Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Discount Hunter ("the Service", "we", "us") is operated by Denys Garkusha (individual data controller, residing in the Netherlands). The Service consists of a Telegram bot (@YourDiscountHunter_bot), a Telegram Mini App and Web App at discounthunter.app, and an optional Chrome browser extension.

Contact for data-protection matters: privacy@discounthunter.app.

2. Personal data we process

The Service processes the following categories of personal data:

• Account identifiers— your numeric Telegram user ID, first name, and username (the latter two only if Telegram exposes them to the bot). Source: Telegram's initData when you open the Mini App, or the bot update payload when you message the bot.
• Watchlist data — the product URLs you ask us to watch, the price targets you set, and labels you give to watched shops. You provide these by sending them to the bot or pasting them in the Mini App.
• Observed prices— every time our scraper visits a shop you've watched, we store the price + currency we observed, plus any "regular price" (MSRP) the shop displays. This produces a price history per product.
• Cart-capture events(OPT-IN ONLY) — if you install our Chrome extension and toggle "capture my cart" ON, we receive a record when you add an item to a cart on supported shops: product URL, price observed, currency, timestamp. If you do not opt in, we do not receive these events.
• Operational logs — temporary records (request IP, user-agent, request timestamp) generated by our hosting provider (Vercel) for security and abuse-prevention purposes. These are retained for 30 days.

We do notcollect: physical addresses, real names beyond your Telegram first name, phone numbers, payment information (we don't take payments), browsing history outside the explicit cart-capture opt-in, or any sensitive categories (health, beliefs, etc.).

3. Legal basis (GDPR Article 6)

Each processing purpose is grounded in one of:

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) — processing your watchlist data and observed prices is necessary to deliver the Service you signed up for. We cannot send you a price-drop alert without knowing what URLs you watch.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — cart-capture and aggregate-data inclusion (for our future B2B market-intelligence product) are explicit opt-ins. You can withdraw consent at any time without affecting other processing.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)) — fraud prevention, abuse rate-limiting, and basic operational logs. We assess these as low-impact for users and high-importance for keeping the Service available.

4. Retention

• Active watchlist — for as long as you keep the item in your list. Removing it (/untrack or /unwatch) deletes the underlying row.
• Price history— up to 365 days per product, or until the product is removed from all users' watchlists, whichever is shorter.
• Cart-capture events (raw) — 90 days, after which the events are aggregated into anonymous statistics and the raw rows deleted.
• Aggregate statistics — retained indefinitely but contain no individual data (k-anonymity floor of 10 users per cohort).
• Operational logs — 30 days.
• Account deletion— pressing "Forget my data" in settings wipes your user record + all subscriptions + all related rows within 30 days. This propagates to aggregate statistics' underlying counts at the next aggregation cycle.

5. Sharing with third parties

We share data with the following processors, each for a defined purpose:

• Telegram (Telegram FZ-LLC)— your messages with the bot pass through Telegram's servers. Telegram's own privacy policy governs that channel.
• Vercel (Vercel Inc., USA) — hosts the web application + API. Data resides in EU regions for EU users. Vercel acts as a processor under our Data Processing Agreement.
• Neon (Neon Inc., USA) — the Postgres database provider. EU-region storage. Processor relationship.
• Affiliate networks (planned) — when you click a product link in the Service, we may wrap it with a well-disclosed affiliate identifier. The shop you visit + the affiliate network (e.g., Skimlinks, Amazon Associates) see standard referrer + cookie information that the network uses to attribute a sale. They do NOT receive your Telegram identity.

We do not sell or rent your personal data. We do not run advertising networks. We do not transfer data to jurisdictions outside the EEA except via Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) with our US-based processors named above.

6. Aggregate market-intelligence (planned, not active yet)

We are building a B2B product that will sell aggregate market signals (e.g., "47 users in NL watching mattresses under €200 this month") to shops. This product:

• will require your explicit opt-in (toggle named "Include me in aggregate market signals");
• will enforce a k-anonymity floor of 10 — no cohort smaller than 10 users is ever exposed to a buyer;
• will never reveal individual user IDs, IPs, emails, or names to shop-side buyers — only counts and aggregates;
• is gated behind this Privacy Policy. We will publish a plain-language update + re-prompt for consent before any aggregate is exposed to a third party.

7. Your rights (GDPR Articles 15–22)

• Access — request a copy of the data we hold about you by emailing us. We respond within 30 days.
• Rectification — correct inaccurate data by emailing us or editing it in the app where possible.
• Erasure ("right to be forgotten")— use the in-app "Forget my data" button or email us; we propagate the deletion within 30 days.
• Portability — request a machine-readable export of your watchlist + price history by email.
• Object— refuse processing based on legitimate interest; we'll honor it unless there is a compelling override (rare, named in our response).
• Restrict — pause processing while a dispute is resolved.
• Withdraw consent — for opt-in processing (cart capture, aggregate signals), toggle off in settings or email us.
• Complain to a supervisory authority — in the Netherlands, that is Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens.

8. Children

The Service is not intended for individuals under 16. We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16. If you believe a child is using the Service, contact us and we will delete the account.

9. Security

Data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+) and at rest. Access to production systems is limited to the operator (Denys Garkusha) via single-sign-on with second-factor authentication. We do not store payment card data of any kind.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy to reflect new features (e.g., the rollout of cart-capture or aggregate market-intelligence). When material changes affect you, we will:

• send you a DM in the bot;
• update the "Effective" date at the top of this page;
• if the change introduces a new processing purpose (such as cart-capture going live), prompt you for a fresh consent before processing begins.

11. Governing law

This Privacy Policy is governed by the laws of the Netherlands. The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Dutch Uitvoeringswet AVG apply. Disputes will be resolved by the competent courts of The Hague, Netherlands.