This is the archived version of the Privacy Policy (29 October 2026). Read the current version · all versions.
Privacy Policy
Version 2026-10-29 · in force since 29 October 2026 · previous versions
Startnest stores what it needs to show you your page on every device, and nothing more. No ads, no tracking, no selling of data. You can download everything we have about you, and delete it, at any time.
1. Who is responsible
unytverse ag, Schlyffistrasse 5, 8806 Bäch SZ, Switzerland, is responsible for processing your personal data in Startnest (controller under the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection, FADP, and the EU General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR). Contact for privacy questions: [email protected].
2. What we process and why
- Your account (from Google sign-in): email address (your account), your Google account ID (a number that identifies your Google account, so your account survives a change of address), name and profile picture address. We request nothing else from Google — no mail, contacts, calendar, files or browsing history — and never see your Google password. Purpose: to sign you in and show who is signed in. Basis: contract.
- Your page: links, groups, boards and their layout, widget settings (including the addresses of news feeds you follow and which headlines you’ve already seen), notes, to-dos, countdowns, your chosen location (place name, coordinates, country), uploaded images and your notification choices. Purpose: to show your page on your devices. Basis: contract.
- Backups of your page: once a day, if something changed, a copy of your boards, links and settings (no images, only references to them). Purpose: so you can restore your page or a single board as it was. Basis: contract.
- Link checks: about once a week our server requests the addresses of your links (also private ones) to find links that no longer work, and keeps the result per address — not per person. Purpose: to point out dead links and duplicates. Basis: contract.
- Click counts and last visit: how often you open each link, when you last used Startnest. Purpose: to sort your links by use and to apply the rule for inactive accounts (section 6). Basis: contract.
- Subscription data from Paddle: subscription status and dates, Paddle customer and subscription numbers — never your card number. Purpose: to give paying customers access. Basis: contract.
- Free-trial fingerprints: when a trial starts, a one-way fingerprint of the card used (from card type, last four digits and expiry — never the card number); when an account that had a trial or subscription is deleted, a one-way fingerprint of its email address. Purpose: one free trial per customer and card. Basis: legitimate interest in preventing abuse. Kept three years.
- Your agreement to our terms: which version of the Terms of Service you accepted and when. Purpose: proof of the agreement. Basis: contract and legitimate interest.
- Support: messages you send us, feature suggestions, your answer to the short survey when you cancel, and notes our support team keeps about your requests. Purpose: to help you and improve Startnest. Basis: contract and legitimate interest. Notes about you are included in your data download.
- Waitlist: if you join the waitlist before Startnest opens to you, your email address, your browser’s language, and when you signed up and confirmed. Purpose: to confirm that the address is yours (double opt-in) and to email you once when your spot is ready — nothing else. Basis: your consent, which you can withdraw at any time with the link in our email.
- Technical data: when your browser talks to our servers, they process your IP address, browser type and the time of the request. Purpose: to deliver the page, protect the service against abuse (for example rate limits) and fix errors. Basis: legitimate interest.
We use aggregated figures (for example how many people use a widget) to decide what to build next; they don’t identify you.
3. Who else is involved
We use these service providers, bound by contract to process data only on our behalf or for the stated purpose:
- Hetzner Online GmbH, Germany — servers and database; your data is stored in Germany.
- Cloudflare, Inc., USA — protection against attacks, fast delivery of the page and storage of icon images. Cloudflare may process technical data worldwide; transfers to the USA rely on the EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and standard contractual clauses.
- Google (Google Ireland Limited / Google LLC) — sign-in.
- Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.), USA — sends our emails, such as the waitlist confirmation, invitations to shared boards and sign-in codes. It receives the recipient’s email address and the content of the email; transfers to the USA rely on standard contractual clauses.
- Paddle.com Market Limited, United Kingdom — our reseller and Merchant of Record. Paddle processes your payment details, address and invoices as an independent controller under its own privacy policy.
For some widgets our server fetches information on your behalf, without your name or email address:
- Weather: MET Norway receives the coordinates of your location, rounded to about 2 km.
- Holidays: OpenHolidays receives the canton you chose.
- Calendar: if you add a calendar link (ICS), our server downloads it from your calendar provider to show your upcoming events. We keep the downloaded calendar for up to 10 minutes and don’t store your events permanently. The link itself is stored with your widget settings.
- News: our server fetches the news feeds you follow from their websites; only the feed address is sent. Feeds are kept for up to 15 minutes and shared between users who follow the same feed.
- Link checks: the websites your links point to see a request from our server, not from you — only the address of the link is requested.
- Website icons: to show the icon of a link, our server fetches it from that website or from Google’s public favicon service; only the website’s address is sent.
We don’t sell or rent personal data, and we don’t share it with advertisers. We disclose data to authorities only where the law requires it.
4. Cookies and storage in your browser
Startnest uses one cookie that is strictly necessary: it keeps you signed in. If someone shares a board with you, a second necessary cookie remembers for 30 days that you confirmed your email address for that board. Your browser also keeps a copy of your page in local storage so it opens instantly; it stays on your device. There are no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and no third-party trackers. This website uses no cookies at all.
5. Where your data is processed
Your account and page are stored in Germany (EU). Some service providers in section 3 may process data in other countries, including the USA; where those countries don’t have an adequate level of data protection, we rely on the Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.
6. How long we keep data
- Your account and page: as long as you have an account. Deleting your account (in the app’s settings) removes it right away, including uploaded images, backups of your page and the people you share boards with.
- Backups of your page: one per day for 14 days, then one per week for up to 8 weeks.
- Sharing: the addresses of the people you share a board with, until you remove them, stop sharing or delete the board or your account. Sign-in codes expire after 10 minutes, invitation links after 14 days.
- Link check results: per address, as long as one of our users has a link to it.
- Inactive accounts that never had a free trial, subscription or free access are deleted after 12 months without a visit.
- Subscription event log: 90 days.
- Free-trial fingerprints: three years, also after you delete your account.
- Record of actions our team takes on an account (for example extending a subscription or deleting an account): ten years, with the account number only, not your address — as proof.
- Your agreement to the terms: as long as the account exists; after deletion, the record no longer points to you.
- Waitlist: sign-ups that aren’t confirmed are deleted after 7 days; confirmed ones until you leave the list, or for 120 days after we’ve sent you your invitation (so you can still sign up while sign-ups are paused).
- Technical server logs: up to 14 days.
- Backups: up to 30 days, then overwritten.
Paddle keeps its own billing records as the law requires.
7. Your rights
You can access your data, have it corrected or deleted, restrict or object to its processing, and receive it in a portable format. Two of these work directly in the app’s settings: downloading your data (everything we store about your account, as a file) and deleting your account. For anything else, write to [email protected]; we answer within 30 days. You can also complain to a data protection authority — in Switzerland the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC), in the EU the authority in your country.
8. Security
Data travels encrypted (HTTPS). Access to our systems is limited to the people who run Startnest, and we only look into an account when you ask us to or when it is needed to keep the service safe.
9. Children
Startnest is not meant for children under 16, and we don’t knowingly process their data.
10. Changes
When we change how we handle data, we update this page and tell you in the app beforehand if the change matters to you. Every version stays available under previous versions.