Legal, Privacy & Compliance

Privacy Policy (GDPR & CCPA Compliant)

Last updated: October 2024 • Effective Date: January 1, 2025 • SphereBudget (spherebudget.com)

1. Introduction & Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how SphereBudget (spherebudget.com, "we," "us," or "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information when you visit or interact with our website, budget planner, expense tracker, debt calculator, savings goal manager, and educational articles. We are committed to transparency, data sovereignty, and compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA).

2. Information We Collect

Account Information: When you register or sign in, we collect your email address, display name, currency preference, and authentication credentials.
Budget & Financial Data: Income entries, expense allocations, debt accounts, interest rates, savings goals, and transaction notes.
LocalStorage Data: All financial entries are processed and stored locally in your browser's LocalStorage API for instant, private calculations.
Device & Usage Information: Anonymous telemetry, browser version, operating system, pages visited, and IP address for diagnostic and security purposes.
Cookie Data: Functional cookies to preserve theme preferences (dark/light mode) and anonymous analytics cookies.

3. How We Use Your Information

We process information strictly for legitimate operational purposes:

To provide, operate, and maintain the SphereBudget suite of tools.
To compute real-time mathematical formulas (e.g. debt amortization, 50/30/20 budget allocations).
To send the Weekly Wealth Insights newsletter to confirmed opt-in subscribers.
To monitor website performance and prevent malicious scraping or abuse.
To fulfill customer support requests and enforce our Terms of Service.

4. Data Storage, Local-First Architecture & Security

SphereBudget operates on a privacy-first, client-side storage architecture. Your raw financial figures (budgets, debt accounts, transactions) reside directly on your local device. We never sell, rent, or monetize your personal financial records. All web traffic between your browser and our CDN is secured using TLS 1.3 encryption (HTTPS/SSL).

5. Third-Party Advertising & Data Collection Disclosure

To provide free, high-performance financial calculators and editorial resources, SphereBudget partners with third-party advertising networks, including Google AdSense. Please review our third-party advertising disclosures below:

• Third-Party Vendor Cookies: Third-party vendors, including Google, use cookies (such as the DoubleClick / DART cookie) to serve advertisements based on a user's prior visits to SphereBudget or other websites across the Internet.

• Personalized Advertising: Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve targeted, contextual advertisements to users based on their visits to this site and/or other sites on the web.

• Opting Out of Personalized Advertising: Users may opt out of personalized advertising by visiting Google's Google Ad Settings. Alternatively, users can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting www.aboutads.info or the Network Advertising Initiative Consumer Opt-Out.

• Non-PII Guarantee: Advertising networks do NOT receive your private calculator inputs, budget figures, debts, or financial scenarios. All calculator simulations remain isolated within your local browser sandbox.

Other infrastructure service providers include Content Delivery Networks (for accelerated typography and stylesheet delivery) and transactional email systems for opted-in newsletter subscribers.

6. Cookies, Web Beacons & Tracking Technologies

SphereBudget and third-party partners may collect non-personally identifiable information using cookies, web beacons, and server logs. We categorize cookies into:

Strictly Necessary Cookies: Required to maintain UI preferences (such as light/dark mode selection) and ensure application security.
Analytics Cookies: Aggregated, anonymized telemetry (pageviews, session durations) to identify broken links and optimize calculator load times.
Advertising Cookies: Deployed by Google and third-party programmatic ad exchanges to prevent fraudulent impressions, cap ad frequency, and deliver contextual sponsors.

You can manage, restrict, or revoke cookie permissions through your web browser preferences or by using the Cookie Consent controls located in our site footer.

7. Your Rights Under GDPR (European Union & UK Users)

If you reside in the EEA or UK, you are entitled to the following statutory rights:

Right to Access: Request a full copy of data associated with your profile.
Right to Rectification: Request correction of inaccurate information.
Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): Request immediate deletion of your records.
Right to Data Portability: Export your data in structured CSV or Excel formats.
Right to Restrict or Object to Processing: Stop processing for marketing or analytics.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Unsubscribe or revoke permissions at any time.

To exercise these rights, email our Data Protection Officer at privacy@spherebudget.com.

8. Your Rights Under CCPA / CPRA (California Residents)

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), California residents have the right to know what personal categories we collect, request deletion, and opt out. We do not sell or share personal data for monetary consideration. Non-discrimination is guaranteed when exercising any CCPA rights.

9. Data Retention Policy

LocalStorage data persists indefinitely in your browser until manually cleared by you or wiped via our Reset feature. Newsletter records are retained until you unsubscribe, after which emails are placed on a suppression list to honor your preference.

10. Children's Privacy (COPPA Compliance)

SphereBudget is intended solely for persons aged 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 years of age. If you believe a minor has submitted personal data, contact us for prompt removal.

11. International Data Transfers

If you access our services outside the United States, your interactions may be routed through globally distributed server points with standard contractual clauses ensuring robust protection.

12. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may periodically revise this policy. Substantive updates will be highlighted via a banner or timestamp revision on this page.

13. Contact Us

For questions regarding privacy, GDPR, or CCPA rights, contact our Privacy Officer at privacy@spherebudget.com or support@spherebudget.com. We respond to all formal requests within 30 calendar days.