Controller
Valco Oy (business ID 2919697-5, VAT FI29196975). Visiting address Takojankatu 13, 87400 Kajaani. Postal address PL 1001, 33721 Tampere. For privacy questions: info@valco.fi. An actual human replies, not a chatbot.
What this policy covers
The website valco.support and its parts: chatbot, search, and contact form. Does not cover the valco.fi store, the valcoaudio.com site, or third-party services articles may link to.
What we process
We collect as little as reasonably possible. Here's the full list.
Visitor stats
We track visit counts and pageviews anonymously. The analytics tool we use sets no cookies, stores no IP addresses, and doesn't build a profile of you. Frankly, we're not that interested.
Functional cookies and browser storage
Two cookies are necessary for the site to work: cookie_consent (remembers your consent, valid 1 year) and preferred_lang/valco-lang (remembers your language, valid 1 year). Without these the site would be pretty annoying — the language would change mid-visit and every page would ask for consent again. Your browser's own memory (localStorage) handles dark mode and chat settings. None of this contains personal data and none of it is shared with third parties.
Chatbot conversations
Messages you write to the chatbot and its replies are stored in a chat log. The log also contains the conversation ID, language, an automatically classified topic and sentiment, and the sources the bot used. We use this to monitor how the bot is doing and improve it when we can be bothered. Your IP address is forwarded to the chatbot service for rate limiting but is not saved in the log.
After 30 days the message content is replaced with [redacted]. From then on the conversation can't be linked to you anymore. It couldn't really be linked to you in the first place, as long as you didn't say who you are during the chat.
So don't write anything to the bot that you don't want sitting on our servers, or anything you don't want sent to an AI company. Your email is only asked for if you click the ”Talk to a human” button.
Contact form
When you submit the /contact form, we process your name, email address, the product you picked, the topic, and the message content. The data goes to our customer service tool Gorgias as a support ticket so someone has a chance to reply to you.
“Talk to a human” in chat
If you click “Talk to a human” in the chat, we ask for your name and email. The support team receives these details, a brief summary of the chat, the product/topic, and the conversation ID. That way you don't have to explain everything twice.
Newsletter signup
The email you give in the footer newsletter form goes straight to Mailchimp (processor in the USA). valco.support does not handle the address on its own server. You can unsubscribe any time via the link at the bottom of each newsletter. You probably won't, because our newsletter is pretty good.
Article flag button
If you click “This article is total garbage” below an article, we receive the article ID and any free-text comment you left. The action is anonymous — no email or other personal data is collected. So feel free to roast away.
Purposes and legal basis
Anonymous visitor stats and the chatbot's message history are processed under legitimate interest (developing the site and keeping the service running). Contact-form and chat-ticket data are processed under legitimate interest and contractual necessity so we can reply to your question. The newsletter subscription is based on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
Retention
The chatbot's conversation logs are anonymised after 30 days. The message content is replaced, but the metadata (conversation ID, language, topic class, sentiment) is kept for aggregate statistics. Gorgias support tickets are kept as long as needed to handle the issue. In practice that means several years, since older tickets are referenced in later cases. The Mailchimp newsletter list is kept until you unsubscribe. Visitor stats are 100% aggregate data and contain no individual-level information.
Third-party processors
The site is technically hosted in Europe.
International transfers
Individual processors may handle data outside the EU/EEA, in practice in the USA. Such transfers rely on EU Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) or EU adequacy decisions, such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, depending on the processor. In practice this concerns the chatbot.
Your rights
You have the right to request access to your data, correct or delete it, restrict its processing, port it to another system, object to processing, and withdraw any consent you have given. Send requests to info@valco.fi. We reply as quickly as we can manage. You can also lodge a complaint with the Finnish Office of the Data Protection Ombudsman (tietosuoja.fi).
Automated decisions
The chatbot automatically classifies messages by topic and sentiment for statistics. The classification is internal and only affects how we improve the support content. No automated decisions are made about individual users that would affect them. Even if the bot decides you're angry, your headphones won't go on strike, and we won't take it personally.
Children
The site is not aimed at under-13s and we don't collect data on them either (just like we don't on anyone else). If you're a guardian and suspect your child's conversation has been logged, contact info@valco.fi. We'll delete it.
Changes
We update the policy when needed. The revision date is shown at the top of the page. If there are material changes to how data is processed, we'll mention it on the homepage or by email to newsletter subscribers.