Privacy policy
What we collect and why
Last updated November 6, 2026
Afferent Labs runs Newsletter Agent, a research-digest service, at afferentlabs.dev and app.afferentlabs.dev. This policy explains what the service keeps about you, who else handles it, and how to have it deleted. Questions go to hello@afferentlabs.dev.
What we keep
- Your account: your name, email address, and a scrypt hash of your password (never the password itself). If you sign in with Google, we keep your Google account’s ID instead of a password.
- Your settings: your research interests, chosen sources, schedule, lookback window, and digest style; optionally your library’s EZproxy prefix, a Zotero library link, and a BibTeX export you paste in.
- Journal Club activity: papers you propose and comments you write, visible to the other members of your lab’s server.
- Usage records: how many model tokens your digests used each month and their cost, so we can apply your monthly allowance.
- Email you send us: if you reply to a digest or write to us, we keep that correspondence.
We don’t use advertising or analytics trackers. The app sets two cookies it needs to work: an encrypted session cookie that keeps you signed in, and a security token that protects its forms. Cloudflare, which carries our traffic, may set cookies it needs for security.
How we use it
To build and email your digests, run the Journal Club, apply your model allowance, confirm your email address, tell you about changes to the service, and read the feedback you send. We don’t sell your information or use it for advertising.
Who else handles it
| Who | What they receive |
|---|---|
| Our AI model provider | The text of your interests, and the public titles and abstracts of papers being scored and summarized. Not your email address or password. |
| PubMed, Europe PMC, Semantic Scholar, arXiv | Search terms derived from your interests, not who you are. |
| OpenAlex | Public DOIs of papers, to find open-access copies. |
| Google (Gmail) | Your email address and each digest, because our email is sent through Google. |
| Cloudflare | All web traffic to our sites, as our network and hosting provider. |
| Google sign-in and Zotero | Only if you choose to use them: Google tells us your name and email; Zotero shares the library you link. |
How long we keep it
For as long as you have an account. Email hello@afferentlabs.dev from your account’s address to have your account and everything above deleted; we’ll do it within 30 days. You can stop digests at any time by turning off your schedule.
Security
Passwords are stored only as salted hashes, sign-in attempts are rate limited, and connection tokens are stored readable only by the server. No system is perfectly secure; if we learn of a breach that affects you, we’ll tell you.
Children
The service is for researchers and isn’t directed at children under 16.
Changes
We’ll post changes here and update the date above. If a change affects how we use information you’ve already given us, we’ll email you first.