Privacy policy

Who we are

Gold Squirrel Studio ("GSS", "we") builds and maintains software platforms for manufacturers, automotive businesses and dealers. This policy explains what this website collects, why, and what you can ask us to do about it.

Our office is at B-920, Gera's Imperium Gateway, Nashik Phata Metro Station, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Maharashtra 411034. You can reach us at contact@goldsquirrelstudio.com, on +91 79727 03153 or +91 97669 27285, during Mon–Sat · 9:00 AM – 6:30 PM IST.

What this policy covers

This policy covers goldsquirrelstudio.com and the enquiry, newsletter and assistant features on it. It does not cover third-party websites we link to, and it does not cover the software platforms we build for clients under a separate agreement.

Information you give us

We collect information when you choose to send it to us. There is no account to create and no profile built about you while you browse.

• Contact details you enter in a form or the assistant: name, company, email address and phone number.
• Enquiry and project details: what you want built or improved, your business requirements, industry, expected users, locations, timelines, and any budget information you volunteer.
• Newsletter sign-up: your email address.
• Anything else you type into a message to us, including into the AI assistant.

The GSS AI project discovery assistant

The assistant on this site helps you describe a requirement, find the parts of our work that relate to it, and assemble an initial project brief. When you type into it, your messages are processed to answer you and to understand your requirement.

The assistant runs in two modes. When the AI engine is configured and reachable, your messages are sent to a third-party AI service to generate the reply. When it is not, a built-in rule-based consultant answers from our own published service and product information, and nothing leaves our server. The assistant tells you on screen when it is answering in the reduced mode.

The assistant does not decide anything commercially. It does not quote prices, commit to timetables or agree scope. If you leave contact details, the conversation summary is passed to our team so a person can follow up.

Please do not enter confidential third-party information, credentials or personal data about other people into the assistant. If your project needs confidentiality, tell us first and we will arrange an NDA before you share details.

Phone verification

When you submit your details through the assistant, we may ask you to confirm the phone number you gave us by entering a one-time code sent to that number by SMS.

We do that for two reasons: to confirm the number belongs to you, and to keep automated submissions from filling our queue. A completed verification is what marks an enquiry as verified on our side. The code is short-lived, is not reused, and the enquiry cannot be marked verified without it.

SMS delivery is handled by a messaging provider (see below). Standard message rates from your carrier may apply.

How we use your information

• To answer your enquiry and reply to you.
• To understand your requirements and prepare an initial project brief for our team.
• To decide whether what we build is a fit for what you need, and to prepare a proposal or call.
• To send the newsletter, if you asked for it.
• To keep the website working and secure: rate limiting, preventing automated abuse, and diagnosing faults.
• To understand which parts of the site are useful, in aggregate, so we can improve them.

Service providers

We do not sell or rent your information. We do use service providers to run this website and the services you ask us for, and those providers process information on our instructions. Depending on how the site is configured at the time you use it, these are:

• Our hosting provider and web server, where the website and the enquiry records are stored.
• Our email service, which delivers enquiry notifications and the newsletter.
• An AI service provider, when the assistant is running in AI mode.
• Cloudflare Turnstile, a privacy-preserving challenge that verifies a submission comes from a person rather than a script. It is used on forms and in the assistant when enabled.
• A messaging provider (such as MSG91 or Twilio) that delivers one-time verification codes by SMS.
• Google Analytics, only when a measurement ID has been configured and you have accepted analytics (see below).

Cookies and browser storage

This website sets no cookies of its own, and none for advertising. What it does store in your browser is listed here in full.

• The assistant keeps an in-progress conversation in your browser's session storage so that closing and reopening it, or reloading the tab, does not lose what you already told it. That copy is scoped to the tab, expires on its own after about half an hour, and is discarded when the tab closes. Verification codes, session handles and completed enquiry results are deliberately not stored this way.
• Your analytics choice is remembered in local storage, so that we do not ask you again. Choosing "decline" stores only that you declined.
• If a front-end error occurs, a short diagnostic note may be kept in local storage on your device so the problem can be reported and fixed. It is sent to us only where measurement is allowed, with query strings removed.
• Google Analytics, when configured and accepted, uses its own cookies to distinguish visits. We do not run it before you accept.

Analytics and your choices

Analytics is off until a measurement ID is configured, and off for you until you accept it. If a measurement ID is configured and you have not yet chosen, we ask once with a banner — accepting turns Google Analytics on, declining leaves it off, and either way the answer is remembered. You can change your mind at any time from "Analytics choices" in the footer.

If your browser tells us not to track you — via Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control — we treat that as a refusal: the analytics tag does not load, and the request is not made at all. That is already true before you touch the banner, and declining does not override it.

We also keep our own first-party counters — enquiry form taps, WhatsApp and call taps, and the assistant's own funnel steps such as a conversation starting or an enquiry form being completed. These record a timestamp, which element was used and which page it was on. They set no cookie, store no IP address and carry no identifier that could link two visits to the same person, which is why they keep working when you decline: declining stops third-party analytics, not our own aggregate counting. If you would rather not be counted at all, Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control stops these too.

When information is shared

• With the service providers listed above, only as needed to run the website and the services you asked for.
• With our own team members who handle enquiries, proposals and project delivery.
• Where we are required to by law, or to establish or defend a legal claim.
• In connection with a business transfer, if the business or its assets were ever transferred, subject to this policy.

How long we keep it

We keep enquiry information for as long as it is needed for the purpose it was given for: handling your enquiry, any resulting proposal or project, and our own business records. Short-lived technical records are kept for much less — verification codes expire within minutes, and rate-limit and funnel counters are aggregate and are pruned as they age.

When information is no longer needed for those purposes, we remove it or stop using it. If you would like us to delete an enquiry, ask us (see below) and we will, unless we are required to keep it.

How we protect it

The site is served over HTTPS. Enquiry records are kept on the server in a directory that is explicitly denied over the web, so they cannot be downloaded from a browser. Submitted forms and the assistant are rate limited, and a phone number must be verified before the related enquiry is treated as verified.

No system is perfect. If you believe information you gave us has been exposed, tell us at once at contact@goldsquirrelstudio.com and we will investigate.

Your requests about your information

You can ask us to tell you what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, or to explain how it was used. Write to contact@goldsquirrelstudio.com with enough detail for us to find the record — usually the email address or phone number you used. We may ask you to confirm the request came from you before we act on it.

Depending on where you live, you may have specific legal rights over your information. We will respond to a request in the way the law that applies to you requires, and we will tell you if we cannot do what you asked and why.

Children

This website and our services are meant for businesses and professionals. We do not knowingly collect information from children, and we would remove it if we learned we had.

Changes to this policy

If we change how this website handles information, we will update this page and the date shown above. Material changes that affect how we use information you already gave us will be described on this page.