Privacy Policy

Introduction

Effective date: August 14, 2026

Wine Buyer is a free tool that helps users evaluate wine deals from supported online retailers. This Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and your choices regarding your data.

Information We Collect

Account Data

When you create an account, we collect your email address and basic profile information through our authentication provider. We also store account preferences such as your selected deal-comparison benchmark.

Analytics

We use Google Analytics to collect anonymous usage data such as pageviews, device information, and general browsing behavior. This helps us understand how the site is used and improve the experience.

Support & Tips

If you choose to leave a voluntary tip, our payment processor may collect your email address, tip amount, transaction ID, and any optional message you include.

AI Analysis

Wine titles and descriptions may be sent to AI services (Claude and Gemini) for price estimation and wine analysis. No personal information is included in these requests.

Local Storage

We store certain preferences locally in your browser, including cart items, theme preference, and—when you are signed out—the selected deal-comparison benchmark. This data never leaves your device.

Last Bottle Offer Monitoring

While a Last Bottle page is open, the Wine Buyer browser extension may periodically check Last Bottle's structured current-offer data and send the wine title, product and variant identifiers, price, availability, URL, observation time, and whether the Last Bottle tab is visible or in the background to Wine Buyer. A privacy-preserving hashed installation identifier lets us deduplicate observations and report aggregate sensor activity. We use these observations to keep the current Last Bottle offer up to date and to verify changes through our server-side checks. The extension does not monitor Last Bottle when no Last Bottle tab is open, and raw webpage HTML is not uploaded.

Email Notifications

You may optionally provide your email address to receive vintage chart notifications. This email is used solely for that purpose.

Community Participation

If you participate in wine comments or Marathon Live, we store your posts, reactions, reports, public profile choice, and related timestamps. Your account name and photo are public by default; using an alias displays the alias and an initial instead. We also retain prior versions of edited wine comments, report details, moderation actions, and sanctions for safety, abuse investigation, and appeals. When you use in-app notifications, we store your notification preferences and whether each notification has been read.

We may use account age and limited network information such as IP address for rate limiting, spam prevention, and determining whether a report counts toward temporary automatic hiding.

We may invite selected accounts to private Marathon tests. The room, messages, and replay are visible only to invited accounts and Wine Buyer administrators. We store the invited account IDs with the event so we can enforce that access.

Third-Party Services

Wine Buyer relies on the following categories of third-party services to operate:

  • Authentication provider — for user sign-in and account management
  • Analytics service (Google Analytics) — for anonymous usage statistics
  • Payment processor — for handling voluntary tips
  • AI services (Claude, Gemini) — for wine analysis and price estimation
  • Database provider — for storing wine data and user preferences
  • File storage provider — for storing wine images
  • Email delivery service — for sending optional notifications
  • Realtime messaging provider — for delivering live community updates

Each service processes only the data necessary for its function. We encourage you to review the privacy policies of these services independently.

Cookies & Local Storage

We use the following types of browser storage:

  • Authentication session cookies — to keep you signed in
  • Analytics cookies — used by Google Analytics for anonymous usage tracking
  • Local storage — for cart items, theme preferences, and other client-side settings

Data Storage & Security

Your data is stored securely using industry-standard infrastructure providers. We take reasonable measures to protect your information, but no method of transmission or storage is 100% secure.

Your Rights

You can delete your account at any time through your account settings. If you have questions about your data or wish to request its removal, please contact us using the information below.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be reflected on this page with an updated effective date. We encourage you to check back periodically.

Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can reach us at: winebuyerapp [at] gmail [dot] com