Privacy Policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy explains what information Sorting Social ("we," "us," or "our") collects when you visit sortingsocial.com (our website, including the blog and affiliates page) or use our app at app.sortingsocial.com, how we use it, and who we share it with. We've tried to write it plainly rather than in dense legal language. If anything is unclear, email us at [email protected].

2. Information We Collect

Account information. When you register, we collect your email address. Signing in doesn't need a password: we email you a link and a 6-digit code. If your account has a password (you can add one from your Profile page), it is stored securely, hashed, never in plain text. Your account name starts as the part of your email address before the @, and you can change it from your Profile page.

Search and usage activity. We save the searches you run on Pinterest, Etsy, and Wish, along with any favorites and collections you create, so they're there when you come back. This activity is tied to your account.

Payment information. If you upgrade to Pro, your payment is handled by Stripe (or, for a small number of legacy subscribers, Recurly). We do not receive or store your full card number; we receive limited billing details like your subscription status and renewal date.

Affiliate program. If you apply to our affiliate program, we also collect what you enter on the join form (your name, your website, and how you plan to promote Sorting Social) and the PayPal email address we send your payouts to. We keep records of your referrals, commissions, and payouts.

Affiliate links. If you reach us through an affiliate's link, we record the click (the time, the page that linked to us, the page you were sent to, your browser type, and a hashed, scrambled form of your IP address) and set a cookie for 90 days that notes which affiliate sent you. If you then sign up, or upgrade a free account to Pro, your account is linked to that affiliate so they get credit.

Emails about our affiliate program. If you run a website, blog, or channel for online sellers, we may email you to invite you to our affiliate program, using contact details you list publicly. We keep a record of the emails we send you and any reply. Our emails include a small image that tells us whether and when an email was opened, along with the IP address and the browser or email app that loaded it. To stop these emails, reply "unsubscribe" and we won't email you again.

Cookies and session data. In the app, we use a session cookie and a "remember me" cookie to keep you logged in, and a security cookie (CSRF token) to protect form submissions. The app doesn't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. Our marketing site at sortingsocial.com does (see Analytics and advertising below). Like most websites, our servers also receive your IP address and browser type with each visit. The app stores them with your login session, and stores a hashed form of your IP address with sign-in requests and affiliate records, to help prevent abuse and fraud.

Analytics and advertising. We use Google Analytics on both sortingsocial.com and the app to understand how people use the Service (pages visited, general usage patterns). This data is aggregated and not used to personally identify you beyond what Google Analytics collects by default. Our marketing site at sortingsocial.com also uses two tools the app does not use, and both set their own cookies. Hotjar records how visitors scroll, move, and click on our pages (session recordings) so we can improve them; it does not record what you type. The Meta Pixel tells Meta (Facebook and Instagram) which of our pages you visited. Meta can use this to measure and show ads, and may connect it to your Meta account if you have one. If you visit from the EU, the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, we ask first: Google Analytics, Hotjar and the Meta Pixel load only if you accept, and you can change your choice any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of the page.

Support communications. If you contact us through our contact form or by email, we keep a record of that message (your name, email, and what you wrote, plus the IP address a contact form message was sent from) so we can respond and so we can look back at prior conversations if you write again.

3. How We Use Your Information

• To provide the Service: run your searches, save your favorites and collections, and keep you logged in.
• To manage your subscription: process payments, send billing receipts and renewal reminders, and handle cancellations.
• To communicate with you: respond to support requests and send important account or service notices.
• To send occasional offers by email, such as an invitation for past subscribers to come back. Every offer email has an unsubscribe link.
• To run our affiliate program: invite creators to join, credit affiliates for the customers they refer, calculate their commissions, and pay them.
• To improve the Service: understand usage patterns through analytics so we can fix problems and build what's useful.
• To keep the Service secure: detect and prevent abuse, spam, and fraudulent activity.

4. Who We Share Information With

We don't sell your personal information. We share it only with the service providers we need to run Sorting Social, and with affiliates in the limited way described below:

• Stripe and, for legacy subscribers, Recurly - to process payments and manage subscriptions.
• Zoho - our email provider, used to send account and transactional emails and our affiliate program emails.
• SendGrid - used only to send our offer emails.
• Google Analytics - for aggregated usage analytics.
• Hotjar - session recordings of visits to sortingsocial.com (not the app).
• Meta - through the Meta Pixel on sortingsocial.com (not the app), which tells Meta which of our pages you visited.
• OpenAI - when "Include related searches" is on for a Pinterest search (it is by default), we send your search terms to OpenAI to suggest related terms. We don't send your account information.
• PayPal - to send affiliate payouts to the PayPal email address an affiliate gives us.
• Cloudflare - both sortingsocial.com and the app run through Cloudflare, which delivers our pages and protects them from attacks, so it handles your IP address and the requests you make.
• Pinterest, Etsy, and Wish - when you run a search, we query these platforms for publicly available product data. We send the search terms you're looking up, not your personal account information.

Affiliates. If you signed up through an affiliate's link, that affiliate can see the date and amount of each payment you make, and whether it was a renewal, next to a partly hidden version of your email address (like j•••@g•••.com). They can't see your full email address, your name, your searches, or your card details.

Etsy notice: The term Etsy is a trademark of Etsy, Inc. This application uses the Etsy API but is not endorsed or certified by Etsy, Inc.

We may also disclose information if required by law, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Sorting Social, our users, or others.

5. Data Retention

We keep your account information and search history for as long as your account is active, so your saved work is there when you return. If you delete your account, we remove your personal account data within a reasonable time, though some records (like billing history) may be retained longer where we're required to for accounting or legal reasons.

If you unsubscribe from our offer emails, we keep your email address on a do-not-email list, even after you delete your account, so we don't send you offers again. Affiliate commission and payout records are kept for accounting. If a referred customer deletes their account, the affiliate's records keep the payment but are no longer linked to that customer.

6. Your Choices

• You can update your account information from your Profile page.
• You can delete individual searches, favorites, or your entire account from within the app.
• You can cancel your subscription anytime from your Profile page.
• You can unsubscribe from offer emails with the link in any of them, and stop our affiliate program emails by replying "unsubscribe" to any of them.
• You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Our marketing site works without them; the app needs its session cookie to keep you logged in.
• You can ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal information by emailing [email protected].

7. Children's Privacy

Sorting Social is intended for business users and is not directed at children. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we'll delete it.

8. Security

We use industry-standard measures (encrypted connections, hashed passwords, restricted access to production data) to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we work to keep your data safe.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We'll update the "Last updated" date above when we do, and for significant changes we'll try to let you know by email.

10. Contact

Questions about this Privacy Policy or your data? Email [email protected] or use our contact form.