Privacy Policy

Matter is a text-first, read-only Gmail monitoring service operated by Caleb Lee in the United States. In this policy, “Matter,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to the Matter service and its operator.

Questions or privacy requests can be sent to contact@usematter.app.

We collect the information needed to operate Matter, including:

• Account and contact information. Your phone number, Gmail address, Google account identifier, Auth0 account identifier, connected inboxes, onboarding status, and account settings.
• Gmail information. With your authorization, Matter reads messages and related metadata from your Gmail inbox, including sender information, subject lines, timestamps, snippets, message content, thread identifiers, and Gmail links. Matter does not access attachments for alert processing and does not send, delete, label, archive, or otherwise modify your Gmail messages.
• Connection credentials. Google refresh tokens, encrypted before they are stored, along with token-expiration and Gmail synchronization information.
• Messages with Matter. The texts you send to Matter, Matter’s replies and alerts, provider message identifiers, delivery status, and opt-out status.
• Alert and preference information. Alert classifications, summaries, urgency, category, confidence, recommended action, notification text, and explicit preferences or alert-blocking rules that you ask Matter to remember.
• Subscription information. Your selected plan, subscription status, billing period, and Polar customer and subscription identifiers. Payment-card details are handled by Polar and are not stored by Matter.
• Technical information. Service events, timestamps, error categories, security logs, and limited diagnostic and usage metadata. Our infrastructure providers may also receive information such as your IP address, browser type, and device information when you use the website.

We use information to:

• create and secure your phone-number-based Matter account;
• connect and monitor the Gmail inboxes you authorize;
• classify emails and decide which messages may need your attention;
• generate and deliver alerts, account help, and evening digests when available on your plan;
• apply the settings, preferences, and alert rules you choose;
• authenticate access to the settings portal and manage subscriptions;
• prevent duplicate delivery, abuse, fraud, and security incidents;
• operate, troubleshoot, analyze, and improve Matter; and
• comply with law and enforce our Terms of Service.

Matter requests the read-only Gmail scope, gmail.readonly, solely to provide the user-facing inbox monitoring, classification, alert, and digest features you request. Matter does not obtain permission to change your mailbox.

Matter sends bounded excerpts of relevant Gmail messages to OpenAI to classify importance and generate concise alert text. For conversational account help, OpenAI may also receive a limited recent history of your visible messages with Matter. Requests are sent with model storage disabled. OpenAI states that API inputs and outputs are not used to train its models by default, but it may temporarily retain content in abuse-monitoring logs unless a different data-retention control applies. Matter does not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train generalized artificial intelligence or machine-learning models.

Matter’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not sell Google user data, use it for advertising, or transfer it for credit, lending, surveillance, or unrelated purposes.

We disclose information only as needed to operate Matter or as required by law. Our service providers include:

• Google for Gmail access, account information, and OAuth authorization;
• OpenAI for email classification and generated alert or support text;
• Sendblue for text-message transport, status events, and conversation indicators;
• Auth0 for SMS-based authentication to the settings portal;
• Polar for checkout, subscriptions, payment processing, and the billing portal;
• Mem0 for explicit preferences and alert rules you ask Matter to remember;
• Convex for application hosting, databases, scheduled work, and backend infrastructure;
• PostHog for metadata-only product and AI usage analytics; and
• our website hosting, security, and operational vendors.

Mem0 receives an opaque Matter identifier and only the preference or alert-rule text you explicitly ask Matter to save. Matter does not send raw Gmail messages to Mem0. PostHog receives an opaque Matter identifier and metadata such as event names, plan state, model, latency, token counts, and success or failure status. Matter does not send PostHog Gmail or SMS content, email addresses, phone numbers, provider account identifiers, prompts, generated copy, or raw provider errors.

We may also disclose information when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect users or the service, investigate abuse, or complete a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets. Any successor would remain subject to this policy for previously collected information unless you are notified of a change.

• Raw texts sent to Matter are retained until you delete your Matter account.
• Disconnecting a Gmail inbox deletes its encrypted refresh token, stored scans, and related outbound alerts from Matter’s active database.
• Deleting your Matter account first deletes and verifies removal of your Matter memories from Mem0, then removes your phone-keyed account, settings, OAuth intents, Gmail tokens, messages, scans, alerts, and local subscription records from Matter’s active systems.
• Deleting Matter does not automatically delete your external Auth0 identity or records that Polar or another provider must retain for billing, fraud prevention, security, or legal compliance. You should cancel an active subscription through the billing portal before deleting your account.

Limited information may remain temporarily in logs, encrypted backups, or provider systems under applicable retention schedules. We may retain information longer when required by law, to resolve disputes, or to protect the service and its users.

You may:

• disconnect a Gmail inbox or delete your account from the secure settings portal;
• revoke Matter’s Google access through your Google Account security settings;
• reply STOP to stop Matter texts;
• ask Matter by text to list or remove explicit preferences and alert rules; and
• contact us to request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, or to exercise rights available under applicable US state privacy laws.

We may need to verify your identity before completing a request. Matter does not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, and therefore does not offer a separate sale or targeted-ad opt-out.

Matter uses safeguards designed to protect your information, including encrypted Google refresh tokens, restricted read-only Gmail permissions, signed provider webhooks, access controls, and secure network transport. No service can guarantee absolute security, and you use Matter with that understanding.

Matter is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a minor has provided information to Matter, contact us so we can investigate and delete it.

Matter is currently offered only in the United States. Information may be processed in the United States and in other locations where our service providers operate, subject to their safeguards and applicable law.

We may update this policy as Matter changes. We will update the effective date and provide additional notice when a change is material. If a change materially affects how we use Google user data, we will provide notice and obtain consent when required before using that data in the new way.

Matter is operated by Caleb Lee. For questions, support, or privacy requests, email contact@usematter.app.