmission can be guaranteed to be completely secure.
13. CHILDREN
Hey There Friend is available only to adults aged 18 or older. This restriction applies to account holders, gift buyers, gift recipients, and all other users. We ask customers to confirm adult eligibility and US residency during signup or gift redemption.
We do not knowingly solicit personal information from anyone under 18. Please contact support@heytherefriend.com if you believe a minor is using the Service.
If we learn that we collected personal information from a child in circumstances prohibited by applicable law, we will take appropriate steps to address it.
14. INTERNATIONAL USE
The Service is currently offered only to United States residents aged 18 or older. A supported US mobile number is required for message recipients. We do not currently offer international enrollment or gift redemption.
This eligibility restriction does not limit privacy rights that apply under law. If we expand availability to other countries, we will review the relevant requirements and update our disclosures before doing so.
15. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We may update this Privacy Policy as the Service evolves or legal requirements change.
When appropriate, we will provide notice of material changes.
The effective date above identifies the current version.
16. CONTACT US
Questions or privacy requests may be sent to:
Regular signup, gift checkout, and gift recipient activation ask for your age before personal signup details. We use your answer to check eligibility. If signup, gift checkout, or gift activation is declined on age grounds, we clear the local signup draft and store a temporary browser restriction for 24 hours to discourage immediate retries. This restriction is not used for advertising. An adult signup draft may retain the age answer in session storage while you complete signup.