Who we are
Poem Parlour (poemparlour.com) writes personalised poems and delivers them as print-ready PDFs. We're the data controller for the information you give us. If you have a question about your data, email hello@poemparlour.com.
What we collect
- Details for your poem. These are the things you type into the poem form: the recipient's name, your relationship, the occasion, how you'd like to sign it, the memories and details you share, the tone you choose, and any changes you ask for.
- Your email address. We use it to save your poem and send it to you.
- Your time zone, as reported by your browser. We use it so a reminder about an unfinished poem arrives at a sensible time of day, never in the middle of the night.
- Payment details. Stripe handles these. We never see or store your card number. Stripe tells us your email address and that the payment went through.
- Technical information. Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, such as IP address, browser type and the pages requested, to keep the site running and secure.
- Usage information: limited, cookieless measurement signals from Google's tag, and more if you accept cookies. See Cookies below.
The details you share are often about someone else. Please only include things you're comfortable with us using to write a poem, and leave out sensitive information such as health details unless they genuinely belong in it, for example in a memorial poem.
How we use it
| What we do | Why we're allowed to |
|---|---|
| Write your poem and show you a free preview | You asked us to. These are steps you've requested before buying. |
| Save your preview so you can come back to it | You asked us to. |
| Email you a copy of your preview, or a link back to it, when you ask us to save it for later, and keep it for 7 days | You asked us to. We only use that email address for this poem. |
| Send one reminder email, at lunchtime or in the evening your time, if you leave a preview without buying (about a day after you saved it, if you did) | Our legitimate interest in letting you know your poem is still waiting. It's one email about the poem you started, never a newsletter. Reply to tell us if you'd rather not get it. |
| If you send a poem as a gift: email it to the person you chose, at the time you chose, and tell you when it's been delivered (or if it couldn't be) | To fulfil your order. We use the recipient's name and email address only to deliver that gift. We never add them to any mailing list or send them anything else. |
| Email you now and then about new poem styles and designs | Your consent, and only if you tick the box asking for it when you save a poem. It's never ticked for you. Reply to any of these emails, or email us, to stop at any time. |
| Take payment and email you your PDF | To fulfil our contract with you. |
| Keep a record of orders | Legal obligation, for tax and accounting. |
| Measure which pages and adverts work | Advertising cookies: your consent, only if you accept cookies. Without consent, limited cookieless signals: our legitimate interest in knowing whether our adverts work. |
We don't sell your information, and we never send marketing emails unless you've ticked the box asking for them.
Who helps us
We use a small number of trusted providers. Each one only receives what it needs to do its job:
- Anthropic provides the AI model that writes your poem from the details you share. Under its commercial terms, Anthropic does not use these requests to train its models.
- Upstash provides the database that holds your saved preview.
- Stripe processes payments.
- Resend sends our emails: your poem, and the one reminder.
- Vercel hosts the website.
- Google serves the fonts on our pages, which means your browser connects to Google's servers and shares your IP address. Google Fonts doesn't set cookies. Google's tag for Google Ads also runs on every page (see Cookies below).
Some of these providers are based in, or store data in, the United States. Where your information leaves the UK, it's protected by legal safeguards such as the UK–US data bridge or the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum.
How long we keep it
- Previews, including the details you shared, are deleted automatically 24 hours after you last use them. If we send you a reminder, the preview is kept for 24 hours after that so the link still works, so never more than 48 hours in total.
- Saved previews: if you ask us to save your preview for later, we keep it for 7 days from when you saved it, then delete it automatically.
- Gifts: the poem, your message, and the recipient's name and email address are kept until about 13 months after the gift is delivered, so they can reopen their poem and download it for at least a year. Then they're deleted automatically. A cancelled gift is deleted after 30 days.
- Marketing consent: if you tick the box to hear about new poem styles and designs, we keep your email address and a record of when you agreed until you ask us to stop.
- Orders are kept in Stripe for six years for tax purposes. The order record includes your email address, the recipient's name, the name you signed it from and the occasion.
- Emails we've sent are held by our email provider for a limited period for delivery records.
Cookies
We store a few things in your browser that the site needs to work. These are always on:
| Name | What it's for |
|---|---|
| pp-draft, pp-last-preview | Saves your answers and your latest preview on your device, so you don't lose them if you leave the page. |
| pp-cookie-consent | Remembers whether you accepted or rejected cookies. |
We use Google's tag for Google Ads, which loads on every page, to see whether our adverts work. Until you click "Accept", it sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device. It only sends Google limited, cookieless measurement signals, such as that a page was viewed or an order was completed (with the order's value and our order reference). Google uses these to estimate how well our adverts perform. It never sends your name, your email address or anything about your poem.
If you accept, Google can also use these advertising cookies to match a visit or an order to the advert you clicked:
| Name | What it's for |
|---|---|
| _gcl_au, _gcl_aw, _gcl_gb | Google Ads: tells us whether a visit or a purchase came from one of our adverts. Lasts up to 90 days. |
You can change your mind at any time using the "Cookie settings" link in the footer of every page.
Separately, we count how many people reach each step of the poem studio, so we can see where it could be clearer. It's anonymous: the site sends only the step number, and we keep only daily totals. It doesn't use cookies, store anything on your device or record who you are.
Your rights
You can ask us to give you a copy of your information, correct it, delete it, or stop or limit how we use it. You can also object to the reminder email, and withdraw consent for cookies at any time. Email hello@poemparlour.com and we'll reply within a month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd appreciate the chance to sort it out first.
Changes
If we change how we use your information, we'll update this page and the date at the top.