reference
Cover Letter to Allen — Privacy Architecture Review
Cover letter from Seth and Santiago to Allen, MemberIntel's privacy counsel, introducing the privacy strategy memo and the late-May architecture review agenda. Sent ~5 business days before the session to give Allen context for the pre-read package.
May 12, 2026
Allen —
This package contains two documents: a privacy strategy memo and a 4-hour working agenda for the late-May session. Both are pre-read. The session is targeting May 22 or May 27 — we’ll confirm your availability — and Blair joins for the final hour.
MemberIntel is an AI advisor product for MemberPress operators. Each operator gets an AI that analyzes their membership activity and surfaces recommendations for pricing, retention, and growth. The underlying infrastructure is a per-tenant brain (isolated by Row Level Security on GCP) and a global brain built from anonymized cross-tenant patterns. Phase 2 build starts in June. You’d be advising on the architecture before any Phase 2 code commits, and drafting ToS, Privacy Policy, and DPA positions against what the architecture actually is.
The memo is Seth’s working analysis of where the architecture is and is not yet defensible — a Brandeis-counsel reasoning pass, rewritten for working clarity, reviewed by a panel (Lessig, Sunstein, Rawls), and refined through a Lessig-Rawls debate on permanent exclusion. It identifies seven gaps before ToS drafting: four are code-layer preconditions requiring pull requests, three are policy items requiring legal drafting. Your lens is needed most on the three policy-layer items and on the GDPR Article 28 controller/processor classification flagged in the caveats — that question deserves its own instrument, not a footnote.
At the session, we’d like your read on three specific decisions:
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The permanent-exclusion list. Certain operators — domestic-violence shelters, addiction recovery programs, transgender-care providers, oncology and sensitive medical specialty practices — would be permanently excluded from the cross-pollination pipeline, non-overridably, regardless of anonymization quality. Is this list sensitive enough to enumerate in writing in the policy document, and what’s the right process for adding categories over time?
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The consent-flow design. The onboarding path is a frictionless toggle in the MemberPress admin, with a requirement that the operator represent their own privacy policy discloses the use of an AI advisor processing member data. Is that frictionless-toggle-plus-operator-representation structure sufficient, or does the design need to change before you can draft language against it?
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The Article 28 classification. The per-customer brain looks like a standard processor arrangement. The cross-pollination pipeline — where MemberIntel extracts patterns for its own global brain, not for the operator’s benefit — has a credible argument for independent-controller status. That classification changes what you’re drafting. We’d like your preliminary read before we get to the room.
We’re not asking for a legal opinion. We’re asking whether the architectural posture is defensible enough to begin Phase 2 build, and which items need to be resolved before you can draft ToS and Privacy Policy positions in June. The action register from the session will have owners and deadlines for both lists.
The pre-read package goes out five business days before the session date. Blair holds the final hour. If your initial read surfaces concerns, please flag them when you respond with availability — we’d rather adjust the agenda in advance.