Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

Account Information

When you create an account, we collect:

• Email address
• Name (optional)
• A securely hashed version of your password (we never store plain-text passwords)
• Marketing email preference
• Account creation and activity timestamps

If you sign in with Google, we receive your email, name, and profile image from Google. We do not receive your Google password.

Saved Data

• Saved searches and their filter criteria
• Favorited guitar listings (stored in your browser's local storage; added to our servers only when you share a list)
• Your alert preferences per saved search

Automatically Collected Information

• IP address (used for rate limiting and abuse prevention)
• Browser type and device information
• Pages you visit on guitarhunt.com and search queries you make on our site (for analytics and improving the Service)
• Cookies and similar tracking technologies (see section 4 below)

2. How We Use Your Information

• To create and manage your account and authenticate sign-ins
• To send alert emails when new guitars match your saved searches (only if you enable alerts)
• To send transactional emails: email verification, password reset codes
• To send occasional product updates, but only if you opted in at signup or from your account settings
• To protect the Service: rate limiting, captcha verification, abuse detection
• To improve the Service: understanding what features are used, debugging errors

3. Third-Party Services

We use the following third parties to operate the Service. Each has its own privacy policy governing how they handle your data.

• Google Analytics — aggregate traffic analytics
• Google AdSense — ad serving (may use cookies to personalize ads)
• Google OAuth — only if you choose to sign in with Google
• Cloudflare Turnstile — bot prevention on authentication forms
• Sentry — error monitoring (may capture limited context from crashes)
• Proton Mail — delivery of transactional and alert emails
• DigitalOcean — hosting and managed database storage
• Anthropic API — used server-side to generate daily curated picks; no personal account data is sent to Anthropic

We do not sell your personal information.

4. Cookies and Local Storage

We use:

• Session cookies — required to keep you signed in
• Analytics cookies — set by Google Analytics to measure traffic
• Ad cookies — set by Google AdSense if you see ads
• Local storage — we store your favorited listings in your browser (not on our servers, unless you share them)

You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. Most browsers let you block cookies through their settings, but blocking all cookies will prevent you from signing in.

5. Data Retention

• Account data: kept until you delete your account
• Saved searches and alerts: kept as long as your account is active
• Analytics data: retained per Google Analytics default settings (currently 14 months)
• Rate-limiting and abuse logs: up to 30 days

6. Your Rights

Regardless of where you live, you can:

• Access and update your account information at any time from your account settings
• Delete your saved searches or toggle alert preferences per search
• Unsubscribe from marketing and alert emails via the link in any such email
• Request deletion of your account by emailing [email protected]

If you are in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or California, you also have the right to access a copy of your personal data, to correct inaccurate data, and to object to certain processing. Contact [email protected] to exercise these rights.

7. Security

We take reasonable measures to protect your information: passwords are hashed with bcrypt, database connections use TLS, secrets are encrypted at rest, and we use rate limiting and captcha verification to prevent abuse. No system is 100% secure. If we discover a data breach that affects you, we will notify you.

8. Age Requirement

Guitar Hunt is intended for users 18 and older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If you believe we have collected information from a minor, please contact us and we will delete it.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated “last updated” date. Material changes will be announced via email to registered users.

10. Contact

Questions or concerns? Email us at [email protected].