Privacy Policy

Overview

Action Over Words LLC ("we," "us," or "our") runs ActionOverWords Index ("AOW Index"), which tracks specific promises made by elected officials and what actually happened to them. This page explains what information we collect from people who visit or use this site — browsing, creating an account, sending a message, or paying for a membership or leaving a tip — and what choices you have over it.

That's a separate question from the promises, votes, and sourcing tracked about elected officials themselves. That's public civic information about public figures acting in their official capacity, not personal data covered by this policy — see "Information about public officials" below for how that distinction works.

Information we collect

We collect information in a few specific ways, each tied to something you've chosen to do on the site.

If you create an account, we collect the display name, email address, and password you provide, along with your membership tier, the date you joined, and anything you save while using it — like dark mode, the officials you follow, your saved lists and saved views, how often you want alert emails, and any private notes you write about officials. Private notes are visible only to you; we don't publish them or use them for anything else.

If you sign up for the weekly email, we collect your email address and a few details about the sign-up, described under "The weekly email" below. You don't need an account for it.

If you use the Contact form to send a general message, suggest a correction, or appeal a promise's status, we collect the name, email, and message you provide, along with what you tell us about which official or promise it concerns. Appeals additionally require naming a source — the outlet and headline you're citing — which we collect as part of the appeal itself.

If you leave a tip or subscribe, you're sent to Stripe's secure checkout page, where Stripe collects your card details and the contact details it asks for, such as your email address. We never see or store your card number or other payment details. Stripe tells us the amount, the date and whether the payment succeeded. For a membership it also tells us which plan you chose and the subscription's status and renewal date, and we store those along with your Stripe customer and subscription IDs so we can apply, change or end your plan. In our Stripe account we can also see the name and email address you gave Stripe; we use them only to deal with a receipt, refund or billing question.

Automatically, the infrastructure that serves this site may log standard technical details common to any web visit — things like browser type and which pages were requested — for security and reliability. We don't combine this with your account details to build an advertising profile of our own.

How we use it

We use what we collect to run the parts of the site that need it: operating your account and applying your membership tier, following up on messages and status appeals, sending confirmation when a tip or subscription goes through, and keeping the site secure.

If you're granted admin access to edit the site, other admins can see your display name and email in the Team Access panel — that's the mechanism by which editing access is granted and reviewed, so it isn't private from other admins the way it is from the public.

The weekly email

Anyone can sign up for the free weekly "What changed" email, with or without an account. When you sign up we store your email address, when you signed up and confirmed, where on the site you signed up (for example, the page footer), and which weekly emails we've sent you. Nothing is sent to you until you click the link in the confirmation email, and an address that is never confirmed is deleted after 30 days.

To slow down abuse of the sign-up form, we keep a scrambled (keyed, one-way hashed) form of the connecting IP address and of the email address for each sign-up attempt, for 2 days, and use it for nothing else.

Every weekly email has an unsubscribe link, and mail apps that offer one-click unsubscribe can use that too. When you unsubscribe we keep your address marked as unsubscribed so it isn't emailed again; ask us and we'll delete it entirely. We don't use open or click tracking in these emails, and we don't share the list with anyone except Resend, which delivers the emails. If an email ever carries a sponsor's message, the sponsor doesn't receive the list.

Cookies & browser storage

Your browser stores one small piece of information locally, using browser storage rather than a tracking cookie: just enough to remember which account you're logged into on that device. It isn't used by us to track you across other websites, and clearing your browser's site data will simply log you out. Ad services (see Advertising below) can set their own cookies for visitors who see ads. See our Cookie Policy for the full breakdown of what's in use (and what isn't), plus a "Manage preferences" control if you'd rather review or change your choice.

Your account details themselves — display name, email, password, membership tier, preferences — live in the site's own data store, not only on your device, so they're there the next time you log in from anywhere.

Advertising

This project is supported in part by advertising. Signed-out visitors and free accounts may see ads; paid members see none, and no ad code loads for them. The ads are served by Google AdSense, a third-party service.

Google and its partners may use cookies and similar technologies to deliver, limit, and measure ads and to prevent fraud. On this site, ads start in a non-personalized state. Where the law requires it, Google shows its own consent message, and where you allow it, Google and its partners may use cookies to show ads based on your visits to this and other sites. You can opt out of personalized advertising at Google Ads Settings, or opt out of some third-party vendors' use of cookies for personalized advertising at aboutads.info/choices. To learn how Google handles information from sites that use its services, see How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services.

We don't give advertisers or ad networks your account details. Ads also don't change what this site tracks: advertisers have no influence over which officials or promises are tracked, how they're sourced, or how they're scored. See our Cookie Policy for what the ad services store in your browser.

What we don't do

We don't sell your personal information, to anyone, ever. We don't give advertisers or ad networks your account information. And we don't share your account information with outside companies beyond the service providers described below — the ones that actually help run a specific feature, like accepting a tip — or when we're required to by law.

Third-party services

A few outside services are involved in running this site.

Google Fonts loads the site's typeface. Doing so shares your IP address and browser information with Google, the same as it would on most sites that use a hosted font rather than one bundled with the page. Google's own privacy policy governs that.

Google AdSense serves ads to signed-out visitors and free accounts, as described under Advertising above. Google's privacy policy governs what it collects.

Resend delivers the emails this site sends: the confirmation after you use the Contact form, the alert emails paid members can choose, and the weekly email and its confirmation message. To do that it receives your email address and the message itself. Resend's privacy policy governs how it handles them.

Stripe processes every tip and membership payment on its own checkout page, not on this site. Stripe's privacy policy governs what you give it directly; we only receive back what's needed to record your tip or activate your membership.

This site is still an early-stage, actively developed project, and the service that stores account and site data is likely to change as it grows — for example, to a dedicated database and authentication provider. We'll update this section when that happens, not just the fine print buried elsewhere.

Data retention

We keep your account information for as long as your account stays active. If you ask us to delete it, we will, other than anything we need to hold onto for a legitimate reason — for instance, a record of a completed payment, which we keep for accounting, or messages tied to an open correction or appeal.

Contact form submissions are kept long enough to review and act on them, and afterward as a record of what's already been resolved.

For the weekly email: unconfirmed sign-ups are deleted after 30 days, the scrambled sign-up records after 2 days, and our record of which emails were sent after about 13 months. A confirmed or unsubscribed address stays on file until you ask us to delete it.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect the information you share with us. That said, this is an actively developing project — the About page is upfront about similar in-progress caveats on the data side, and the same honesty applies here. No method of storage or transmission is ever completely secure, so please don't reuse a password here that also protects something more important to you elsewhere.

Information about public officials

Everything above covers information about you. It doesn't cover the promises, sources, and status calls tracked about elected officials — that's civic and political information about public figures acting in their official or campaign capacity, compiled from public government records and published news reporting, and it isn't personal data the way your own account is.

That means the rights described in "Your choices" below don't extend to having a tracked promise removed the way you could ask to have your own account deleted. If you believe an entry about an official is inaccurate, that's a correction, not a privacy request — use the Contact form and choose "Suggested correction" or "Appeal a status," the same path described in the FAQ, and it'll be checked against the same three-source standard as everything else on the site.

Your choices

You can update your display name anytime from your Account panel. For anything else — correcting your email on file, deleting your account, or asking what we have on you — use the Contact form, or write to us directly (see Contact, below), and we'll take care of it.

For ads, see Advertising above — your choices there are made through Google's tools, or by choosing a paid membership. The only newsletter we send is the weekly email, and only to people who sign up for it and confirm; every one includes a way to unsubscribe. Other than that, we email you only about your account, a tip or a membership.

If you're on a paid plan and follow officials, we email you when their promises change, as often as your plan allows and you choose (weekly unless you change it). You can change that or turn alerts off under Account → Alerts, and every alert email has a link that turns them off.

If you're in California, or anywhere else with its own privacy law, you get the same choices as everyone else here — to know what we have, correct it, or delete it — regardless of whether that law technically applies to a project this size. Just reach out.

Children's privacy

This site isn't directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll remove it.

International visitors

This site tracks U.S. federal and state officials and is operated from the United States. If you're visiting from elsewhere, your information will be processed here, under U.S. law.

Changes to this policy

We'll update this page as the site changes, especially as it grows past its current prototype stage. The date at the top will change whenever we do, and anything that meaningfully affects what we collect or how we use it will be called out here, not just quietly edited in.

October 19, 2026: we now describe the free weekly email: what we keep when you sign up, for how long, and how to unsubscribe.

October 16, 2026: we now describe saved lists, saved views and private notes, the alert emails paid members can choose, and Resend, which delivers our emails.

October 14, 2026: we now name the company that runs the site, name Stripe as our payment processor, and describe one-time tips.

Contact us

The fastest way to reach us — about this policy, a correction, or anything else — is the Contact form on the Index (About → Contact). You can also reach us directly at info@action-over-words.com.