Privacy Policy

01 Who We Are

This Privacy Policy applies to Pools Scientific LLC, a Kansas-based company operating PoolsScientific.com, the Pools Scientific Podcast, the Chemist’s Circle membership service, and all associated digital products, courses, and communities (collectively, the “Platform”). When we say “we,” “us,” or “our,” we mean Pools Scientific LLC.

This Privacy Policy works alongside our Terms of Service, which governs your overall use of the Platform, including membership billing, cancellation, and dispute resolution. Where this policy addresses how we handle your information, the Terms of Service addresses the rules of using the Platform itself.

Our mailing address is: Pools Scientific LLC, P.O. Box 7243, Leawood, KS 66207. For privacy-related inquiries, contact us at office@poolsscientific.com.

02 What Information We Collect

What we collect depends on how you interact with the Platform — whether you’re a podcast listener, a newsletter subscriber, a Chemist’s Circle member, or a customer. We collect information in three ways: information you provide directly, information collected automatically, and information generated through your use of paid services.

Information you provide directly

• Email address — when you subscribe to our email list through any signup form on this website.
• First name — optionally provided when subscribing, used to personalize emails.
• Ask John submissions — when you submit a question through the Ask John form, we collect your name, email address, pool type, and the content of your question.
• Chemistry Submission data — if you are a Chemist’s Circle member, submitting a chemistry reading through our Chemistry Submission form collects your pool’s chemical readings, pool type and construction, equipment details, and any notes or photos you choose to include. This information is used solely to prepare your personalized response and is never shared with other members. See Section 5 for more detail on how this specific data is handled.
• Membership account information — if you join the Chemist’s Circle, we (through our membership platform, MemberPress) collect your name, email address, username, and membership status and history.
• Referral source — how you heard about us, if you choose to provide it.
• Purchase and billing information — if you purchase an ebook, physical product, or Chemist’s Circle membership, payment is handled by one of our third-party payment processors, described in Section 4. We do not store full payment card numbers ourselves.

Information collected automatically

• Usage data — pages visited, time spent, browser type, referring URL, and device type, collected through analytics tools.
• Cookies and similar technologies — including session cookies for members logged into the Chemist’s Circle, analytics cookies, and, where applicable, third-party affiliate tracking cookies. See Section 7 for details.

Information generated through community participation

• Telegram community — the Chemist’s Circle Telegram group is an opt-in community separate from our website. If you join, your Telegram username and any messages you post are visible to other group members as part of Telegram’s own platform, governed by Telegram’s privacy policy, not this one. We do not independently collect or store your Telegram messages outside of Telegram itself.

03 How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• To send you the Pools Scientific Podcast weekly email — new episode notifications, key insights, and the link to listen.
• To send you information about Pools Scientific products, ebooks, courses, and the physical Reference Set when relevant.
• To respond to questions submitted through the Ask John form.
• To feature selected listener questions on the podcast (with your first name and pool type only, unless you request anonymity).
• To review Chemist’s Circle chemistry submissions and provide personalized recommendations.
• To manage your Chemist’s Circle membership, including billing, access, and renewal.
• To improve the website, podcast, and Circle content based on how visitors and members use the Platform.
• To fulfill product orders and provide customer service.
• To comply with legal obligations.

We do not use your information for automated decision-making or profiling, and we do not use your chemistry data for any purpose beyond responding to your submission and improving our general educational content (in de-identified, aggregate form only).

04 How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal information. We do not share your email address, chemistry data, or other personal data with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

We share information only with the service providers necessary to operate the Platform, and only for the purpose of providing our services to you:

Provider	What They Receive	Purpose
Kit (kit.com)	Email address, first name	Email newsletter and broadcast delivery
Google Analytics	Anonymized usage data	Website traffic analysis
Payhip	Order and shipping details	Digital and physical product sales
Stripe	Billing and payment details	Chemist’s Circle membership payment processing
MemberPress	Name, email, membership status	Membership access and account management
Gravity Forms	Form submission content	Ask John and Chemistry Submission form processing
WP Engine / Cloudflare	Standard web request data	Website hosting, performance, and security
Amazon Associates	Referral click data (via Amazon’s own cookie)	Affiliate commission tracking on product links

Each provider’s use of your information is governed by their own privacy policy: Kit’s is at kit.com/privacy, Google’s is at policies.google.com/privacy, Stripe’s is at stripe.com/privacy, and Amazon’s is at amazon.com/privacy.

Amazon Associates disclosure: Pools Scientific LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.com. Certain product links on this site (including on the Reagent Locker page) are affiliate links. If you click one of these links and make a qualifying purchase, we may earn a commission at no additional cost to you. Amazon, not Pools Scientific LLC, sets its own tracking cookie when you click these links. We do not receive your payment or order details from Amazon.

Beyond these providers, we disclose information only in the following circumstances:

• Legal requirements: We may disclose information if required by law, court order, or to protect the rights and safety of Pools Scientific LLC or others.
• Business transfer: If Pools Scientific LLC is acquired or merges with another entity, your information may be transferred as part of that transaction, subject to the same protections described in this policy.

05 Chemist’s Circle & Member Data

Because Chemist’s Circle membership involves more sensitive information than a newsletter signup — your actual pool chemistry, equipment, and sometimes photos of your property — we hold this data to a higher standard than general site data.

• Member Privacy Canon: Member names are never shared with other members in any correspondence from us. Members may encounter each other’s names organically inside the opt-in Telegram community, which is visible by design, but we do not cross-reference or disclose one member’s submissions or identity to another member.
• Internal recordkeeping: Chemistry submissions and our responses are logged internally for service quality, consistency, and continuity between submissions (so we have context if you write in again). This log is accessible only to Pools Scientific LLC.
• No resale or external use: Your chemistry data is never sold, licensed, or shared with pool product manufacturers, retailers, or any other third party.
• Deletion: You may request deletion of your chemistry submission history at any time by contacting office@poolsscientific.com, subject to any records we’re required to retain for billing or legal purposes.

06 Email Communications & CAN-SPAM Compliance

All marketing emails we send comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. Specifically:

• Every email clearly identifies Pools Scientific LLC as the sender.
• Every email includes our physical mailing address.
• Every email includes a clear and functional unsubscribe link.
• We honor all unsubscribe requests promptly — within 10 business days.
• We do not use deceptive subject lines or misleading header information.

To unsubscribe from our email list at any time, click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any email we send, or contact us directly at office@poolsscientific.com. Note that transactional emails related to an active Chemist’s Circle membership (such as billing receipts or renewal notices) are not marketing emails and may continue as part of your membership even if you unsubscribe from the newsletter.

07 Cookies & Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to run the site, keep members logged in, understand how visitors use the Platform, and, for retail links, allow a third-party retailer to attribute a purchase to this site.

Types of cookies we use:

• Essential cookies: Required for the website to function, including keeping you logged in to your Chemist’s Circle membership. These cannot be disabled without losing core site functionality.
• Analytics cookies: Used by Google Analytics to collect anonymized usage data. You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
• Email form cookies: Set by Kit when you interact with our signup forms.
• Membership session cookies: Set by MemberPress to maintain your login session and verify your membership access level.
• Affiliate referral cookies: When you click an Amazon product link on this site, Amazon may place its own cookie on your device to attribute a resulting purchase to Pools Scientific LLC. This cookie is set and controlled by Amazon, not by us, and does not affect your Pools Scientific membership, subscription, or any information described elsewhere in this policy.
• Security and performance cookies: Cloudflare, our content delivery and security provider, may set cookies necessary to protect the site from malicious traffic and improve load performance.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Disabling cookies may affect some functionality of the site, including your ability to stay logged in to the Chemist’s Circle.

08 Data Retention

• Email subscribers: We retain your email address and subscription information for as long as you are subscribed. When you unsubscribe, your email is removed from our active list. We may retain anonymized records for analytics purposes.
• Ask John submissions: Retained for podcast production purposes. If your question is not used within 12 months, we delete the submission.
• Chemist’s Circle membership data: Retained for as long as your membership is active, plus a limited period after cancellation to handle billing disputes, refunds, or re-enrollment. Chemistry submission history is retained under the same terms described in Section 5.
• Order and billing information: Retained as required for tax and legal compliance, typically seven years.

09 Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
• Correction: Request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete information.
• Deletion: Request that we delete your personal information, subject to legal retention requirements and active membership obligations.
• Opt-out: Unsubscribe from marketing communications at any time.
• Portability: Request your data in a portable format (where technically feasible).
• Objection: Object to certain types of processing of your personal information.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at office@poolsscientific.com. We will respond within 30 days.

California residents (CCPA): California residents have additional rights under the California Consumer Privacy Act, including the right to know what personal information is collected, the right to delete personal information, and the right to opt out of the sale of personal information. We do not sell personal information. We do not currently process Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals differently from other visitors, since we do not sell or share data for cross-context behavioral advertising. To submit a CCPA request, contact us at office@poolsscientific.com.

European and UK residents (GDPR): If you are located in the European Economic Area or United Kingdom, our lawful basis for processing your email address is consent — you provided it voluntarily when subscribing. For Chemist’s Circle members, our lawful basis for processing membership and chemistry data is performance of a contract (providing the membership service you signed up for). You may withdraw consent for marketing communications at any time by unsubscribing.

10 Children’s Privacy

The Platform — including PoolsScientific.com, the Pools Scientific Podcast, and the Chemist’s Circle — is intended for adults and pool industry professionals. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13, and Chemist’s Circle membership requires the account holder to be an adult. If we become aware that we have collected information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such information, contact us at office@poolsscientific.com.

11 Third-Party Links & Services

Our website contains links to third-party websites and services including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Payhip, Stripe, Kit, Telegram, and Amazon.com. These services have their own privacy policies and we are not responsible for their practices. We encourage you to review the privacy policy of any third-party site you visit, including Amazon’s privacy notice at amazon.com/privacy for any product link found on this site, and Telegram’s privacy policy for anything shared inside the Chemist’s Circle Telegram community.

12 Security & Infrastructure

We take reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information against unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the internet or electronic storage is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security.

• Our website is hosted on WP Engine and uses HTTPS encryption for all data transmission.
• Cloudflare sits in front of our site to help filter malicious traffic and improve performance and reliability.
• Payment card information is never stored on our servers; it is handled directly by our payment processors (Stripe and Payhip), both of which maintain their own industry-standard security certifications.

13 International Users

Pools Scientific LLC is based in the United States, and the information we collect is processed and stored in the United States. If you are accessing the Platform from outside the United States, your information will be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States, where our servers and service providers are located. By using the Platform, you consent to this transfer.

14 Future Products & Service Providers

Pools Scientific LLC is an actively growing platform. We anticipate adding new products and services over time, including but not limited to online courses, a professional credentialing program, and a custom-built membership and content platform that may supplement or replace some of the third-party providers named in Section 4.

Where a new product or service collects materially different categories of personal information than described in this policy, we will update this policy before that product or service launches. Where we simply change or add a service provider that performs a function already described here (for example, moving email delivery to a different provider, or adding a new payment processor for the same purpose Stripe or Payhip already serve), we may update the table in Section 4 without a full policy revision, and the “Last updated” date at the top of this page will reflect that change.

15 Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, our platform, or legal requirements. When we make material changes — such as collecting a new category of information or adding a new purpose for using your data — we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify active Chemist’s Circle members directly. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

Continued use of PoolsScientific.com, the Pools Scientific Podcast email list, or an active Chemist’s Circle membership after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

16 Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests related to this Privacy Policy or your personal information, please contact us:

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Pools Scientific LLC · PoolsScientific.com