Privacy notice

macaws.ai looks after Google Business Profiles for local businesses: scoring each profile, filling in what is missing, replying to reviews, publishing posts, and reporting on where the business appears in local search. This notice explains what we hold when you use this site or become a client, why, and who else touches it.

If you run the free profile check

• We look up the business you name and read its public Google listing — what anybody searching Google Maps can already see. Nothing is read from your Google account, and nothing is changed.
• We keep the result (the business, its score and where it ranked) so the same check is not run twice and so we can follow up if you ask us to.
• To stop the check being abused we keep a scrambled fingerprint of the visitor, which cannot be turned back into an address and is not used to identify you.
• If you ask for the guide, we keep the name, email address and phone number you give us, and we may contact you about your profile. Tell us to stop and we will.

If you become a client

You connect your Google account through Google's own sign-in. We never see your Google password. We ask for one permission, which Google describes as “See, edit, create and delete your Google business listings”, together with the account's email address so the connection can be told apart from another. We ask for nothing else: not Gmail, Drive, Calendar, Contacts or anything outside Business Profiles. Google's permission screen shows the name of the software we use to do this work.

What we read

• Your profile's details: name, address, phone number, website, description, categories, opening hours, services, service areas, the map pin when Google provides one, and the Maps link.
• Your reviews: the reviewer's name as Google shows it, the star rating, the words, the date, and any reply already posted.
• Posts already on your profile, how many photos it has and when the newest was added.
• The figures Google reports for your profile: how many people searched, called, asked for directions or clicked through to your website.

What we write

Profile details (phone, website, opening hours, categories, description, services), replies to reviews, posts and photos. We never delete a listing.

What else we hold

• Your name, email address and sign-in. The password itself is never visible to us.
• What you tell us about your business so that drafts sound like you.
• Photos and videos you upload for your profile.
• Your subscription's status. Card details go straight to the payment provider and never reach us.
• A record of what was done on your profile and when, and the scores and reports produced.

What we never do

• We never sell your information.
• We never use it for advertising or pass it to advertisers or data brokers.
• We never use it to train AI models, and the providers below are not allowed to either.
• We never use one business's information to serve another.

Who else handles it

We use service providers to run this, each under contract and each given only what its job needs. These are the kinds of provider involved, and everything each one receives.

• The software this service runs on, with its hosting and database. It stores everything described on this page on our behalf and acts only on our instructions.
• A search results provider runs the Google searches behind rank tracking, map checks and directory checks. It receives search phrases: the business name, its town, and the services being searched for. No review content and nothing about a person is sent.
• A search volume provider tells us how many people search for a trade near a town. It receives the trade and the town only.
• An AI writing providerdrafts replies to reviews, posts and profile text. To draft a reply it receives the star rating, the reviewer's name as Google shows it and the review's words; for other drafts it receives the business's own details. What is sent is not used to train its models.
• A payment provider takes subscription payments.
• Our customer records system, where we use one, receives your contact details and a note when a poor review arrives, so that we can act on it.

Some of these operate outside the UK, mainly in the United States. Where they do, transfers rely on the standard contractual clauses or the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework.

Reviewers' names and words

A review carries the name of the person who wrote it, which is already public on Google. We hold it for one reason: so a reply can be written and posted, and so ratings can be reported over time. It is not used to build a profile of anyone and is not combined with information from anywhere else.

Ending it

• You can withdraw our access from Google's side at any time, at myaccount.google.com/permissions. We stop being able to read or change your profile immediately. Your profile was always on your own Google account, and it stays there.
• Ask us to delete what we hold and we will, and we will confirm when it is done. Write to chao.liu@macaws.ai.

Records that must be kept for accounting — invoices and payment records — are kept for as long as the law requires, and nothing else.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you may ask for a copy of what we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, ask us to restrict how we use it, or object to a use. Write to chao.liu@macaws.ai. If we get it wrong you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

When what we do changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top moves.

Contact

macaws.ai · chao.liu@macaws.ai