Privacy policy

Who is responsible for your information?

AEO Toronto is a service operated by The Influence Agency Inc. The Influence Agency Inc. is responsible for the personal information collected through www.aeotoronto.com and handles it in line with Canada's Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) and Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL). Our Privacy Officer is accountable for this policy and can be reached using the contact details at the end of this page.

What information do we collect?

When you run the free AEO report

• The website address, topic, market and industry you enter.
• To build the report, our server requests that public web page and its robots.txt, llms.txt and sitemap files, the same way an AI crawler would. We only read what the website already publishes.
• The live AI check sends one buyer question, with your business name, website and market, to OpenAI (ChatGPT) and Anthropic (Claude) to get their answers. No personal information is sent.
• Report results are held in temporary server memory for up to 10 minutes, and live AI check answers for up to 24 hours, so a repeat request loads quickly. They are not saved to a database.

When you request an audit

• Your business name, industry, website and main customer acquisition channel.
• Your name, work email address and phone number, and whether you agreed to receive the audit and related communications.
• If you ran the free report first, a summary of it: the website, score, topic and market.

When you buy the full report

• Your email address, business name, website, the topic you want to be recommended for, your city and any competitors you list.
• Payment is handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Stripe tells us whether the payment went through, and keeps its own records under its own privacy policy.
• To build the report, we send your business name, website, topic, city and competitors to OpenAI, Anthropic, Google (Gemini) and Perplexity. We do not send your email address or payment details.
• We also visit your website, the websites of the competitors AI recommends and the public pages AI cites, the same way a search crawler would.
• The finished report is emailed to you and to our team, and a copy may be saved so the link in your email keeps working.
• We keep the questions and scores with your order so your free 60-day retest can compare against them.

When you browse the site

• Your IP address and browser details. Our hosting provider records them in server logs, and we use them for up to 10 minutes to limit abuse of the report and the form.
• Usage information collected by Google Analytics, such as the pages you view, how you arrived, the type of device you use, and whether you ran a report or sent an audit request. The cookies section below explains how to opt out.

How do we use your information?

• To run the free report you asked for.
• To respond to your audit request, run the Conversational Search Audit, and arrange and hold the review call.
• To send you the audit and the related communications you agreed to.
• To build and deliver a full report you bought, and to keep records of the purchase.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it.
• To protect the site, the report and the form from spam and abuse.

We do not sell or rent personal information, and we do not use it to make automated decisions about you.

How does consent work for our emails?

We only send commercial electronic messages with your express consent, which you give by ticking the consent box on the audit form, or where CASL otherwise allows it. Every message identifies AEO Toronto and The Influence Agency Inc. and gives you a way to unsubscribe. You can withdraw consent at any time by replying to any message or by emailing info@theinfluenceagency.com, and we will act on it within 10 business days.

Who do we share it with?

We share personal information only with the people and service providers who need it to deliver what is described here, under agreements that require them to protect it:

• Vercel, which hosts the website, runs the report, the form and the checkout, and stores saved reports.
• Resend, which delivers audit requests and reports by email.
• Stripe, which processes payments for the full report.
• OpenAI and Anthropic, which answer the questions in the live AI check and the full report, and Google (Gemini) and Perplexity, which answer the questions in the full report. They receive business details, not your contact or payment details.
• Google, which provides Google Analytics and our email and office software.
• Members of The Influence Agency team who deliver your audit.

We may also disclose information when the law requires it, or to a successor if all or part of our business is sold or reorganized, in which case this policy continues to apply.

Where is your information stored?

Our service providers may store and process information outside Canada, including in the United States. While it is there it remains protected by contract, but it may be subject to the laws of that country, including lawful access by its courts and government authorities.

How long do we keep it?

• Free report results: up to 10 minutes, in temporary memory. Live AI check answers: up to 24 hours, in temporary memory.
• IP addresses used for rate limiting: up to 10 minutes.
• Audit requests and related messages: only as long as we need them to deliver the audit and follow up with you.
• Full reports: we keep a copy so the link in your email keeps working and your retest can compare against it. You can ask us to delete it at any time.
• Payment records: kept by Stripe and by us as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Google Analytics data: 14 months, after which Google deletes it.
• Server logs: kept by our hosting provider for a short period under its own retention settings.

What cookies and analytics do we use?

The site uses Google Analytics 4 to measure visits and to see which features are used, such as running a report or sending an audit request. Google Analytics sets first-party cookies named _ga and _ga_ followed by an ID, and it does not log or store IP addresses. We do not use advertising cookies or share data with advertisers. You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings, or install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The site works the same with cookies turned off.

What are your rights?

You can ask us to:

• show you the personal information we hold about you and how we have used it,
• correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete,
• delete your information when we no longer need it, and
• stop sending you communications.

Send your request to info@theinfluenceagency.com and we will reply within 30 days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca.

How do we protect it?

The site is served only over HTTPS, access to audit requests is limited to the team members who need it, and we rely on service providers with established security programs. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security. If a breach creates a real risk of significant harm, we will notify you and the Privacy Commissioner as the law requires.

Is the site meant for children?

No. The site and our services are for businesses, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.

Will this policy change?

We will update this page when our practices change and revise the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will say so here before it takes effect.

How do you contact us?

Privacy Officer, AEO Toronto (The Influence Agency Inc.)
213 Sterling Road, Unit 210, Toronto, ON M6R 2B2
info@theinfluenceagency.com · 416 572 7477