Privacy policy

What MatchMyIdea collects, why, who processes it, and what you can do about it. Written in plain language on purpose.

Effective date: September 12, 2026

What we collect

• The idea text you type and your answers to any clarifying questions. This is the input your search runs on.
• Your email address, if you provide it to receive matches or create an account.
• Account data: your saved searches and delivered matches.
• Requests and inquiries. If you contact us, submit a Custom Search request, or submit an Introduction request, we collect the information you provide in that request, such as the request or brief itself, additional details you choose to provide, and your email address.
• Usage events, such as which pages were visited and whether a search completed. Used in aggregate to improve the product.
• Payment status from Stripe: which match pack you bought and whether payment cleared. Card numbers never reach us.
• Short-lived network signals, used only to keep the free-match allowance fair and discarded quickly.

Why we collect it

To run your search and deliver matches, to save your matches when you ask us to, to prevent abuse of the free-match allowance, and to understand which parts of the product work so we can improve them. For requests and inquiries, we use the information to review and respond to the request, perform requested research or matching work, communicate about the request, and, for Introduction engagements, evaluate and facilitate a potential introduction. We don't sell your data, and we don't use your idea text for advertising.

Introduction requests

For Introduction requests, submitting a request does not by itself authorize MatchMyIdea to disclose your identifying or contact information to a proposed counterparty. We will obtain your approval before sharing that information for an introduction, unless the sharing is necessary to perform a specific service you have expressly asked us to perform or is required by law.

Cookies

Two cookies. An anonymous identifier that lasts about a year remembers this browser's free-match allowance. A session cookie keeps you signed in. No third-party advertising cookies.

Who processes your data

We use service providers for functions such as hosting, databases, authentication, payments, transactional email, security, search, and model processing. They process information on our behalf as needed to provide those services. In particular:

• Stripe processes payments.
• A managed authentication and database provider handles sign-in and stores account data. We never store passwords.
• A cloud hosting provider runs the service.
• An email provider sends your matches when you ask for them by email, and our replies to requests.
• Cloudflare provides the quick human check (Turnstile) on free searches. It sees the browser signals needed for that check, not your idea text.
• Search and model providers receive your idea text, or the text of a request, in order to run the search or research. They receive the text itself, not your account details.

Retention

Ideas, matches, and requests are kept so you can come back to them and so we can act on them. Delete searches and matches from your account page at any time and they're gone. The short-lived network signals used for abuse prevention are kept briefly and then discarded. Payment records are retained as required for accounting.

Your rights

You can export your data, correct it, or delete individual searches and your whole account from the account page. No account, or prefer to ask a person? Email hello@matchmyidea.com. If you appear in someone's matches rather than being a user, see data, privacy, and corrections.

The technical protections behind all of this are on the security page, and the rules of the service are in the terms.

A note on legal review

As of the effective date above, this policy describes our real data flows accurately but has not yet been through formal legal review. We chose to publish the honest version now rather than wait. It will be revised when that review is complete, and the effective date will change with it.