Privacy
1. Who we are
ChessClerk is made by Clerk Suite LLC, Montana, United States. Questions and requests about your information: chessclerk@gmail.com, subject "Privacy request".
2. What stays on your computer
Almost everything ChessClerk keeps about you is kept in your own browser, on your own computer, under your own account: your games and moves, your library and repertoire, your puzzle and endgame progress, your study plan, the clerk's conversation, what the clerk remembers about you, your rules for the clerk, your settings and your layout. We don't receive it. In Help > Introduction and Feedback > Your data, Export everything gives you all of it in one file, and Delete my data erases it from this computer.
3. The Snowden Clause
Nothing about you is tracked without your yes. No advertising trackers, no selling or renting of your information, no profile built for anyone but you. If a feature ever needs to keep something about you on our servers, it asks first, says exactly what it keeps and why, and works without it if you say no. You can see what we keep, take it with you, and have it deleted.
4. What leaves your computer, and why
- Sign-in. When you sign in with Google, Google (through its Firebase service) tells us your account's ID and email address, so we know it is you and can keep your AI credit.
- The clerk. What you write to the clerk goes through our server (run on Cloudflare) to the AI company that answers it, with what the clerk needs to answer: the position on the board, the posts of this session it reads, and its notes about how you work. Swear words are taken out before it goes. Depending on the model you pick (or Auto picks), that company is Anthropic or Google. Each company handles the message under its own terms for businesses using its service.
- Pictures. A picture you paste into the chat, or photograph for Photo to board or a scoresheet, goes the same way, to be read.
- Shared lesson bases. When the clerk starts on a general chess subject (say, the Sicilian Defense), our server may write a short base for that subject. It is written from the subject's name alone, never from anything you said, and it is the same for everyone.
- Endgame answers. For an endgame with 7 pieces or fewer, the position (only the position) goes to the Lichess tablebase.
- Other languages. When the page is shown in another language, the site's own words are translated by Google; nothing you type is sent.
- Articles. When you open an opening's or a player's article, its name goes to Wikipedia.
- Importing your games. If you import from Chess.com or Lichess, the username you type goes to that site to fetch your public games.
- Feedback and bug reports. When you send feedback or report a bug, your words (and, for a bug, a picture of the screen) come to us. Your words are quoted as a review only if you said yes to that, and you are asked only once.
- Error reports. When something in ChessClerk breaks, it sends us a short technical report so we can fix it: the error, the open tab, the layout, the window size, the browser and the board's position. It has nothing about you: no name, no email, no account, no chat and no game.
- Coaching. This is the one place ChessClerk shares something of yours with another person, and only with your yes. When you join a coach's class, one line says what your coach will see: the name you give the class, your homework and results in that class, and your weak spots (your three weakest puzzle themes, your puzzle rating and your games' median gap). Nothing else of yours goes up. A class has one thread of messages: what you post there is seen by the coach and everyone in the class, nothing in it is private between two people, and on a family account the account holder can read it too. Any message can be reported to us. A coach's page (what they teach, who they teach, their style, their own site) is seen by everyone signed in. All of it is kept in Google's Firestore database.
- Payments. Buying AI credit goes through Stripe. We never see your card number; Stripe tells us the payment went through and how much.
Every service above also sees the ordinary things any website sees, such as your IP address and browser type.
5. What the clerk remembers
The clerk keeps short notes so it can pick up where your work stands: lines you asked it to keep, the topics you're working on, and how you work and what you miss. They are kept on your computer, under your account, and never shared with anyone. You can read every one in Help > Memory and take out any line, any topic, or all of it. How the clerk uses them is on the How the clerk works page.
ChessClerk learns how you play and talk so it can teach you better. You can see or delete it any time.
6. What we don't do
We don't sell your information, we don't use it for advertising, and we don't let the AI companies or anyone else use your games or messages to build a profile of you. No conversation is ever shown to anyone else.
7. How long we keep things
What is on your computer stays until you delete it. Feedback, bug reports and error reports are kept while we work on what they're about. Payment records are kept as long as the law requires.
8. Your rights
You can delete your account and everything kept about you yourself, in Help > Settings > Delete my account (how); a Stripe payment record stays with Stripe, and we keep one small record so the free trial isn't given twice: a scrambled form of your email address that can't be turned back into it, the free questions you had left, and whether you ever paid. A monthly plan is canceled first.
You can ask to see, correct, take with you, or delete what we hold about you. Write to chessclerk@gmail.com with "Privacy request". If we say no to part of a request, we'll say why, and you can appeal by writing "Privacy appeal".
9. Children and teenagers
The clerk is kept clean for everyone at every age, it never asks for your age, school, address, phone, email or photos, and there are no private messages between people: the only messages are a coaching class's thread, which the whole class sees. A parent or guardian who has a question or wants something deleted can write to chessclerk@gmail.com.
10. Changes
If this notice changes, the new version goes here with its date, and anything that changes what we keep about you is told to you before it applies.