Privacy Policy

Margin Department (“Margin Department,” “we,” “us”) operates MarginOS at os.margindepartment.com — an analytics platform that helps e-commerce businesses understand their sales, marketing, and profitability data. Questions about this policy can be sent to data@margindepartment.com.

This policy applies to people who use MarginOS: our clients’ team members, partner agencies, and our own staff. Business data we process on a client’s behalf is governed by our agreement with that client; where that agreement and this policy conflict, the agreement controls.

• Account information. Name, email address, and profile photo, provided directly or through Google sign-in, plus your role and client-access assignments within the platform.
• Usage and log data. Pages viewed and product actions (collected with our own first-party analytics), together with IP address, browser type, and timestamps in server logs used for security and troubleshooting.
• Cookies. We use cookies solely for authentication and session management. We do not use third-party advertising cookies and do not track you across other websites.
• Client business data.On behalf of each client, we process commerce data from integrations that client authorizes — for example order and sales records, advertising performance, product catalogs, and inventory from platforms such as Shopify, Meta Ads, and Google Ads. This data can include personal information about a client’s end customers (such as names, email addresses, and order details). We process it solely to provide the service to that client.

A client’s administrator can connect accounts the client owns to MarginOS by signing in with that provider and approving access. MarginOS requests read-only reporting access and uses it only to build that client’s reports. Depending on which accounts are connected, we receive:

• Google Ads: the list of ad accounts you can access, and campaign, ad group, keyword, and ad performance data (spend, impressions, clicks, conversions) for the accounts you select.
• Google Analytics: the list of properties you can access, and aggregated website traffic and conversion reports for the property you select.
• YouTube: your channel’s ID and name, the title, publish date, duration, and thumbnail of each of the channel’s videos, and per-video daily statistics such as views, watch time, likes, and subscribers gained or lost.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram): the ad accounts, Pages, and Instagram business accounts you select, their advertising performance, and insights such as reach and engagement for the Instagram account’s posts.
• TikTok: the TikTok business account’s profile and follower counts, and the account’s videos with their views, watch time, and engagement.
• X: the account’s profile and its posts with their impressions, engagement, and video playback statistics.
• Notion: the pages of the content-planning database you choose to share with MarginOS, and their properties (for example, a post’s title, link, and content category).

MarginOS never posts, edits, deletes, or sends anything through a connected account. With each connection we also receive an access token from the provider. Tokens are encrypted and stored in Google Cloud Secret Manager in a cloud project dedicated to that client, are used only by our data pipeline to fetch the client’s reporting data, and are never shown in the application.

MarginOS uses Google APIs, including YouTube API Services, the Google Ads API, and the Google Analytics Data API, to read the data listed in section 4 from Google accounts a client connects. We request these permissions:

• YouTube (youtube.readonly, yt-analytics.readonly, youtube.force-ssl): to read the channel’s video list and video statistics. Google labels the youtube.force-ssl permission as able to manage your YouTube account because the YouTube data connector we use requires it. MarginOS only reads with it and never uploads, edits, comments on, or deletes anything.
• Google Ads (adwords): to read ad account performance. MarginOS does not create or change campaigns, budgets, or ads.
• Google Analytics (analytics.readonly): to read website reports.

How we use it.Google user data is used only to provide the client’s reporting in MarginOS: dashboards, reports, and forecasts shown to that client’s authorized users and to the Margin Department team serving that client. It is stored in the client’s dedicated Google BigQuery project.

No AI imagery. MarginOS never uses Google APIs or Google user data to generate images or other AI content, and never to create sexual content or AI-generated non-consensual intimate imagery. Our Terms of Service prohibit using MarginOS for such content.

Limited Use.MarginOS’s use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. We do not sell Google user data, use it for advertising, or use it to train generalized artificial intelligence or machine learning models. We do not transfer it to others except as needed to provide the service (the service providers in section 7), to comply with law, or as part of a merger or acquisition. People do not read it except with the client’s permission, for security purposes, to comply with law, or when it is aggregated for internal operations.

YouTube. By connecting a YouTube channel you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. Google’s handling of your information is described in the Google Privacy Policy.

Revoking access and deletion.A client administrator can disconnect any account on the MarginOS setup page; we then revoke the token with the provider and disable our stored copy, and no further data is collected. You can also remove MarginOS’s access to your Google account at any time from your Google Account third-party connections page. To have data already collected deleted, email data@margindepartment.com; we delete it within 30 days, except where we must keep it by law.

We use the information we collect to:

• provide, maintain, and secure the service;
• generate the analytics, reports, and forecasts the platform exists to deliver;
• send reports and notifications (for example by email or Slack) where configured;
• respond to support requests and improve the product; and
• comply with legal obligations.

Some features use artificial intelligence (for example, automated tagging and analysis). AI requests are routed through OpenRouter to the model vendors it routes to (currently Google), configured so that your data is not used to train the providers’ models and sent with data-collection disabled.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We share information only with:

• Service providers that host and support the platform: Google Cloud Platform (data warehousing, storage, infrastructure), Supabase (authentication and application database), Vercel (application hosting), Resend (transactional email), Slack (notifications, where a client configures them), and OpenRouter, our AI routing provider, and the model vendors it routes to (currently Google), for AI processing as described above;
• authorities, when required by law or valid legal process;
• a successor entity, in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to this policy; and
• others at your direction or with your consent.

If your personal information appears in MarginOS because you shopped with one of our clients, we process it as a service provider on that merchant’s instructions. Please direct privacy requests to the merchant you purchased from; we assist our clients in honoring such requests.

We protect information with encryption in transit (TLS), encryption at rest provided by our cloud infrastructure, per-client data isolation, role-based access controls, least-privilege credentials, and centralized secret management. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We keep account information for as long as your account is active and as needed for legitimate business or legal purposes. Client business data is retained per our agreement with the client and deleted or returned when the engagement ends, on request. Server logs are kept for a limited period for security purposes.

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information by emailing data@margindepartment.com.

Depending on your state of residence (including under the California Consumer Privacy Act), you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to correct or delete it, to obtain a portable copy, and to not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising these rights. We do not sell or “share” personal information as those terms are defined under California law. We will verify requests before acting on them, and you may use an authorized agent to submit a request on your behalf.

MarginOS is a business tool and is not directed to individuals under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

MarginOS is operated from the United States, and information is processed and stored in the United States. If you access the service from elsewhere, you understand that your information will be transferred to the United States.

We may update this policy from time to time. We will post the updated version here and revise the effective date above; for material changes we will provide notice through the service or by email.

Margin Department · data@margindepartment.com