Privacy Policy

This policy covers michaelandpenny.com and its subdomains, relationshipalchemy.love, 10minutedate.com, and the other sites and services operated by Michael and Penny LLC ("we," "us," "our"). Where a page or form says something more specific than this policy, that page governs for the information it collects.

1. What we collect

What you give us. Your name and email address. Your phone number, if you provide one. Your mailing address, when we need to send you something or a payment processor requires it. Details about your relationship that you choose to share: your partner's name, whether you have children, how long you have been together. Your answers in quizzes, forms, applications, and intake questions. What you write to us in email or say in a session.

From ticketing platforms, and about your partner. When you buy a ticket through a platform such as Eventbrite, it passes us what you entered: your name, email, phone, mailing address and your answers to the order questions. Event tickets are for couples, so we may ask for your partner’s first name and email. If you give us your partner’s email, we create a contact for them, send them the details of the event, and may send them our emails, which they can unsubscribe from in one click. Please give us your partner’s details only with their agreement. Your partner can ask us to see, correct or delete what we hold about them in the same way you can (section 10).

Health and wellbeing information. For retreats and ceremonies we ask about health conditions, medications, allergies, dietary needs, mobility, and emergency contacts, because we cannot keep you safe without knowing. We ask for the minimum we need, we use it only for that purpose, and we do not use it for marketing. Section 7 says more about how this is protected.

Payment information. Our payment processors, such as Stripe and PayPal, handle card details directly. We never see or store your full card number. We do receive the fact of a payment, the amount, and the billing name. Each processor also handles your information under its own privacy policy.

Automatically, as you browse. Pages viewed, approximate location from your IP address, device and browser type, and how you arrived. We use Google Analytics 4 for this. Analytics is disabled when the site is viewed locally in development.

Email engagement. Whether a message was opened and which links were clicked, so we can tell what is worth writing and stop sending what nobody reads.

Courses and community. When you join a course or our online community: your login, which lessons you have opened or finished, and what you post or comment there. Other members can read what you post in the community, so share there only what you are comfortable having them see.

Recordings. Some group calls and retreat sessions are recorded. When a session is being recorded we say so at the start, and you can keep your camera and microphone off or leave. Section 6 covers this.

2. Why we collect it

• To send you what you asked for, and to run the courses, sessions, events, and retreats you sign up for.
• To take payment and keep the records the tax authorities require.
• To write to you with our own news and offers, until you tell us to stop.
• To keep you safe at an in-person event, and to reach your emergency contact if we must.
• To understand which pages work and which do not, and to advertise our own work to people who have visited us.
• To answer you, and to resolve a dispute or comply with the law if either arises.

We do not use automated decision-making or profiling to make decisions that materially affect you.

3. We do not sell your information

We do not sell or rent your personal information, and we do not share it for anyone else's advertising. We have not done so in the past twelve months.

Your phone number and any consent you gave to be texted are never shared with third parties or affiliates for their marketing purposes. Nor are they sold. Your number stays with us and the messaging providers who deliver our messages on our behalf.

4. Who we share it with

We share information with the companies that help us operate, only as far as each needs to do its job, and under contracts that limit them to that purpose:

• Our customer platform and email and messaging system, which holds our contact records.
• Event ticketing platforms, such as Eventbrite, which sell tickets for our events and pass the order details to us.
• Payment processors, such as Stripe and PayPal, who handle card details and, where applicable, payment plans and financing.
• Scheduling, video conferencing, and video hosting providers.
• Website hosting and analytics providers.
• Advertising platforms, for showing our own advertising and measuring whether it worked.
• Retreat venues and local operators, who need arrival details, dietary needs, and relevant health information to host you.
• Our accountants and, if we ever need them, our lawyers.

We also share information when the law requires it, to protect someone from serious harm, or if the business is sold or merged, in which case we will tell you if the change of ownership is significant.

5. Email and text messages

Email. Every marketing email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. Use it and the sending stops. We will still send messages you need about something you bought: a receipt, a Zoom link, retreat logistics.

Text messages. If you give us your mobile number and agree to be texted, we may send reminders, event links, and occasional news. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any message to stop receiving them, or HELP for help. Consenting to texts is never a condition of buying anything from us. Carriers are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.

You can also just write to us at mp@michaelandpenny.com and ask to be taken off anything.

6. Recordings, and other people's privacy

When we record a session we say so before we start. Recordings are used to give participants a replay, to train ourselves, and sometimes for promotion, but never a recording of you specifically for promotion without asking you first. If you would rather not appear, keep your camera and microphone off, use only a first name, or ask us and we will edit you out.

Our group sessions and retreats bring people together who share honestly. We ask everyone to treat what they hear as private, and we take that seriously. But we cannot control what another participant repeats, and we are not responsible for it. Share at a level you are comfortable with in a room of people we have not vetted for you.

If you tell us about your partner, please share only what is yours to share.

7. Health information, and what HIPAA does not cover

Michael and Penny LLC is not a healthcare provider. It does not bill insurance and it does not provide treatment, so the health information you give us here is not protected health information under HIPAA, and HIPAA does not apply to it. That is worth stating plainly, because people assume otherwise when a psychologist is involved.

What we do instead: we ask for health information only where we need it to host you safely, we keep it separate from our marketing lists, we never use it to target advertising, we share it only with the venue or practitioner who needs it to keep you safe, and we delete it after the event once it no longer serves that purpose. If you live somewhere with its own consumer health data law, we will honor the rights it gives you, including withdrawal of consent and deletion.

Penny's own clinical practice is a different matter and is not covered by this policy. It is a separate practice with separate records, governed by her professional and legal obligations as a licensed psychologist, which are considerably stricter than these. Nothing you tell us here goes into it, and nothing in it comes to us.

8. Cookies and analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to remember your preferences, understand how the site is used, and measure our own advertising. Currently that means Google Analytics 4 and the Meta pixel, which lets us measure our own advertising on Facebook and Instagram and show it to people who have already visited this site. We do not use it to advertise anyone else's products. If we add another measurement tool, this section will name it before it runs.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we honor it everywhere and for everyone, not only where a law requires us to: our analytics and advertising tools do not load at all on that visit. We do not respond to Do Not Track, an older signal that browsers send inconsistently and that was never finished as a standard. Blocking cookies may make parts of the site work less well.

9. How long we keep it

• Contact and marketing records: while you are on our list, and for three years after your last interaction with us.
• Purchase and payment records: seven years, which is what tax and accounting rules require.
• Health and dietary information for an event: deleted within ninety days after the event ends.
• Quiz and form answers: three years, unless they are part of a purchase record.
• Course progress and community posts: while your access lasts, and for one year after it ends. A post you delete is removed when you delete it.
• Recordings: as long as they are useful to the people who attended, and no more than three years.

Ask us to delete something sooner and we will, except where we are required to keep it.

10. Your rights

Wherever you live, you may ask us to:

• Tell you what we hold about you, and give you a copy.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete what we hold, subject to records we must keep.
• Stop using it for marketing, or withdraw a consent you gave.
• Receive it in a portable format, or have it sent elsewhere.

We extend these rights to everyone, rather than only to residents of states and countries that mandate them. It is simpler, and it is the way we would want to be treated. Write to mp@michaelandpenny.com and we will respond within forty-five days. We may need to verify who you are first. We will never charge you for asking, and we will never treat you differently for having asked.

You may use an authorized agent to make a request on your behalf. If we ever have to deny a request, we will tell you why, and you may ask us to look again.

If you are in the UK or the EU, we process your information on the basis of your consent, of performing a contract with you, or of our legitimate interest in running and improving this business, whichever fits the purpose. You may withdraw consent at any time and you may complain to your national data protection authority. Your information is stored in the United States; where we transfer it, we rely on the standard contractual clauses our providers offer.

11. Security

We use reputable providers, limit who can see what, and keep access to the smallest number of people who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise. If a breach ever affected your information, we would tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

12. Children

Our work is for adults. This site is not directed at anyone under eighteen and we do not knowingly collect their information. If you believe a child has given us something, write to us and we will delete it.

13. Changes, and reaching us

When we change this policy we update the date at the top. If a change materially affects how we use information we already hold, we will tell you directly rather than quietly editing the page.