Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how Becoming Co. uses and protects any information that you give when you use our website, startbecoming.co. Becoming Co. is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

Becoming Co. is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Miami, Florida, and is responsible for the information described in this policy. You can reach us about privacy at legal@startbecoming.co.

Information we collect

We collect only the information you choose to give us through this website:

• When you request a conversation or apply to attend a salon: your name, your email address, anything you write in the optional note, and which of the two you asked for.
• When you take the assessment: your answers to its ten questions, the email address you give to receive your result, and your device's time zone, so that our follow-up note reaches you in the morning where you are. Some questions ask about sleep, energy, recovery, and how you respond to strong emotions. The assessment is not a medical or psychological evaluation.
• When you ask for a conversation from your assessment result: that request, which we keep with your assessment.
• When you sign up for the Vanguard Review's letters: your email address, your name if you give it, which letters you choose, the city you want invitations for if you choose Invitations, and the page you signed up on. We keep none of it until you confirm your address from the email we send you.
• When you ask for one of the Vanguard Review's field guides: your email address, to which we send the link to the guide and a link to confirm The Weekly. If you do not confirm, we keep nothing.
• When you pitch an article to the Vanguard Review: your name, your email address, your working title and idea, and anything you add about why you should write it, with a link if you give one.

We also collect some information automatically:

• When you send a form, signals from your browser and device, gathered by an invisible check that runs in your browser (Vercel BotID, which Vercel provides with its partner Kasada), so that forms sent by automated programs can be turned away. The check asks nothing of you and is not used to identify you.
• Your IP address when you send a form, which we count for up to ten minutes to limit how often forms can be sent and so protect the website from abuse. The count is not linked to your name, your email address, or your assessment.
• When you take the assessment, sign up for the Vanguard Review's letters, or ask for a field guide, a one-way coded form of your email address, from which the address cannot be read back, which we count for up to a day so that no address is sent more than a few of these emails a day.
• The technical information our hosting provider records when your browser requests a page, such as your IP address, your browser type, and the page requested, which is kept in short-lived server logs for security and troubleshooting.
• Anonymous, aggregate measures of how the website is used, through Vercel Web Analytics: the pages visited, the website that referred you, your country, your device and browser type, and steps such as opening the conversation form, finishing the assessment, going to an event's registration page, signing up for the Vanguard Review's letters, playing one of its films, or downloading a field guide. It sets no cookies, does not identify you, and does not follow you across other websites.
• Anonymous measures of how quickly each page loads and responds in your browser, through Vercel Speed Insights, together with the page, your device type, and your country. Like the analytics, it sets no cookies and does not identify you.
• When you send a form, where your first visit to this website came from: the campaign tags on the link you followed, if it had any, the website that referred you, the page you arrived on, and the date. We keep it with your enquiry, application, or assessment so that we know how people find us.
• When you follow a link to an event's registration page on Luma, the link tells Luma how you found the event, either with the campaign tags of your first visit or by naming this website and the page you were on.
• When you watch one of the Vanguard Review's films, which Mux streams to your browser, Mux receives your IP address and browser type, as any website does, and records anonymous measures of how the film plays, such as when it starts, pauses, or stalls. It sets no cookies and does not identify you.

We do not ask for payment details, phone numbers, or postal addresses on this website, and we do not use advertising tools.

How we use this information

We use this information only for the following purposes:

• To reply to your request for a conversation and arrange it
• To review your application to attend a salon and, if it is approved, send you the date
• To send you your assessment result, and one follow-up note from an advisor the next morning
• To share your assessment with our advisors, so that any conversation you request can begin from your answers
• To send you the Vanguard Review's letters you have confirmed, and the field guides you ask for
• To consider your pitch for the Vanguard Review and reply to it
• To understand, in aggregate, how this website is used, so that we can improve it
• To keep this website secure and protect it from misuse
• To comply with our legal obligations

We add you to a mailing list only when you sign up for the Vanguard Review's letters and confirm your address, and then only to the letters you chose. Every letter carries a link to unsubscribe, which you can use at any time. Otherwise we do not send you marketing emails, and we will only email you further if you ask us to, or if you go on to work with us. We do not sell or rent your personal information.

Where your information is kept

We use the following service providers, which process your information on our behalf and only to provide their services to us:

• Notion, where we keep a record of each assessment: your email address, your answers and result, when your result was emailed and your follow-up note scheduled, and whether you asked for a conversation.
• Resend, which sends the emails from this website: your assessment result and follow-up note, the Vanguard Review's confirmation emails, field guide links, and letters, and copies of enquiries, assessments, and pitches to our advisors and editors. Resend also keeps the Vanguard Review's list of readers: each confirmed email address, with the name and city if you gave them, the letters you chose, and the page you signed up on.
• Vercel, which hosts this website, provides its analytics and performance measurement, and checks, with its partner Kasada, that forms are sent by people rather than automated programs.
• Upstash, which holds the short-lived counts we use to limit how often forms can be sent.
• Mux, which hosts and streams the Vanguard Review's films and measures, anonymously, how they play.

Our advisors receive enquiries and assessments, and our editors receive pitches, by email, in our business email accounts.

How long we keep it

We keep enquiries and assessments for as long as we need them to respond to you and, if you go on to work with us, to provide our services, and pitches for as long as we need them to consider and reply to them. We keep your place on the Vanguard Review's letters until you unsubscribe. You can ask us to delete any of it at any time, as described under Your rights. The counts we use to limit form sending expire after ten minutes, or after a day for the counts of the website's forms as a whole and of the emails sent to each address. Our service providers keep their own technical logs for limited periods under their own policies.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Cookies and browser storage

A cookie is a small file which a website places in your browser. This website does not use advertising or third-party cookies, and its analytics set none. It sets one cookie of its own, which lasts only until you close your browser and records that you have already seen the website's opening animation, so that it does not play again. It contains no personal information.

The website also uses your browser's own storage, which stays on your device. Session storage records, for the same opening animation, that you have seen it. Local storage keeps where your first visit came from, as described above, for up to ninety days, and, if you arrived through a partner's page, which partner introduced you, for up to thirty days. Both are sent to us only with a form you choose to send. Once you finish the assessment, local storage also keeps your answers, your email address, the date you took it, and whether you asked for a conversation, so that a return visit opens on your result. If you change the volume of one of the Vanguard Review's films, mute it, or choose its subtitles, local storage keeps that choice for the next film. You can remove it at any time by clearing this website's data in your browser.

You can choose to decline cookies in your browser settings. The website works fully without them.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Disclosure of information

We may disclose your personal information to our employees, officers, agents, suppliers, or subcontractors, including the service providers named above, as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy policy. We may also disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Becoming Co., our customers, or others.

International transfer

Becoming Co. is based in the United States, and our service providers store and process information in the United States. If you use this website from outside the United States, including from the UK or the EU, your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where data protection laws may be different from those in your country of residence. Where the law requires it, these transfers rely on the safeguards our service providers offer for them, such as standard contractual clauses.

Your rights

You have the right to access, correct, and delete your personal information at any time. Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to or restrict how we use it, to receive a copy of it in a portable format, and to complain to your local data protection authority.

To exercise any of these rights, or if you have any questions about this privacy policy, email us at legal@startbecoming.co from the address you gave us, or tell us which address it was.

Children's privacy

Our website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you are under 13, please do not provide any information on this website. If you believe that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, please contact us immediately at legal@startbecoming.co.

Changes to this privacy policy

We may change this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page, with the date at the top updated, and, if appropriate, notified to you by email. You should check this page periodically to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy policy, please contact us at legal@startbecoming.co.