Privacy Policy

Overview

Help My Boyfriend (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the website helpmyboyfriend.com (the “Service”). This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our Service.

By using the Service you agree to the collection and use of information in accordance with this policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

This policy applies to all visitors, registered users, and anyone who accesses the Service, whether through a web browser, mobile device, or any other means.

Information We Collect

Information you provide directly:

• Account information — when you create an account we collect your email address, first name, last name, and a hashed password (we never store your password in plain text). This is managed through Netlify Identity.
• Subscription information — when you upgrade to Premium we record your plan type (monthly or annual) and subscription start date. Payment details are handled entirely by Stripe and are never stored on our servers.
• Newsletter sign-ups — if you subscribe to our newsletter we collect your email address for that purpose only.
• Communications — if you contact us by email we retain that correspondence to respond to and resolve your inquiry.

Information collected automatically:

• Usage data — anonymous information about how you interact with the Service, including pages visited, features used, and session duration. This data cannot identify you personally.
• Device & browser information — browser type, operating system, and screen resolution, used solely for ensuring the site displays correctly.
• IP address — collected by our hosting provider (Netlify) for security, abuse prevention, and geographic routing. We do not store or process IP addresses beyond standard server logs.
• Local storage — we use your browser’s local storage to save preferences such as saved ideas, free-tier usage counts, and subscription status. This data stays on your device and is not transmitted to our servers unless you are logged in.

Information we do not collect:

• We do not collect your physical address, phone number, or date of birth.
• We do not collect biometric data or sensitive personal information.
• We do not collect the content of private messages or communications between you and your partner.
• We do not purchase, rent, or otherwise acquire personal data from third-party data brokers.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for the following purposes:

• Providing the Service — to create and manage your account, verify subscription status, and deliver the features you have access to based on your plan.
• Customer support — to respond to your questions, resolve disputes, and troubleshoot problems.
• Service improvement — to understand how the Service is used and make product decisions based on aggregate, anonymous usage data.
• Transactional communications — to send account confirmation emails, billing receipts, and important service updates. You cannot opt out of these as they are necessary to operate your account.
• Newsletter — if you opt in, to send relationship tips, new feature announcements, and occasional promotions. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any newsletter email.
• Security — to detect, investigate, and prevent fraudulent activity and abuse of the Service.
• Legal compliance — to comply with applicable laws and regulations, and to enforce our Terms of Service.

We will never use your information to send unsolicited marketing from third parties, build advertising profiles, or make automated decisions that significantly affect you without human review.

Data Storage & Security

Your account data is stored by Netlify on servers located in the United States. Netlify is SOC 2 Type II certified and employs industry-standard security measures including encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest.

Subscription and payment records are stored by Stripe, a PCI DSS Level 1 certified payment processor. We never have access to your full card number, CVV, or banking details.

We take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to protect your personal information against loss, theft, unauthorised access, disclosure, or destruction. However, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure.

Data retention: We retain your account information for as long as your account is active. If you request deletion of your account, we will delete or anonymise your personal data within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it by law (for example, billing records which may be retained for up to 7 years for tax and accounting purposes).

Third-Party Services

We use the following third-party services to operate the Service. Each has its own privacy policy which governs how they handle your data:

• Netlify / Netlify Identity — hosting and user authentication. Netlify Privacy Policy →
• Stripe — payment processing and subscription management. Stripe Privacy Policy →
• Google Places API — used on the Date Ideas and Dining pages to fetch real venue data including names, photos, ratings, and addresses. Searches you perform (city name, cuisine type) are sent to Google. We do not store these queries. Google Privacy Policy →
• Google Fonts — we load two typefaces (Playfair Display and Inter) from Google’s font servers. Your IP address may be transmitted to Google as part of this request. Google Privacy Policy →
• Open-Meteo — used to fetch current weather data for date planning. Your general location (city) may be sent. No personal data is transmitted. Open-Meteo Terms →
• Plausible Analytics — we use Plausible to count page views and a small number of interactions, such as clicking through to a gift. It sets no cookies, does not track you across sites, and does not store your IP address. Data is processed in the EU. Plausible Privacy Policy →
• Resend — sends the email this Service sends you: the welcome sequence, weekly reminders if you opt in, and a subscription activation link if a payment cannot be matched to your account. Your email address and the content of those messages pass through Resend. Resend Privacy Policy →
• Neon — the database behind Netlify DB, where we keep your email address for the welcome and reminder sequences, and your push notification subscription if you enable it. Hosted in the United States. Neon Privacy Policy →
• Push notification services — if you turn on push notifications, your browser gives us a delivery address at its own vendor (Google for Chrome, Mozilla for Firefox, Apple for Safari) and notifications are sent through it. Turning notifications off in your browser, or on the account page, removes it.
• Nominatim / OpenStreetMap — used on the Date Ideas page to turn a place name into coordinates. The city you type and your IP address are sent to OpenStreetMap by your browser. OSM Foundation Privacy Policy →
• Open Brewery DB, TheMealDB and TheCocktailDB — used on the Dining and Date Ideas pages for brewery, recipe and cocktail suggestions. Your browser requests these directly, so your IP address and your search terms reach them. No account information is sent.
• Amazon Associates — we participate in the Amazon Associates program. If you click an Amazon affiliate link on our site, Amazon may set cookies and collect information in accordance with their privacy policy. Amazon Privacy Notice →

We do not sell, trade, rent, or otherwise transfer your personal information to third parties beyond what is described above and necessary to deliver the Service.

Payments & Subscriptions

Premium subscriptions are processed exclusively through Stripe. When you subscribe:

• You are redirected to Stripe’s secure hosted payment page.
• Your card details are entered directly into Stripe’s interface and are never transmitted to or stored on our servers.
• Stripe may share with us your email address, your subscription plan, and the last four digits of your card for record-keeping purposes.
• Your subscription status (active, cancelled, or lapsed) is stored in your Netlify Identity account metadata and/or your browser’s local storage.

Cancellation: You may cancel your subscription at any time via the billing portal accessible from your Account page. Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period and you retain Premium access until then. We do not issue partial refunds for unused time except as required by applicable law or our 7-day money-back guarantee.

Refunds: If you are not satisfied within 7 days of your first purchase, contact us at hello@helpmyboyfriend.com for a full refund.

Cookies & Tracking

We use a minimal number of cookies and browser storage mechanisms:

• Session cookies — set by Netlify Identity to keep you logged in. These expire when you close your browser or log out.
• Authentication tokens — a JSON Web Token (JWT) stored in local storage by Netlify Identity to verify your identity on subsequent visits.
• Preference storage — we use localStorage (not cookies) to remember your saved ideas and your free-tier usage on this device. Your subscription status is not kept here: it is held on our servers and checked when a page loads, so it is the same on every device you sign in on.
• Stripe cookies — Stripe sets cookies on their payment pages for fraud prevention. These are governed by Stripe’s own cookie policy.
• Amazon cookies — if you click an affiliate link to Amazon, Amazon may set tracking cookies. These are governed by Amazon’s own cookie policy.

We set no advertising or behavioural tracking cookies ourselves, and we do not use Google Analytics or any other analytics platform that collects personally identifiable information. Plausible, which counts our page views, sets no cookies at all.

There is one exception, and it is worth being plain about rather than burying: Amazon Associates is an advertising network. If you click through to Amazon from a gift link, Amazon may set advertising and behavioural cookies under its own policy, and we earn a commission if you buy. That only happens if you choose to click a link — nothing is set while you are simply reading this site — but it would be wrong to claim we use no advertising cookies at all when a click puts one there.

Where your information actually lives

Four different places, with four different consequences. This matters more than the cookie list.

• On this device only. Saved ideas and gifts, the date tracker while you are signed out, dismissed banners, and free-tier counters. Held in localStorage, never sent to us, not readable by our servers, and not synced between your phone and your laptop. Clearing your browser data deletes it permanently — we cannot restore it, because we never had it.
• What you tell us about your partner. If you fill in the profile — a first name, what they are like, roughly what you spend, food they like, things to avoid — it is held in your account on our servers and nowhere else. It is never put in localStorage, never sent to Google, Stripe, Resend or any other company, never used to train anything, and never sold. You can read the whole record and delete it in one click from your account page, without closing your account, and deleting means deleted rather than hidden.
  
  Being plain about why this paragraph exists: your partner did not sign up here and does not know this record exists. We think that makes it the most sensitive thing on this site, so we hold it to a stricter rule than the rest — first names only, nothing that could contact them, and no sharing at all. If that is not a trade you want to make, do not fill it in; every part of the site works without it.
• In your account, on our servers. Your email address and the name you gave us; whether you have a subscription and which plan; your Stripe customer reference; your saved dates once you are signed in; your reminder and push preferences. This is what survives a new device, and what we delete if you ask us to.
• Sent to a third party as you use a feature. Searching for a date or a restaurant sends the city and the cuisine or vibe you picked to Google Places, and the city to Nominatim and Open-Meteo to place it on a map and check the weather. We do not attach your name, email or account to those requests, and we do not store the searches. Paying sends your card details to Stripe, which we never see. Email goes out through Resend, which needs your address to deliver it.

The short version: what is on your device is yours and invisible to us, what is in your account is what we hold and will delete on request, and what goes to a third party is the minimum that feature needs to work.

You can clear cookies and local storage at any time through your browser settings. Note that clearing local storage will log you out and reset any locally stored preferences.

Affiliate Links & Advertising

Some links on the Service — particularly on the Gifts and Dining pages — are affiliate links. This means that if you click through and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

All affiliate relationships are disclosed in the legal bar at the bottom of the relevant pages. Our recommendations are genuine — we do not recommend products solely because of affiliate commission.

We may also display advertisements served by third-party ad networks. These networks may use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to our site or other websites. You can opt out of interest-based advertising by visiting optout.aboutads.info.

Your Rights

Depending on where you are located, you may have the following rights regarding your personal information:

For users in the European Economic Area, UK, and similar jurisdictions (GDPR):

• Right of access — you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to rectification — you may ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure — you may request that we delete your personal data, subject to certain legal retention requirements.
• Right to restriction — you may ask us to restrict processing of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability — you may request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to object — you may object to processing based on legitimate interests or for direct marketing purposes.
• Right to withdraw consent — where processing is based on consent (e.g. newsletter), you may withdraw it at any time.

For California residents (CCPA / CPRA):

• Right to know — you may request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you.
• Right to delete — you may request deletion of your personal information, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to opt out of sale — we do not sell personal information. You do not need to take any action to exercise this right.
• Right to non-discrimination — we will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at hello@helpmyboyfriend.com. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity before processing your request.

Children’s Privacy

The Service is intended for adults aged 18 and over and is not directed at children under the age of 13 (or 16 in the EEA). We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us at hello@helpmyboyfriend.com. We will take prompt steps to delete such information from our records.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make material changes, we will:

• Update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page.
• Where required by law or where changes materially affect your rights, notify you by email if you have an account with us.

We encourage you to review this page periodically. Your continued use of the Service after changes are posted constitutes your acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact Us

If you have questions, concerns, or requests regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please get in touch: