Privacy Policy

1. About ProfFinder

ProfFinder helps students discover professors, research labs, academic opportunities, and potential outreach targets. Our service may use your profile information, academic interests, resume/CV content, public professor information, AI systems, and connected services such as Google/Gmail to provide recommendations, draft outreach, track replies, and help you manage academic outreach.

ProfFinder does not guarantee admission, funding, scholarships, replies from professors, visa outcomes, interviews, or academic placement.

2. Information We Collect

We collect information in several ways: information you provide directly, information generated when you use ProfFinder, information from connected services such as Google/Gmail, payment-related information through our payment provider, and public academic/professor information.

2.1 Account information

• Name
• Email address
• Google account identifier, if you sign in with Google
• Profile photo, if provided
• Login and authentication information
• Language, country, and account preferences
• Account, subscription, and plan status

2.2 Student profile and academic information

• Education history, degree level, major/field
• Research interests and academic goals
• Target countries, universities, departments, or programs
• Publications, projects, or work experience you provide
• Skills, keywords, and academic preferences
• Swipe, save, match, reject, or interaction history with professor profiles

2.3 Resume, CV, and uploaded documents

If you upload or create documents, we may collect and process resume/CV content, academic background, work experience, projects, publications, skills, awards, contact details included in the document, and associated files, text, and metadata. You are responsible for ensuring the documents you upload do not contain information you do not want ProfFinder to process.

2.4 Google login information

If you sign in with Google, we may receive basic Google account information (name, email address, profile photo, Google account identifier) to create and secure your ProfFinder account.

2.5 Gmail and Google Workspace data

If you choose to connect Gmail, ProfFinder accesses Gmail data only to provide user-facing outreach features you request. Depending on the permissions you grant, this may include:

• Reading email metadata (sender, recipient, subject, timestamps, thread identifiers, labels)
• Reading message content when necessary to identify replies, display outreach conversations, or support reply tracking
• Searching for or detecting replies related to outreach activity
• Sending messages on your behalf when you request or approve sending
• Creating or managing email drafts, if that feature is enabled
• Storing limited outreach-related metadata (sent status, reply status, professor contact, timestamp, thread references)

We do not use Gmail data for advertising. We do not sell Gmail data. We do not transfer Gmail data to third parties except as necessary to provide or secure ProfFinder, to comply with law, or as otherwise permitted by Google’s policies and this Privacy Policy. We do not allow humans to read your Gmail data unless required for support, security, abuse investigation, or legal compliance, or with your permission. You can disconnect Gmail at any time through your ProfFinder settings or your Google account permissions page.

2.6 Outreach and email activity

• Outreach messages you create, edit, send, or save
• Professor contact information used for outreach
• Sent timestamps, reply status, and conversation status
• Email thread references and delivery/error information
• Your actions (approving, sending, editing, deleting outreach)

2.7 AI-generated and recommendation data

• Professor match scores and recommendation results
• Research similarity signals
• Embeddings/vector representations of your academic interests, documents, or professor research areas
• AI-generated summaries and outreach drafts
• Ranking, filtering, and personalization signals
• Feedback, swipes, saves, and rejects used to improve your recommendations

2.8 Payment information

If you purchase a paid plan, payment is handled by our payment provider (e.g. Stripe). ProfFinder may receive and store subscription status, plan type, billing email, payment status, customer ID, invoice/transaction identifiers, and limited billing metadata. ProfFinder does not store full credit card numbers.

2.9 Usage, device, and analytics information

• Pages viewed, features used, clicks, searches, filters
• Browser type, device type, operating system
• IP address and approximate location derived from it
• Log data, error reports, performance data, cookie/technology data

2.10 Public professor and academic data

ProfFinder may collect public information about professors, labs, universities, departments, publications, and academic opportunities from publicly available sources (university/faculty/lab/department pages, public academic profiles, publication databases). This may include name, title, institution, department, research interests, lab name/URL, public email, public profile links, and publication information. This information may be incomplete, outdated, or incorrect; professors or authorized representatives may request correction or removal by contacting us.

3. How We Use Information

We use information to provide, operate, secure, personalize, and improve ProfFinder, including to: create and manage your account; authenticate and secure you; build your student profile; analyze your interests, resume, and preferences; recommend and rank professors and opportunities; generate AI-assisted summaries, recommendations, and outreach drafts; help you send, manage, and track outreach; identify replies if you connect Gmail; provide support; process subscriptions and payments; monitor usage, performance, and security; prevent spam, abuse, and fraud; comply with legal obligations; and enforce our Terms.

4. Google/Gmail Data and Limited Use

ProfFinder’s use and transfer of information received from Google APIs will comply with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. ProfFinder uses Google user data only to provide and improve user-facing features that you request — such as signing in, sending outreach, identifying replies, tracking outreach status, and managing academic communication.

Specifically, ProfFinder does not:

• Use Google user data to serve advertisements, or transfer it to build advertising profiles;
• Sell Google user data;
• Use or transfer Google user data to develop, improve, or train generalized or non-personalized artificial intelligence or machine learning models. (Google user data may only be used to provide or improve ProfFinder’s user-facing features for you.)
• Allow humans to read Google user data, except where necessary for security purposes (such as investigating abuse), to comply with applicable law, where the data is aggregated and anonymized for internal operations, or with your explicit consent.

We only request the Google permissions necessary for the features we provide. If we add new Google/Gmail features, we may request additional permission and update this Privacy Policy. You may revoke ProfFinder’s Google access at any time through your Google account permissions or ProfFinder settings.

5. AI Processing and Recommendations

ProfFinder uses AI and machine learning to support professor discovery, academic matching, resume/profile analysis, research similarity, and outreach drafting. Our AI providers may include models or services such as SPECTER v2, the Gemini Flash series, Qwen, or similar systems, used only to provide ProfFinder’s user-facing features to you.

AI-generated outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated, or misleading. You should review all AI-generated content before relying on it or sending it to anyone. ProfFinder does not make admission, funding, hiring, immigration, scholarship, or university decisions.

6. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We may share information with service providers who help us operate ProfFinder — cloud hosting/infrastructure, database/storage, AI/ML providers, authentication (including Google), email/communication providers, payment processors (including Stripe), analytics, error-monitoring and security providers, customer-support tools, and legal/accounting advisors. These providers may process information only as needed to provide services to ProfFinder or as legally required.

We may also share information with your consent; to comply with law, legal process, or government request; to protect the rights, safety, and security of ProfFinder, our users, professors, or others; to investigate abuse, spam, fraud, or security incidents; or in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, or transfer of business.

7. Cookies and Analytics

ProfFinder may use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember preferences, measure usage, improve performance and recommendations, and detect errors and security issues. Some cookies are necessary for ProfFinder to work; others may be optional depending on your location and applicable law. You may control cookies through your browser settings.

8. Data Retention

We keep information for as long as reasonably necessary to provide ProfFinder, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, prevent abuse, and maintain security. Account and profile information is kept while your account is active or until you delete it; uploaded documents until you delete them or your account; Gmail access tokens only while your Gmail integration remains connected (unless retention is required for security, legal, or audit purposes); outreach metadata to provide history and reply tracking; and payment records as required for tax, accounting, and legal compliance. When you delete your account, we will delete or de-identify personal information unless we need to retain certain information for legal, security, payment, backup, abuse-prevention, or legitimate business purposes. Backups may retain information for a limited period before deletion through normal backup cycles.

9. Your Rights and Choices

Depending on your location, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, or receive a copy of your personal information; withdraw consent; object to or restrict certain processing; opt out of marketing emails; manage cookie preferences; and disconnect Google/Gmail access. You may exercise these rights by contacting us at privacy@proffinder.app. We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests. You can also disconnect Google access through your Google account permissions page.

10. International Users, GDPR & UK GDPR

ProfFinder is operated from the United States and is intended for international students and users from multiple countries. If you access ProfFinder from outside the United States, your information may be processed in the United States or other countries where ProfFinder or its service providers operate, which may have privacy laws that differ from those in your country.

If you are in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or a similar jurisdiction, you may have additional rights under the GDPR/UK GDPR, including the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, and objection, and the right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority. We rely on the following legal bases: performance of our contract with you (to provide the Services), your consent (for optional features such as Gmail connection and marketing), our legitimate interests (to secure and improve ProfFinder), and compliance with legal obligations. To exercise these rights, contact privacy@proffinder.app.

11. California Privacy Notice

For California residents: depending on how you use ProfFinder, we may collect identifiers (name, email, Google account ID, IP address), customer-records information (billing email, subscription status, payment metadata), internet/network activity (pages viewed, searches, device/browser data), education-related information you provide, professional/employment-related information (resume/CV), inferences (match scores, preferences), and user-generated content (uploaded documents, outreach and support messages), including any sensitive information you choose to include.

We do not sell personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising unless we clearly disclose that practice and provide any required opt-out. We do not knowingly collect personal information from users under 16. California residents may request access, correction, deletion, and information about our data practices by contacting privacy@proffinder.app. We will not discriminate against you for exercising your rights.

12. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect information, including access controls, encryption, secure infrastructure, authentication protections, monitoring, logging, and internal access restrictions. However, no internet service or storage system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your account or data may have been compromised, contact us at security@proffinder.app.

13. Children and Minimum Age

ProfFinder is intended for users who are at least 16 years old. We do not knowingly collect personal information from users under 16. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a user under 16, we will take reasonable steps to delete it. If you believe a user under 16 has provided information to ProfFinder, contact us at privacy@proffinder.app.

14. Marketing, Third-Party Links & Changes

If you opt in to marketing emails, you can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link or by contacting us; we may still send account, security, billing, legal, and service notices. ProfFinder may link to third-party services (university pages, professor profiles, Google, Stripe, and others) whose privacy practices are governed by their own policies. We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time; if we make material changes, we may notify you by email, in-product notice, or by updating the “Last Updated” date. Your continued use after an update becomes effective means you accept the updated policy.

15. Contact Us

Privacy: privacy@proffinder.app · Support: support@proffinder.app · Security: security@proffinder.app

Amirali Kalhor · California, United States · https://proffinder.app