Privacy Policy

Last updated: 2026-10-24

Who we are

LingoLab Korean (https://lingolabkorean.net) is a language learning service for people studying Korean and other languages through sentence and word analysis. This website is operated by Culture Shock (Republic of Korea). For any privacy question or request, email info@lingolabkorean.net.

• Trade name: Culture Shock
• Representative: Kim Taimin
• Business registration number: 533-50-00752
• Mail-order sales registration number: No. 2022-Gwangju Buk-gu-1528
• Address: 54-18, Biennale-ro, Buk-gu, Jeonnam-Gwangju, Republic of Korea
• Email: info@lingolabkorean.net

Account data

If you register, we store your email address, display name (the name you enter when you sign up), password and site language. Your password is stored by our login service (Supabase) only as an irreversible encrypted value (hash), and even we cannot see your original password. If you sign up with Google or Facebook, we receive your name, email address and profile photo URL from that service. You can view, edit, or request deletion of this information.

Study data

Guest tests may be stored temporarily in your browser. Signed-in study history and subscriber folders are saved so you can return later.

TOPIK practice tests

What we collect: when a signed-in member grades a TOPIK mock test, we store a TOPIK mock test attempt record: the test name, the attempt time, the time taken, your answers, and your score.

Why: to provide members with their own attempt records and grading results (“My test history”). Only you can see your records.

How long: until you delete your account. The records are deleted when you delete your account.

TOPIK Speaking recordings

What we collect: when you take a TOPIK Speaking test, your microphone records your answer to each task. We store the recording, a text transcript of it, your scores and the written AI feedback.

Why: to score your answers and show you your results, including playing back your own recording. The recording is sent to our AI provider to make the transcript, and the transcript is sent to it to make the scores and feedback.

Who can see it: only you. Recordings are kept in private storage and are played only through short-lived links made for your own account.

How long and deleting it yourself: until you delete the result or your account. When you press Delete on a Speaking result, the recording, transcript, scores and feedback are permanently deleted straight away. We keep only a short record that a deletion happened (when, and which result, without its content) in case of a dispute. Deleting your account deletes all of them.

Third-party AI

The text you enter for study, your TOPIK II Writing answers, and voice recordings you submit for pronunciation checks and TOPIK Speaking tests, are sent to our AI provider to generate translations, explanations, pronunciation, scores, and feedback. We do not send your password to that provider. When you use AI Live Coaching, your microphone audio is sent directly from your browser to our AI provider. The name and country of our AI provider are listed under “Overseas transfer of personal information” below.

Payments

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns. When you buy a subscription or token pack, Paddle collects and processes your payment details, billing address, and tax information under its own terms and privacy policy. We do not receive or store your full card details. We receive order information from Paddle, such as the purchased plan, payment status, and amount, so we can activate your subscription or tokens. See Paddle’s Buyer Terms.

Consent records

What we collect: when you sign up, we store whether you agreed to each consent (Terms of Service and Refund Policy, collection and use of personal information, overseas transfer of personal information, and receiving promotional emails), the version (date) of the document you agreed to, and the time you agreed. If you do not agree to the optional promotional emails, we store this as “not agreed”. If you withdraw your consent to promotional emails, we record the time you withdrew it and keep the time you first agreed. If you agree again, we record the new time.

Why: to confirm and prove when you agreed to what. Only you can see your records, and only our servers can write or change them.

How long: until you delete your account. When you delete your account, the records are handled together with your other account data as described under “Account deletion”.

Promotional emails (optional)

We send LingoLab Korean news and promotional emails, such as new features and new study content, only to members who chose “Consent to Receive Promotional Emails” when signing up. For this we use your email address, display name and site language.

If you do not agree, there is no restriction at all on signing up or using the service. Emails that are essential to running the service, such as signup confirmation, dormant account notices and notices of changes to our terms, are sent regardless of this consent.

Withdrawal: you can withdraw at any time by emailing info@lingolabkorean.net. How long: until you withdraw your consent or delete your account.

Ad link visit measurement

When you come to the site through an ad link (a link with utm_ values, fbclid or gclid added to its address), we create one random ID in the memory of that tab only. It is not stored in cookies or browser storage, and it disappears when you reload the page. Along with that ID, we store the ad link’s utm_ values, which of fbclid or gclid was attached (not the value itself), the address of the first page you opened, the domain of the site you came from, your country, and your device type (mobile/desktop). We do not store your IP address.

If you sign up with email in the same tab, we also store this ID in your account information (ad_sid). Why: to check, in the ad statistics on our admin screen, which ad brought you to the site and led you to sign up, and whether you paid afterwards. The ID stored in your account is deleted together with your account information when you delete your account. Visit records do not contain IP addresses, click ID values, names or emails; they are kept while we operate the ad statistics feature and deleted when we end that feature.

Service providers

We use service providers to run the website, including hosting (Vercel), database and login services (Supabase), the AI provider mentioned above (xAI), sending service emails (Resend), and a form service that delivers messages sent from the Contact page (Web3Forms). They process data only to provide their service to us. Paddle, which handles payments, and Google and Meta, which provide social login, are not providers acting on our behalf; they process the information they receive under their own responsibility according to their own privacy policies.

Overseas transfer of personal information

We send member information to companies outside the Republic of Korea (United States, Singapore, United Kingdom and India) that help run LingoLab Korean, where it is stored and processed. For members who sign up on or after 2026-10-24, we ask for consent through “Consent to Overseas Transfer of Personal Information” at signup. The recipients, their countries, privacy contacts, what they do and the items sent are as follows.

• Supabase Pte. Ltd. (Singapore; member information is stored on servers in the Republic of Korea (Seoul)): database and login. Items: email, display name, password (encrypted), site language, social login profile (name, email, photo URL), study records, TOPIK records and TOPIK Speaking recordings, community posts, profile photo, contact messages, payment and token records, consent records. Contact: privacy@supabase.com
• Vercel Inc. (United States; server functions run in the Republic of Korea (Seoul)): website hosting. Items: access information when you visit the site (IP address, browser information, pages visited, cookies), the member information above that passes through the servers, and site speed measurements (not linked to your name or IP). Contact: privacy@vercel.com
• SpaceXAI LLC(xAI) (United States and other countries; no fixed processing region): AI voice, pronunciation checks, grading, explanations and AI Live Coaching. Items: sentences to be read aloud, text you enter for study, TOPIK II Writing answers, recordings for pronunciation checks and TOPIK Speaking, transcripts of your speech, and microphone audio and access information (IP address) when you use AI Live Coaching. Your member ID, email and password are not sent. Contact: privacy@x.ai
• Paddle.com Market Limited (United Kingdom; processed worldwide): Merchant of Record for payments. We provide information to Paddle for payments, and Paddle processes it under its own responsibility according to its own privacy policy. Items: member number (account ID), email, site language, your agreement to the Refund Policy and when you agreed, subscription number and customer number. You enter your card and billing details directly in Paddle’s checkout window, and we do not receive your card details. Contact: privacy@paddle.com
• Plus Five Five, Inc.(Resend) (United States): sending service emails. Items: recipient email address and email content (signup confirmation, password reset, replies to contact messages, dormant account notices, community notices, announcements). Contact: privacy@resend.com
• Web3Creative(Web3Forms) (India): delivering messages from the Contact page. Items: the name, email and message you write on the Contact page, and access information (IP address). Contact: support@web3forms.com
• Google LLC (United States): only when you sign in with Google. Items: sign-in requests and access information, and access information (IP address) when your profile photo is shown. Contact: https://support.google.com/policies?p=privpol_privts
• Meta Platforms, Inc. (United States): only when you sign in with Facebook. Items: sign-in requests and access information, and access information (IP address) when your profile photo is shown. Contact: online contact form at https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/

When and how it is transferred: sent over the internet with encryption (HTTPS) each time you use the service. Contact messages, payments, social login and AI Live Coaching are sent directly from your browser to the provider concerned.

Why: for database and login (Supabase), running the website (Vercel), generating audio, pronunciation checks, grading, explanations and AI Live Coaching (xAI), payment processing (Paddle), sending service emails (Resend), delivering contact messages (Web3Forms) and social login (Google, Meta).

How long: until you delete your account. After deletion, your data is handled as described under “Account deletion”, and payment, refund and token purchase records are kept for 5 years as required by law. However, data may be kept separately as required by law or under each provider’s own policy. The periods we confirmed in the providers’ policies are as follows. xAI keeps request content for up to 30 days and then deletes it automatically. Web3Forms keeps contact messages for up to 3 years. Paddle, Google and Meta keep data according to their own privacy policies.

How to refuse and what happens: you may refuse the overseas transfer. Simply leave that box unchecked when you sign up. However, we cannot provide the service without these providers, so you cannot sign up without this consent. To withdraw your consent after signing up, you can delete your account.

Cookies and similar technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies, mainly your browser’s local storage and session storage. We group them into four categories:

• Strictly necessary (always on): your login session, counting your free daily study uses, a cache of your recent study results so the same sentence is not generated and charged again, short-term copies of your plan and token data for the open tab, the TOPIK practice test you are taking in the open tab (start time and picked answers), your cookie choice, and Paddle’s checkout script, which loads only when you start a purchase.
• Functional (only with your consent): remembering whether you collapsed the polite Korean notice on the study screen, which home-page announcements you hid for today, and the explanation language you picked under “From” on the study screen (llk-source-lang, local storage, kept until you delete it or withdraw consent).
• Analytics: we do not use analytics tools that track visitors. We use Vercel Speed Insights to measure site speed. Each time you open a page, the page address, network speed, browser, device type, operating system, country and page loading speed values are sent to Vercel. According to Vercel, this information is anonymous, is not linked to any individual visitor or IP address, and cannot be used to reconstruct a visit history across pages.
• Advertising (only with your consent): we may show ads from Google AdSense. Google and its partners may use cookies to serve and measure ads, including ads based on your visits to this site and others. We do not sell your account data. You can refuse advertising cookies in Cookie settings, or opt out of personalized ads at https://adssettings.google.com.

External content (Facebook Reels): reel videos on the Reels page and in Hangul Builder posts first show only a preview image from our server. When you press the play button, Facebook’s official video player is loaded only in that video box. At that point your browser connects directly to Meta Platforms, Inc. (United States), so your IP address, browser information and Facebook cookies are passed to Meta, and Meta processes them under its own privacy policy (https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/). If you do not press the play button, nothing is passed to Meta.

You can change your choice at any time with “Cookie settings” in the site footer. If you withdraw functional consent, we delete those entries from your browser straight away. The full list is in our Cookie Policy.

Your rights

You may request an export or deletion of personal data we hold about you, except data we must keep for legal or security reasons. Send requests to info@lingolabkorean.net.

Account deletion

When you delete your account, access stops immediately, any active subscription is cancelled, your token balance is set to zero and your TOPIK practice test records are deleted. For 7 days the email is on hold: it cannot be used to sign in or to create a new account. During those 7 days the rest of your account (sign-in details, profile and avatar, study folders and saved items, study usage records, community posts, comments and images, and consent records) is kept without access. 7 days after your deletion request, the account and that data are permanently deleted (deletion runs once a day, so it can take up to one more day).

Some records must be kept by law. Payment, refund and token purchase records are kept for 5 years, as required for records of contracts, payments and supply under the Korean Act on the Consumer Protection in Electronic Commerce. We remove your name and email from them, store them separately, and link them only to an internal ID that no longer matches any account. They are deleted after 5 years. Paddle, our Merchant of Record, keeps its own order and invoice records under its own privacy policy. Refunds are handled as described in our Refund Policy.

Dormant accounts

Effective November 21, 2026.

Which accounts: accounts that have not been signed in to for 90 days since the last sign-in (or since sign-up if never signed in to, or since dormancy was last lifted if it has been lifted before). Accounts with an active paid subscription are not included. Even if you have cancelled your subscription or a payment has failed, your account is not included while the period you paid for (or, after a failed payment, the 7-day grace period) is still running. We check for these accounts once a day.

Dormancy notice: when your account becomes dormant, we send one notice email to your sign-up email address in the language you have chosen. For this we use your email address, display name and chosen language.

Additional data we store: the time dormancy started, whether and when the dormancy notice email was sent (and, if sending failed, the reason), and the time dormancy was lifted.

Your account data while dormant: when your account becomes dormant, your account details, study records, folders and saved items, and Community posts are kept as they are. We do not delete them or move them elsewhere. When you lift dormancy, you can use them again right away. While your account is dormant, you cannot add or change member information.

Lifting dormancy: sign in and click [Lift] in the window that appears, and dormancy is lifted right away. For questions, write to info@lingolabkorean.net.

Withdrawing while dormant: you cannot delete your account while it is dormant. Click [Lift] first, then delete your account as described in “Account deletion”.

Retention: dormancy-related data and records of lifting dormancy are kept until you delete your account. When you delete your account, they are deleted together with your other account data as described in “Account deletion” (7 days after your deletion request).

Refunds

Subscriptions. Your monthly subscription starts as soon as your payment is confirmed, and your monthly base tokens are added to your account immediately. You can use the service until the end of the billing period you paid for.

Cancellation. You can cancel at any time from the Tokens page or through Paddle’s customer portal. Cancellation stops the next renewal: you will not be charged again, and you keep access and your tokens until the end of the current billing period. Before that date you can undo the cancellation.

No refunds. All payments (subscriptions and token packs) are non-refundable. We do not give full, partial, or prorated refunds for unused time or unused tokens, including after cancellation.

Immediate digital delivery. Tokens and subscription features are digital content supplied immediately after payment. At checkout you expressly request immediate supply and acknowledge that you lose any statutory right of withdrawal once supply has begun.

Your statutory rights. Nothing in this policy limits rights you have under mandatory consumer law in your country, such as a right of withdrawal that has not been lost or a remedy if the service is faulty or not as described. Where the law requires a refund, one will be given.

Paddle. Payments and refunds are processed by Paddle.com, our Merchant of Record. Paddle may, at its own discretion, grant refunds under its Buyer Terms and Refund Policy. If a purchase is refunded or charged back, the tokens granted by that purchase are removed from your account. See Paddle’s Buyer Terms and Refund Policy. Questions: info@lingolabkorean.net, or contact Paddle at paddle.net.

This policy applies to purchases made on or after 27 September 2026 (2026-09-27). Purchases made before that date remain subject to the refund policy in effect when they were made.

Contact

Culture Shock: info@lingolabkorean.net