Privacy policy

Cafeed is a small, independent product. We collect the minimum amount of data we need to make the site work and to make it better over time — we don't sell personal information, and we never will.

What we collect

Account information

When you sign up, we store your email address, a username, an optional display name, an optional avatar, and an optional short bio. Email comes from the address you sign in with (via magic link or Google sign-in). Everything else is provided by you, on your profile, and can be edited or removed any time at /settings/profile.

Content you create

Reviews, check-ins, photos, menu-item votes, follows, comments, and any other contributions you make on Cafeed are stored against your account and shown publicly on the site. Photos you upload are stored in our hosting provider's storage system and served from a public URL.

Usage data

We collect basic technical information when you use the site — IP address, user-agent string, the pages you visit, and any errors that occur. This is used to diagnose problems, fight abuse, and understand which features are working. We do not run third-party advertising trackers.

Location

Cafeed asks for your device's location when you use features that need it (like "nearby cafes"). We never read your location without asking, and we never store it on our servers beyond the duration of the request you initiated. Your browser will remember the permission you grant; you can revoke it from your browser settings at any time.

Cookies and local storage

We use a small number of cookies and browser-storage items:

• Session cookies — to keep you signed in between page loads. Set by our authentication provider.
• Functional cookies— small flags that remember things like "you completed onboarding" so we don't re-prompt you, or "you arrived via an invite link" so we can credit the inviter when you sign up.

We do not use third-party tracking, advertising, or cross-site-profiling cookies.

How we use what we collect

• To provide and operate Cafeed.
• To personalize what you see — e.g. showing cafes in your home city first, or recommending spots based on your check-ins.
• To send you transactional emails like magic-link sign-in.
• To prevent abuse, spam, and security incidents.
• To improve the product — for example, learning which tags users actually filter on, so we know which to invest in.

Service providers we share data with

Cafeed runs on services from other companies. We share only the data each one needs to do its job:

• Supabase — database, authentication, and file storage for the entire app.
• Vercel — hosting and serving the website.
• Resend — transactional email delivery (magic-link sign-in, etc.).
• Kit — waitlist and marketing email delivery, only for addresses that explicitly signed up to the waitlist.
• Mapbox — maps and geocoding. Your map interactions (panning, searching) are processed by Mapbox.
• Google Places — to enrich cafe data (photos, hours, ratings) from public sources.
• Anthropic— the AI search agent. When you send a message to the chat, the conversation is processed by Anthropic's Claude API.
• Stripe — payments, used only when a cafe owner subscribes to a paid Business plan.

Each of these companies has its own privacy practices and retention policies, listed on their respective websites.

What we don't do

• We don't sell your data.
• We don't share your data with advertisers.
• We don't set tracking cookies for third parties on your browser.
• We don't use your photos or reviews to train AI models beyond the on-page personalization features described above.

Your rights

You can, at any time:

• Edit your profile, display name, handle, bio, and avatar at /settings/profile.
• Delete any review, check-in, or photo you've posted from its own page.
• Email hello@cafeed.appto request a copy of your account data, or to delete your account entirely. We'll respond within a reasonable window — usually a few business days.

Children

Cafeed is not directed at children under 13, and we don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 13. If you believe a child has signed up, please email hello@cafeed.app and we will remove the account.

Security

We protect your data using industry-standard practices, including encryption in transit (HTTPS) and at rest (provided by our database host). No system is perfectly secure — if we discover a breach affecting your data, we'll notify you and any required regulators promptly.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as Cafeed grows. When we make meaningful changes we'll update the "last updated" date above and, for significant updates, notify signed-in users by email. Continuing to use Cafeed after a change constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy, your data, or anything else? Email hello@cafeed.app.