Privacy policy

1. Scope and who we are

This Privacy Policy applies to the Compareist website, accounts, comparison sessions, public comparison pages, provider requests, and related services (the “Service”). Compareist (“Compareist,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) is responsible for the personal information described here. It does not cover a retailer, provider, source website, or other third party that you visit or engage with through the Service.

Contact us at privacy@compareist.com for privacy questions or requests.

2. Information we collect

Depending on how you use Compareist, we collect:

• Account information: name, email address, authentication records, and account identifiers. Passwords are handled by our authentication provider and are not available to us in readable form.
• Comparison and decision information: queries, named options, priorities, constraints, follow-up messages, organization or project context, submitted URLs, coarse location labels, generated results, saved comparisons, and source activity.
• Decision profiles: category-specific priorities and context that you explicitly ask Compareist to remember or that the Service identifies from an express “remember” action. Account-linked profiles remain until reset or deletion; anonymous profiles expire after 30 days and may be moved into your account if you sign up.
• Provider-request information: information shown on the applicable form, which may include name, email, phone, company, service need, project details, budget, timeframe, country, state or region, postal code, and a record of your consent and intended recipients.
• Usage and device information: page views, page exits, feature interactions, source and offer clicks, timestamps, page paths without query strings, browser or device information, approximate network information, account or pseudonymous identifiers, and diagnostic or security events. We do not send raw comparison queries or lead contact details to general analytics, and we do not enable session replay or automatic capture of form contents in our analytics configuration.
• Communications: messages and related metadata when you contact support, privacy, partnerships, or otherwise communicate with us.

Please do not submit government identifiers, payment-card information, protected health information, or other sensitive information that is not necessary for a comparison or provider request.

3. Where information comes from

We collect information directly from you, automatically from your browser or device, from your use of the Service, and from service providers that help us operate it. Comparison evidence may also come from public websites, official sources, merchants, manufacturers, providers, and licensed or structured research services. Public product or business information is generally not personal information, but we treat it as personal information when it identifies an individual.

4. How we use information

We use information to:

• create, research, personalize, save, display, and improve comparisons and decision profiles;
• provide accounts, authentication, password recovery, support, and requested communications;
• process, qualify, route, audit, and follow up on a provider request you expressly submit;
• operate affiliate and retailer links, attribute eligible transactions, prevent duplicate attribution, and measure Service performance;
• understand feature use, maintain aggregate demand signals, diagnose errors, and develop or test improvements;
• secure the Service, apply rate limits, prevent abuse and fraud, and enforce our Terms; and
• comply with legal obligations, respond to lawful requests, and establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

Where privacy law requires a legal basis, we process information as needed to perform our contract with you, based on our legitimate interests in operating and securing the Service, with your consent (for example, optional location or a provider request), or to comply with law. You may withdraw consent at any time, but withdrawal does not affect earlier lawful processing.

5. AI and research processing

Compareist uses AI and research services to interpret requests, retrieve evidence, and generate comparisons. Your query, relevant priorities and context, coarse location label, submitted URLs, and portions of retrieved source material may be sent to OpenAI. For physical-product and submitted-URL research, relevant URLs, search terms, or public page content may also be processed through Bright Data. We use a privacy-protective identifier for model safety features and do not intentionally send lead contact details to AI research providers.

AI helps create decision-support content; it does not make decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects about you. Automated rules may determine whether a provider request is complete or matches a consented recipient’s coverage, subject to operational review.

6. Private sessions, profiles, and public comparisons

A comparison containing priorities, organization details, requirements, location, or other user-specific context is treated as contextual and private. Private sessions are owner scoped and do not become public or create collaborative links automatically. We may use privacy-protective aggregate demand to identify a topic for editorial review, but the aggregate excludes raw private requirements and identity. Any public comparison is separately prepared or reviewed.

Decision profiles are separate from an individual comparison session. They are created or updated only from express profile-learning actions and can be reviewed, edited, or reset in account settings when that feature is available. Clearing a profile stops its use in later comparisons but does not rewrite completed comparison records.

7. Optional browser location

Location is optional and is requested only after you select “Use my location.” Your browser requests low-accuracy coordinates and sends them directly to Mapbox for a temporary reverse-geocoding lookup. Compareist receives only the resulting coarse city, region, and country label; our server does not receive or store the coordinates. Coordinates are discarded by the browser after the lookup.

You can edit or clear the label, enter a location manually, deny permission, or compare without location. A coarse or manually entered location used in a comparison is stored with that private session. Mapbox processes the direct lookup under its own privacy terms.

8. Provider requests and monetization

Submitting a comparison does not create a lead. If you choose to submit a provider request, the form identifies the prospective recipient or recipients and records the disclosure you accepted. We keep contact and request details separate from general analytics. Qualification checks omit contact details, and the full request is delivered to no more than one selected recipient unless the form and your consent expressly state otherwise. A recipient may contact you about the request under its own privacy practices.

Compareist may be paid for a qualified request, an eligible click, a signup, or a purchase. Affiliate redirects may disclose an offer or campaign identifier and ordinary web-request information to the retailer or affiliate network. We store pseudonymous click and attribution records and classification reasons, not raw IP addresses. Commercial compensation does not determine comparison facts, option order, or recommendations.

9. Cookies and browser storage

Compareist and its service providers use:

• Essential cookies for authentication, security, and a pseudonymous anonymous-session identifier. The Compareist anonymous identifier cookie expires after 30 days.
• Local storage to remember display preferences such as theme, to support pseudonymous embed measurement, and, when analytics is enabled, to maintain analytics identifiers.
• Session storage to carry a submitted prompt into its private result page during the current browser session.
• Analytics storage used by PostHog for page and product measurement. We disable autocapture and session recording, but PostHog may receive page, device, browser, network, and pseudonymous identifier information.

You can control cookies and storage through browser settings, but blocking essential storage may prevent authentication, saved state, or other features from working. Where applicable law requires consent for nonessential analytics storage, we will request it before use. Browser privacy signals are honored where legally required.

10. When we disclose information

We disclose information in these circumstances:

• Service providers: companies that provide hosting, databases, authentication, security, rate limiting, analytics, email, AI, research, geocoding, and operational support. These may include Vercel, Supabase, Upstash, PostHog, Resend, OpenAI, Bright Data, and Mapbox, depending on the feature used.
• Recipients you choose: a provider or lead buyer identified when you consent to a provider request.
• Retailers and commercial partners: when you follow an external or affiliate link, as needed to complete the redirect and measure eligible activity.
• Legal and safety disclosures: when we reasonably believe disclosure is required by law or necessary to protect rights, safety, users, third parties, or the Service.
• Business transfers: in connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of all or part of the business, subject to appropriate safeguards.
• At your direction or with consent: for another purpose that is disclosed when you provide the information.

We may disclose aggregated or deidentified information that cannot reasonably identify you, and we require recipients not to reidentify it where applicable law requires.

11. Sale and sharing of personal information

Compareist does not sell personal information or share it for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined by the California Consumer Privacy Act. We do not use behavioral data to determine comparison rankings or recommendations. A provider request that you direct us to send to a clearly identified recipient may generate compensation for Compareist; that disclosure and the recipient set appear before you consent.

12. Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably needed for the purposes described in this policy, including to provide the Service, preserve requested account records, maintain accurate research and audit history, secure the Service, resolve disputes, and meet legal, tax, accounting, or reporting obligations. Retention depends on the data and context:

• anonymous identity cookies and anonymous decision profiles expire after 30 days;
• temporary comparison attachments expire after 30 days and are deleted through cleanup processes;
• account-linked profiles and saved comparisons remain until you reset, unsave, close the account, or request deletion, subject to legal exceptions;
• private session records are retained while needed to provide, secure, and audit the comparison and are not made public merely because they are retained;
• rejected or invalid lead records are deleted after 90 days when no active lead references the profile; other lead and consent records are retained while needed for fulfillment, audit, fraud prevention, and legal obligations; and
• analytics, security, attribution, support, and system records are retained according to operational and legal need, then deleted or deidentified.

Backup copies and records required for security, legal compliance, or dispute resolution may remain for a limited period after a request.

13. Security

We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information, including access controls, encryption in transit, owner-scoped private sessions, pseudonymous identifiers, rate limits, recipient-bound consent records, and separation of lead contact information from general analytics. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee that unauthorized access, loss, or misuse will never occur. Protect your account credentials and contact support@compareist.com if you believe your account or information has been compromised.

14. Your choices and privacy rights

Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know or access personal information, obtain a portable copy, correct it, delete it, restrict or object to processing, withdraw consent, or appeal a denied request. You may also have the right not to receive discriminatory treatment for exercising a privacy right.

You can clear a location before submission, reset available decision profiles in account settings, unsave comparisons, sign out, or control browser storage through browser settings. To exercise another right, email privacy@compareist.com with the subject “Privacy Request” and describe the request. We may ask for information reasonably necessary to verify your identity and authority. Authorized agents may submit requests where permitted by law, but we may require proof of authorization. We will respond within the period required by applicable law. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision.

Residents of the European Economic Area or United Kingdom may also lodge a complaint with their local data protection authority. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve the issue.

15. California disclosures

In the preceding 12 months, the categories of personal information we may have collected are identifiers; customer-record information; internet or electronic-network activity; approximate geolocation; commercial information; professional or employment-related information submitted in business-service requests; inferences in a decision profile; and the contents of communications you direct to us. The sources, purposes, and recipients for these categories are described in Sections 3, 4, and 10. We do not use or disclose sensitive personal information to infer characteristics about individuals.

We do not offer financial incentives for personal information. We do not knowingly sell or share the personal information of consumers under 16. California residents may exercise applicable rights to know, correct, delete, or obtain information about disclosure by using the request process in Section 14.

16. International processing

Compareist and its providers may process information in the United States and other countries whose laws may differ from those where you live. Where required, we use recognized transfer safeguards and take steps designed to ensure an appropriate level of protection.

17. Children

The Service is intended for adults and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information, contact privacy@compareist.com so we can investigate and delete it as required. Users must satisfy the eligibility requirements in our Terms of Use.

18. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy to reflect changes to the Service, our practices, or law. We will post the updated policy and revise the effective date. If a change materially affects how we use information, we will provide additional notice or request consent when required.

19. Contact

Privacy questions and requests may be sent to privacy@compareist.com. General support questions may be sent to support@compareist.com.