01What this notice covers
Ascent uses cookies and similar technologies (local storage, session identifiers) to run the service, keep it secure, and — only with your permission — to understand how the product is used. This notice explains the categories, how to change your choices, and how consent works across our sign-up, site-connection and autonomy flows.
02Categories
| Category | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Strictly necessary | Always on | Authentication, security, load balancing, consent storage and core service delivery. These cannot be switched off. |
| Analytics | Off | Helps us understand visits, feature use and errors so we can improve Ascent. |
| Personalisation | Off | Remembers optional preferences and adapts the experience. |
| Marketing | Off | Measures campaigns and may support advertising across services. |
Optional technologies stay off unless you choose them. "Reject optional" has equal prominence with "Accept" — no pre-ticked boxes, cookie walls, or "continued use means consent". A full vendor table (name, purpose, storage key, duration, transfer location) is provided in the preference centre, generated from the actual deployment.
03Changing your choices
You can change your choice at any time from Privacy & cookie choices in the app, and withdrawal takes effect as easily as consent was given. Where legally required, we honour browser/device opt-out signals. We keep a minimal consent record (categories, timestamp, source, policy version, locale and any withdrawal) and never infer optional consent from inactivity.
04Account creation
At sign-up we ask you to agree to the Terms of Service and acknowledge the Privacy Policy (a required, unticked checkbox). A separate, optional, unticked checkbox lets you receive product news and SEO guidance by email — marketing consent is never required to create an account, and you can unsubscribe any time.
05Connecting a site
Before you connect a website, you confirm that you own it or are authorised to manage it, and you see exactly which data Ascent will read and which actions the connection can perform — read pages; read Search Console/analytics; create drafts; edit metadata; publish pages; revert changes. We default to least privilege and request permissions individually.
06Autonomy confirmations
| Mode | What it means |
|---|---|
| Off | Ascent may analyse connected data and prepare findings, but will not change or publish anything. |
| Human-approved | Ascent may prepare proposed changes. Nothing is written or published until you approve it. |
| Automatic | You authorise Ascent to apply the selected task types automatically within the displayed site, budget, schedule and safety limits. You can pause automation and review or revert recorded changes. |
The first time you enable Automatic mode we require an explicit, unticked confirmation and show the exact site, task types, monthly operations/spend cap, publish destination, rollback window and alert recipients — and we reconfirm after a material scope increase.
07AI & generated content
When Ascent generates a result, it sends the displayed instructions and relevant site content to the selected AI provider. Do not include confidential or personal data unless authorised, and review generated material for accuracy, rights and suitability before publication. If automatic publishing is enabled, the configured policy may publish without individual review — we remind you prominently where that applies.
08Paid subscriptions
Before any charge, we show the amount and tax, the billing frequency and start date, the plan limits, and how to cancel online from Billing — with an unticked confirmation next to the purchase button. We store the offer version presented and send an immediate receipt plus renewal/cancellation confirmations.