Privacy policy

Neo is an AI shopping assistant for Shopify stores, made by Matmajor Tech Private Limited (“we”, “us”). This policy explains what information Neo reads and keeps, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it and what you can ask of us. It covers:

1. Merchants: the Shopify stores that install Neo.
2. Shoppers: people who chat with Neo on those stores.
3. Visitors to this website, neo.altara.in.

We built Neo to keep as little as possible. It does not ask shoppers for their name, email or phone number, it does not see payments, and it never sells data or shows ads.

1. Who is responsible

For merchant information and for this website, Matmajor Tech Private Limited decides how information is used and is responsible for it. For shoppers' chats, the store is responsible to its shoppers and Neo handles the chats on the store's behalf, to run the assistant the store installed. Shoppers with questions about a store's own data practices should also read that store's privacy policy.

2. What Neo reads from a merchant's store

When a merchant installs Neo, Shopify asks them to approve read only access. With it, Neo reads:

1. Products, variants, prices, stock, images, tags and collections, kept up to date as they change.
2. The store's published pages (such as FAQ, size guide or about), its policies (shipping, refunds, privacy, terms) and its menus.
3. The live theme's files, to learn how the store's cart, product pages and checkout button work. Neo never changes them.
4. The store's address on Shopify, currency and country, and the access token Shopify issues to Neo.

Neo does not read the store's orders, customers or payment information.

For billing we also keep the store's plan, its Shopify subscription ID and dates, its trial dates, any custom price agreed with us and the top-up packs it bought. Shopify handles all payments, so no card or bank details ever reach us.

When a merchant contacts us by email or WhatsApp, we receive what they send, such as their name, number and message, and use it only to reply.

3. What Neo keeps from shoppers

When a shopper chats with Neo on a store, Neo keeps:

1. The conversation: the text of each message from the shopper and from Neo, when it was sent, the store page it was sent from (its address, without search words or filters) and what Neo did, such as products shown or added to the cart.
2. Two random IDs kept in the browser (not cookies): a session ID for each browser tab, gone when the tab closes, and a chat ID, so the same conversation follows the shopper across pages and visits. Neither contains anything about who the shopper is. Neo follows the store's cookie banner: if the shopper does not allow preferences, the chat ID and everything else Neo remembers (such as the mute choice and recent emoji) are kept only for that tab and gone when it closes, and anything Neo saved before is deleted from the browser. Because the chat stays in the browser, the next person using a shared phone or computer could see it; the chat's “New chat” option starts a fresh one.
3. Session counts for the store's results: pages viewed, phone or desktop, whether Neo was used, add to carts, whether checkout was reached and the cart value at that moment. Only for shoppers who allow analytics on the store's cookie banner (or where the law needs no consent); others are not counted.
4. A search log of what Neo looked for, in structured form only (such as product type, color, size and budget), never the shopper's own words.

Neo does not store a shopper's name, email, phone number, Shopify customer ID or IP address. If a shopper types personal details into the chat themselves, they are kept as part of that message, so we ask shoppers not to share anything they would not want the store to read. Card numbers typed into the chat are hidden (shown as “•••• 4242”) before the message is stored or sent to our AI provider, so only the last four digits are ever kept.

With each message, the shopper's browser also sends the current page, the products Neo numbered on it and the items in the cart. These are used for that one reply and are not stored, apart from the page address noted above.

Voice: when a shopper taps the microphone, their browser's own speech recognition turns speech into text (some browsers use their maker's online service for this). Neo receives only the text the shopper sends. Audio never reaches us.

4. How we use information

1. To run Neo: understand what a shopper asks, search the store, answer from the store's own pages and act on the store for them.
2. To show merchants their results and their conversations in Neo's admin.
3. To bill merchants through Shopify, apply limits and give each store its free trial once.
4. To keep Neo working and secure: fixing errors, preventing abuse and tracking our AI costs (counts and costs only, no shopper text).
5. To reply when someone contacts us.

We do not use store data or conversations to train AI models, and we do not sell or rent information to anyone.

5. Who can see conversations

The merchant can read every conversation on their store in Neo's admin and download them as a spreadsheet. Merchants cannot edit or delete them. Our team can access conversations only to support the merchant, fix problems or meet a legal obligation.

6. Who else handles information

We use a few service providers, each only to run Neo:

1. OpenAI (United States) writes Neo's replies. Shopper messages, the recent conversation and the store information needed for a reply are sent to it. Neo tells OpenAI not to store these requests, so OpenAI keeps no copy for later use. OpenAI does not train its models on this data, and keeps it only in its abuse monitoring logs, for up to 30 days, before deleting it.
2. Supabase stores Neo's database, in Mumbai, India.
3. Vercel runs Neo's servers (in Mumbai, India) and hosts this website.
4. Shopify provides the store data Neo reads and handles all billing.

We may also share information when the law requires it, to protect our rights or users' safety, or with a buyer of our business, who would be bound by this policy.

7. How long we keep it

1. Conversations are deleted 12 months after their last message. Session counts, the search log and AI usage records are deleted after 12 months.
2. When a merchant uninstalls Neo, we delete everything about that store: its catalog copy, what Neo learned about the store, its conversations, results and billing records. Shopify sends a store deletion request 48 hours later, and we delete again then.
3. The one exception: so a store cannot reinstall Neo for a second free trial, we keep a one-way hash of the store's Shopify address and the date it first subscribed. The hash cannot be turned back into the address, and nothing else is kept.
4. Messages sent to us by email or WhatsApp are kept as long as needed to help the sender.

8. Shopify privacy requests

Neo answers Shopify's required privacy requests. When a store asks for a shopper's data or asks us to delete it, there is nothing linked to that customer to return or remove, because Neo stores nothing that identifies them. When a store is deleted, we delete everything for that store.

9. Security

Information travels over encrypted connections, and the database is encrypted at rest, with access limited to Neo's servers and the few people on our team who run them. Neo's access to a store is read only and limited to what is listed in section 2. No method is perfectly secure, but if a breach affects your information we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

10. Information sent abroad

Neo's database and servers are in India. Messages are processed by OpenAI in the United States to write replies. We use providers that protect information to the standard this policy describes, and we follow the rules on transfers that apply to us.

11. Your rights

Depending on where you live (including under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and, where they apply, the GDPR and US state privacy laws), you may ask to:

1. know what information we hold about you and how it is used,
2. correct or update it,
3. delete it,
4. withdraw consent where we rely on it,
5. nominate someone to act for you, and
6. complain to us, and then to your data protection authority.

Merchants can write to us at hello@altara.in. Shoppers should write to the store first, since the store controls its chats; you can also write to us, and we will work with the store. As shoppers are anonymous to Neo, we may ask for details that let us find your conversation, such as the store, the date and what you wrote. We reply within 30 days.

12. Children

Neo is a service for businesses and is not meant for children. We do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18. If you believe a child has shared personal information with Neo, write to us and we will delete it.

13. This website

neo.altara.in uses no cookies, no analytics and no tracking. Our host, Vercel, keeps standard technical logs (such as IP address and browser type) for security, for a short time. The demo video uses YouTube's privacy enhanced player, which sets no cookies until you press play; after that, Google's privacy policy applies to the video. Links to email and WhatsApp open those services, whose own policies apply.

14. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change matters for how we use your information, we will tell merchants in Neo's admin or by email before it takes effect.

15. Contact and grievance officer

For any question, request or complaint about privacy, contact our grievance officer:

Akshat Majila
Grievance officer, Matmajor Tech Private Limited
Amrawati Colony, Malli Bamori, Haldwani, Nainital 263139, Uttarakhand, India
hello@altara.in

We acknowledge complaints within 72 hours and resolve them within 30 days.