This Privacy Policy explains how Cart Tracker ("we", "our", "us") handles information when you use the Cart Tracker mobile application.
1. Information We Collect
Information you provide
- Product and cart data: item names, prices, quantities, barcodes.
- Shopping session data: budgets, totals, and history.
- Preferences: currency, app settings, and personalization choices.
- Community price observations (required on the Free plan, optional with Premium; see Section 4): barcode when valid, item name, brand, category, price, currency, observation time, and approximate country, region, and city derived by Cloudflare from that network request when available. This does not use device GPS or store precise coordinates.
Information collected automatically
- Device/app diagnostics: crash and performance information.
- Usage events: feature interactions used to improve app behavior.
- Security attestation: Play Integrity signals for abuse prevention.
- Ad events associated with free-plan ad delivery.
- Network metadata for online lookups: request data such as IP address and request headers handled by infrastructure providers.
2. How We Use Information
- Provide cart tracking, analytics, and product lookup functionality.
- Build aggregated community price comparison features from agreed price observations.
- Maintain app security and prevent misuse.
- Provide free-plan ads and validate Google Play Premium access.
- Improve reliability and product quality.
3. Data Storage
Core shopping data is stored locally on your device. Backup/export is user-initiated. Some online requests are made for product lookup, security checks, and community price contribution if you agree.
4. Community Price Contribution
Why it is required on the Free plan
Cart Tracker is built by an independent developer. Its online price tools, including product lookup, price suggestions, and Global Price Check, run on paid servers. Free users do not pay for these, so instead they contribute the product prices they save. Those prices build the shared price database that powers price suggestions and Global Price Check for every user, including Free users. Premium users pay for the servers directly, so their contribution is not required.
Free and Premium
- Free plan: contributing limited product price observations is a condition of using the app. Contribution cannot be turned off on the Free plan.
- Premium (an active subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase): you can turn contribution off anytime in Settings.
- If you turned contribution off before this requirement applied, it stays off.
- If you already own Premium and reinstall the app, it checks your Google Play purchase first and does not ask you to contribute. You can also tap "Restore purchase" on the price sharing screen.
Before anything is uploaded, the app shows an in-app disclosure explaining what is shared and why. Contribution starts only after you tap "Agree and continue". You cannot continue on the Free plan without agreeing; if you do not agree, you can exit the app. If your device is offline, new observations may be queued locally and uploaded later when the app is online.
What is uploaded
Each observation includes the valid product barcode when available, item name, brand, category, price, currency, and observation time. Observations are stored with a random anonymous ID created for your app install (we keep only a hashed form of the install ID). This ID is not linked to your name, email, or Google account; it lets us verify uploads and filter out spam, duplicate, and fake prices.
Each uploaded observation may also include the approximate country, region, and city that Cloudflare derives from that upload request. This market context is attached to the observation rather than permanently saved as your profile location. Cart Tracker does not request device GPS or store precise coordinates for this feature.
What is not uploaded
We do not upload your name, email, account login, full private catalog, cart history, raw receipt images, or locally generated shelf-tag IDs as real product barcodes. Locally generated product IDs are marked as local-only identifiers and are not treated as official global barcodes.
5. Product Lookup Providers
When you use barcode/product lookup features, the app may send barcode or query data to third-party data providers to return product information. We currently use Open Food Facts. Open Food Facts may process request metadata (including IP address) according to its own policies.
Open Food Facts data is provided under the Open Database License (ODbL). Attribution: Open Food Facts.
6. Third-Party Services
- Google Play services and Play Integrity API for security verification.
- Ad serving providers for free-plan ads.
- Open Food Facts for barcode-based product lookup/autofill.
- Cloudflare infrastructure for secure API handling, abuse prevention, and community price contribution storage/processing.
7. Data Sharing
We do not sell personal information. Data may be shared only with service providers required to run app functionality, community price comparison, and security, or when legally required.
8. Your Choices
- You can manage permissions (camera, notifications) in device settings.
- You can export backups and delete app data on your device.
- You can choose whether to use features that require internet or Premium access.
- Premium users (subscription or lifetime) can turn off community price contribution in Settings. On the Free plan, contribution stays on.
9. Children’s Privacy
Cart Tracker is not intended for children under 13. If you believe a child provided personal information, contact us and we will handle the request appropriately.
10. Contact
For privacy questions, contact [email protected].