Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We collect information you provide directly, such as your name, email address, date of birth, phone number, shipping address, product interests, and account preferences. If you sign in with Google, we receive profile information such as your name and email address from that provider. Payment card numbers are collected and processed by our payment processor (Stripe); we do not store full card numbers on our servers.

We also collect information automatically as you use the Service, including bidding and order history, device and usage data, push notification tokens (when enabled), marketing attribution (such as campaign or referral links), and analytics about how you interact with the Service — subject to your analytics preferences where applicable.

Automatically collected information includes your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the pages you view, the site or link that referred you, and your browser, operating system, and device type.

2. Approximate Location Information

We use your IP address to estimate the general area you are connecting from. That estimate may include country, state or province, city, postal code, and approximate latitude and longitude derived from the IP address by our hosting provider. This estimate is made from your IP address alone. We do not collect precise geolocation, and we do not use GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or any other device location feature. IP-based estimates are approximate, are often only accurate to the general region, and can be wrong entirely — for example if you use a VPN or a mobile network.

We use approximate location to protect the Service against fraud and abuse, to understand which regions our auctions are popular in, and to decide where to focus our marketing. We do not use approximate location to make automated decisions about you individually, and we do not sell or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising.

3. How We Use Your Information

We use your information to operate the Service; process bids, purchases, and payments; send transactional notifications about auctions, wins, and orders; provide customer support; detect and prevent fraud; comply with legal obligations; and improve the Service. With your consent where required, we may send marketing communications, which you can opt out of at any time.

4. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information with service providers who help us operate the Service, including:

• Stripe (payments and tax calculation)
• Supabase (authentication, database, and related backend services)
• Vercel (website hosting)
• Resend (transactional email)
• Loops (marketing email, when you opt in)
• Expo (mobile push notifications, when enabled)
• Google (if you choose Google sign-in)
• Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, and Google Ads (website analytics and advertising measurement — see Section 8)

These providers process information on our behalf under contractual obligations. We may also disclose information when required by law or to protect our rights, users, or the public.

5. Data Security

We use industry-standard safeguards, including encryption in transit, to protect your information. Payment card details are handled by our PCI-compliant payment processor and are not stored on our servers. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

6. Data Retention

We retain your information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. When information is no longer needed, we delete or anonymize it.

Website visit records, including IP addresses and the approximate location derived from them, are kept for up to 90 days and then deleted automatically, except where we need to keep a record longer to investigate fraud or abuse. Records related to suspected abuse may be kept for up to one year. Security event logs that include IP addresses associated with sign-up or sign-in may be kept for up to twelve months.

7. Your Privacy Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, delete, or export your personal information, and to object to or restrict certain processing. You can manage notification and analytics preferences in your account settings, delete your account from Account Settings, or contact us to exercise your rights. Step-by-step deletion instructions are on our Data Deletion page. We will respond consistent with applicable law.

8. Cookies and Tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies to keep you signed in, remember your preferences, and understand how the Service is used. You can control cookies through your browser settings, though some features may not function properly without them.

Our own analytics.We assign your browser a random identifier (stored in your browser, not tied to your name) to measure which pages visitors view, which campaign or link brought them to us, and where in the sign-up process people leave. Signed-in members can turn this off at any time under Account Settings → Privacy.

Third-party analytics and advertising. We use Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager to understand traffic and usage, and Google Ads (and, where we run campaigns, other advertising networks such as Meta or TikTok) to measure whether our advertising leads to sign-ups and purchases. These services set their own cookies and may receive your IP address, device information, the pages you visit, and an advertising click identifier (for example, gclid) from the link that brought you here. When you sign up or make a purchase we may share a hashed (one-way encrypted) version of your email address with Google to improve conversion measurement; Google cannot read the email address from the hash. You can opt out of Google Analytics with the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on and manage ad personalization at Google Ads Settings. Learn more in How Google uses information from sites that use its services.

9. Children’s Privacy

The Service is not directed to individuals under 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If we learn that we have collected information from a child, we will delete it.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated through the Service or by email. The “Last updated” date above indicates when this policy was last revised.

11. Contact

For privacy questions or requests, contact us at support@piratebids.com.