Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Discount Huntrs is operated by AUCW Innovations Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16532155) whose registered office is at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9JQ. In this policy, "we", "us" and "our" refer to AUCW Innovations Ltd.

AUCW Innovations Ltd is the data controller for any personal data we process in connection with discounthuntrs.com.

For any privacy-related question or to exercise your rights under UK GDPR, contact us via our Contact page or write to the registered office address above.

2. Information we collect

Information you provide directly:

• Account information (email, password hash) when you register via our Firebase Auth integration
• Profile information you choose to set (username, bio, avatar)
• Deals you submit and votes, comments, verifications and expired reports you cast
• Messages sent via contact forms
• Newsletter email address if you subscribe
• Notification subscription and keyword alerts you configure

Information we collect automatically:

• Anonymised IP address: we log page views but the last octet of your IP is zeroed (e.g. 192.168.1.0) before anything touches our database, so the stored value identifies only your ISP or neighbourhood, not you. This lets us count unique visitors for analytics without processing identifying data.
• Country derived from the anonymised IP, for geographic analytics only.
• User-agent string: your browser identifier, limited to 500 characters.
• Referrer URL if your browser sends one.
• Firebase authentication: if you sign in, Firebase stores session tokens in your browser.

3. How we use your information

• Provide, operate and improve the Discount Huntrs service
• Create and manage your account, including the community points and badge system
• Send push or email notifications you have opted in to
• Respond to enquiries and support requests
• Detect and prevent abuse (rate limiting, fraud detection)
• Compile anonymised analytics about site usage

4. Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal data under the following lawful bases of UK GDPR:

• Consent — for optional features like push notifications, email newsletters and keyword alerts. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• Legitimate interest — for anonymised analytics, security monitoring and fraud prevention. You can object to this processing.
• Contractual necessity — when you create an account, we process the data needed to provide the service.

5. Data sharing

We do not sell your personal information. We share limited data only with the following service providers who help us operate the site:

• Google Firebase (Google Ireland Ltd) — authentication, Firestore profile storage. Google's privacy policy applies.
• Skimlinks (Skimbit Ltd) — affiliate link rewriting on outbound clicks. Skimlinks may set cookies; see our Cookie Policy for details.
• ip-api.com — one-time country lookup based on anonymised IP. No data is stored on their side.
• Hosting provider — serves the site infrastructure.

We may also disclose personal data when legally required (e.g. court order, regulatory investigation) or to protect AUCW Innovations Ltd's legal rights.

6. Data retention

• Analytics data (pageviews, anonymised IPs): retained for up to 24 months then aggregated.
• Account data: retained while your account is active and for 30 days after deletion (for dispute resolution).
• Contact form messages: retained for up to 12 months.
• Newsletter email addresses: retained until you unsubscribe.

7. Your rights (UK GDPR)

You have the following rights in respect of your personal data:

• Access — request a copy of what we hold about you
• Rectification — correct inaccurate or incomplete data
• Erasure — request deletion of your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restriction — limit how we process your data
• Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interest
• Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Withdraw consent — at any time for consent-based processing

To exercise any of these rights, contact us via the Contact page. We'll respond within one month (extendable by two further months for complex requests).

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator.

8. Data security

We use HTTPS (TLS 1.2+) across the entire site, hashed passwords (via Firebase Auth), server-side rate limiting, and access controls around admin endpoints. No method is 100% secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data.

9. Cookies

See our separate Cookie Policy for details of the cookies we and our service providers set.

10. Children

Discount Huntrs is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent revision. For material changes we'll notify registered users by email where we have one.

12. Contact us

For any privacy or data protection question, please use our Contact page, or write to:
AUCW Innovations Ltd
71-75 Shelton Street
Covent Garden
London
WC2H 9JQ