Privacy Policy

Advocate operates a platform that intercepts AI search crawler traffic and exposes registered businesses through the Model Context Protocol. This policy describes exactly what we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it. We wrote it to match what the platform actually does, not boilerplate.

1. Who we are

Advocate (the “Service”) is operated as a sole-proprietor SaaS by its founder. Contact us any time at max@advocate-mcp.com.

2. What we collect

From registered businesses (“tenants”)

• Business name, description, category, location, and the services offered
• Business phone number, website, and public ratings/review counts
• Operating hours (hours_json) and pricing ranges (pricing_json_v2)
• Credentials, certifications, or licenses the business chooses to display
• Lead-routing preferences: email address, SMS number, or webhook endpoint used to receive handoffs
• A tracked referral_url the platform uses to route citation clicks
• Billing contact and Stripe customer/subscription identifiers

From end users interacting with AI bots

• The query text that was routed through Advocate
• Timestamp of the request and the user-agent of the originating bot
• The bot’s self-asserted agent identity (when sent via x-agent-identity)
• A request correlation ID (ULID) so a single interaction can be traced end-to-end

From users who click tracked citations

• The originating bot and the query that produced the citation
• Destination URL
• A salted hash of the source IP address, we never store the raw IP, and the hash itself is discarded within 30 days
• User-Agent string as sent by the browser

From the reservation flow (reserve_slot)

• Customer contact payload (customer_contact_json) containing a name, email, and/or phone number submitted by the requesting agent
• The requested time window and the tenant slug
• Whether the reservation was held, confirmed, rejected, or expired

3. Why we collect it

• Generate citation-ready AI responses tailored to the querying bot
• Track attribution end-to-end: which bot cited which business for which query, and whether the click converted
• Hold and confirm reservations, and deliver handoffs to the tenant’s configured recipient
• Enforce rate limits and detect abusive agents
• Produce aggregate analytics for tenants (citation counts, top queries, click-through, competitor radar)
• Process subscription payments

4. Who we share it with

We use the following processors. Each receives the minimum data it needs to perform the listed purpose, under its own published terms.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertising networks or data brokers.

5. How long we keep it

• Queries and click events: 365 days, so we can resolve attribution disputes.
• Reservation customer contact: auto-redacted after 90 days for held reservations, 24 hours for expired ones, and 7 days for rejected ones.
• IP-hash for click tracking: 30 days, then deleted.
• Tenant account data: kept while the subscription is active plus 30 days after cancellation, then deleted.
• Billing records: retained for the period required by tax and financial regulations (typically seven years).

6. Your rights

You have the right to access, correct, export, or delete personal data we hold about you, whether you’re a tenant, an end user whose query we processed, or a person on the receiving end of a reservation handoff. Send a request to max@advocate-mcp.com and we will respond within 30 days. We acknowledge GDPR and CCPA obligations and honour them globally; we do not sell personal data under any reading of either statute.

7. Security

• All transport is TLS; mixed-content HTTP is blocked at the edge.
• Portal session tokens are stored as SHA-256 hashes; raw tokens only live in HttpOnly cookies.
• Passwords are stretched with PBKDF2-SHA256 at 100 000 iterations.
• Attribution and continuation tokens are HMAC-SHA256 signed with a domain-separated key.
• API keys can be rotated at any time via the tenant dashboard.

8. Children

The Service is not directed at people under the age of 18 and we do not knowingly collect personal data from them. If you believe we have, email max@advocate-mcp.com and we will delete it.

9. International transfers

Our processors are primarily US-based. If you access the Service from outside the United States, you understand that your data is transferred to and processed in the United States, where data-protection law may differ from your local jurisdiction.

10. Changes to this policy

Material changes will be announced by email to registered tenants at least 30 days before they take effect. Non-material clarifications are published here with an updated revision date.

11. Contact

Questions about this policy or about data we hold: max@advocate-mcp.com.