What this policy covers
This policy describes how Athena Advisory Inc (“Athena,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) handles personal information collected through www.advicebyathena.com (the “site”) and through our marketing, including our emails, ads, events, and demos.
It does not cover the Athena platform. Information in the platform is governed by our agreements with the advisory firms and enterprises that use it and by those firms’ own privacy notices. If you are a client of a firm that uses Athena, please contact your firm about your information.
Athena is a technology company. We are not a registered investment adviser or a broker-dealer, and we do not provide investment advice.
Information we collect
Information you give us. When you fill out a form on the site, book a demo, email us, or talk with our team, we collect what you provide: typically your name, work email, firm name, the topic of your request, and your message.
Information collected automatically. When you visit the site, we and our service providers collect information about your device and visit, including your IP address, browser and device type, operating system, pages viewed, links clicked, the page that referred you, the time and length of your visit, and performance and error data. Our analytics provider also records how you move through the site, such as your clicks and scrolling, so we can replay a visit to find problems; it does not record what you type into forms. If you arrive from an ad or a campaign link, we record the campaign tags (UTM parameters) and the ad network’s click identifier. A link in an email from our team may carry an identifier for you (never your email address), so a visit from that link is connected to the contact details we already have.
Information from others. Ad networks and social platforms give us reports about how our ads perform, which may include information about your interaction with an ad. Partners may refer you to us and share your business contact details. When you submit a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form on one of our ads, LinkedIn sends us what you submitted, such as your name, email, company, and job title.
Cookies, pixels, and similar technologies
We use cookies, local storage, and pixels to run the site, understand how it is used, and measure our advertising.
| Purpose | What we use |
|---|---|
| Security | Cloudflare Turnstile, which checks that a form is sent by a person and not a bot |
| Attribution | A first-party browser identifier cookie (ath_bid, kept for up to one year) and, in your browser’s local storage, the campaign tags and ad click identifiers of your visit |
| Analytics | Datadog Real User Monitoring, which measures page performance, errors, and how visitors use the site, records visits as session replays (the pages you see, your clicks, and how you scroll, with what you type into forms masked), sets its own session cookie, and links one browser’s visits through the ath_bid identifier |
| Advertising | The Google Ads tag, the LinkedIn Insight Tag, and the X pixel, which measure our ads and let us show them to people who have visited the site |
Global Privacy Control. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as your request to opt out of sharing for targeted advertising. The site does not load the advertising tags or keep ad click identifiers in that browser. Once we receive the signal, we also stop sending ad networks conversions or your hashed email address for you, including for forms you send later. The advertising tags still load in a browser that does not send GPC, so turn it on in each browser you use, or use each network’s ad settings. Opting out does not remove you from an audience you joined before; you can manage that in each network’s ad settings.
Do Not Track. The site does not respond to browser “Do Not Track” signals, which have no common standard. Use GPC or the choices below instead.
You can also block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Some parts of the site, such as forms, may not work without them.
How we use information
We use personal information to:
- Respond to your requests, schedule and run demos, and follow up with you
- Run, secure, and improve the site, and fix errors and performance problems
- Understand how visitors use the site
- Send you information about Athena that you asked for or that we think may interest you, with an option to unsubscribe
- Measure our marketing and show our ads to people who have visited the site or contacted us
- Detect and prevent fraud, spam, and abuse
- Comply with law and protect the rights of Athena and others
How we share information
We do not sell personal information, and we collect it only for Athena’s own use. We do not give or rent it to anyone for their own marketing or other purposes. We disclose it only as follows:
- Service providers that run parts of the site and our marketing for us under contract, such as hosting (Cloudflare and Amazon Web Services), analytics and monitoring (Datadog), scheduling, email, and our customer relationship tools. They may use the information only to provide their services to us.
- Advertising partners (Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and X). The tags described above measure Athena’s own ads and show them to site visitors. When you send us a form or otherwise give us your email address, we may also share with these networks the click identifier from the ad you clicked, if any, and a hashed (scrambled) version of your email address. The networks match the hash to their own accounts to measure which ads led to your request, to show Athena’s ads to people who have contacted us, and to stop showing our ads to people such as customers or those who unsubscribed; they do not receive your email address itself. Some state laws call this “sharing” for targeted advertising even though it serves only our own ads, so we let you opt out as described in Your choices and rights.
- Professional advisers, such as our lawyers, accountants, and auditors.
- Legal and safety reasons, when we believe in good faith that disclosure is required by law, subpoena, or other legal process, or is needed to protect the rights, property, or safety of Athena or others.
- Business transfers, if Athena is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, or sale of assets, subject to this policy.
- With your consent or at your direction.
Your choices and rights
Marketing email. You can unsubscribe from our marketing emails at any time with the link in each email. We may still reply to a request you made.
Advertising. To opt out of sharing for targeted advertising, turn on Global Privacy Control in your browser or send us a privacy request as described in Contact us. You can also adjust your ad settings with Google, LinkedIn, Meta, and X.
State privacy rights. Depending on where you live, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Texas, Virginia, and other states with comprehensive privacy laws, you may have the right to:
- Know what personal information we have collected about you and how we use and disclose it, and get a copy of it
- Correct inaccurate personal information
- Delete personal information we have collected about you, subject to exceptions allowed by law
- Opt out of sharing for targeted advertising
- Appeal our decision if we deny your request
To make a request, contact us as described below. We will verify your identity before acting on it, usually by matching information you give us with information we hold. You may use an authorized agent, and we may ask for proof that you authorized them. We will not discriminate against you for exercising these rights. If we deny your request, we will tell you why and how to appeal.
When you send a privacy request through our contact form, we also stop sending ad networks conversions or your hashed email address for you. The advertising tags on the site are not affected; use Global Privacy Control to turn them off.
Data retention
We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes in this policy, such as responding to your request, following up about a demo, and meeting legal and recordkeeping obligations. When we no longer need it, we delete or de-identify it.
Security
We use administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect the personal information we collect through the site. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Children
The site is not intended for anyone under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has given us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
Visitors outside the United States
Athena serves firms in the United States, and the site is operated in the United States. If you visit from another country, your information will be processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those where you live.
Links to other sites
The site links to sites we do not control, such as social networks and our partners’ sites. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will change the effective date at the top. If a change is material, we will give more prominent notice on the site.
Contact us
To ask a question or make a privacy request, send us a message through our contact form and choose “Privacy request” as the topic, or write to us at:
Athena Advisory Inc
201 W. 5th Street, Suite 1100
Austin, TX 78701