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Your Data, In Plain English

No legal jargon. Just straight answers about your privacy.

📚 What We Collect

  • Your ratings: The books you rate 1-5 stars
  • Your email: So you can log in and get recommendations
  • Your preferences: Books you mark as "not interested" or "overhyped"
  • Usage data: What books you search for and click on (to make the app better)

✅ How We Use It

  • Match you with your tribe: We find readers who rate books like you do
  • Give you recommendations: Show you books your tribe loved
  • Send weekly picks: Email you new recommendations (only if you want)
  • Improve the app: Figure out what works and what doesn't

🔒 Who Can See Your Stuff

Your ratings are PRIVATE by default:

We use them for the algorithm, but nobody can see your individual ratings unless you share them.

Your profile is PUBLIC:

Name, profile pic, and stats like "Rated 50 books" are visible to other users.

Forum posts are PUBLIC:

Anything you post in forums is visible to everyone.

🚫 What We DON'T Do

  • We DON'T sell your data — Ever. To anyone.
  • We DON'T share your email — No spam, no marketers.
  • We DON'T take money for recommendations — All recommendations are based on your tribe's taste, not paid placements.
  • We DON'T track you across the web — We only see what you do on BookTribes.

🛠️ Services We Use

To run BookTribes, we use these trusted services (they all have strict privacy policies):

  • Vercel: Hosts the website
  • PostgreSQL: Stores your ratings securely
  • Upstash Redis: Makes the app faster (caching)
  • Resend: Sends you emails (weekly picks, password resets)
  • Google Books API: Where we get book info (titles, covers, descriptions)

💪 Your Rights

  • See your data: Go to your profile to see all your ratings
  • Download your data: Export your ratings as CSV anytime
  • Delete your account: Visit our Feedback & Support forum or email privacy@booktribes.app for GDPR deletion requests
  • Stop emails: Click "unsubscribe" in any email
  • Make your profile private: Hide your reading stats from others (coming soon)

❓ Questions?

For questions, feature requests, or bug reports, visit our Feedback & Support forum.

For privacy-related concerns or data deletion requests:

privacy@booktribes.app

We'll respond within 48 hours.

Related: Terms of Service · Privacy Policy (Full Legal Version)