The Activist Institute

Privacy Policy — United States

Last updated: October 17, 2025

Our Mission

At The Activist Institute, a service of Vestera, Inc., our mission is to democratize access to financial research and activism. We provide retail investors, researchers, and market enthusiasts with comprehensive financial data, analytics, and educational tools.

We recognize the importance of keeping your personal data secure and have created this Privacy Policy to offer a clear explanation of the personal data we collect, how it is used, and how we share it. Remember that your use of the Services is at all times subject to our Terms of Service, which incorporates this Policy. Any terms we use in this Policy without defining them have the definitions given to them in the Terms of Service.

IMPORTANT: Educational and Informational Purposes Only

The Services provide educational and informational resources only. We do not provide investment advice, recommendations, or guarantees regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any data or analytics. You should not rely on our Services as the sole basis for any investment decisions.

What this Policy Covers

This Policy covers how we treat personal data that we gather when you access or use our Services. "Personal data" means any information that identifies or relates to a particular individual and includes information referred to as "personally identifiable information" or "personal information" under applicable data privacy laws, rules or regulations.

This Policy does not cover the practices of companies we don't own or control or people we don't manage. For guidance on the data practices of third parties, please refer to their respective privacy policies or terms of service.

You Own Your Data

Our Responsibility

We maintain a responsibility to offer users control and security over your personal data. The Activist Institute is designed to give each user control over who and what has access to their personal data. This is fundamental to the way we operate as an organization and a principle that is cornerstone to our mission. At the end of the day, you control your personal data.

Access to Information

We understand the importance of maintaining confidentiality regarding your account information, research interests, and usage patterns. Our team will only have access to personal data as necessary to provide you with the relevant Services.

Data Sources & Protective Measures

Market Data Sources

We aggregate publicly available market data from various sources including but not limited to securities exchanges, regulatory filings, company disclosures, and licensed data providers. While we strive for accuracy:

  • No Guarantee of Accuracy: Market data may contain errors, omissions, or delays. We make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any data.
  • No Real-Time Guarantees: Data may be delayed according to exchange requirements and third-party provider limitations.
  • Educational Purpose Only: All data, analytics, screeners, and tools are provided for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as investment advice or recommendations.

Third-Party Data Providers

We partner with various third-party data providers and services to deliver comprehensive market information. These partnerships are established with security as our focus, and all partners are required to maintain appropriate data protection standards.

AI-Powered Features

We have partnered with leading AI providers (including but not limited to OpenAI, Anthropic, and others) to support key features such as:

  • Document analysis and data extraction
  • Natural language query processing
  • Pattern recognition and analytics
  • Automated insights generation

Important Limitations:

  • AI-generated insights are educational only and not investment recommendations
  • AI analysis may contain errors or inaccuracies
  • Users should independently verify all AI-generated information
  • Past performance data analyzed by AI does not predict future results

With security as our focus, our AI partners have agreed to implement "Zero Data Retention" policies where applicable, which means that Customer Content (a) will not be logged for human review and (b) will not be saved to disk or retained beyond the processing period. Notwithstanding the foregoing, AI providers may perform automated screening for safety purposes, which shall consist solely of metadata and shall not include any Customer Content or any portion thereof.

Collection & Retention

Collection

The personal data collected varies based on your use of the Services. Depending on your activities, we may collect the personal data categories listed in the table below.

All Visitors & Users

For each individual that visits the Services, we gather personal data to recognize repeat visits and interactions, such as device IDs, browser information, IP addresses, and usage analytics. This is commonly referred to as "cookies."

The reason we collect this personal data is to measure our effectiveness and improve the user experience across our Services.

Registered Users

To access most of our Services, you must create an account by registering with your email address and a password. You may optionally provide your name and other profile information.

This personal data is collected to provide you with a secure login for the Services, manage your account, and send relevant communications.

Phone numbers may be collected to enable two-factor authentication and account recovery. When using the Services, you may submit Personal Data via messages, comments, saved searches, watchlists, or content you upload.

Subscription & Payment Users

Payment Information: Collection of your credit card number or banking information to process payments (via our payment processor).

Subscription Preferences: Your plan level, billing history, and feature access.

We do not store complete credit card information on our servers; this is handled by PCI-compliant third-party payment processors.

Users of Advanced Features

Research & Analytics Data: Saved searches, custom screeners, watchlists, portfolio tracking data (if you choose to input it), alerts, and notes.

Usage Patterns: Which securities you research, which tools you use, and how you interact with data displays.

Important Disclaimer: Any portfolio, watchlist, or securities research data you input is for your personal tracking and educational purposes only. We do not use this data to provide investment recommendations, and you should not interpret any Service features as endorsement or advice regarding specific securities.

Our Commercial or Business Purposes for Collecting Personal Data

In addition to the purposes described in the table above, we have several commercial and business purposes for collecting personal data, including:

Providing, Customizing and Improving the Services:

  • Creating and managing your account
  • Processing subscriptions and billing
  • Providing you with the data, tools, and information you request
  • Personalizing your experience and saved preferences
  • Meeting or fulfilling the reason you provided the information to us
  • Providing support and assistance for the Services
  • Improving the Services, including testing, research, internal analytics and product development
  • Developing new features, tools, and analytics
  • Doing fraud protection, security and debugging
  • Carrying out other business purposes stated when collecting your Personal Data or as otherwise set forth in applicable data privacy laws

Educational Content & Community:

  • Providing educational resources and market commentary
  • Facilitating community discussions (if applicable)
  • Sending educational newsletters and market insights (with your consent)

Marketing the Services:

  • Sending information about new features and capabilities
  • Conducting surveys and gathering feedback

Corresponding with You:

  • Responding to correspondence that we receive from you
  • Contacting you when necessary or requested
  • Sending emails and other communications according to your preferences

Meeting Legal Requirements and Enforcing Legal Terms:

  • Fulfilling our legal obligations under applicable law, regulation, court order or other legal process
  • Preventing, detecting and investigating security incidents and potentially illegal or prohibited activities
  • Protecting the rights, property or safety of you, us or another party
  • Enforcing any agreements with you
  • Responding to claims that any posting or other content violates third-party rights
  • Resolving disputes

Disclosure of Personal Data

We may disclose your personal data to the categories of service providers and other parties listed in this section. Depending on state laws that may be applicable to you, some of these disclosures may constitute a "sale" of your personal data. For more information, please refer to the state-specific sections below.

Service Providers:

These parties help us provide the Services or perform business functions on our behalf. They include:

  • Market data providers and aggregators
  • Large language models and AI services (like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and others)
  • Cloud hosting, technology and communication providers
  • Security and fraud prevention consultants
  • Support and customer service vendors
  • Payment processors
  • Email and notification service providers

Analytics Partners:

These parties provide analytics on web traffic or usage of the Services. They include:

  • Companies that track how users found or were referred to the Services
  • Companies that track how users interact with the Services
  • Performance monitoring and optimization tools

Other Disclosures:

  • Parties You Authorize: Third parties you authorize to access your data through the Services or through integrations you enable.
  • Business Transfers: All of your personal data we collect may be transferred to a third party if we undergo a merger, acquisition, bankruptcy or other transaction in which that third party assumes control of our business (in whole or in part).
  • Legal Obligations: We may share any personal data that we collect with third parties in conjunction with any of the activities set forth under "Meeting Legal Requirements and Enforcing Legal Terms."
  • Aggregate Information: We may create aggregated, de-identified or anonymized data from the personal data we collect, including by removing information that makes the data personally identifiable to a particular user.

Important Note on Research Data: Any securities research, watchlists, or portfolio data you input into the Services remains private to your account unless you explicitly choose to share it. We may analyze such data in aggregate, de-identified form to improve our Services, but will never share your individual research or holdings with third parties for marketing or other purposes without your explicit consent.

Data Retention

Retention of Information: We shall retain your personal data for a duration essential to provide the requisite Services, uphold the terms outlined within the Terms of Service, or to ensure compliance with legal obligations, including but not limited to mandates from law enforcement authorities. This retention period is subject to periodic review and adjustment as necessitated by changes in operational requirements or regulatory frameworks.

Typically:

  • Account information is retained while your account is active and for a reasonable period thereafter
  • Usage data and analytics may be retained in anonymized form indefinitely
  • Payment records are retained as required by financial regulations (typically 7 years)
  • Communications may be retained for compliance and support purposes

Data Deletion: Upon account closure or upon your request, we will delete or anonymize your personal data, subject to our need to retain certain information for legal compliance, fraud prevention, or legitimate business purposes. Some data may persist in backup systems.

Security & Compliance

Security Measures

We take the security of your personal data seriously and employ reasonable technical, administrative, and physical safeguards to protect your personal data from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. While there is no guarantee of the effectiveness of these security measures, we continue to enhance our privacy practices in an effort to protect your personal data. These measures include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Infrastructure: Our backend infrastructure is hosted and managed by enterprise-grade cloud providers that regularly undergo third-party audits and certifications to validate compliance with industry standards and regulations, such as ISO 27001, SOC 2, and GDPR.
  • Encryption: Personal data is encrypted using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit encryption at rest. Market data and public information may not be encrypted as it is publicly available.
  • Transmission: To protect against unauthorized access, we use industry standard HTTPS protocol with TLS encryption to protect personal data that is transmitted between your device and our servers.
  • Authentication: We strongly recommend enabling Two-factor authentication (2FA) for enhanced security measures.
  • Access Controls: Internal access to personal data is restricted on a need-to-know basis and subject to logging and monitoring.

Security Audits

We conduct regular security audits and assessments of our systems and processes to identify and address any potential vulnerabilities that may affect personal data. This includes a comprehensive review of access controls, logs, and other protection measures.

Third-Party Vendors and Service Providers

In the development and operation of Services, it may be necessary to engage the services of third-party vendors, developers, or consultants ("Third Parties"). Prior to engagement, Third Parties undergo a comprehensive risk assessment, inclusive of evaluations pertaining to regulatory compliance certifications, security protocols, and current standing within the industry. We impose contractual obligations mandating the safeguarding of your personal data. These contractual obligations encompass the implementation of robust security measures commensurate with industry standards, as well as the adoption of appropriate data protection protocols.

Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Our Services are intended for individuals of legal age, being 18 years or older. We do not knowingly collect personal data from minors without consent of a parent or legal guardian. If we become aware that we have collected personal data from a minor without proper consent, we will take steps to delete that information.

Incident Response

In the event of a security incident involving personal data, we have established procedures in place to promptly investigate, mitigate, and notify affected individuals as required by applicable laws and regulations. If you are aware of any unauthorized account activity or security breaches, promptly notify us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com as noted in the Terms of Service.

Important Disclaimers & Limitations

No Investment Advice

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED FOR EDUCATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. NOTHING CONTAINED IN THE SERVICES CONSTITUTES INVESTMENT ADVICE, FINANCIAL ADVICE, TRADING ADVICE, OR ANY OTHER TYPE OF ADVICE. WE ARE NOT REGISTERED AS A SECURITIES BROKER-DEALER OR AN INVESTMENT ADVISER WITH THE U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION OR ANY STATE SECURITIES REGULATORY AUTHORITY.

You should not interpret any content, tools, data, or analytics provided through the Services as a recommendation to buy, sell, or hold any security. Any investment decisions you make are solely your responsibility.

No Guarantee of Accuracy

While we strive to provide accurate and timely information:

  • Data Accuracy: Market data, company information, and analytics may contain errors, omissions, or delays. We aggregate data from multiple third-party sources and cannot guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any data.
  • No Liability for Errors: We are not liable for any losses or damages arising from inaccuracies, errors, or omissions in the data or analytics provided through the Services.
  • Data Delays: Market data may be delayed by 15 minutes or more depending on the source and your subscription level. Real-time data, where available, may still experience technical delays.
  • Historical Data: Historical data and backtesting results do not guarantee future performance. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
  • Third-Party Data: We rely on third-party data providers and are not responsible for errors or omissions in their data feeds.

AI-Generated Content Disclaimer

AI-generated insights, summaries, and analytics are:

  • Experimental in nature and may contain errors or inaccuracies
  • Not reviewed by financial professionals
  • Not investment recommendations or advice
  • Subject to limitations inherent in AI technology
  • Should be independently verified before relying on them

DO NOT make investment decisions based solely on AI-generated content.

User Responsibility

You are solely responsible for:

  • Conducting your own research and due diligence
  • Verifying any information before making investment decisions
  • Consulting with qualified financial advisors, accountants, and attorneys
  • Understanding the risks associated with investing in securities
  • Complying with all applicable laws and regulations
  • Maintaining the security of your account credentials

No Fiduciary Duty

We do not owe any fiduciary duties to you or any other user of the Services. We are not acting as your agent, advisor, or in any fiduciary capacity.

Your Rights & Choices

Account Information

You may access, update, or delete your account information at any time through your account settings. You are responsible for maintaining accurate account information.

Communication Preferences

You may opt out of marketing communications at any time by using the unsubscribe link in emails or adjusting your account preferences. Please note that you cannot opt out of essential service communications related to your account, security, or legal notices.

Data Access & Portability

You may request a copy of your personal data by contacting us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com. We will provide your data in a commonly used, machine-readable format where feasible.

Data Deletion

You may request deletion of your personal data by contacting us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com. Please note that we may retain certain information as required by law or for legitimate business purposes.

Do Not Track

Some browsers support a "Do Not Track" feature. Our Services do not currently respond to Do Not Track signals.

State Law Privacy Rights

California Resident Rights

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) and California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), California residents have specific rights regarding their personal data:

  • Right to Know: You have the right to request information about the categories and specific pieces of personal data we have collected about you, as well as the categories of sources from which we collected it, the business purpose for collecting it, and the categories of third parties with whom we shared it.
  • Right to Delete: You have the right to request deletion of your personal data, subject to certain exceptions.
  • Right to Opt-Out of Sale: You have the right to opt-out of the "sale" of your personal data. While we do not sell personal data in the traditional sense, certain data sharing practices may constitute a "sale" under California law.
  • Right to Correct: You have the right to request correction of inaccurate personal data.
  • Right to Limit Use of Sensitive Personal Information: You have the right to limit our use of sensitive personal information.
  • Right to Non-Discrimination: You have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your privacy rights.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com with the subject line "California Privacy Rights Request."

Nevada Resident Rights

If you are a resident of Nevada, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of certain personal data to third parties who intend to license or sell that Personal Data. You can exercise this right by contacting us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com with the subject line "Nevada Do Not Sell Request" and providing us with your name and the email address associated with your account.

Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, and Utah Residents

Residents of these states have rights similar to those described for California residents, including rights to access, delete, correct, and opt-out of certain processing activities. To exercise these rights, please contact us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com.

International Users

Our Services are operated in the United States. If you are accessing the Services from outside the United States, please be aware that your information may be transferred to, stored, and processed in the United States where our servers are located and our central database is operated. The data protection and other laws of the United States might not be as comprehensive as those in your country.

Third-Party Links & Services

The Services may contain links to third-party websites, services, or content. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of these third parties. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party sites you visit.

Policy Changes

Our security program and Privacy Policy is reviewed on a regular basis. We reserve the right to modify, add, remove, or change portions of the Policy at any time. We will alert you to any material changes by:

  • Placing a notice on our website
  • Sending you an email (if you have provided your email address)
  • Updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this Policy

Please note that if you've opted not to receive legal notice emails from us (or you haven't provided us with your email address), those legal notices will still govern your use of the Services, and you are still responsible for reading and understanding them. If you use the Services after any changes to the Privacy Policy have been posted, that means you agree to all of the changes. Use of personal data we collect is subject to the Privacy Policy in effect at the time such information is collected.

Contact Us

If you have any questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us at legal@theactivistinstitute.com.