PingoMe Email & Communications Policy

Last updated: July 18, 2026

PingoMe is operated by Stellarus Intelligence, Inc., a Delaware public benefit corporation ("Stellarus," "we," or "us"). PingoMe lives at pingome.com.

This policy does two jobs. Part 1 tells you — our users — exactly when and why we email you, and how to make it stop. Part 2 is our internal operating standard: the rules our own team follows every time a message goes out. We publish both because we'd rather show our work.

Scope note: PingoMe currently sends transactional email only — organizer-code backups, contact-form replies, purchase receipts (via Stripe), and security notices. Marketing email does not exist at PingoMe today; everything below about marketing describes commitments that bind us if we ever introduce it, and it will be opt-in only.

Part 1 — What you can expect from us

The short version

We only ever email organizers who created an account and gave us their email — plus a one-off reply to anyone who writes us through the contact form and leaves an address.
Guests never give us an email address. Playing a game never puts anyone on a list.
Transactional email (receipts, your organizer-code backup, renewal reminders, security notices) comes with having an account or a paid membership.
Marketing email is opt-in only, and every marketing message has a working unsubscribe link.
We never buy email lists. We never sell your email. Ever.

Who we email — and who we don't

The only people who can receive email from PingoMe are organizers who create an account (with Google sign-in). Providing an email address is part of having an account; it is never part of playing. Two exceptions: anyone who writes to us through the contact form and includes an email address will receive a reply to that address, used only for that reply; and an organizer — with or without an account — who requests an emailed backup of their organizer code receives that one message at the address they provide.

Guests never provide email addresses. Joining a game asks for a first name (or nickname) and answers — that's it. There is no field, prompt, or hidden mechanism that collects a guest's email, and we will not add one. If you were a guest at a PingoMe game, we do not know your email address and cannot email you — unless you choose to write to us through the contact form and include an email for a reply, in which case we use that address only to reply to you.

Transactional email (the necessary kind)

If you have an account, we send certain messages because they're part of delivering the service you asked for:

Organizer-code backup — a copy of your game's secret organizer code, so a lost browser doesn't mean a lost game.
Receipts and billing confirmations — for membership purchases and renewals, sent when Stripe processes a charge.
Billing confirmations — memberships are monthly, and Stripe sends a receipt with each charge; there is no separate pre-charge reminder for monthly plans.
Security and account notices — sign-in and security alerts, material changes to terms or this policy, and anything we're legally required to tell you.

You cannot opt out of transactional email while it's relevant to you — a receipt belongs with a purchase, and a security alert belongs with an account. When it stops being relevant (for example, you cancel your membership or close your account), the related messages stop too.

Marketing email (the optional kind)

Marketing email — new features, question packs, tips, occasional announcements — is strictly opt-in. You will never receive marketing from us unless you affirmatively checked a box or toggled a setting asking for it. Creating an account is not consent to marketing. Buying a membership is not consent to marketing. Only opting in is consent to marketing.

Every marketing message from us includes:

a working unsubscribe link, honored within 10 business days (usually the same day);
the physical postal address CAN-SPAM requires — to be established (a registered-agent or commercial mailbox address) before any marketing email is ever sent; none is printed today because we send no marketing email;
an accurate "From" name and subject line — no misleading headers, no bait subjects, per the CAN-SPAM Act.

Unsubscribing from marketing never affects transactional email, your account, or your membership.

How often we'll email you

Transactional: only when something happens — a purchase, a renewal coming up, a code backup you requested, a security event. No schedule, no filler.
Marketing (if it ever exists, and you opted in): expect no more than about two messages a month. If we ever want to send more, we'll say so where you opt in — we won't quietly turn up the volume.

Changing your preferences

Three ways, pick any:

The unsubscribe link — in the footer of every marketing message (if marketing ever exists).
The contact form — at pingome.com/contact. Tell us what you want changed and we'll do it manually.

Things we will never do

Buy, rent, or "acquire" email lists. Every address we hold was given to us directly by its owner, for PingoMe.
Sell or rent your email address to anyone, for any reason.
Share your email for someone else's marketing. Our service providers (below) may process addresses to send our mail — never their own.
Collect guest emails through games. By design, forever.
Email children. Accounts require age 13+, so our email list is 13+ by construction. Consistent with our children's policy, guests under 13 don't use PingoMe directly at all — a parent/guardian or the game host enters answers on their behalf — and since guests never provide emails, no child's email ever reaches us through a game.

Part 2 — Our internal sending standards

This section is our own operating checklist. It's binding on us, and we publish it so users and reviewers can hold us to it.

Sender identity and authentication

All PingoMe email is sent from a Stellarus-controlled domain: send.pingome.com. We do not send from personal mailboxes or free-mail addresses.
The sending domain carries SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records before the first message goes out, and DMARC is monitored. DNS for these is part of the v2 launch checklist — no records, no sending.
The "From" name is always recognizably PingoMe or Stellarus. Reply handling directs users to the contact form at pingome.com/contact; we never publish or use a personal email address as a contact channel.
Sending is done through Resend, under terms that permit processing only on our instructions. Resend is named in the PingoMe Privacy Policy's processor list.

Classifying every message before it's sent

Every outbound message type is classified transactional or marketing before launch, using the CAN-SPAM "primary purpose" test:

Transactional: facilitates an agreed transaction or gives required account/security information (receipts, code backups, renewal reminders, security notices, legal notices).
Marketing: promotes anything — features, packs, upgrades. When in doubt, it's marketing and gets the full marketing treatment (opt-in gate, unsubscribe, address).
No smuggling: transactional messages must not carry promotional content that would flip their primary purpose. A receipt is a receipt.

CAN-SPAM checklist (every marketing message)

Before any marketing send, all of the following must be true:

Every recipient has an affirmative, recorded opt-in (what they agreed to, when, and how — kept as long as we email them).
The From, reply-to, and routing information are accurate and identify Stellarus.
The subject line reflects the content.
A functioning unsubscribe mechanism is present and works for at least 30 days after the send.
Opt-outs are honored within 10 business days, cost nothing, and require nothing beyond the opt-out itself (no login walls, no "tell us why" gates).
The message displays the valid physical postal address CAN-SPAM requires — to be established (a registered-agent or commercial mailbox address) before any marketing email is ever sent. None is printed today because none is required for transactional mail.

Suppression and list hygiene

Unsubscribes go onto a suppression list that every future marketing send is checked against. Suppression survives account changes; re-adding requires a fresh, affirmative opt-in from the user.
Hard bounces and spam complaints are removed from the marketing list promptly.
We never re-import, merge in, or append addresses from outside sources — see "Things we will never do."

Special rules we've adopted

Auto-renewal transparency (California ARL): memberships are monthly-only; the auto-renewal terms are disclosed clearly at checkout and in our Terms of Service, cancellation is self-serve online, and Stripe delivers a receipt with every charge.
Google sign-in users: an email address obtained via Google sign-in is handled under the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements. We use it to run your account and send the messages described in this policy — nothing else — and it gets no different (and no worse) treatment than an address you typed in yourself.
B2B and facility contacts: if community question packs bring us business contacts (for example, senior-living facility staff), those contacts are held to this same policy — no purchased lists, opt-in-only marketing, working unsubscribe.

Questions, complaints, and requests

Use the contact form at pingome.com/contact for anything about our email practices — preference changes we can make manually, complaints, or a request to confirm whether we hold your email at all. Privacy-related requests (access, deletion) are handled as described in the PingoMe Privacy Policy.

Changes to this policy

If we materially change how we email you — new message types, a new sending domain, a different cadence — we'll update this page, change the "Last updated" date, and, for material changes affecting account holders, tell you by email (a transactional notice, naturally).

Governing law

This policy is part of how we operate PingoMe and is read together with our Terms of Service, which are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, with venue in Delaware.

Changelog. July 18, 2026: initial publication — transactional-only email (Resend, send.pingome.com), Google-only sign-in, monthly-only plans, no postal address printed (none required until marketing email exists).