Privacy policy

Account information: your email address and name, a hashed password if you sign up with one (we never store the password itself), and your Google profile name and email if you sign in with Google. If you join a team, we store your membership and role.

Product updates: account holders get a short product update by email about every two weeks. You can say no when you sign up, every update has an unsubscribe link that works without signing in, and you can switch them on or off at any time in Account. We keep your choice and when you made it. The updates contain no tracking pixels, and links back to our site carry only a campaign tag, counted as described under Page counts in Section 3. Account emails, such as password resets, are sent whatever you choose.

Design data: the designs you save to your account, including component values, names, labels, notes and saved revisions, plus the results we compute for them.

Billing information: Stripe collects and stores your card details; we never see or store your full card number. We keep your Stripe customer ID, your plan, and the balance of any top-up pack.

Keys: developer API keys and keys issued to MCP clients are stored only as one-way hashes. If you enter your own AI provider key in Account Settings, it is stored encrypted (AES-256-GCM) and is never shown back to you or written to our logs.

Usage and analytics: if you accept analytics, PostHog records how you use the site, and links that record to your email address, name and plan when you are signed in (see Section 3). Separately, we count usage per account (for example AI calls and Monte Carlo runs each month) to enforce plan limits.

Technical data: like any web service, our servers log your IP address, browser type and the requests you make, and we record error reports. We use these to keep the Service running, to rate-limit abuse, and to fix bugs.

Things you choose to publish: Community Design Review posts and comments, contributions to the shared component database, and designs you share by link (see Section 6).

Electronics Architect sets no cookies of its own. What it keeps in your browser's local storage: your sign-in token and cached account details while you are logged in, your editor preferences, unsaved drafts and custom parts, and your answer to the analytics banner. An AI provider key you add in Account Settings is stored on our servers, encrypted, never in your browser. Local storage is read only by this site and is sent to our servers only when the app makes a request on your behalf. No advertising cookies or advertising trackers are used.

Analytics: With your permission we use PostHog to understand how the site is used. It starts only after you click Accept on the banner and keeps an identifier in local storage so that repeat visits can be linked. If you are signed in, your email address, name and plan are attached to that identifier so we can tell trial usage from paid usage. Clicking Reject keeps analytics switched off, and nothing runs until you have chosen. If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control signal we record a No without asking, and Do Not Track is honoured as well. Your answer is remembered for six months.

Page counts: Separately from PostHog, our server counts the pages it serves as daily totals, by page and by where the visit came from (the linking website, or a campaign tag in the link), and counts the steps of signing in, checkout and connecting an app such as Claude, and turning off product updates, the same way, as daily totals by step and outcome (for example the plan chosen, or which kind of app connected). This count sets no cookie, stores nothing in your browser, and keeps no IP address, device detail or other identifier, so it cannot be linked to you and runs whatever you answer on the banner.

Google Sign-In: If you sign in with Google, Google's sign-in library may set a small cookie on this site to remember that you dismissed its prompt. That cookie is controlled by Google and governed by Google's privacy policy.

Stripe: Stripe's checkout pages set cookies for fraud prevention and security. These are strictly necessary for payment and are governed by Stripe's privacy policy.

Managing browser storage: You can clear this site's data at any time from your browser's settings. Doing so signs you out and shows the analytics banner again on your next visit.

Analytics Preferences: To change your answer at any time, reopen the banner here: Manage Analytics Preferences

These companies process data on our behalf to run parts of the Service. Each receives only what its job needs.

• Google Cloud (hosting and database): runs our servers and stores all account and design data, in the United States (us-central1, Iowa).
• Google Gemini API (AI features): receives the content of AI requests you make. See Section 5.
• Stripe (payments): handles checkout, subscriptions, invoices and your billing details.
• PostHog (product analytics): only if you accept analytics; receives usage events and, when you are signed in, your email address, name and plan.
• Sentry (error tracking): receives error reports from the site and our servers, which can include your account ID, browser details and IP address. We do not send it your email address or your designs.
• DigiKey (part search): receives the search terms and part numbers you look up, so it can return live parameters, pricing and stock. It does not receive your account details.
• Our email provider: delivers sign-in, verification, team-invite, share-notification and product-update emails, so it receives the recipient's address and the message.
• Google Sign-In: only if you choose to sign in with Google.

We may also disclose information if the law requires it, to protect the Service or its users from fraud or abuse, or to a successor if the business is sold or merged. In a sale, this policy would continue to apply to the data collected under it.

Outbound links: when you follow a purchase link from part search you go to the distributor's own site, where their privacy policy applies. We do not receive information about your purchases.

Some features use a large language model: AI design review, creating a design from a text description, reading parameters out of a datasheet, and the same features when called through the developer API or the MCP server. When you use one, we send the content it needs to Google's Gemini API. That can include the contents of your design (component values, names, labels and notes), the text you type, and datasheet text you paste. Google processes it under the Gemini API terms that apply to our account.

Our account uses Google's paid Gemini API service. Under its terms, Google does not use what we send, or what it sends back, to train or improve its models or products. Google keeps it for a limited time, only to detect and prevent misuse of its service and for any legal or regulatory disclosures it is required to make.

If you add your own AI provider key, those requests go to the provider you chose instead, under your own agreement with that provider, and not to Google.

When you create a design from a text description, we also keep the description you typed (up to 2,000 characters), with the date, the AI model used and whether it worked. We use it to find and fix problems with design generation, and it is deleted when you delete your account.

What never goes to an AI provider: solving, simulation, Monte Carlo, derating, part search and exports run on our own servers without any AI model. Your designs are sent to an AI provider only when you run an AI feature.

If your employer or a non-disclosure agreement restricts sending design data to third parties, do not use the AI features on that design.

Community Design Review posts and comments are public, can be read without an account, and may appear in search engines. A share link lets anyone who has the link view that design, until you turn sharing off. Contributions to the shared component database are covered by Section 4 of the Terms of Service. Please do not publish anything you are not free to share.

We keep your account and designs for as long as your account exists. You can delete your account yourself from Account Settings. Deleting it cancels any active subscription, deletes your Stripe customer record, and permanently removes your account, designs, revisions, keys, and Community Design Review posts and comments. If you own a team, you must transfer it to another member first.

What remains after deletion:

• Database backups roll over daily and are kept for seven days, so deleted data is gone from backups within about a week.
• A short record of the sign-up and the deletion (email address, IP address and date) is kept to prevent abuse of the free plan, such as repeated sign-ups.
• Stripe keeps payment and invoice records for as long as tax and financial laws require.
• Server logs and error reports expire on their own, generally within about 30 to 90 days.
• Contributions to the shared component database may remain, without your name attached.

Wherever you live, you can ask us to tell you what personal information we hold about you, to give you a copy, to correct it, or to delete it. You can also withdraw consent to analytics at any time. Email ea.support@horton-labs.com from the address on your account; we will answer within 30 days. We will not treat you differently for making a request.

Europe and the UK: we process account and design data to provide the Service you signed up for (contract), analytics only with your consent, and security logs and anti-abuse records for our legitimate interest in keeping the Service safe. You may object to that processing, and you may complain to your local data-protection authority.

California: we do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined in California law. The categories we collect and the providers we disclose them to are listed in Sections 2 and 4.

The Service is run from the United States, and your data is stored and processed there. If you use it from outside the United States, your information is transferred to the United States.

All traffic is encrypted in transit (HTTPS). Passwords are hashed with bcrypt, API keys are stored as hashes, your own AI provider key is encrypted at rest, and the database is backed up nightly. Access to production systems is limited to the company's operator. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach affects your personal information, we will notify you as the law requires.

The Service is for people aged 18 and over, because Google's terms for the Gemini API, which our AI features use, require it. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone younger. If you think a child has created an account, contact us and we will delete it.

We will update the date at the top whenever this policy changes. If a change is significant, for example a new kind of data or a new provider that receives your designs, we will email account holders or show a notice in the app before it takes effect.

Horton-Labs LLC · ea.support@horton-labs.com. A person reads every message.