Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Wolf's Whiskey Wall ("we," "us," or "the app") collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information when you use our service at www.wolfswhiskeywall.com.

Wolf's Whiskey Wall is a personal collection tracker and informational price reference for adults. We do not sell, ship, or deliver alcoholic beverages.

1. Information We Collect

We collect only what is necessary to operate the service. In plain language and (where helpful) CCPA-style categories:

• Identifiers — username, email address; Stripe customer/subscription IDs if you subscribe to Pro.
• Referrals — if you open a referral link, we store the code in an HttpOnly cookie (ww_ref, 30 days) so it can survive the age gate and email confirmation. When you create an account we store which account referred you and the status of any Pro month credit. We may store a Stripe card fingerprint (not the card number) to block self-referral. Your account page shows your own referral link.
• Account credentials — password. Your password is hashed with bcrypt before storage and additionally encrypted at rest using AES-256 via a tokenization vault. The plaintext password is never persisted.
• Date of birth / age signals — The site-entry age gate asks for month, day, and year to affirm legal drinking age. When you pass, we set an HttpOnly cookie (lda_ok). Current cookies (version 3) include a signed copy of that birth date so registration can reuse it without asking again; older version-2 cookies record affirmation only. At registration, date of birth is stored as an encrypted vault reference (never as a plaintext column). Registration still requires your affirmation that you meet the legal drinking age plus acceptance of these Terms and this Privacy Policy.
• Commercial / collection data you provide — whiskey names, quantities, purchase prices, purchase dates, and personal notes you voluntarily enter; watchlist targets; Pro preference settings (for example digest opt-out) and onboarding-email opt-out.
• Ratings and reviews — category scores (Value, Taste, Drinkability, Aroma/Nose), a computed Overall score, and review comments you submit for bottles in your collection. Your username, scores, and comments are visible to other signed-in users on the bottle’s public review feed. Collection purchase notes, prices, and quantities are not shown in that feed.
• Bottle photos for identify — if you use Scan bottle’s label photo path, you may upload or capture a label photo. The image is sent to our vision provider (Anthropic) for label text extraction, then discarded. We do not store your photos as a gallery. We may retain short-lived usage counters (per-user daily scan counts) for abuse prevention.
• Barcode / UPC lookup — if you use Scan bottle’s barcode path, barcode decoding happens on your device. We receive only the barcode digits you scan or type, used to look up a catalog match. When no catalog match exists, we may query UPCitemdb with those digits to suggest bottle name and brand for prefill; we do not receive camera frames for barcode lookup.
• Internet / device activity — session tokens (JWT in an HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Strict cookie). After registration we may issue a session before you confirm your email so you can use core account features; Pro checkout and Pro-only APIs require a confirmed email. Sessions use a sliding idle window (60 minutes by default) with an absolute lifetime from login (7 days by default). Logging out, changing your password, resetting your password, or using “Log out everywhere” revokes sessions. Also: age-gate cookie (lda_ok); product-analytics events via HeyCatch (page views, clicks, completed sign-up or subscription outcomes); anonymous performance metrics via Vercel Speed Insights when the script is present; optional error diagnostics via Sentry when configured.
• Email confirmation tokens — single-use links sent to confirm a new account, confirm an email change, or reset a password. We store only a hashed form of these tokens with a short expiry. Confirming your email unlocks Pro; until then you may still sign in and use free core features.
• Audit logs — internal vault access events (token mint, decrypt, rotate) are logged for security purposes. These logs contain no plaintext personal data.

We do not store raw payment card numbers on our servers. If you subscribe to Pro, payment is processed by Stripe; we store only Stripe customer/subscription identifiers and subscription status needed to unlock Pro features.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (see Section 11).

2. How We Use Your Information

• Authenticate you, maintain your session (including before email confirmation for free core features), and confirm email ownership for Pro and sensitive account changes
• Send transactional email for account confirmation, email change confirmation, and password reset
• Send Pro watchlist target-hit alerts and the weekly deal digest when that digest is enabled (unsubscribe from the email or Account Settings)
• Send a short onboarding sequence after you confirm your email (a first-bottle note, a wall value note, and a Pro note). Each note has a one-click unsubscribe. Account confirmation, password reset, and watchlist alerts are separate and keep sending.
• Confirm legal drinking age eligibility (site entry and registration)
• Display and manage your personal whiskey collection
• Show community ratings and review comments on bottle pages to other signed-in users
• Suggest catalog matches when you scan a bottle barcode (on-device decode) or label (via a third-party vision API)
• Calculate portfolio valuations against live market prices
• Detect duplicate catalog entries you submit
• Investigate security incidents via audit logs
• Understand product usage via first-party product analytics (HeyCatch) — page views, clicks, and completed sign-up or subscription outcomes — not for advertising or cross-context behavioral advertising

Date of birth from the age gate (signed in the lda_ok cookie) and at registration is used only for age eligibility and account records, not for marketing.

3. Data Storage & Security

Data is stored in a PostgreSQL database hosted on Supabase (US region). We employ multiple layers of protection:

• Sensitive fields (user ID, password hash, phone, date of birth) are stored only as encrypted vault references — never as plaintext columns.
• The AES-256 encryption passphrase is never stored in the database; it is injected at runtime via environment variables.
• Row-Level Security (RLS) is enforced at the database level. Application code accesses the vault only through SECURITY DEFINER functions.
• All traffic is served over HTTPS via Vercel's TLS termination.
• Regular API responses avoid exposing internal user IDs where possible. Authorized admin tooling may show internal user IDs to administrators.

4. How We Disclose Information

We do not sell your personal information for money, and we do not share your personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising (as those concepts are described in the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended by the CPRA — “CCPA”). We do not rent personal data for advertising.

We disclose personal information to service providers / processors only as needed to operate and secure the app (hosting, database, email, payments, optional error monitoring, optional label vision, barcode lookup, product analytics, and anonymous performance metrics), as listed in Section 5. We may also disclose information if required by law or to protect the security and integrity of the Service.

5. Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party infrastructure providers:

• Vercel — hosting and serverless deployment (Privacy Policy)
• Supabase — managed PostgreSQL database (Privacy Policy)
• Resend — email delivery for account confirmation, password reset, Pro watchlist alerts, the weekly deal digest, and the onboarding sequence (Privacy Policy)
• Sentry — error monitoring when configured. Request bodies containing passwords are not sent because request body capture is disabled. (Privacy Policy)
• Anthropic — bottle label analysis when you use Scan bottle (Privacy Policy)
• UPCitemdb — public barcode product lookup when a scanned UPC is not in our catalog (Privacy Policy)
• Stripe — Pro subscription payment processing when you subscribe (Privacy Policy)
• HeyCatch — product analytics (page views, clicks, and completed sign-up or subscription outcomes). Not used for advertising. (Privacy Policy)
• Vercel Speed Insights — anonymous real-user performance metrics (route, URL, network speed, browser, device, country). Not tied to a visitor identity. (Privacy Policy)

6. Automated Price Scraping

Wolf's Whiskey Wall does not sell alcohol. Nightly jobs read publicly listed product names, prices, stock signals, and product URLs from independently operated licensed retailers so we can show informational comparisons and portfolio estimates. This scraping process involves no account or collection data — your wall is never transmitted to any retailer.

Active sources (26) — included in the default nightly scrape as of the last update of this policy:

• Spec's Wine & Spirits
• Caskers
• Seelbach's
• Wooden Cork
• SipWhiskey
• SharedPour
• Cask Cartel
• Quality Liquor Store
• Bottle Barn
• Keg N Bottle
• Uptown Spirits
• Mission Liquor
• Wine Chateau
• CraftShack
• Nestor Liquor
• ReserveBar
• Ace Spirits
• Flaviar
• LiquorVerse
• Sipsy
• Total Bourbon
• Liquor Boutique
• Bottle Broz
• Barrel Shoppe
• Kentucky Bourbon Direct
• Hi-Time Wine Cellars

Planned / candidate additions (not live scrapes) — we may probe or evaluate these retailers; they are not part of the default nightly price set until a scraper ships and this policy is updated:

• K&L Wines

Additional specialty US retailers may be researched over time. We will name a store here when it joins the active set. Experimental / excluded: Total Wine & More has exploratory scraper code but is excluded from the default nightly run (bot protection). The Whisky Exchange is blocked and is not a US expansion target.

Prices, availability, and product pages belong to those retailers. Links are for identification and price context only; the licensed retailer is the seller of any alcohol you choose to buy.

7. Data Retention

• Account, collection, ratings/reviews — retained while your account is active; deleted within 30 days after a verified deletion request (or account self-deletion where available).
• Session / auth tokens — JWT session cookies use a sliding idle window of 60 minutes (default) and an absolute lifetime of 7 days from login (default); logout, password change/reset, or “Log out everywhere” revokes sessions. Hashed email/reset tokens expire after a short period and are single-use.
• Age-gate cookie (lda_ok) — browser-local affirmation (up to 30 days). Version 3 includes a signed birth date for registration reuse; version 2 is affirmation only. The cookie is HttpOnly and not readable by page scripts.
• Identify photos — processed ephemerally and not retained as a user gallery; short-lived usage counters may be kept for abuse prevention.
• Price history (catalog) — append-only retailer price snapshots retained indefinitely for valuation accuracy; these are not your personal collection notes.
• Security audit logs — may be retained in anonymized or aggregated form when needed for security purposes.

8. Your Rights (general)

Regardless of where you live, you may:

• Access — view account and collection data via the dashboard
• Correction — update your username, email, or password in Account Settings
• Deletion — request account, collection data, ratings/reviews, and associated vault secret deletion by emailing joeyrd03@gmail.com
• Portability — Pro subscribers can export collection data as CSV from the dashboard; you may also request an export by emailing the operator

We will respond to verified requests within a reasonable time. We may need to confirm the email address on the account before completing deletion or export.

9. California residents (CCPA / CPRA)

The CCPA (as amended by the CPRA) applies only to certain for-profit entities that meet the statute’s definition of a “business” (Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140). In plain language, that usually means one or more of these thresholds:

• Annual gross revenue above the CPI-adjusted amount published by the California Privacy Protection Agency (currently $26,625,000 for calendar year 2025 determinations; the Agency adjusts this figure in odd-numbered years — see the CPPA threshold notice), or
• Buying, selling, or sharing the personal information of 100,000 or more consumers or households, or
• Deriving 50% or more of annual revenue from selling or sharing personal information.

Why we say we are not currently a CCPA “business.” Based on the operator’s current facts — early-stage revenue well below the CPI-adjusted gross-revenue threshold, consumer/household volume far below 100,000, and no selling or sharing of personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising (and no deriving revenue from such selling/sharing) — Wolf's Whiskey Wall does not meet those thresholds today. We therefore do not claim CCPA “business” status. This is an operator assessment of current facts, not a certification, seal, or legal opinion. If those facts change, we will update this Policy.

California residents may still contact us about access, correction, or deletion of account data (see Section 8), or about product-analytics opt-out (see Section 10), at joeyrd03@gmail.com. We will not discriminate against you for making a privacy request.

10. Cookies and analytics opt-out

We use:

• A single HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Strict session cookie for authentication (may be set at registration before email confirmation)
• An HttpOnly, Secure, SameSite=Lax age-gate cookie (lda_ok) that records legal-drinking-age affirmation for this browser. Current cookies (version 3) also carry a signed birth date for registration reuse; older version-2 cookies do not include a birth date
• An optional first-party preference cookie (analytics_opt_out) that records whether you opted out of product analytics (HeyCatch). Vercel Speed Insights, when loaded, is anonymous performance measurement and is not controlled by that preference

We do not use advertising cookies. Product analytics via HeyCatch (page views, clicks, and completed sign-up or subscription outcomes) may use first-party storage to attribute a browser session; this is not an advertising pixel.

How to opt out of product analytics:

• Use the control below (sets the analytics_opt_out cookie so the HeyCatch SDK is not loaded on later visits to this browser), or
• If you have an account, open Account Settings → Product analytics and save your preference (stored on your profile and mirrored to the cookie).

When you opt out, we skip loading the HeyCatch SDK before it initializes. Reload the page after changing the preference so the current tab picks it up. If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat that as an analytics opt-out for that browser; turning analytics back on in the control below cannot override GPC while the signal remains enabled.

Vercel Speed Insights (see Section 5) is separate from HeyCatch. When the script is present, it collects anonymous real-user performance vitals (for example route timing and coarse device/network signals) to help us keep pages fast. It is not an advertising pixel, is not tied to your account identity, and is not turned off by the product-analytics opt-out above.

11. Age Requirement

This app is intended for users aged 21 and older in the United States, or the legal drinking age in your jurisdiction. Public marketing pages (home, pricing, about, catalog, deals, and comparisons) are sent with the page copy and a blocking date-of-birth dialog. You enter month, day, and year — not a checkbox — before using those pages. Passing the dialog sets an HttpOnly lda_ok cookie; version 3 includes a signed birth date so registration can reuse it. Account, collection, sign-in, registration, and API routes stay behind that cookie (or a valid session). Registration requires the same affirmation plus acceptance of these Terms and this Privacy Policy. After you register, you may receive a session and use free core features before confirming your email; Pro requires a confirmed email. The age gate is a self-attestation soft gate for an informational product; it is not government ID verification and is not a substitute for the age-verification duties that apply to licensed alcohol sellers or shippers under Michigan or other state liquor laws.

If you are under 13, do not use this service; we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we will delete it.

12. Alcohol Information Posture

Wolf's Whiskey Wall is a software tool for adults. We do not sell alcohol. Catalog text, prices, ratings, and marketing pages are informational and do not make health, medical, or curative claims about alcohol. Please drink responsibly. For responsible-drinking resources, see responsibility.org.

13. Michigan operator notes

As of the last update of this Policy, Michigan has not enacted a comprehensive consumer data privacy statute comparable to the CCPA (proposed measures such as a Personal Data Privacy Act have been introduced in the Legislature but are not treated here as binding law). Operators in Michigan remain subject to other applicable laws, including the Michigan Consumer Protection Act (MCL 445.901 et seq.) regarding unfair or deceptive acts or practices in trade or commerce. This Policy is intended to describe our practices accurately; it is not legal advice.

14. Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy as the app evolves. Significant changes will be noted on this page with an updated effective date. When we add or remove an active scrape source, we update Section 6.

15. Contact

For privacy-related questions or requests, contact the operator at joeyrd03@gmail.com.