Privacy Policy

HelloChoose is not directed to children, and you must be at least 13 years of age to create an account or otherwise use this service. If we learn that we have collected personal information from someone under 13, we will delete it.

• Account information: email address, password (stored as a salted hash), and an optional display name.
• Optional profile details you choose to provide, such as age group and gender.
• Content you submit: poll questions, descriptions, options, categories, the region you post a poll to, whether a poll is private, photos you upload, and comments.
• Activity on polls: votes you cast, including the full order of your choices on a ranked poll; polls you save, share, or close; and comments you like or pin. To prevent duplicate votes, a vote is linked to your account if you're signed in, and to a random voter ID stored in a cookie in your browser (see “Cookies and browser storage”).
• Polls created without an account: a random key that lets the browser that created the poll manage it. The key is saved in that browser, and we store only a scrambled (hashed) form of it, which isn't linked to any account.
• Reports: if you report a poll, the reason you chose, any details you add, and when you reported it, linked to your account.
• Token activity: your token balance and a history of the tokens you receive, buy, and spend.
• Purchase records: when you buy tokens, the pack, amount, date, and a payment reference from our payment processor. We do not receive or store your card details.
• If you sign in with Google, basic profile information from your Google account (name, email).
• Location: your approximate country when you sign up, which our hosting provider works out from your IP address. We save it with your account, along with your home region (Global, or the region for your country if we have one). We do not collect your precise location.
• Technical information: your IP address, used to limit sign-ups, poll creation, and voting and to prevent abuse. To count poll creation and votes against those limits, we store a keyed hash of your IP address rather than the address itself, and delete it once it's no longer needed (within 24 hours for polls and within an hour for votes). Our bot-protection provider also collects signals from your browser when you sign up, or when you create a poll or vote without an account.

• To create and secure your account and authenticate you when you sign in.
• To operate core features: publishing polls and comments, recording votes and working out results (including ranked results), preventing duplicate voting, closing polls, letting you manage polls you created without an account, and showing save and share counts.
• To set your home region when you sign up, which is the default region for polls you create, and to understand which countries our users come from so we can decide which regions to add.
• To process token purchases, credit tokens to your account, and keep records of them.
• To maintain the safety and integrity of the service, including reviewing reported polls, content moderation, rate limits, and bot protection.
• To communicate with you about your account or a purchase when necessary.

Poll questions, descriptions, options, photos, regions, and results you publish are visible to anyone with a link to the poll, including after the poll closes; public polls also appear in the feed. Polls don't show who created them. Comments are shown with your display name, along with their like counts. How you voted (including your ranking on a ranked poll) is not shown to other users, and neither are your home region or the country you signed up from.

Reports are not public, and a poll’s creator is not told who reported it. Our moderators can see each report’s reason and details and the email address of the account that made it.

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with service providers who help us run HelloChoose, bound by obligations to protect your data, or when required by law:

• Stripe processes token purchases. Stripe receives your email address and your payment details directly; its own privacy policy applies to the payment information you give it.
• Cloudflare stores uploaded photos and provides bot protection (Turnstile) when you sign up, and when you create a poll or vote without an account.
• SightEngine automatically checks uploaded photos for explicit content before a poll is published.
• Google, if you choose to sign in with your Google account.
• Our hosting providers, which run the website and store its data.

We use two cookies. One keeps you signed in; it lasts up to 30 days and is renewed while you use the site. The other holds a random voter ID, set the first time you vote, so the same browser can't vote twice on a poll; it lasts up to 400 days.

In your browser’s local storage, which is kept between visits, we save the region you browse and the keys for any polls you created without an account. In its session storage, which is temporary, we keep items such as your place in the feed, a pending purchase while you complete checkout, and a poll you started while you sign in.

Clearing your browser’s site data removes all of these. That includes the keys for polls you created without an account, after which you can no longer manage those polls. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies.

We retain account, poll, and comment data for as long as your account is active or as needed to provide the service. When a poll is deleted, by its creator or by our moderators, we keep a short record of it (its link, question, who created and deleted it, and how many times it was reported) so we can answer questions about what happened to it. Polls are kept until they are deleted, including after they close: polls created without an account close to new votes 7 days after they are created, and other polls close when their creator closes them. You may request deletion of your account and associated data at any time by contacting us. We may keep purchase records after your account is deleted where we are required to for tax, accounting, or legal purposes.

You can update your display name and home region from your account page, and you can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal information, including the country recorded when you signed up, by contacting us using the details below. Polls created without an account aren't linked to you, so we may not be able to confirm that you created one; you can delete it yourself from the browser you created it in.

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above.

Questions about this policy? Contact us at support@hellochoose.com.