Privacy Policy

embargo is operated by MKT Based Labs, LLC (“embargo,” “we,” “us”). embargo is software for writing, approving and publishing press releases, including releases several organizations write together. This policy explains what we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have.

Who this covers

• People who sign in: the people who lead releases, the collaborators who write and approve them, and the admins of an organization.
• People who take part by link: someone who gives a quote or approves from a link in an email, and reporters who open a press link.
• Visitors to embargopr.com, to a newsroom, or to a release’s public page.

Information we collect

• Your account: your name, your work email, and, if you add them, a photo, your title and your time zone.
• Your organization: its name, website, logo, press kit (boilerplates, colors, logo files), media contact, social links, and who belongs to it and in what role.
• Your releases: what you and your collaborators write, comments, suggested changes, photos, who approved what and when, and the time the release lifts.
• Press links: a reporter’s name, email and outlet, and when the link was opened.
• Messages sent through a form on our site, such as Contact sales or a message to a release’s media contact.
• Sign-in and security: the IP address and browser of each signed-in session, used to keep your account secure and to limit abuse.
• Site analytics: on our public marketing pages only, the page visited, the site that linked to it (never the full address), campaign tags, the type of browser and device, and an IP address with its last part removed. No cookie is used for this, and a visit isn’t tied to you.

When you sign up with a work email, embargo reads your organization’s public website to fill in its name, logo, colors and press contact, so you don’t have to type them.

Release text before the embargo lifts

A release is visible only to the people on it until it lifts. Reporters you send a press link to can read the approved text before the lift, after agreeing to your embargo. Nothing about a release is public before the lift: a public page goes up only if you turn it on, and only once the release lifts. Our staff tools show counts, stages and dates, never the text of a release.

How we use information

• To run embargo: to show each person their part, send invitations, sign-in links, reminders and approval requests, and publish a release at the time you set.
• To record approvals, so everyone can see who approved which version.
• To answer your messages and support requests.
• To keep embargo secure, prevent spam and abuse, fix errors, and improve the service.

AI

AI in embargo is optional, and each release has its own setting: off, for the person leading it only, or for everyone on it. When it’s on, the text needed for a draft (an outline, a boilerplate, social posts) is sent to our AI provider, Anthropic, to write a suggestion that a person reviews. With AI off, no release text goes to an AI model. Your organization’s public website text may be used to draft its boilerplate when you sign up. We don’t keep prompts or replies, and under Anthropic’s commercial terms, what we send isn’t used to train its models.

If you connect your own AI assistant to embargo, it acts as you, with the access you approve, and you can disconnect it at any time. It can’t send, approve or publish for you.

How information is shared

• We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t use advertising trackers.
• With the people on a release: your name, organization and role, and what you write, comment and approve on it.
• Publicly, when you choose: a newsroom and a release’s public page show what you publish on them, including any media contact you list.
• With our service providers, who process data only to run embargo: DigitalOcean (hosting and database), Amazon Web Services (file storage), Resend (email delivery), Anthropic (AI, when it’s on), Sentry (error reports, which carry no release text and no personal details beyond an account number), and Google (the typefaces your browser loads from Google Fonts, and the inbox that receives Contact sales messages).
• When the law requires it, or to protect the rights, safety and security of our users and the service.

How we protect it

Data travels over encrypted connections (TLS), and access to production systems is limited to the people who need it to run embargo. Sign-in links expire after 15 minutes. Error reports are built from a short list of technical fields, so release text and personal details never go into them.

Data retention

We keep your account and your releases for as long as your account is open, and as needed to provide the service and meet legal obligations. A published release keeps its record of who approved it. If you leave an organization, or an admin removes you, you come off its releases that aren’t yet public. You can ask us to delete your account and your personal information at any time (see Contact).

Your choices and rights

You can change your name, photo and email in your profile. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, export or delete your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. To make a request, write to us.

Cookies

We use cookies only to run embargo: one keeps you signed in, one remembers your time zone so times show in yours, and one remembers that a reporter has agreed to a release’s embargo. We don’t use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

Children

embargo is for work, and isn’t directed to children under 16. We don’t knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes

We may update this policy. We’ll change the “Last updated” date and, for material changes, let account holders know.

Contact

Questions or requests: [email protected].