What we keep, and what we never see

FeelingGuide has no accounts and asks for nothing about you. The one place you can hand us something personal is the identify tool, where you describe how you feel. This page says exactly what happens to that description.

The short version

• No account, no sign-up, no name. If you buy Next steps, Polar takes an email address to send you the link and the receipt, and we never store it.
• What you type into the identify tool is sent to Anthropic's Claude to search our library of feelings, and is stored so we can check whether the tool is answering people well. When Next steps is offered under an answer, Claude also writes its first line from what you typed, free, and that line is kept with the conversation. While the short line under the text box is on, your draft is also read as you type, by TypeSafe, to choose that line. We do not store those drafts.
• We do not store your IP address next to what you wrote. We store a one-way hash of it, separately, only to enforce a usage limit.
• In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, analytics cookies are off until you say yes. Elsewhere they are on unless you switch them off. Nothing you type is ever sent to Google.
• We do not sell anything, and we run no advertising today.

Who to ask about any of this

FeelingGuide is a small site, run independently from Finland. For anything on this page, including the rights set out below, write to hello@iamfeelingguide.com. That address reaches the person responsible for the site, who is the data controller under the EU General Data Protection Regulation.

What the identify tool collects

When you submit a description, we store:

• the text you wrote, exactly as you wrote it
• the answer our AI gave you, and the feelings it linked
• the searches the AI ran against our library, so we can tell a bad answer from a bad search
• your browser's user agent string, and a random conversation identifier generated in your browser
• which page on this site you followed a link from to reach the tool, when you arrive that way
• whether you pressed “Yes, this fits” or “Not quite” on the answer. That verdict is stored with the conversation it judges, because it is the only way we can tell a good answer from a bad one. It is not analytics and does not depend on the cookie banner.

We do not ask for, and have no way to learn, your name or email address. The conversation identifier is random and is not linked to any other visit you make.

Why we keep it

To find out where the tool fails people. A September 2026 review of real conversations is what told us the search was missing words like “numbness” and “dissociation” entirely. Our lawful basis is legitimate interest under Article 6(1)(f): improving a free educational service. If you would rather we did not, do not use the tool. Everything else on the site works without it.

A word about sensitive information

A description of how you feel can reveal something about your mental health, and EU law treats that as a special category of data. So treat the box as public writing rather than a diary: please do not put your name, anyone else's name, or details that would identify you into it. We do not need them, and the tool works better without them.

What we do with your IP address

To stop one person or script from running up costs, we count requests per connection. We do this by storing a SHA-256 hash of your IP address, with IPv6 addresses reduced to their network prefix, in a table that holds nothing else about you. We keep that hash for up to a day and use it only to enforce our hourly and daily usage limits. The hash is never written next to what you typed.

How the AI processing works

Your description is sent to Anthropic, which runs the Claude model that reads it and searches our library. Anthropic acts as our processor and does not train its models on data sent through its API. An AI writes the answer you see. It is not a person, it is not a therapist, and it does not diagnose anything.

If you buy Next steps

Next steps is a one-off 5 dollar page, written by the same AI from the description you already wrote. Paying for it means you agree, in so many words, that we send that description to the AI so it can write the page. A description of how you feel can say something about your health, and EU law asks for explicit agreement before anyone processes that, so the button says it plainly instead of assuming it.

The payment itself runs through Polar, which is the merchant of record and holds the email address you give it at checkout. We never write that address into our database, and no table or log line here has it. We read it once, out of the message Polar sends us, and use it to send one email through Resend. That email carries a link and a sentence. It has no words of yours and no feeling names in it, in case somebody else reads the inbox.

Your page sits at a private link for 90 days. After that the page and anything you answered are deleted, and the link says so. The record that a payment happened stays, because a refund and a tax return both need it. If you want your money back, write to hello@iamfeelingguide.com and say so. Full refund on request, no questions.

How long we keep it

Conversations are deleted after 90 days. A Next steps page, and the answers behind it, are deleted 90 days after the purchase. The hashed IP used to enforce usage limits (hourly and daily) is kept for up to a day. Nothing here is kept indefinitely.

Analytics and cookies

We use Google Analytics to see which pages help people, in aggregate. In the European Economic Area, the UK and Switzerland it stays off until you accept it in the cookie banner. Elsewhere it is on by default, and Cookie settings at the bottom of every page turns it off. You can change your mind at any time. What you type into the identify tool is never sent to Google. Full detail is on the cookies page.

Where your data goes

• Vercel: hosting, and the database that stores conversations
• Anthropic: AI processing of your description
• TypeSafe (United States): reads your draft while you type in the identify tool, to choose the short line under the box. We keep nothing from it, and TypeSafe says it does not train on what it reads.
• Google: analytics. In the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, only if you consent
• Slack: a private workspace only the person who runs this site can read. Once a day, the descriptions written into the identify tool are posted there, as you wrote them, so we can see what people are actually asking for. Nothing is posted publicly and nothing is shared onward.
• Polar: payment, as merchant of record, only if you buy Next steps. Polar holds the email address you give it at checkout. We do not.
• Resend: the one email that delivers your link. It carries the link, not what you wrote.

These providers may process data outside the EU. Where that happens, the transfer relies on an appropriate safeguard, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or Standard Contractual Clauses.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold
• correct it
• delete it
• give you a copy in a portable format
• stop processing it

Be aware of a practical limit: because we deliberately store nothing that identifies you, we usually cannot find your conversation unless you can tell us roughly when you used the tool and what you wrote. That is a consequence of collecting so little, not a refusal. Email hello@iamfeelingguide.com and we will do what we can.

You can also complain to the Finnish Data Protection Ombudsman at tietosuoja.fi, or to your own national supervisory authority.

Children

FeelingGuide is not intended for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has used the identify tool, contact us and we will delete the conversation.

This is not medical care

FeelingGuide is an educational resource. It does not diagnose, treat, or replace a qualified professional. If you are in crisis, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.

Changes

When our practices change, this page changes and the date at the top moves. Questions go to hello@iamfeelingguide.com.