Legal
Privacy policy
Combucha is a board of opportunities (roles, internships, fellowships, programs) that people share, with a conversational concierge. This page says what we collect, who processes it for us, how long we keep it, and how you take it with you or delete it.
What we collect
- Browsing the board needs no account. We log requests to run and protect the site, and we count anonymous chat turns per IP address to enforce limits.
- What you type in the board’s search box is sent to an AI model to turn it into filters. We keep the filters we read from it, including any words we could not apply, for 30 days, with email addresses and phone numbers removed, and our tracing service gets a copy with the same details removed.
- Your account: your email address, your time zone, the settings you choose, and when you last opened the home page, so it can show what opened since your last visit.
- Your preference card: the roles, places, pay floor and exclusions you or the concierge record, with a history of every change and who made it.
- Your activity: saved roles, application stages, alerts, thumbs up or down, and your conversation with the concierge, including email replies. What you click in the workspace, like removing a filter or saving a role, is recorded in your conversation with the concierge, and is exported and deleted with it.
- Things you tell the concierge: it remembers facts you state in chat, such as your work authorization or where you have applied. This is on by default. You can see, edit and delete them on your card page under “Things you’ve told me”, and turn it off there. They are exported and deleted with your account.
- Images you send in chat: each image is read once, when you add it, and is never stored. Only the text read from it is kept, in your conversation, and it is exported and deleted with it. An image that looks like a resume keeps nothing: use Upload resume instead. From a LinkedIn screenshot we keep only the job facts: the company, the role, the location, how to apply (one email address or link), the deadline and the posted date, never the post's wording, a name, a handle or a photo.
- Imports you start: a GitHub username, a personal site or a resume. We keep a short summary, and the text of a resume is kept for tailoring and used for nothing else. The file itself is not kept.
You can start a new chat. Each chat is its own conversation. Your card, saved roles, alerts and the facts Combucha remembers are shared across chats. A reply to an alert email goes to the chat where that alert was created, or to your first chat, and if that chat was deleted it starts a new one. A deleted chat is hidden at once and removed after 30 days. A visitor's chat is still kept for 24 hours, and a visitor has no chat list.
We never collect anything from LinkedIn ourselves. If you send a LinkedIn screenshot in chat, we keep only the job facts listed above, in your conversation, never the post's wording, and the image is never stored. We never apply for jobs or message employers for you.
A PDF, Word document, text file or Markdown file is read once, when you add it, and the file itself is never stored. Only the text read from it is kept, in your conversation, and it is exported and deleted with your messages. That text is sent to the model as part of the conversation, the way a message you type is. It is not kept in the diagnostic records of the agent's runs. A resume attached in chat does not change your card or replace the resume you uploaded; Combucha may offer to add a place, a seniority or a role family, and nothing is saved until you click. A scan with no selectable text is not read: send a screenshot instead. We do not read a LinkedIn data export.
Opportunities you publish
You choose whether an opportunity you add is saved only for you or published to the community. A published opportunity can be found by other people. It shows your name only if you chose to show it; otherwise it shows no name. When you delete your account you can choose to keep a tip only you published up, without your name. If you do, we remove your name, and we remove personal contact details: the stated way to act and the apply link when they are personal (an email, a phone number, a personal handle or a request to message you), and every email address, phone number and personal handle in the text, including stored quotes, shown as [removed]. Tips whose only way to apply was your own contact can't stay listed without it. An ATS link, a company link and an organizer link stay when they are not themselves a personal contact. If you do not choose that, a tip only you published is closed and no longer shown. If someone else also contributed, the opportunity stays up either way, with your name and personal links removed.
Who processes it
These providers process data on our behalf, only for the purpose stated.
| Processor | Purpose | Data |
|---|---|---|
| xAI | The language model provider (Grok) behind the concierge, the board's search box, matching, resume tailoring and reading the images you send in chat, and the web search the concierge uses to look up companies and public topics in chat. | Your chat messages, your preference card, a short profile summary and posting text, as each request needs; your resume text when you ask for a draft tailored to a job; an image you send in chat, once, to read its text. For a web search, only the search words the concierge writes, such as a company's name or a topic, and that company's web address; your card, resume and chat history are not sent with them. A search holding your email address, your name as your account or email address shows it, any other email address or phone number, or a LinkedIn link is refused before it is sent. Not your email address. |
| Amazon Web Services | Hosts the database, the background worker and stored files in the United States (us-east-1), and sends our email (sign-in links, alerts, digests). | Everything Combucha stores, listed below; your email address and the content of the emails we send you. |
| Postmark | Receives your replies to our emails and passes them to the concierge. | The emails you send to a reply address, including your address and what you wrote. |
| Vercel | Hosts the website, and counts page visits with Vercel Web Analytics. | Requests to the site, including IP addresses, as part of serving it. Page visits are counted without cookies or your account: only the page address, without its query string, plus country, browser and device. |
| Cloudflare | Runs the domain's DNS; Turnstile checks that a sign-in or anonymous chat comes from a person. | Browser signals Turnstile needs for its check. |
| Slack | Tells our operator when you ask to talk to a person. | The ticket number and the reason you gave, up to 200 characters. Not your email address. |
| GitHub | Answers our request when you import a GitHub username. | The username you give us; we read that public profile and its public repositories. |
| Lemma (not yet enabled) | Will monitor the concierge and the other agents for failures. | Records of agent runs, with email addresses, phone numbers, codes and tokens masked first. You appear only under a pseudonymous id. Nothing is sent until it is enabled. |
| Stripe (from v1) | Takes payment from employers who feature a listing. Job seekers never pay. | Billing details, entered on Stripe’s own page. Card numbers never reach Combucha. |
What Lemma sees
Lemma is not enabled yet. Once it is, it receives records of how the agents behaved so failures can be caught and fixed. Before any record leaves Combucha, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, deletion codes, sign-in and reply tokens, and URLs that carry tokens are replaced with placeholders. You are identified there only by a pseudonymous id derived from your account, never by your email.
Where it is stored and how it is protected
Combucha’s database and files are in the United States, in Amazon Web Services’ us-east-1 region. The text of your resume and the drafts tailored from it are encrypted by Combucha before they are stored, with a key held apart from the database, so a copy of the database alone does not reveal them. Connections to the site use HTTPS.
How long we keep it
| Data | Kept |
|---|---|
| Account, preference card and its history, shortlist, alerts, feedback | Until you delete your account |
| A chat you delete | Hidden at once, then removed after 30 days. Your card, saved roles, alerts and remembered facts are not removed with it. |
| Messages and the agent's tool calls | 180 days; a running summary keeps context after that |
| A rating and optional note on a reply | Kept until you delete your account, until 180 days after we dismiss or accept it, or 24 hours for a visitor without an account. Used only to review that reply. Not sent to the model provider as training data. |
| Uploaded resume file | Deleted within minutes; 24 hours at most |
| Images you send in chat | Never stored: read once when you add them, then dropped. What was read is kept with your messages |
| A private save, with your notes | Until you delete it or your account |
| An opportunity you published | Until you delete it or your account, unless you choose to keep a tip only you published up without your name. If you do not, that tip is closed and we remove its description, how to apply, and your name and links, and keep its title and organizer. If you do, the tip stays open without your name: personal contact details are removed (the stated way to act and the apply link when they are personal, and emails, phone numbers and personal handles in the text and stored quotes, shown as [removed]). Tips whose only way to apply was your own contact can't stay listed without it. ATS, company and organizer links stay when they are not themselves a personal contact. If someone else also contributed to the same opportunity, it stays up, with your name and personal links removed; the details you both gave stay. |
| What you sent when you published (the submission, uploads, your reports) | Deleted with your account |
| Your display name on an opportunity | Shown only if you chose to; removed everywhere when you delete your account |
| An abuse record after you delete your account | 90 days. A one-way code for the account and for each opportunity you submitted, and what moderation had done with it (listed, held, refused, reported, removed, unverified or closed). No text, no email, no name, no account id and no opportunity id. Used only to match a returning scammer or a report to a deleted poster. Then deleted. |
| The record of an image you added (what was read, until you send it) | 24 hours |
| Files you send in chat | Never stored: read once when you add them, then dropped. What was read is kept with your messages |
| The record of a file you added (what was read, until you send it) | 24 hours |
| Resume text and the drafts tailored from it | Kept, encrypted, until you delete it in Settings, upload a new one or delete your account |
| Profile summary from an import | Until you delete your account |
| Data exports | 7 days, behind a link that expires |
| Posts collected from public sources | 90 days |
| Diagnostic records of the agent's runs, kept by Combucha (prompts and replies, then timings and errors) | Prompts and replies 30 days, timings and errors 90 days; deleted when you delete your account |
| Agent run records at Lemma | Lemma's retention period; deleted when you delete your account |
| A record that email to an address bounced or was reported as spam (a keyed hash of the address, never the address) | Kept, also after account deletion, so we do not mail a dead or unwilling address again; Try again lets our email through again |
Cookies
Combucha sets only cookies it needs to work. There are no analytics or advertising cookies: page visits are counted by Vercel Web Analytics, which sets none and cannot follow you from one day to the next.
- A sign-in session cookie, for 30 days from sign-in.
- An anonymous chat session cookie, so the concierge remembers the conversation for up to a day.
- A theme cookie, only if you pick light or dark, so the site remembers it.
Your choices
- Export: ask the concierge or use settings to get one file with everything tied to your account, emailed as a link that expires after 7 days.
- Delete: delete your account from settings or by asking the concierge. A code sent to your email confirms it; your data is then removed, including the agent records at Lemma. Deleting your account removes your name from every opportunity. A tip only you published is closed, unless you choose to keep it up without your name. If you keep it up, personal contact details are removed from it (the stated way to act and the apply link when they are personal, and emails, phone numbers and personal handles in the text and stored quotes, shown as [removed]), and ATS, company and organizer links stay when they are not themselves a personal contact. Tips whose only way to apply was your own contact can't stay listed without it. We keep a 90-day abuse record of codes only, as in the table above, then delete it.
- Correct: edit your preference card at any time; every edit is recorded in its history.
- Talk to a person: ask the concierge to hand you over to a human.
Changes and contact
We will post changes here with the date they take effect. The operator’s legal name and contact address will be added before launch. See also the terms of use.