Privacy Policy
Effective Date: April 3, 2025
Last Updated: April 3, 2025
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
HotDealsNearBy.com ("we," "us," or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy while providing a free platform to discover local deals and enabling business owners to list promotions. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, and protect your information, including when you use our services via our website or mobile app with Google or Apple OAuth authentication. Our service is free, with optional paid advertising for businesses to feature deals for a week in specific areas.
2. Information We Collect
We collect the following information to operate our platform and improve your experience:
User Information
- Personal Information: Name (first and last), email address, optional phone number, birthday (via Google or Apple OAuth or manual entry); ZIP code or city for deal location preferences.
- Location Data: Real-time geolocation (latitude, longitude, if enabled), IP address-based location, or manually entered location data; preference to use geolocation (`uselatlong`).
- Account Details: Role (e.g., user, manager, admin), account status (e.g., active), email verification status, verification token, Terms of Service agreement status (`tos_agreed`).
- Authentication Data: Google OAuth ID, Apple ID (Sign in with Apple), encrypted password (if applicable).
- Usage Preferences: Tutorial completion status (`tutorial_completed`), preference to hide tutorial (`hide_tutorial`).
- Technical Data: IP address, browser type, device type, operating system, login timestamps (`last_login`, `created_at`, `last_update`).
Business and Deal Information
- Business Details: Business name, address, city, state, ZIP code, phone number, website URL (`weburl`), business type (e.g., Dining, Retail & Shopping), operating hours.
- Deal Details: Deal name, description, detailed description (`detDesc`), discount percentage (`perc`), deal image (`dealImage`), terms of the deal (`terms_of_deal`), expiration date (`the_good_thru`), user votes (`upvote`, `downvote`).
- Location Data: Latitude and longitude of the business location.
- Advertising Status: Featured deal status (`featured`), payment status (`payment_status`).
- Moderation Data: Flags for abuse (`abusBusiness`), terms and conditions acceptance (`terms_and_conditions`), creation and update timestamps (`created_at`, `last_update`).
3. How We Use Your Information
We use your information to:
- Display local deals based on your location and preferences.
- Authenticate users and business owners via Google or Apple OAuth.
- Manage business listings, featured deal advertising, and user votes on deals.
- Verify accounts (e.g., email verification) and manage user roles (e.g., admin, manager).
- Improve our platform, troubleshoot issues, and enhance security (e.g., monitoring for abuse).
- Communicate with you about your account, deals, or our services (e.g., support, updates).
We do not sell, rent, or share your personal information with third-party advertisers for marketing purposes.
4. Data Sharing & Third-Party Services
We may share your information with third parties only in the following cases:
- Service Providers: We use third-party services like ipapi.co (IP location), Open Layers (mapping), and Nominatim (address search) to provide location-based features. These providers may process your data under their own privacy policies.
- Authentication Partners: Google and Apple receive limited data (e.g., email, name) for OAuth authentication, per their policies (Google Privacy Policy, Apple Privacy Policy).
- Legal Compliance: We may disclose data if required by law, to prevent fraud, or to protect our rights, property, or safety.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these third parties, and we encourage you to review their policies.
5. Payment Processing
For business owners purchasing week-long featured deal advertising, we use Stripe and PayPal for secure payment processing. We do not store credit card or payment details—only a record of payment status is retained. See Stripe’s Privacy Policy and PayPal’s Privacy Policy for more information.
6. Your Rights & Choices
You have the following options regarding your information:
- Update your account details (e.g., name, email, phone) through your profile settings.
- Opt out of non-essential emails (e.g., promotional updates) via email preferences.
- Disable real-time geolocation in your device or browser settings (IP-based location may still apply).
- Revoke OAuth access via Google Account Settings or Apple ID Settings.
- Delete your account by visiting myHD and selecting Delete your account, your account will go into a disabled mode and 30 days later will be permanently deleted. We may retain certain data as required by law or for our legitimate business interests (e.g., fraud prevention, record-keeping).
7. Data Retention & Security
- We retain your data only as long as necessary to provide our services, comply with legal obligations, or protect our business interests (e.g., fraud detection, record-keeping, abuse monitoring).
- Upon account deletion, personal data is removed within 30 days, except where retention is required by law or for our legitimate purposes (e.g., maintaining deal records, abuse flags).
- We use industry-standard security measures (e.g., encryption, firewalls) to protect your data, but no system is completely secure. We are not liable for unauthorized access beyond our reasonable control.
8. Children's Privacy
Our services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Users must be at least 13 years old to use our platform, as stated in our Terms of Service. If we learn that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly. Parents or guardians who believe we have such data may contact us at support@hotdealsnearby.com to request deletion of the data. Our services are not directed to children under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13, we will delete it promptly. Contact us if you believe we have such data.
9. Third-Party Links
Our platform may contain links to third-party websites (e.g., business websites). We are not responsible for their content or privacy practices.
10. Updates to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy at our discretion. Changes will be posted here, and continued use of our services constitutes acceptance of the revised policy. Significant updates may be communicated via email or app notification.